En route to Aruba

Overnight we lost an hour...sigh. Neither one of us are very fond of "springing forward". This morning we decided to have breakfast a little later taking into account the loss of an hour. It was sunny and warm out, so we opted to have our breakfast set up out on our balcony. 

I think we could have stayed there for hours, and we actually did. I went on up to the 12th deck to take in the sun while Mom stayed on the balcony and read. The winds picked up quite a bit, and by about 1:15 I'd had about all the sun/wind I could take. Neither one of us was very hungry this morning, so by 1:30 we were ready for a bit to eat. We managed to make it to the Queen's Grill for lunch, surprising our waiter. Mom had the sweet and sour pork while I went Italian and had the spinach ravioli. Mom decided to try Eve's pudding for dessert. It looked a bit daunting, but was ever so tasty.

I had sunned enough, so after lunch we did some shopping around the ship and before we knew it, it was time for tea. We had a great spot for people watching both inside and out on deck. We enjoyed our "gunpowder green mint tea" along with some scones and clotted cream. The other sandwiches and sweets that were presented looked divine, but we were both too full at that point. After tea we came back to the suite to catch up on Fox News. Before we knew it, I think we both had fallen asleep for a bit. Marchell soon arrived with evening canapés and some blue cheese and crackers. So's here's something funny. Yesterday, I ordered blue cheese and olives so that I could make blue cheese stuffed olives for a martini. It's not like Silversea where all you do is mention it and within 24 hours every bar onboard has it. I had to take a more proactive approach and stuff them myself. Well tonight he brought more blue cheese (since he thought it must be a favorite). We hadn't even opened it when I started to smell something reminiscent of smelly feet. It wasn't long when we realized that it was the type of blue cheese that they had sent to our suite. It's a French blue call Eppoise, and it is very very pungent. We braved the small and tasted it. Sure enough, it was a lovely cheese. It was time for us to get ready for our first formal evening, the Black and White Ball. 

We donned our gowns while enjoying an original cocktail that we created just for this trip. We arrived in the dining room around 8:15 and settled in for a delicious dinner. I started with caviar, and ended up with a second serving. I think it's some of the best I've ever had. For our entree we opted to have lobster thermador and some sautéed spinach as a side. It was truly an awesome meal followed by one of our favorites, a white chocolate grand mariner soufflé. I'll leave it at that. After dinner we made our way down to the Black and White Ball just for a moment. We ended up in the Royal Court Theater for a Celtic musical which was incredible. The singer and dancers did an amazing job. By now it's after midnight and time for us to get our beauty sleep. Tomorrow we arrive in Aruba! See you then.