I've been out of internet land for two days and in that two days I've had one extremely amazing meal and two very fine meals. The amazing meal was on Wednesday at Aqua Grill (address 210 Spring Street, New York). I met up with a friend from high school in the afternoon and we traipsed around in rainy NYC looking at many interesting Japanese type stores. I refrained from buying anything but my friend did treat me to an especially good pot of Earl Grey tea. She and I then met up with her boyfriend and, eventually, Seth for the meal to end all meals. And it was about time. Aqua Grill specializes, get this, in seafood. We went crazy crazy crazy. Not one but two and a half dozen oysters…the first round was 6 Malpeques and 6-er I forget because the Malpeques were so god damn good, they got an initial five golden star rating (wait I remember Kumomotos from Washington State). But then, with the arrival of Seth and an insatiable desire for more bi valves, we had the Hama Hamas and they usurped the five golden star spot and so the Malpeques will have to be satisfied with their four and a half stars. Oh my goodness they were good. For an entrée, of sorts, I had the soft shell crab appetizer which was quite good. Really the stars of the meal were the oysters…though their dirty vodka martinis were awfully tasty.
On Thursday my parents and I went to Deux Amis near our hotel. We shared the fois gras terrine and Salad Nicoise. For an entrée I had the roast chicken breast with potatoes Daphinois (spelling?).
Now for the QM2.
The Queen Mary II was very much an abstract notion to me. A funny thing I was going to take part in but not an actual thing past the conceit (what this means is a little fuzzy I plan on working on the idea at a latter moment in time). I imagine that, to a much lesser extent, the suspension of belief is similar to what an expectant mother goes through. It is a remote thing, the distance from its actual being making it conceivable. But as the months become weeks and then the weeks suddenly disappear into days and then the days are whittled down to hours and finally it's a matter of minutes and you still don't quite understand what exactly is going on.
We left our hotel around 11:30 in order to get to the boat and board by 12:30. Our driver had never been to the Brooklyn port in question and my parents became a little nervous about it due to his rather limited English…I, however, was not worried…I'm always the most laid back of the three of us when it comes to travel, I think. As we approached the bridge (I think it was the Brooklyn Bridge, but I'm not sure) we could see, in the distance, the Queen Mary II but she still seemed not completely real. (You should also understand that I'm sitting in this pub listening to some piano man sing jazz loungey versions of Beatles songs…currently Strawberry Fields Forever). Our driver said something to the effect of, 'that's your boat, yes?' and we replied 'well, yes'. But once we got to the actual terminal our driver said, with proper emphasis, 'that's a BIG boat' to which we replied (just as awestruck I think) 'yes, a very big boat'. The check in process was amazingly swift and easy. Seriously people, boat travel is the way to go…there's no wait, at all! Within fifteen minutes we were through security and walking up a glass walled walkway. Once we reached the end of the walkway a woman used a fancy bar code scanner to scan our newly made cruise IDs (with awful photograph of course) and then we were in.
The Queen Mary 2 has twelve floors that the guests are allowed to see and I would suppose at least another ten for the crew and inner workings…I may be wrong about this but I can't be sure.
We didn't set sail until five, so we took in our surroundings a bit then went to the buffet lunch on the seventh floor. Then there was more exploration. We had a half pint at The Golden Lion, saw the outside of the brig, briefly looked into the Royal Court Theater, sat in lounge chairs, sipped champagne and pointed at the Statue of Liberty. About forty minutes before the boat left the port we had a safety drill that consisted of hearing the alarm system, going to our appointed emergency assembly place and sitting with a whole lot of other people (most over sixty, I'd say) and listening to some guy on an intercom system tell us what to do if we see someone go overboard (mainly throw any thing that will float in after them and yell 'MAN OVERBOARD!'), how to work our life vests and what the proper way of jumping off a boat is (use your thumb and forefinger to close your nostrils then put the rest of your hand tightly over your mouth…use your other arm to firmly keep your jacket from riding up when you land in the water…proper getting into the water technique is to walk straight off the boat, NO jumping).
After the drill was over we all jockeyed for positions for our departure. My parents and I went to the highest observation deck, along with about fifty other people. As the boat began to move, the huge horns blew (see photograph) and a man who cares about New York maritime history tried to explain to us which land mass was which and why it was interesting. We passed a Staten Island Ferry and the newest ship in the Princess Line the two ships had an ear shattering exchange of horn hellos. We then went under a bridge that felt very close to our heads. Then people started straggling off. We, too, straggled off for a brief respite in our cabin.
Our cabin is an inside cabin. My father had hoped to upgrade but the Queen Mary is filled up to capacity and so we have no view. This is regrettable but not all that bad, there are a million places to sit inside and outside anyways. Our cabin is small but not overly claustrophobic, there are two single beds and then two pull-out-of-the-ceiling beds above them and enough closet space that we're not tripping over anything other than our own feet.
We have the late seating for dinner at the Brittania Restaurant and so dinner for us was at 8:30. We met two of our dinner mates (out of a possible three) and their names are Arnold and Fred (not really those are just names I made up for them). Alan is a late twenty something guy who is actually here to update/maintain the theater's show board/technology stuff. He says it's really only two days' worth of work but that the Queen is never in the same port for two days so he's doing it whilst going across the Atlantic. Ned is a sixty something man and I'm not sure what I think of him. His wife didn't accompany him tonight but I'm sure we'll meet her tomorrow. Ned worked for a classic car part manufacturing company but he's retired now and lives in Charlotte. Alan grew up in France to American parents and now lives in Miami. For dinner I had the salmon terrine with keta caviar (a slightly more bitter egg than ikura, but similar in looks), an oak leaf and boston salad and something that was like beef tenderloin but with a name I forget that came with potatoes, peas and Yorkshire pudding.
That may be all I have to say (a lot I guess). Hopefully tomorrow I'll figure out the wi-fi and be able to post this relatively quickly before going on to a whole new set of things.
Boat internet is a little slow on the upload draw and so I may have to severely limit my images...I had narrowed them down to fourteen but that's way too many. So, I guess, you'll get the full imagistic glory at some other point in time.
Today I got up way before my parents and went for a swim in the Pavilion Bar and Pool area. Very short pool but very close to our cabin. Then my mother and I had breakfast, then we went to the pub and had a screwdriver and bloody mary, respectively, while watching the England Paraguay soccer game.
