Transatlantic Cruise - Day 11 & 12

 Hello from beautiful Cadiz (ca-dith), Spain! I'm hoping this will be a shorter post than the last couple!

    We left Madeira 2 days ago and the seas started to get rougher. They weren't rough enough to make us sick, but we definitely started feeling the ship moving. The previous night had been formal night and neither Valerie or I felt like getting dressed up for dinner, so we went to the Lido deck instead and ate at the buffet. Apparently we were missed by the staff and when we told Rodel and T that we just hadn't wanted to get dressed up to come to dinner we were told that they didn't care what we wore, we could come in our birthday suits and they would happily serve us. They both made mention many times that the clothes we wore to dinner didn't matter and they would love to have us every night on the cruise. We will do our best not to miss another night!

    Dinners continue to be fabulous with the special meals continuing to come. After Madeira, Valerie got to eat some salmon sinigang (soup flavored with tamarind and served over rice) and they brought me some stir fried veggies which were excellent. Rodel is also bringing out the ensaymadas every night and they are a very tasty treat!

    We had Himalayan stone massages booked yesterday which were wonderful. Massages are an indulgence we do on most cruises we go on. They are very expensive on the cruise ships, but there is something special about being in the middle of the ocean and having a relaxing massage. My massage therapist was named Momo and she was from South Africa. The massage was wonderful and she did a great job on my neck and shoulders which tend to get really knotted from being hunched over a computer all day. My legs felt like jelly afterwards and while my neck and shoulders are a little tender today, they do feel much better. Valerie's was so good she fell asleep twice during it!

    After the massage we took care of some must do's before doing anything else. We needed to book excursions in Malaga and Barcelona and I needed to get some laundry done. I was (am as of this writing) down to my last pair of clean underwear and socks so it was critical I get some laundry done. We over packed so much and the last 10 days have flown by so quickly that I didn't even think about running out of my most critical items. The machine that gives you tokens to buy time on the laundry machines was broken, so I ended up sending off my clothes to be laundered by the staff and returned next day. Fingers crossed I get them back today or tomorrow is going to come with some hard decisions!

    Following the completion of our must-do's, we headed up to the Lido to play some games. We ended up playing three really close games where I was slightly faster and came out ahead. Current Bananagrams score: Valerie - 5, Bill - 10. We were both feeling frustrated after the three games, so we switched to playing rummy in which Valerie won 2 games to my 1.

    Last night's dinner was the best menu of the cruise to date. I had ox tail soup, a beef wellington with twice baked potato, and 2 lamb chops from the rack of lamb menu option since I wanted to try the lamb but really wanted the wellington. They also brought out a goat cheese soufflé which was delicious as well. There are nights where it is hard to choose what to eat on the menu because none of it sounds like what I want for dinner, but last night's menu was amazing and it was hard not to get one of everything. The wellington was perfectly cooked, the outside crispy, the inside incredibly tender. The lamb was also perfectly cooked with a breaded crust around the outside. Rodel ended up bringing us out an additional treat of a beef and lettuce soup which was similar to the sinigang we have been having, but he called it a different name which I have since forgotten. The beef fell apart when lightly touched by a spoon but was still incredibly flavorful. At this point, we may have to stop ordering off the menu and just let Rodel take care of us.

    After dinner we went to the show. It was a production put on by the ship's entertainment team. The show was called "Fiera!" and it was ok. The music was directly stolen from the Pitch Perfect movies and Glee. I understand the arrangements in those shows are great and everyone steals, but let's not be so blatantly obvious about it. The show was themed around a classic carnival which was fine, but mostly made me want to play D&D. I backed a Kickstarter during Covid about a haunted carnival and it really put me in the mood to run it. Too many stories to tell and not close to enough time to tell them. Once I finish up my Curse of Stradh campaign and the new one we started after I TPK'd the group in our Keep on the Borderlands campaign maybe we'll visit Heckna!

    Following the show, we then headed to bed to get some rest for early morning. I mentioned in a prior post about the erosion of value over my lifetime of cruising. Room service used to be free on all the cruise lines with just a tip required for the delivery person required. Today, on Carnival and Royal, you have to pay a good amount for room service. The most convenient type of room service was always the continental breakfast you could order, particularly on days when you are in port. Having someone deliver breakfast to your cabin at 6:00am so you could avoid the rush and eat breakfast at your own pace before an early tour was always very nice. In contrast with Royal and Carnival, Princess continues to provide a complimentary room service, including breakfast delivery. In both Madeira and Cadiz, we've taken advantage of this service to order breakfast before we go to sleep and have it delivered in the morning. We don't generally eat breakfast, however given we would be drinking alcohol very early in the day we've felt it was important to have something in our stomaches before we get off the ship for our tours. The breakfast is also pretty good with both of us having some corn flakes, fruit, and their pizza muffin. The pizza muffin is crazy good. It is a muffin with the texture of a yorkshire pudding stuffed with pepperoni, ham, and cheese. 

    We woke up at 6:45, and a few minutes later got a knock on the door with our breakfast. We ate and then got ready for the day. The weather forecast had said it was going to be cold and wet, but the good weather is continuing to stay with us as the sun was out and the temperatures were in the mid-60's. After we got off the ship wearing our green "8" stickers, we hopped on a bus and headed off taste tapas and sherry. Our tour guide was named Lily and she was fantastic, talking about some of the history of Cadiz and the surrounding region of Andalusia.

    Cadiz is one of the oldest cities in Europe, having been settled more than 3,000 years ago. It is built on a narrow peninsula with only a small road connecting it to the main Iberian peninsula. For as long as people have been living here, it has been a critical part of the empires. Originally settled by the Phoenicians in 1100 BCE, it served as a critical port city, and became a main center of trade after the Iberian peninsula was conquered by the Romans. Fishing has been a key industry given it's location on the Atlantic ocean and close proximity to Mediterranean, with salt exports being another critical industry, however it has always been known as a place for the manufacturing of ships. In both the past and current times, the world's navies have been built at Cadiz, including the ships used for Columbus' second and fourth journeys to the Americas. These days Cadiz also manufactures another type of ship, one of my favorites, cruise ships! While we were in port, Royal Caribbean's Allure of the Sea could be seen in dry dock with crews working round the clock to update this enormous ship.

    As I mentioned, there is only one road on the small peninsula connecting Cadiz to greater Spain, but there are 2 bridges which have been built in the last 55 years. We crossed one of these bridges over to Puerto Real and then headed to Jerez de la Frontera. Jerez de la Frontera translates to Sherry of the Frontier, sherry wine being a key industry of the area and frontier as this area of Andalusia was the zone between the Christians in the north and Moors in the south during the Reconquista. This was a tumultuous time period for the people of the area because they would be sacked by one side and conquered, then sacked by the other side and conquered, in a back and forth change of ownership depending on who had most recently conquered the area. 

    This area of Spain is well known for their ships, fish, salt, sherry wine, and their horses. Andalusian horses were bred and raised here and became a recognized breed as early as the 1500's. Their numbers have been declining for the last couple of centuries due to war, disease, and crossbreeding, but they are recognized around the world as being one of the best breeds of horses. In the city of Jerez de la Frontera is the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art, a world renowned school where both horse and riders can go to train.

    After a half hour on the bus, we headed to the winery where we would have our tapas and sherry. The entrance to the winery looked like just another house on a quiet side street, but inside was an immaculately maintained, centuries old home built in the Roman style, with the front door leading to a courtyard. Roman courtyards typically did not have roofs on them as the used the courtyard to collect rain water. This home had a roof, which has a specific Spanish name I can't remember but it translates to matador's hat. The home was all original stone, wood, and iron and was beautiful. It is owned by one of the relatives of Spain's prior monarchs who was a very gracious host. We got to see the small chapel that was built as a part of the house and then were lead to an area that used to be the horse stables for the home, but had been transformed into a very comfortable area for wine tasting with 4 large round tables for sitting and eating, and another large table with ingredients that would be used to make the tapas.

    We got a very nice talkative table on this tour, with an older couple from Kentucky, 3 sisters and one of their daughters from Arizona/Texas, and a couple from Montreal. The fascinating thing about the group was that everyone had some connection to education. One of the sisters was a teacher for 34 years and principal for 10, one of the sisters is currently on their local school board, the couple from Kentucky had taught high school and college, the wife from the Montreal couple works at a university, and my mom and brother were both teachers. There was a lot of talk about education and concerns about the future of education.

    On the table were 2 different sherries for us to taste, one dry and one sweeter, two jugs of sangria, some potato chips, and some olives. I don't think anyone at our table liked the dry sherry, but the sweeter one was quite good. The sangria was a huge hit, being sweet and without a strong alcohol taste. Someone said it tasted like Kool-Aid which I didn't quite get, but it was very easy to drink. The potato chips were good and the olives were really good, not overly briny like some green olives can be, almost sweet. Valerie passed on her olive (surprising, I know). While we were drinking, some of the folks on the tour volunteered to help make the tapas. They made a potato salad with potatoes, onions, parsley, sherry vinegar, and olive oil, a gazpacho with tomatoes, garlic, onion, day old bread, cucumber, and a chili of some kind, a mushroom stuffed with ground pork, and sauteed shrimp with chili powder. The potato salad was really good and we'll make that at home, the gazpacho was also good and I think we'll try to make that, the mushrooms were fine, but needed more salt, and Valerie said the shrimp was good but basic.

    After we ate and drank our fill, it was back to the bus to go back to the ship. On the way back we got to see the huge mounds of salt that had been mined from the local salt mine, as well as a bunch of flamingos in the marshes. It was a beautiful drive until we got back to Cadiz. On our way out of Cadiz I didn't see another car on the road, however when we were returning, there was horrible traffic. Everyone from surrounding areas was coming to Cadiz for Carnival! We saw families dressed in all kinds of costumes, like bumblebees, mimes, girl scouts, and ever a couple of guys who were dressed as chorizo! Lily found that hysterically funny, laughing for a good 5 minutes. I didn't realize how big a deal Carnival was to so many different parts of the world. The only exposure I ever had to the Catholic church was learning a little about the impacts it had on the world in the past in history classes, so while I had heard of Carnival in Rio or Mardi Gras in New Orleans, it wasn't something that I was aware of nor the ties it had to Lent. Now, having seen the preparations for Carnival in Madeira and Cadiz and having learned that it was originally used as a way to get rid of food stuffs that would have gone bad during Lent and now turned into a last celebration before the start of Lent has made me more curious. I wish we were staying in Cadiz over night so I could experience Carnival. 

    After we got back to the ship, we did a little shopping for souvenirs, then got on board, dropped our things off and grabbed some lunch. We didn't sleep great last night, only got about 5 hours, but we are starting to transition, and the more time we spend outside, the easier it gets to go to sleep at reasonable times. Tomorrow we are in Malaga and will be checking out the Moorish fortress, so we are looking forward to that!

    Thanks for reading about our adventures in Cadiz. Hopefully I'll be able to post tomorrow, however tomorrow is a much longer day than the last couple of port days with a much longer excursion from 8:00a until 5:30pm, so no promises!

    Also, happy birthday Brayden! Auntie Valerie and I love you and we'll celebrate with you when we get home!