Greetings, dear SeaMail addicts -
We're at sea on our way from Sevastopol to Sochi, Russia. Our sailaway from Sevastopol was delightful, with bagpipe music being broadcast on the ship's loudspeakers, to the great amusement of the hundreds of Sevastopolians on shore.
The last couple of days have been great fun, with marvelous tours conducted by the lovely Anna for our little group of 8 (yesterday) and 10 (today). Yalta (yesterday) is a wonderful little resort city. The visits to Lividia Palace (well described above by Andi) and Vorontsov Palace were excellent. Seeing the site of the Yalta conference of Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin was enormously interesting. Once again, we power-tourers finished our itinerary early and got back to the ship in time for lunch (and superb Italian cheese in Portofino - Leslie and I were in cheese-lovers heaven).
Today, it was a perfect tour of the highlights of Sevastopol - the Panorama (an incredible 360 degree gigantic painting of the seige of the city in 1854 during the Crimean War), a visit to the former nuclear submarine base at Balaclava (wow, shades of The Hunt for Red October), and a view over the valley where the Charge of the Light Brigade occurred. Once again, our lovely Anna provided us great commentary and managed to adapt well to our power-touring style. No shopping or other stops to just hang around. It is amazing to find 10 people who have very much the same touring style.
Yesterday in Yalta, Sharon and I hiked over to the wonderful market to spend a couple of hours admiring the beautiful displays of fresh fruit and vegetables, the not-so-beautiful (and disgustingly pungent)displays of fresh meat in the 90 degree heat, and the many, many purveyors of freshly-squeezed pomegranite juice. We bought some of the tasty juice, along with some nice flowers to bring back to our cabins. It only occured to me after I'd drunk about a quart of the juice that it was bottled in a used bottle of unknown-cleanliness origin. If you don't hear from me again, you'll know that I have gone on to that great pomegranite juice castle in the sky (or am in the infirmary getting intravenous fluids for my dysintery).
Generally speaking, trivia has not been a remarkable success for your esteemed fellow LCTers. I heard, although I have no independent confirmation, that an LCT team won yesterday, when almost everyone was off the ship. However, on Saturday and today (Monday, I think), none of the LCT teams came in better than second. Geez, who knew that the official wind speed for a hurricane is 73 mph?? Lordie, even a Prius can go that fast.
Yikes, time to change for dinner (the dress code goes into effect at 6:00 pm and they throw one overboard if one is still in cargo shorts and t-shirt - even the overpriced Regent t-shirt from the boutique - after 6:00).
No good scandal news yet, although one LCT couple had the good luck last night to join an open table (not LCTers) which included a "gentlemen" who was so totally blitzed that at one point he picked up his steak with his fingers. (We presume that the dining room staff prudently took away his steak knife for safety reasons.) The couple in question has resolved to "stick with their own kind", meaning LCTers or people they've had the chance to vet a bit. I plan to order steak tonight to see how it works to eat it without benefit of knife and fork. After all, it's proper etiquette to eat asparagus with one's fingers - why not a sirloin??!!
On that note of making Emily Post roll over in her grave, I will close for tonight, remaining your faithful (and appallingly gross) Boy on the Black Sea - Fred
