No Gain and pictures from St. Lucia

Yesterday was a very wonderful day.  I drove my friends Jonathan and Susan up to the big synagogue in Maitland, just north of Orlando, so Susan could face a Bet Din (court, so to speak) and go to the mikveh (ritual bath) to complete her conversion to Judaism.  She's been on a journey of nearly 25 years to get to this point, and I was the one who put her in touch with our wonderful Rabbi at SOJC to finish this process.  I was honored when she invited me to go along and thrilled when I discovered that I could sit in on the Bet Din and take a peek at the Orlando mikveh.  The only other mikveh I ever saw was the one I used for my conversion in Silver Spring, MD.  This one was much bigger and more beautiful than that one.  Susan was very articulate in her answers to the questions, and when she read aloud the statement of accepting the commandments of Judaism, she broke down crying.  So did I!  What a time that was!  Mazal Tov to Susan!

In the evening Susan, Jonathan, and Tom (a guitarist willing to play with the SOJC choir!) all went out to dinner with me and Mark.  We were going to go to the kosher restaurant, but it was closed for a private party.  Sigh.  So we went just up the road to King of Falafel.  It was delicious.  We shared a lot of appetizers: tabbouleh, fuul (fave beans mashed with other ingredients), pita bread, a tray of falafel, and stuffed grape leaves.  Wow!  I also had the baked fish platter which came with a huge pile of rice, carrots, potatoes, and a cup of lentil soup.  The soup was disappointing because it was pureed, which seemed weird, and very underspiced.  The fish platter was great, although I ate way too much rice, meaning I ate all of it!

The good news is that I lost one more pound, down to 279 this morning.  Yay for me.  The only reason that happened, I guess, is that I ate an especially small breakfast and lunch, walked a half an hour, and lifted the weights.  Plus conducting a ninety minute choir rehearsal definitely expends more energy than sitting in front of the TV.

Today we are heading to the NARFE meeting.  It's now in a new location at a buffet restaurant.  Mark always says the buffet is my friend. I'm going to try to make that true today and eat responsibly.  Dinner is just a slice of Mark's deep dish pizza, 320 calories, so I can splurge a little bit at lunch.  I'm not sure any exercise will happen today, although I might be able to squeeze in a walk late this afternoon.  Tonight we are going to see the Tom Hank's movie, Bridge of Spies, at the Solivita Ballroom.  It's going to be another great day!

St. Lucia was our next port on the cruise.  This is an island I remember well from my visit in 1969 with my parents.  I remember walking inside the volcano, literally around the bubbling sulfur. I was very excited to go back there.  Now no one walks inside because in the mid-1980s a guide was giving a tour when the ground gave way below him.  He fell into hot sulfur and suffered third degree burns.  Although he survived, he gave up touring.  Then the walkways and overlooks were built to keep people out of the actual volcano.  It's still a live volcano that is being monitored constantly because it could erupt any time.

Our all day tour of St. Lucia started in the capital city of Castries.  This is a park in the center of town named for one of the two Nobel Prize Winners who came from St. Lucia.  

St. Lucia is very mountainous with lots of switchback roads.  We are climbing one of the mountains here and can see our ship in port.

Overlooking the famous Marigot Bay harbor.

Our next stop was a little fishing village, where it poured down rain for about five minutes.

Overlooking another village, Canaries, which was the home of our tour guide.

Our first look at the famous Pitons.

Looking from the bus with a zoom lens at the volcano's caldera .

And we have arrived.  It is bubbling sulfur, so you can imagine the smell!

Yes, in 1969, we just walked around in there, stepping around the pools of bubbling springs and sulfur.

This is as close as anyone can get today.

I was proud of myself for getting up here.  It was down 40 steps, across a bridge, up 32 steps, and up a very high, very steep hill to get to this overlook.  I was huffing and puffing when I got there, but I was pleased with myself of doing it.  Then I had to reverse all that to get back.  My legs did hurt the next day!

Heading away from the volcano and looking back at the little village of Soufrier at the base of the Pitons and the volcano of the same name.

We stopped at a restaurant with this spectacular view of Soufrier, and the Pitons.

Back on the ship that night we had a wonderful concert by an Eton John impersonator.  Awesome.

Epcot Flower and Garden Festival: Antigua on the cruise

We were having WDW Withdrawal yesterday, so we spent about three hours at Epcot for the Spring Flower and Garden Festival.  The extra flower planting and topiaries make the park especially beautiful.  We were there only three hours, but we had lunch at two of the kiosks.  We had jerk-spice grouper with mango salsa and a Tres Leches pieces of cake at one kiosk and a Vegetable-Bean Naanwich with pesto from another one.  Mark made his superb deep dish pizza last night, too.  So, I was actually pleasantly surprised that my weight stayed the same this morning at 280.2.

Today we are having dinner at the Kosher Gourmet restaurant in Kissimmee.  It will be high sodium and high calorie for sure.  To plan for that, I will have a conservative breakfast and lunch, essentially my usual.  I will also be going to Maitland with some friends, a long round trip drive, followed by running a ninety minute synagogue rehearsal tonight.  All of that should keep me out of the fridge for snacking.  LOL!

When I do eat dinner at the restaurant tonight, I am going to make a serious effort to order something sensible!  We shall see how that goes....not my strong point.

Now back to the cruise.  Here are pictures from Antigua.

Antigua was windy!

Looking down at Nelson's Dockyard from Shipley Heights, a fort.

Entering Nelson's Dockyard

Pretty coastal view as we drove from the dockyards to a beach.

Another beach where I just looked at it. I didn't even bother to put on a bathing suit this time.

Mark enjoyed a walk on the beach and a lot of reading on a chaise lounge.

Captain's Club Elite and up members were invited to stand on the ship's helipad in the bow for spillway.  Great views!

The helipad

Through the channel towards the west.  Beautiful.

This ship has a fabulous thing up on deck 15.

They do a two hour show once or twice every day!  This was the only chance I got to go there, so we had a quick dinner in the buffet and headed up. It was dark, cold, and windy up on deck 15, but the show was fascinating.

They passed around some of the glass objects they made on previous days.

It's already gone.

This morning I weighed 280.2, three-tenths less than when we left for the cruise on March 20.  Wow. I'm not sure I can even believe it.  Now to keep the momentum going and get some more weight off.  There are many challenges coming up before our Bermuda cruise in May, most notably Passover.  I love matzo and often eat WAY too much of it during the holiday.  We also have our friend Frank here for nearly two weeks before, during, and after Passover, which leads to having more food than usual in the house.  Meanwhile, Florida life goes on with many meals in restaurants.  Today we are having lunch at the food kiosks at the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot.  Tonight is National Deep Dish Pizza day, so Mark is creating one from scratch.  Tomorrow we are having dinner out at the Kosher Gourmet restaurant in Kissimmee with three other friends.  Thursday we are having lunch out at  Buddy Freddy's Country Kitchen, a buffet in Plant City for the monthly NARFE meeting.  Sunday, after the Maccabeats Concert, ten of us are having dinner at a little restaurant called Le Cafe de Paris.  And it goes on and on.  If I'm in a good state of mind and feeling in control, I can manage a restaurant.  Mostly that does not happen, though.  So we shall see how well I can do.

Meanwhile, here are some more pictures from the cruise.  These are from the two sea days right after we left Miami and from our first two ports, St. Maarten and St. Kitts.

First formal night, now called Elegant Chic on Celebrity cruises.

Posing with an interesting sculpture on the wall of deck five as you go to the specialty restaurants.

This little dog statue was Mark's favorite piece!

They had a guest choir!  This is Michael, one of the production singers, Camille, the pianist from the Eclipse orchestra, and Rachel, another great production singer leading us in the choir rehearsal.

A Hard Day's Night was one of the evening shows.  Possibly the best Beatles tribute band we ever heard.

On St. Martin, we went to Orient Bay for a day on the beach. I'm reading the novel I bought from the author, Cathy Ace, who is a mystery writer and giving a series of five lectures during the cruise.

Enjoying the beautiful beach.

Walking along the edge is all I can do since I'm still not supposed to get my eyes in pools or oceans until the end of the month.

On St. Kitts we took a tour that took us to a former slave sugar plantation called Romney Manor that is now a Batik art colony.

Looking out over Romney Manor.

Next we went to Brimstone Hill Fortress, a big fort built by the British to defend the island from the French.  At first it failed and the French took over, but later the British took the island back and made the fort bigger and stronger.

We're back from a fabulous 14 day cruise

Before discussing the cruise and posting pictures, I must discuss my weight.

My last post said that on Saturday morning, March 19, I weighed 277.7.  Sadly, the very next morning I was up several pounds and set off to Miami weighing in at 280.5.  I just snacked and ate too much junk all day on Saturday.  So sad.

This morning I weighed only 283.2, so I was pleased that there was only a gain of 2.7 pounds in the entire fifteen days from March 20 to this morning, April 4.  That's not bad for a cruise!

I am back on track today. I have recorded everything. I went to the gym and lifted weights and walked 20 minutes.  It was a great walk!  We saw two big gators on the banks and another three in the water.  There were also lots of birds today including the usual herons, egrets, Sandhill cranes, and a big turkey that strolled past a sleeping gator on the bank, gobbling loudly as he walked!  So much fun to live here!

Yesterday we were supposed to have our friends Dave and Evey meet us at the house and go out to dinner and stay until Wednesday. Unfortunately, Evey developed shingles while in Florida.  Her doctor said that it would not be a good idea for me to be exposed to them since I have a compromised immune system after chemo and also have already had shingles once.  I could easily get them again, he said.  So they changed their plans and flew home today instead of coming up for a visit.  I hope she recovers quickly.  They are painful and NOT FUN.

Instead Mark and I unpacked, exercised, did laundry, shopped, and generally caught up on things like banking, paying bills, emails, and Facebook.  Now I'm finally writing a blog!

It's also the Opening Day for the Orioles baseball.  We are all settled in to watch it, wearing Os t-shirts and hats and drinking from Os mugs.  Unfortunately, it's cold and rainy in Baltimore, so the game has been on a rain delay for over half an hour at this point.  Sigh.  We will wait.

Yesterday was Evey's birthday and we had a nice long conversation with her to wish her well.  Eric took her out to one of her favorite restaurants last night.  She got lots of cash and gift cards for her birthday and was tooling around the Bed, Bath, and Beyond website, one of her favorite stores, planning on what to buy to decorate her new house!  They take possession on April 22 and will be all moved in by the last day of April.  We are so excited for them.

Now for the cruise!  Wow!  This was our first time on a Solstice class Celebrity ship and it did not disappoint.  The Eclipse is just gorgeous.  The crew was fantastic; the entertainment was exceptional; the food was delicious.  We enjoyed the ports, our table mates at dinner, absolutely EVERYTHING.

I  took over 1,000 pictures, so I cannot possibly share all of them.  Over the next few days of writing blogs, I'll include a few each day.

Here are some pictures from the day we board the ship, just so you can see how pretty it is.

Cabin 6302, the last one on the starboard side at the aft, right before the rooms face the back of the ship.  It had an extra deep balcony, which was nice, and completely shaded.

Fancy bathroom and lots of storage every where.

Indoor pool in the Adults Only Solarium.

Heated chairs in the Persian Garden.  We bought the unlimited use  package and went in almost every afternoon for a nap!

Using my phone for email and Facebook for the last time before sail away.

Outdoor pools and hot tubs.  All the lounge chairs were padded and there were more than enough for everybody.

Posing with an interesting sculpture between the shops and the casino on deck four.

Beautiful piece of art on deck five on the way back to the specialty restaurant area.

Another huge piece on deck five.  We love the art work on ships.  Mark took the tour and then went back and did a self-guided tour with an iPad from the guest relations desk.

Having our first drink as we set sail.  Using our phones for one final time!

Every public restroom, and there are plenty, had these beautiful big sinks in them!

Enjoying our extra large, extra shady balcony.