Transatlantic Cruise Day 4 - Second Day at Sea

     Hi all! Welcome to another beautiful day at sea! The waves are picking up as we continue northeast across the Atlantic but in a gentle rocking motion. Weather is still beautiful although we have seen some rain at night. Onto yesterday's adventures!

    Yesterday we lost our first hour of the five we will be losing on our way to Portugal. Jet lag has started taking effect, making it harder to get to bed and harder to not sleep the day away, but it's not going to stop us from enjoying every moment of the trip! We ended up sleeping until around 10:00am again, but got up, checked in on things, got cleaned up for the day, and headed up to the Lido deck for lunch. Lunch for me was fajitas on fresh tortillas with all the fixings. They were quite delicious and I was able to put extra veggies on them. I feel like restaurants often short change you on the onion and peppers, but those are my favorite part of fajitas, so it was nice to be able to put as many onions and peppers on my fajitas as I wanted. Valerie had a hot dog and french fries, one of her cruise ship favorites. After a quick lunch, we headed down to the Princess Theater for our second enrichment seminar on the Spanish conquest of the Incas.

    One thing I forgot to mention on yesterday's post was about the ice cream onboard the ship. Every ship we have been on has served some form of soft serve or frozen yogurt and the Majestic Princess was no exception. The difference between this ship's soft serve and other ships we have been on is night and day. My favorite soft serve is vanilla. I'm just not a fan of chocolate ice cream unless it's a Wendy's frosty, but can we really consider that ice cream? I get a lot of crap for preferring vanilla from folks because it is plain, but Princess has vindicated me! The vanilla soft serve is so rich, creamy, and just the right level of sweetness. It's the best soft serve I've ever had. We've been grabbing some after lunch before we head down to our enrichment seminars. If you are on a Princess ship, make sure you grab some of the vanilla soft serve!

    The enrichment seminar was just as good on day 2 as it was on day 1. The talk centered around the Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro, a second cousin to Hernan Cortes who famously conquered the Aztec empire and occupied Tenochtitlan. Pizarro was born into poverty and joined the Spanish military at the end of the Reconquista, a multi-century long war by Spanish Christians to remove the ruling Muslim Caliphate from the Iberian peninsula. Pizarro proved himself during the conflict and with no chance of upward mobility in Spain, he sought to further prove himself and find wealth and respect in the new world.

    After years proving himself in the Caribbean and in central America, he was eventually given land in Panama. Wanting to find riches like his cousin Cortes, he sent out expeditions south to modern day Peru, eventually making contact with the Incas. He found a more technologically advanced civilization in the Incas than the Spanish had found in their prior encounters with the natives, with paved roads connecting major cities, aqueducts to move water to Incan settlements, domesticated llamas, and far superior sailing technologies than they had encountered with the Aztec, Mayans and other native societies on the eastern side of Mexico and in the Caribbean.

    After he made contact, Pizarro did some trading with the Incas he had met, taking two boys with him to act as translators for future negotiations. Eventually, Pizarro went back to Spain seeking funding to find and conquer the Incas as Cortes has done to the Aztecs years before. Eventually he was able to gather enough funds to return to Peru with a small army. When he returned to the original settlement, all he found was ruins and burnt buildings. Eventually he discovered some of the former inhabitants and learned there was a civil war happening in the Incan empire and the town had been destroyed.

    Pizarro decided to take advantage of this and started marching on Cuzco, but was ill prepared for the journey. It was a 2000+km journey through deserts, jungle, and freezing mountain peaks, none of which his small army was prepared for. As they moved through the Incan empire, word eventually got around to the new emperor of the Incas, Atahualpa, who had finished his own conquest to gain the throne by defeating the armies of his older brother. Pizarro sent word ahead that he wanted an audience with Atahualpa and he agreed to meet up with the Spanish army as both armies and their leaders were  heading to Cuzco.

    Pizarro's army was less than 200 men while Atahualpa's was more than 50,000. The Spanish setup a camp in the middle of a square in an Incan town. Pizarro rode out with a few men and met with Atahualpa with Pizarro gaining Atahualpa's trust. They agreed to go fight one of Atahualpa's remaining enemies in a show of combined force so the Incas could see the might of the Spanish military, leaving the next day. Atahualpa arrived at the Spanish camp the next day on a palanquin of gold with only his ceremonial guards. The Spanish camp was setup with walled fortifications with only one way in and one way out. As Atahualpa and his guards entered the Spanish camp, the Spanish opened fire on the Incas with cannon and then brought out the cavalry. Eventually, after hours of fighting, the Incas were overwhelmed and Atahualpa was captured.

    Atahualpa was forced to agree to fill one of the buildings with gold and silver 4 times and agree to become a puppet of the Spanish in return for his life. Atahualpa sent missives out to all the Inca nobles to send all the gold and silver to the town he was being help prisoner. What Pizarro didn't know was that Atahualpa was using the Spanish to get what he wanted. Atahualpa had no plans of ruling from Cuzco and wanted to move all the riches of the empire to the north. He also knew that his enemies would not agree to his orders so he was able to use the Spanish force them to capitulate and send their wealth to the Spanish, in effect reducing the threat his political rivals had by taking away their wealth and giving it to him.

    Atahualpa overplayed his hand however as the Spanish eventually caught on to what was happening and found communications from Atahualpa asking his generals to come and release his from captivity. Pizarro held a trial and Atahualpa was executed for breaking his agreement with Pizarro. The Spanish put a young child named Manco Inco as a puppet emperor who eventually becomes resentful of the treatment of himself and the rest of the Incas and started a rebellion. The Spanish would take back Cuzco, but Manco Inca escaped and Pizarro executed his wife. Eventually the Spanish are able to put down the rebellion but not before Francisco Pizarro is murdered like Julius Caesar by those he had trusted with his life.

    There was so much I learned during this seminar. The Incas were never discussed in any depth during the classes I took throughout my formal education, I suppose it was because they aren't really a part of the American experience. I also didn't had much background on the Reconquista. I knew there were, and still are, tensions between the Christians and Muslims in Spain but never learned about any of it in depth. It has been a fascinating introduction to histories in parts of the world I knew nothing about.

    After the enrichment seminar, we headed up to the Lido for coffee and Bananagrams! I ended up losing another one because I forgot I had made a parital word (DOIN) hoping I would stumble across a "G" but forgot about it in the mad dash towards the finish and called out Bananagrams with an illegal word. The second game, I locked in and came out with the win.

    Bananagrams score Valerie - 3, Bill - 1. 19 days to catch up!

    After we were done with our games, we headed down to our cabin to get ready for dinner. It was our first of three formal nights on the trip and I felt unprepared for what I saw at dinner. On other cruise lines, formal night usually means no jeans and a collared shit for the men and dresses or pant suits for the ladies. When we got down to dinner, I was the only one without a jacket and many of the men were in tuxedos. I felt woefully underdressed, but thankfully no one seemed to give my slacks and button down shirt a second look.

    Our waitstaff is incredible. I mentioned one night that I like spicy food and they have been bringing me chili flakes, fresh chilis and more! T made a chili oil for me because I asked if she knew if there was any chili oil on board. For dinner, I had a beef consume which was incredibly rich and flavorful and for my main I had a beef tenderloin with au gratin potatoes, which I initially thought was a biscuit, and carrots, broccoli and cauliflower. Valerie ordered the caesar salad and crab cake for her starter and the tenderloin for her main. We also shared a duck l'orange since we both really enjoy duck. The duck was overcooked but everything else on that plate was incredible! It had a side of braised red cabbage and snow peas with potato croquettes. The cabbage may have been the best thing I have tasted on the cruise so far! The beef was incredibly tender and delicious, but I wish I kept some of the consume to dip the steak into. For dessert I had crepes suzette, Valerie had a caramel pecan turtle cheesecake and then we shared a dish called peach melba which we had never had before. All of the desserts were wonderful and of course we had our nightly coffee with it as well.

    We had a leisurely time at dinner and realized we needed to head to the show. We said good night to T and Robert and walked to the theater. It was packed and it seemed everyone was excited for the show. It was the first show put on by the ship's entertainment crew. On Carnival and Royal Caribbean there are shows almost every night and they are almost always put on by the ship's entertainment crew. The shows are ok, but once you've seen them before, they get really repetitive. The performers are typically ok, but generally not anything super special. There are also usually some simple set pieces with Carnival really focusing on technology to make their shows better instead of investing in the performers. 

    Princess is very different. Their performers were older than what you will find on Carnival ships and they were absolutely stellar! The show was called "Encore!" and it was unlike any show I have seen on cruise ship before. All of the main singers were obviously trained opera singers and they sang a variety of songs covering musical theater and opera. I really enjoy opera but don't have it as a go-to music choice and I've only seen opera live once. It was an incredible experience to hear it live. Some of the songs they were singing had me in tears despite being in sung in Spanish or Italian. While I couldn't understand the words, the emotions came through so strongly. They were backed by the house band with a few other musicians playing cello and violin. The dancers added so much to the performances without taking away from the spotlight on the singers. It was a truly memorable performance that I will not soon forget.

    After the show, we headed back to our cabin to try to get to sleep. We had an 8:00am appointment in the spa and were losing another hour on the clocks. It was hard to sleep with notes of the evenings' songs running through our heads, but after watching most of Deadpool and Wolverine, eventually we were able to get to sleep.

    Thanks again for reading and I'll catch you all tomorrow!