We woke up at 7.30 today, looked at the ship's webcam on the TV, and discovered that we were already arriving at today's main attraction, the PIO XI glacier (sometimes also called the PIO X or the Brüggen glacier). We quickly got changed and went up on the top deck to see the glacier straight ahead. The captain came on the tannoy at that point to announce that we would spend the next couple of hours at the glacier, would go as close as we can, turn the ship around, and that they would also send out one of the ship's tender boats to go even closer and collect a piece of ice to bring on board! The next few hours were therefore spent walking the deck and taking photos from different angles, and watching carefully for any signs of 'calving' which is when huge chunks of ice crack off the glacier and fall into the sea (we didn't see any unfortunately!). The glacier was incredible - JL reckons the part we could see was around 2 km wide, and the glacier then stretched back a further 66 km, flowing from the Southern Patagonian Icefield into the sea. The glacier gleamed in a range of different colours from bright blue to white to brown and had lots of intricate patterns when you looked through binoculars. We felt very privileged to have seen it.
It was then time for breakfast, which was far busier than usual as everyone had got up to see the glacier! There were no clean bowls left so to save time waiting I ate my cereal out of the packet, much to the amusement of the opera singer Jon Christos who I ended up sitting next to - he laughed at me lots and said he was going to write about it on his blog!
I went to line dancing at 10 as normal as by that point we were just about to move away from the glacier. There were less people that normal though as I think many were still up on deck. I then went to the shopping area to have a look at the special penguin merchandise they had on offer today!!!! My idea of heaven!
JL went to another policeman lecture, this time about drug dealing in the Caribbean, with some stories featuring Princess Diana and Richard Branson.
After lunch we both went to the Crows Nest to watch the final passage through the fjords, and out into the Pacific once again. JL also found a premiership football game so was happy. [JL: I gave up on my "queen" speaker who was getting on my nerves. Listening to the queen' s diet and food intake gets a bit repetitive. Did you know that she loves asparagus but hates garlic? And that she writes all the menus in French? A classy person clearly although the reason why she dislikes garlic could be that she can't pronounce "ail", and, of course, all courtesy of the state and the taxpayers, bless her colourful hats...]
I then went and did some exercise while JL read his book and then we went to dinner. This evening something momentous happened - I ordered an actual dish from the menu!!! It was some vegetable cakes made with sweet potatoes and lentils, some tofu, and some other vegetables. I liked almost all of it!!! (I had ordered some Quorn as well just in case so I didn't go hungry!)
From here we went to see the early evening show which was a female 'comedy magician'. Let's just say we won't be going to see her second show!!! The highlight for me was the mocktail of the day which I had during the show! We then went to the theatre to see the main act - a guy called Gary Ryan who does a Neil Diamond tribute act. I probably would have enjoyed this more if I actually knew any Neil Diamond songs, but everyone assured me he was very authentic! We had a good singalong to Sweet Caroline at the end!
What? No mention of the Superbowl? Shame on you, Emma.
ReplyDeleteYou do know that the national anthem was sung by Idina Menzel don't you?
The best team won in the end by the way!