Day two was our first day at sea.  Finally, a day to relax and unwind from days of go-go-go.

Several of you have commented that I haven’t posted any pictures of myself. Well, I can’t post what I don’t have. I’ve never been a fan of having my picture taken, and I’ve developed an unusual talent of being able to avoid the eye of the camera. My family will tell you that during my teenage years, trying to sneak a picture of me would result in my disappearance for hours, or at least until I felt that the need to take a picture of me had passed.  This behavior resulted in periods of my life being largely photographically undocumented.  I’m much better about having my picture taken now, but it’s still not my favorite thing.  So now I stand behind the camera, rarely turning it on myself.  But since I knew I had to post at least one picture of myself on this cruise, I kindly asked a woman in my cooking class to snap a picture of me before the class started.

Almost like Julia Child

After getting a haircut and doing some laundry, I headed off to my first cooking class. Kevin signed me up for two classes during this cruise…I wonder if he’s trying to give me a hint.

The facility this ship has for the classes is impressive. There are about 20 stations, each well-equipped with everything you would need to make a meal.  The instructor was very nice, and at the beginning of class, she rattled off a long list of her accomplishments and past work experience.  She made it sound like she was a very successful chef and restaurant owner in the past, but I couldn’t help to wonder, if she was so successful, why was she now on a ship, teaching some old people how to cook?  I don’t know…I couldn’t think of a nice way to phrase that question to ask her; this is where I need Kevin’s help, and he wasn’t with me, so that question wasn’t asked.

During our class we learned how to make prunes with cabrales, cherries and walnuts; roasted garlic hummus; bourride Provençal with aioli; and petite “mock” tiramisu.  As we cooked, we ate, and as we ate, we were given wine to drink.  By the last dish, I had already consumed about 3-4 glasses of wine, so I would like to say my dish was delicious, but I can’t really say if that was true or not.

“So I found this pill in my purse.”

I really don’t want people knowing I’m a pharmacist on this cruise.  A pharmacist is one of those professions that, once people find out you’re one of, feel that you want to talk about and answer all of their questions related to that profession.  Being on a ship where a vast majority of the passengers are medicated to varying degrees, those questions can become endless.  I want to relax on vacation, not think about work.  Not only am I trying to avoid thinking about the guilt I still feel about leaving my staff to deal with my absence for two months, but I just don’t want to think about pharmacy.

So what do I tell people?  I can always lie and tell them I have a different profession.  “Oh, what do I do?  Well, I’m an artificial insemination technician, specializing in horse semen collection…..wait, where are you going?  Why did you just dump your lunch in the garbage?  Don’t you want to hear about some of my work mishaps?”  Something tells me that Kevin wouldn’t go for this approach.  So I’m just going to try to avoid the topic, and if questions come up, I’ll just try to divert attention to something else.  “Oh, you say that rash on your inner thigh isn’t clearing up with the topical steroid your doctor gave you?  Fascinating!  Oh, look!  I think I just saw some dolphins swimming next to the ship!”