Steve and Cathy's Blog

Apparently, those taking the bus into Fortaleza were of two minds.  Some got to whatever market place was the destination, saw the condition of the place and stayed on the bus.  Others did indeed venture off the bus and had a fine time.  I think all the warnings we have gotten about pickpockets and purse/camera/shoulder bag snatchers has had an impact.  We are also told that there was an issue about the gangway being unstable when everyone came back to board, so it took an hour to rectify that problem as people stood in the rain and watched.  I’m telling’ you, Insignia is star-crossed here.

The ship doesn’t depart Fortaleza until 3:00am.  How do we know such a thing?  Strangely enough, both of us wake up at 2:45 and see that the ship is still in port.  Twenty minutes later, we are underway.  We have 400+ miles to travel to our next port, Recife.

We arise at our usual 5:30 and it takes a while to get going for the day.  It’s Sunday, a Sea Day, and there really is no rush.  We get our caffeine charge at Waves and head across the deck to Terrace Cafe for a full breakfast.  Cathy has huevos rancheros, the “egg special of the day,”  and Steve just has bacon and eggs.  It’s pretty quiet this early, as you would expect.  We take our meal on the open deck at the stern of the ship.  A very pleasant experience that we decide we will repeat often.

Every Sunday, there is a ecumenical Christian service in Insignia Lounge.  Conflicts the previous two Sundays prevented us from going, but today at 9:00am, we have the opportunity and attend.  We are greeted by a very friendly couple named Ginny and Joe, who lived in Boston until recently moving to Traverse City MI near Ginny’s sister.  They are very welcoming, and it appears that they are sort of the unofficial greeters, as they seem to know everyone who arrives.  By the time the service begins, we have met a couple from South Dakota, found out that there is a Bible study in which to participate, and see that about 50-60 people are attending this morning.  Joe hands out a one page program, and we see that the service consists of an opening prayer, one hymn, the Lord’s Prayer and a benediction.  Badda-bing, badda-boom.  Our friend Lois would love this service for its brevity!

The service is conducted by Leslie Jon, the Cruise Director, who opens with a quick story he was told at a Good Friday service some time ago.  We then proceed with the service, and find out that we will also be given a short sermon by a gentleman whose name I did not get that is centered around the story of the Woman at the Well from the 4th chapter of John.  The sermon is well done.  We complete the service in no time, inquire about the times for the Bible study and are off, Cathy to Coffee Chat and Needlepoint and Steve back to the room until we both meet for Peter’s Enrichment Lecture at 11:00.

Peter Croyle’s lecture, besides a discussion of Recife, is entitled Colonial Brazil & the Empire of Brazil.  Did you ever wonder why almost the entire South American continent speaks Spanish except for the people of Brazil?  No?  Well, I have, and it is partly as a result of the Treaty of Tordesillas of 1494.  Here’s an explanation from Britainnica.com: In 1493, after reports of Columbus’s discoveries had reached them, the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella enlisted papal support for their claims to the New World in order to inhibit the Portuguese and other possible rival claimants. To accommodate them, the Spanish-born pope Alexander VI issued bulls setting up a line of demarcation from pole to pole 100 leagues (about 320 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands. Spain was given exclusive rights to all newly discovered and undiscovered lands in the region west of the line. Portuguese expeditions were to keep to the east of the line. Neither power was to occupy any territory already in the hands of a Christian ruler.  So the entire planet was divided up between these two countries by the Pope!.  This gave Portugal exclusive rights to a great deal of the eastern part of the continent which would become Brazil, and the Spanish took the rest.  Now other countries eventually ignored this treaty, but for a time, it gave these two sea powers a real leg up as they didn’t have to deal with each other.

As discussed in a previous post, the economy of Brazil is such because of how the King of Portugal divided up the new land they had “discovered.”  Well, he divided the colony into “captaincies,” which he gave to various nobles and other hangers-on. The borders of these captaincies were not based on anything rational like rivers or mountain ranges.  The lines were drawn from west to east with no regard whatsoever, so each captaincy was a somewhat narrow band that ran from the demarkation line drawn up in the Treaty of Tordesillas in the west to the Atlantic coast.  Furthermore, these new “owners” were given no resources that would enable them to successfully operate their new possessions, so within a few years, many of them had failed and were turned back over to the crown, who then sent governors.  Still, the entire country was possessed, governed and developed for the benefit of a tiny group of nobles.  To this day, the effect of such monarchical decisions made from 1534 to 1549 is profound, as the economy developed under such narrow control.  In present-day Brazil, 1.7% of the population controls approximately 54% of the arable land in the country.

There is so much more to it, but let’s leave it at that for now.  After this interesting lecture, we of course head for more food.  Today they are serving Brunch in the Grand Dining Room.  We arrive and our maitre’d shows us around to all the tables.  It is incredible.  I am going to let Cathy do the honor of describing this feast:

I’ve been to many brunches in my life (including the Plaza Hotel in New York) but this one surpassed them all. There was a cheese table; a bread table; a fish table (where I took one of each thing: two kinds of smoked salmon, kippers, whitefish, and others I know not what) with capers, onions, sour cream, horseradish sauce; a soup table; two carving stations, one with a fresh ham and one with a whole salmon en croute; a hot table with two kinds of bacon, eggs, three kinds of potatoes, sautéed mushrooms and grilled tomatoes. Steve had bacon and eggs (What a cretan). They do the scrambled eggs here just the way he likes them. Soft and creamy. There was also a fruit table with what you would expect, plus several tropical fruits. Then, last but not least, the dessert table. Oh My God. Tiny little cups of assorted puddings, pastries, layered things like napoleons, fruit tarts, chocolate cake things (I didn’t look too closely as I have decided to have only one dessert per day and I had seen lemon meringue tarts on the dinner menu) . Steve had chocolate pudding, a profiterole, and a lemony tart thing. In addition to the beautiful food displays there were carvings. Not just the ordinary fruit ones we have all seen but big carved vegetable ones, and a huge bread one that had “Welcome to brunch” baked onto a large loaf. The whole thing was just unbelievable. On the way out I asked the maitre d’ if they did this every Sunday that was a sea day and he said only once per cruise. I think Steve may have mentioned that the ATW cruise is divided into several cruises (this one ends in Capetown) so I asked if we would have another one after Capetown and he said “No, then we have a special tea.” I’m afraid to even think about what that is going to have 😉

Wow.  You see what I mean about Cathy needing to be the food author here?  Don’t you feel as if you were sitting with us?  Speaking of which, we opted to “share the table,” and we were seated with a very, very nice couple from Houston TX, Ian and Elizabeth.  He is actually British, but has been in the US since 1965.  He is a retired Chemical Engineer that began his career with Esso (now called Exxon Mobil).  They live in Houston near one of their children.  In fact, their son’s house got completely destroyed by Hurricane Harvey, and he, his wife and their 5 and 2-year old children are now living with Ian and Elizabeth.  They also have grown children living in central NJ, Scarborough ME and somewhere else.  It was so much fun meeting with them, especially because, instead of the standard recitations of other cruises taken, we got to talk about our families and such.

Of course we retired to our stateroom for naps and reading and blogging and the rest of our daily pastimes.  We actually talked about taking a walk, which is a definite step forward,  but abandoned the idea in favor of reading the dinner menu … again.  Of course, we were at the Grand Dining Room at 6:20, ready for its 6:30 opening.  We opted to sit by ourselves tonight, and determined that lunches would be good opportunities to sit with others, encouraged by the nice couple we met today.  Again we hemmed and hawed about what to have and how much to have.  Cathy ended up with chicken consommé with shredded mushrooms and an interesting dumpling and then tournedos rossini and a lemon meringue tart for dessert.  Steve had scallops in a puff pastry cornucopia, a black bean and quinoa salad and a Jacques Pepin signature dish, steak frites, and ended with mango sorbet.  We are writing all this food stuff because at some time in the future when we are deciding which Subway sandwich we want, we can wistfully return to read when we really had it good!

We toyed with the idea of attending a concert featuring a group playing songs from the past forty years acoustically.  That idea was fleeting, but we are hoping that this entertainment will be available again soon.  We’re working up to it.