kochleffel

Cachaca was a component of the Brazilian Crush cocktail on May 29. It differs from rum in being made directly from cane juice rather than from molasses. It's difficult to make good falafel; they can easily turn out raw on the inside, burned on the outside, or both. It's startling that the plaintiffs in the Virginia case that ended prohibitions on mixed-race marriage were named Loving. A ground-beef stir fry sounds rather odd. Tofu stir fry with beet greens is on the menu for tonight. Usually when I order an Americano, I want coffee, but I wouldn't mind the cocktail, only not at this hour of the day. Bota Box isn't my favorite boxed wine so I'll counter with Swedish Hill Winery's Viking White, $16.99 for a 1.5L bottle. "A crisp, slightly fruity, almost dry wine with apple-like and citrusy aromas and flavors. Similar to a Pinot Grigio, it’s a bit lighter and crisper than most Chardonnays. Serve with grilled or broiled seafood or lighter meals." I haven't been to Santo Domingo but I've called at Puerto Plata twice in the past two years, with a third time to come on the way to Panama. No nightmares, but I woke up at 4:00 a.m. Got back to sleep at 6:00 a.m. but definitely feeling it.

Thank you. After a nap this afternoon, I'm feeling a bit better. I am going to have to limit my contact with social media, which probably planted the frightening idea, to once a day, before noon.

Adding to that: a heat pump that's installed outside the building, connected to a fan unit in the room by only a tube. The building I worked in installed them for air-conditioning but they could also provide heat. As there was a dropped ceiling, the fan unit replaced a ceiling panel. In a typical installation, however, it's a wall unit installed near the ceiling.

This morning I woke from a frightening dream, which is very rare for me, and I still don't feel well. I definitely don't want muffins or a margarita right now. I recently finished a Ryan William 2021 Dry Riesling. Here's the 2023, already in short supply. "Pale straw-like in color, the 2023 Dry Riesling has a smooth richness that is easily balanced by natural acidity. With notes of peach and slate on the nose, and light pineapple on the palate, the wine finishes with a playful note of lime. Super versatile, serve this Dry Riesling with everything from white fish and charcuterie to baked apple strudel," $18.95. I haven't been to Kodiak but yesterday I saw an episode of Dr. Oakley in which she helped to transport a bull from Kodiak to an uninhabited (by humans, I mean) island where the Kodiak Baptist Mission runs cattle, and bring back a horse that was needed for summer camp at the mission.

To me, sideways cabins feel more spacious even if they're the same size, and they have better feng shui.

The Dawn (post #1) docked at the main cruise terminal in Copenhagen. This is where all cruise ships except a few small ships from a few luxury cruise lines dock.

I'm beginning to think that I may be the only person here who has never visited Malta! For almost any port that is mentioned, I find myself looking for cruises that call there, even though I have no intention of booking any cruises until at least after the Panama Canal cruise in December. In the process I noticed one on Windstar that is actually affordable. It's Papeete to Puerto Caldera, Costa Rica, no ports in between, fortunately at a time I could only go if there were better wifi than there would be. Because of the Canal cruise, I'm not booking a cruise for January or February as I usually would. I have in mind to visit NYC in March when the Met is performing Fidelio.

The desks in my sixth-grade classroom had inkwells for dip pens, and the desks weren't even that old, but we used only ball-points. The menu suggestion might be OK, but I would be wary of the "creamy" part. The drink would be sweeter than I like. For the wine, Glenora's Brut-2014, $30.99. "Elegant yeast and delicate fruit flavors delightfully intermingle in the 2014 Brut sparkling wine from Glenora Wine Cellars. The grapes were all grown around Seneca Lake and the wine offers delicate strawberry and elegant apple flavors. This sparkling wine was filled into tirage for the secondary fermentation during the summer of 2015, producing a profusion of tiny bubbles that explode to the surface upon opening the bottle. The moderate dosage adds luscious creaminess and a lingering finish."

Also true. What I think can be stressful is figuring out the logistics and coping when they don't work. I had a very close call in Spain last fall.

One of my friends is an archivist at the regional history museum. No on the menu suggestion (shrimp). Irish coffee would be OK with me and I'll be ready for it in a little while, I think. I believe that I have an Irish coffee mug from a trivia game or something on NCL. For a sparkling red wine from the FL, Sparkling Rebel with a Cause from Red Tail Ridge, $39.97. "A serious dry red blend of 50% Teroldego, 25% Cabernet Franc & 25% Blaufränkish that was done Méthode Champenoise." (I've corrected their French. I often seem to do that with restaurant menus here. And their German.) The weather report says that it ought to stop raining about now, but it hasn't started and so maybe it won't.

Arborio rice.

I wasn't speaking only about excursions, but they were the most convenient example. The general principle -- book things that you think you will like and don't worry about whether each is absolutely THE BEST -- applies broadly, even to onboard activities. I gravitate to smaller private tours and sometimes to DIY, but I'll use a cruise line's tour if I have no particular inspiration about that port or nothing else is available. A few years ago at St. Petersburg, with an overnight, I joined a few others for a specialized private tour on our first day there; the others were ordinarily afraid to book anything except through the cruise line, but with an overnight, they felt that it was safe enough. On the second day, I found that I had to book through the cruise line, because no private tour agencies would take a booking for just the second day, and I couldn't DIY since I didn't have a visa and don't read Russian. DIY is stressful but sometimes unavoidable if one especially wants to visit a certain place. I did it with a rental car once in France, to visit the Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, which even custom tours avoid because of the limited parking, and once recently in Spain, by train (the train in Spain stays mainly on the plain) when a tour operator didn't get enough people. For my next cruise, I plan to be on my own in two ports that I've visited before, not even go ashore at one, and book tours for another.

In the forum for another cruise line, someone asked why participation in roll calls for that line was poor. The reply was "We are all experienced cruisers who know what we like. We don't want to be hawked to join other people's tours and we don't want to meet strangers." It put me off booking on that cruise line for a couple of years. When I did, I found that a high percentage of the passengers were, indeed, experienced cruisers, and that most were friendly.

It's possible if you really want to. I haven't tried it in Alaska, but several years ago I spent some time in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland in weather that was sometimes very wet (Germany was having record rain) for part of the time and sometimes cold (at 11,300 feet in Switzerland), with only a carry-on bag. Gear for the weather: an unlined packable rain parka from Patagonia, and a packable down-alternative vest (gilet if you're British) from LL Bean. I've used the same things in Alaska and the Faroes, specifically when on the water. Downside: washing some clothing in a bathroom sink almost every night. And for a cruise (none of the trips mentioned above was a cruise), it means re-wearing the same clothes while being around the same people. That doesn't bother me. For the Europe trip, I carried a blazer over my arm because it made my softsided bag slightly too thick for the plane.

That sounds very much like the fracture that I had right before Thanksgiving in 2017. The upside of a surgical repair is that the arm, within the limits of soreness and stiffness, is functional right away. For example, I was able to type on a computer keyboard with both hands. What I couldn't do for two months, because I couldn't reach far enough, was tie my shoes, and I had to get a pair with Velco fastening.

I think that I might prefer ordinary hollandaise with the salmon and asparagus, and I might like the cocktail better without the alcohol (this is the first time I have ever said that). For the wine, a Finger Lakes Cabernet Franc might be the most similar, but to stick with Pinot Noir I'd consider Dr. Frank's Old Vines Pinot Noir 2021. "Includes the original Pinot Noir vines planted in 1958 by our founder representing the 2nd oldest Pinot Noir vines in America. Radiant and luminous offering nuanced cranberries and red cherries woven with earthiness, leather, and subtle oak notes. Silken and light yet mineral evolving into a complex, long-lasting finish," $26.99.

Have you considered disguises?

Paradoxically, new cruisers who come to Cruise Critic for information could find that it increases their anxiety--not because of misinformation, but because there are many posts from people trying to optimize their cruises in every possible way. For example, they may want to find the BEST excursion, the BEST tour guide, and others may think that they should do that, too. But one person's best can be another person's mediocre or truly awful. (No way am I going swimming with pigs.) If I were asked, I would say, try to choose excursions that you think you will like and don't worry whether you made the best possible choice.

It will definitely be more convenient when the new Metro line reaches Oceankaj. I wonder what the person would have thought about Civitavecchia, which handles all kinds of ship traffic and is way more inconvenient for Rome.

My first choice would be a Misty Fjords flight with Island Wings. A Herring Cove bear tour would be next: on a boardwalk above the bears, and they use two guides, one to escort you and another to look for bears.

And, iirc, only two items from the old pasta section, including risotto. No more gnocchi, for example.

Shavuot decorations The decorations represent four loosely related themes of Shavuot. Chronologically, they are the festival of first fruits, a harvest festival defined in the Torah, seven weeks after Passover; the revelation at Sinai, calculated to coincide with that; the Book of Ruth, one of the readings for Shavuot, perhaps chosen because the denouement takes place during the barley harvest; and eating dairy foods, on the theory that the Hebrews, after receiving the commandments, realized that any meat they had wasn't kosher. From left to right: a giclee print of a painting of Ruth and Naomi; the Ten Commandments (bookends); a sheaf of wheat, since I haven't found the barley, but wheat is another of the Seven Species of biblical food crops; a box of Lactaid, representing the hardship that Shavuot imposes on those of us who are lactose-intolerant; pomegranates, figs, and grapes, three more of the Seven Species; a 19th-century French painting depicting Moses and Aaron at Mount Sinai; and olives, another of the Seven Species. I'm told that the fruits are supposed to be in a gold or silver basket, which I neither have nor want. This is a hammered-aluminum tray that was a wedding present to my parents.

Thinking of yesterday's discussion of Zuiderdam's having docked at Oceankaj in Copenhagen: there is a thread in the forum of aNother Cruise Line accusing that line of choosing cheap industrial ports instead of nice cruise ports, and calling it bait and switch. This season, Seabourn, Viking, and AIDA are the only cruise lines using Langelinie for day calls at Copenhagen. All others are using Oceankaj. It is true that Oceankaj is in a huge port complex, the rest of which handles cargo, including container ships, roros, and tankers, but the Oceankaj docks are used only by cruise ships.

When I was rolling a bag across Gamla Stan in Stockholm, walking from my hotel to a bus to the cruise terminal, I was very glad that it was a two-wheeled bag. The noise, on cobblestones, was still considerable, but at least it rolled. Both of my rolling bags--I use only one a time, to be clear--are two-wheeled. One, from eBags, is legal as a carry-on, should I want to. The other is a 28-inch rolling duffel from Eagle Creek, no longer made. I suppose that it might be possible to pack the latter too heavily to check, but I never have.