Silversea Water Cooler: Welcome! Part Five

[mysty]

Yes DW!  We are loving this place!  The perfect spot for us right now!  And we feel much lighter after the purge!  🙂  Thanks for asking!

[Daveywavey70]

Glad to hear it M. I Just hope you sort out your storeroom! It must be so daunting to face such a move but at the same time so satisfying to know you've done the right thing.  

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great weekend all!

[QueSeraSera]

On 10/7/2019 at 8:07 PM, jpalbny said:

Boil some water, add chicken bouillon, then whisk in the semolina flour over 15 seconds or so. Use a 3:1 ratio of broth to flour. 1-1/2 cups broth plus 1/2 cup semolina flour is good for two servings. 

 

A real whisk is a necessity or it will get lumpy. Also of you use finely ground semolina it is harder to whisk in and gets too thick, lumpy, etc.

 

It will be ready in a minute of two. Stop beating, turn off the heat, add some butter and/or grated cheese,

 

Made this tonight, turned out great.  Good side dish recipes not easy to find.  Thanks for sharing JP!

[jpalbny]

QueSeraSera, glad it came out well. It's tasty with just simple sauteed mushrooms, or with something more substantial. 

 

It's been a busy week! Wednesday night I got the new circulation pump into the hot tub successfully, and now that's working again. There was one anchor bolt I couldn't quite reach so I'll give it another shot later. But it's nice to have that back again.

 

We carried a bunch of junk out to the dumpster this afternoon after work. The basement looks amazingly better already. Still more to do over the next two days but off to a good start.

 

Tonight I made a recipe that I'd been looking at for a while. Pan-seared cod with a red wine sauce, including mushrooms, onions, and a few spices. I actually had no Cab Sauv in the wine fridge - seriously?! - so I used an older vintage Can Franc for the sauce, which worked well enough. 

 

Anyway, the final dish.

 

 

Did I mention that the dish is finished by crumbling some crispy bacon on top? Yum!

Edited October 13, 2019 by jpalbny

[Lois R]

Hi friends, sitting in a lovely little area on board the ship looking out at some ugly weather.........rainy and jacket weather.

The internet is complimentary so thought I would check in.  The River Countess is a lovely riverboat....colors of blues abound.

My cabin is very nice, great shower and very comfy bed.

 

My flight arrived in Venice on Saturday morning and driver was waiting for me to take me to my hotel.  Stayed at a Pennsione type of property called Hotel Antique Figure. Family owned and the staff

were wonderful. It is located across the water from the train station. I highly recommend it.

 

Tonight I am going on a tour that is only for the ship guests.........inside St Mark's Basicilla after hours......should be pretty amazing.   Oh last night's dinner was fabulous. I had a pasta dish with garlic

and olive oil with fresh parm (cheese of course).  It came out perfect....al dente and popping hot!

 

And, I feel like the cold is finally getting on the tail end............

 

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well. 

 

[jpalbny]

Great to hear from you, Lois! That St. Mark's tour is definitely on our list. Glad you are feeling better. Enjoy the rest of your cruise; sounds like you're off to a nice start so far.

[Lois R]

Good morning coolers.........well, it is morning here.......we are sailing now and will be having a tour later this morning.

 

JP,  the tour inside the church was amazing........it was just us and our guide. I think about 100 people went (we only have 112 total). So it was just us.....I had seen the outside before but had never been in it. The mosiacs are unreal!

 

I have to say everyone is quite friendly and the staff/crew are wonderful.  Mix of guests is very diverse. You have to love folks who love to travel!

 

Hope everyone is well........Mysty, glad you are enjoying your new abode!

 

 

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Lois...glad you are enjoying your sail!  🙂 

 

Today's funny in honour of our Thanksgiving Day (yesterday).....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[spinnaker2]

Lois

Great to hear you are enjoying your cruise.

 

Mysty

Lovely to know you made the right decision and even more so that you are discovering your surroundings! What a terrific life adventure.

 

 

We are still recovering from our cruise induced colds.

Exhausting work to fight off the immune invaders.

Definitely put a huge damper on our time aboard. 

Edited October 15, 2019 by spinnaker2

[mysty]

19 minutes ago, spinnaker2 said:

We are still recovering from our cruise induced colds.

Exhausting work to fight off the immune invaders.

Definitely put a huge damper on our time aboard. 

Spins, that is one very nasty bug you picked up!  So sorry that it hampered your enjoyment of the cruise!  Not fun being ill and even less so while you are attempting to enjoy a cruise!

[jillyf]

We have disembarked from our expedition cruise on Coral Discoverer from Broome to Darwin to Cairns and have really enjoyed it. Now we are "resting" at my sisters at Mission Beach, 2 hours south of Cairns. 

Three weeks is quite a long time on an expedition cruise for us and we are pretty tired.

We were on the go all day but took one day as a sea day at about the day 11.

 I had FOMO ( fear of missing out) so wanted to do everything offered and it was hot! 

 

Looking forward to getting home. Our spring garden has bloomed while we were away and we have missed it.  A friend sent photos so we did get a glimpse.  We planted in March and it is good to know our magnolia hedge had flowers as they were looking quite sad for a while. 

I’m sure our cat Trev will be happy to see us after being in the cattery although he is quite spoilt there. 

[spinnaker2]

Fomo is a tough motivator! Now you can relax Jilly!

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[Stumblefoot]

Whenever I see funny signs, I think of Mysty.

 

[mysty]

Thanks Stumble.....I think!  🙂  I do love your post!

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[Lois R]

Hi Cooler's, it is Friday night here in Venice and tomorrow is our last day. I am taking a tour in the morning of the place where Venetian masks are made. 

 

Today was fun as we went to 3 different Islands, Torcello, Burano and for the life of me I can't recall the 3rd name. Something like Mazpano, but that is not it. We went to a small winery where it is the only place

this wine is made.

It was interestesting but the wine did not live up to the hype in this case.

 

Overall, it has been a great week. The weather has been sunny every day and not too hot. Food and service on Uniworld gets very high marks from me.   The Cruise Manager, Damione (Damien in English) (he is 1/2 Italian and 1/2 Swiss) has been very, very good.

We had dinner together a couple of nights ago and he is very interesting and I enjoyed myself

immensley!

 

I will be home late Sunday night and will try to check in on Monday. 

 

Hope everyone is well.

[jpalbny]

Glad to hear from you, Lois! And happy that you are enjoying the cruise. We will have to do this itinerary some day.

 

We booked the Ponant sailing, from Singapore to Darwin, for next November. Looking forward to Orangutans in Borneo, and Komodo dragons too.

 

We are at a local production of Sweeney Todd tonight, enjoying it very much. Dinner a few blocks down the street beforehand. They had Schweinshaxe on the menu!

 

 

No meat pies, though.... 😉

 

Hope everyone else has a great weekend too!

Edited October 19, 2019 by jpalbny

[mysty]

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

[spinnaker2]

6 hours ago, mysty said:

Greetings Coolers!

 

Today's funny.....

 

 

Have a great day all!

Hahahaaaaa

[spinnaker2]

21 hours ago, Lois R said:

Hi Cooler's, it is Friday night here in Venice and tomorrow is our last day. I am taking a tour in the morning of the place where Venetian masks are made. 

 

Today was fun as we went to 3 different Islands, Torcello, Burano and for the life of me I can't recall the 3rd name. Something like Mazpano, but that is not it. We went to a small winery where it is the only place

this wine is made.

It was interestesting but the wine did not live up to the hype in this case.

 

Overall, it has been a great week. The weather has been sunny every day and not too hot. Food and service on Uniworld gets very high marks from me.   The Cruise Manager, Damione (Damien in English) (he is 1/2 Italian and 1/2 Swiss) has been very, very good.

We had dinner together a couple of nights ago and he is very interesting and I enjoyed myself

immensley!

 

I will be home late Sunday night and will try to check in on Monday. 

 

Hope everyone is well.

Wonder if that's the same Damien who left Silversea. Tall guy who looked a little like Mr Clean.

[Lois R]

2 hours ago, spinnaker2 said:

Wonder if that's the same Damien who left Silversea. Tall guy who looked a little like Mr Clean.

 

Hi folks, last night on board.......nope, not the same guy.........this Damione is part Italian/part Swiss and not too tall

with ginger colored hair and beard...........he has not worked for Silversea. 

[jillyf]

Arrived home yesterday to 10C and rain. Cairns was 31C when we left!  

We are happy to be home after a wonderful cruise and visit to my sister for a few days.

Tomorrow we pick up our cat from the cattery and we will be back in the real world again. Just need to get out of holiday mode and back into our routines again. 

Lois, glad you enjoyed your cruise. We saw the boat moored on our walks in Venice last year and wondered what it would be like.