Friday, October 9 - Boston to Bar Harbor

We awoke after a pretty good sleep and went downstairs to avail ourselves of the complimentary “breakfast” served by the hotel. What they offered was no different from all the other hotels like this that serve insipid cardboard cutouts of real food to make you think you are getting something worth eating. Most of the stuff was in the form of cereals, unripened fruit and something laughingly called rolls and pastries. I am convinced these hotels give contracts to bakeries with instructions to make their products attractive looking but as completely devoid of taste as possible, so as to discourage the guests from taking more than, well, one bite. But, no biggie, I thought; I never cared much for breakfast anyway.

We returned to the room to await checkout, which we delayed until 1:30 p.m. I spent the morning working on the blog while Sandy spent the morning, uh, “getting ready.” I’ve never really understood this elaborate ritual of hers, but I have learned over our 33 years together that analyzing it is futile and perhaps even dangerous.

Amazingly, we departed the hotel in our taxi at the appointed time and became the captive audience of a cab driver who was a native Bostonian and whose indigenous accent was as thick as any we had heard—a native dialect totally devoid of the letter “r.”  The cabbie was eager to talk about his hometown, and we would not have been unhappy to hear it, except for the fact that we understood very little of what he was saying.

After waiting an hour in the obligatory processing line with 1,668 other passengers, we finally boarded the Norwegian Spirit, a large vessel about 900 feet long and weighing 75,000 tons, much of which was our luggage. We wandered around the place for a while and eventually found our stateroom, which I think was in steerage. The room was quite small, much like the one we had on our last cruise to the Caribbean a few years ago on Royal Caribbean. We were quite apprehensive about the bed this time, as the mattress on the Royal Caribbean ship was nothing but thin foam and very uncomfortable. This one, however, seems much better. Looking around, we remarked at how Homer, our fifth wheel RV, is a good deal roomier! The Norwegian Spirit was built in Germany and, as a result, seemed a little over-engineered; all the structures and appointments seem very sturdy and well-crafted, but that’s not necessarily a bid thing when it comes to something like a ship or an airplane.

Since we had had nothing to eat since attempting to ingest the fake food at the hotel, we were starved, so we found the ship’s buffet, which was one of eight restaurants that were available. As with any buffet, some of the food was quite good and some was, well, meh. I had some outstanding sauerkraut and Sandy had some pork patties and stir fried vegetables that she said were quite good.

After we ate, all the passengers were directed to designated assembly areas on the promenade deck, wearing our life vests for an emergency drill. Each assembled group had an attendant who attempted to shout instructions we would need in the event we needed to escape the vessel. The area was very noisy and, since the attendant had a heavy oriental accent, we didn’t comprehend much of what was said. I’m thinking that it wasn’t very important, however, because we got the vests on, saw our gathering point and identified our lifeboat. What else do we need to know other than where to put our sack lunch and Sandy’s makeup?

Shortly thereafter, the Spirit’s horn blew three times and cast off the lines. We were off, uh…backing up! Yes, the captain backed this thing out of its berth and out into the harbor without a tugboat in sight. Modern ships don’t need them, of course, because of the thrusters now incorporated into the bow and stern; what will they think of next?  We went to the stern of the ship and watched the city of Boston slip quietly into the sunset as the great ship headed into the open sea.

After roaming the ship for a while, we decided to have a late dinner and went back to the buffet, where we had among other things, bean salad, flank steak, asparagus and fried rice, all quite good.

Next, we went to the ship’s theater, a huge place that we thought was larger than the one on our Royal Caribbean ship. The variety show was quite good and lasted just a little more than an hour, which we thought was just about right. As you might imagine for an excursion to enjoy fall foliage, most of the folks on this trip were on up in years. In fact, we were asking ourselves what we were doing on this ship with all of these old people? You gotta give them credit, however, for getting out and staying active. We believe you’re only old if you think you are!

After the show, we were pretty tired, so we turned in and had a fairly decent sleep, sensing the faint rocking of the ship as we smoothly sailed along.

Thursday, October 08 – The Fall Foliage Cruise Begins in Boston

Yes, we’re back on the road…uh…back in the air and on the water, that is. Since our last outing to Big Bend last March, we’ve had just a little going on in our lives. Mindy and Tyler became parents to Mason Michael Girard, our first grandchild! He is beyond brilliant and handsome and, when Sandy and I see him, we make total fools of ourselves as we gush over his every move and facial expression. Of course, we would never want any of our friends to hear what idiotic things we say to him or the completely inane contortions of our faces as we’re fawning over him. All of this theater, alas, is wasted, as Mason is only four months old and won’t remember any of it. (Unless the very puzzled look on his face means something; I just wonder…)

We had wanted to do the fall foliage cruise ever since our friends Terri and Jim made the trip a couple of years ago and highly recommended it to us. With the downturn in the economy and all, the prices finally got down to where I couldn’t turn it down.

So, here we are in Boston, having flown here uneventfully this morning to spend the night before we sail at 5:00 p.m. tomorrow. We were starved by the time we unpacked in our hotel room, so I fired up the computer and immediately went to yelp.com, my new favorite foodie website. As usual, we were looking for mom and pop joints that all the locals know about, and Yelp has been very helpful with that. With just a few keystrokes, we could see that Belle Isle Seafood was not very far away and had killer reviews. And, judging from the photo accompanying the reviews on Yelp, Belle Isle Seafood was clearly a dump, so that really settled it for us! Hailing a taxi, we were off!

It didn’t disappoint! This is a tiny seafood market that backs up to Boston Harbor near the airport, definitely a blue-collar place that will cook your seafood for you, with the menu on a dry-erase board behind the refrigerated display case. There are about ten chairs at an eating bar, if you just can’t wait until you get home to eat your freshly cooked seafood. A constant stream of folks pulled up along the curb and fetched their dinner, obviously having called ahead their orders to go.

Sandy ordered a grilled shrimp dinner and I ordered a fried combo platter comprised of haddock, scallops, shrimp and clams. Oh, yes…and onion rings, French fries and coleslaw. This platter was huge! It would easily have fed both of us…and most of east Boston, for that matter. And yes, it was all stupendous in its flavor and freshness; Sandy’s shrimp were not shrimp but big prawns and perfectly grilled.

And, best of all, our bill was perhaps a third of what it would have been at the hoity-toity restaurants downtown! Sadly, we couldn’t begin to finish everything; I think a French fry had to be tossed at the end.

After this exercise in gluttony, we dropped into a shoe store near our hotel. Sometimes for Sandy, a little shopping will help bring closure to a good meal just as nicely as, say, key lime pie. And yes, she found a nice little dessert for her feet!