Day 9 / Sunday August 28th / Dikili, Turkey

Dikili, Turkey is another Turkish resort town for Russians. It is also a tender location, meaning to get on shore one has to go down to the bowels of the ship and wait in line to get onto a small transport boat. There weren’t any locations on shore which I felt a pressing need to see. So Mom and I decided to stay on board and have a day of rest. The next two days involved Monday / very long tour of Istanbul and Tuesday / very long day of travel starting at 4:30am. So we wanted to gather our strength to prepare for that.

Looking out of our balcony, it seemed as if there was a really cool ‘Stonehenge’ kind of structure on the mountain ridge of shore. But zooming in more, it turns out it was just a series of brown apartment buildings. So that is all I really saw of Dikili.

The lunch menu was a delightful buffet of Middle Eastern food, so we enjoyed that on the back patio. Then Mom rested while I wrote my ship-based novella. By the end of the afternoon I’d fully finished novella #1 at 16,000 words and was part-way through novella #2. I like to work on the novellas while actually on the cruise so I remember all the little details and can double-check descriptions of locations.

Every day on the ship they have trivia contests and Mensa quizzes. One of today’s entries on the Mensa quiz baffled us. It read:

5. If the cube root of 8 is 2, cross out all the Q’s and U’s if not, cross out the R. If Queen Elizabeth II could have met President Wilson, cross out the “I”; if not, cross out the Y’s. If the Bahamas are south of North Carolina, cross out the M’s; if not, cross out the T. What do you have?

Now, I was troubled enough by the question using apostrophes for plurals, when they don’t belong there. But the entire question seemed to imply you started with a word or phrase. There was no word or phrase anywhere on the page that matched the letters indicated here. So that was bizarre.

Finally it was time to get dressed. We went down to a lounge to listen to some music. Then, as we passed through the main lobby, we realized it was the big celebration of Regent’s 30th anniversary! They had ice sculptures, Champagne, music, and it was all in a “thirties” theme. They played “Puttin’ On The Ritz” and all we could think of was Young Frankenstein :).

The celebration then moved into the theater where various ship-board people put on a talent show. It was interesting to watch. Some of the workers clearly did have some talent.

A table with a big box of passports was put out in the main lobby, with staff there. I went up to the table with my mom and gave our suite number to pick up ours. The staff woman opened a passport up and said, “Here you go, Ann Waller. You grew your hair out!” I said, “No, my mom is Ann. I’m Elizabeth.” She looked between us in confusion as if I’d gotten my name wrong. She then said, “You look so alike!”

It was now time for our dinner at Pacific Rim, the Asian restaurant. There was a big cylinder of prayer wheels at the entrance which I thought was quite pretty.

They had a nice range of menu options there, from Chinese to Japanese to Thai and more. I admit we were a bit spoiled on Oceania where they had a beautiful selection of chopsticks you could choose from, and a fantastic set of teas were presented at the beginning as well. On the Oceania these were tiny details which elevated the experience. Here you just got what you got. There were other little issues, too, like serving edamame in shells but not giving you any small bowl or plate to put those shells into.

I texted Jenn my sis a photo of the circle-square dessert, teasing, “They don’t even line them up”. Her response: “Artistically off-track to remind you of the chaotic nature of the universe.”

So Mom challenged Jenn to describe the next dessert.

Jenn said: “Wow. The arch of Heaven. The firmament of Earth and Plants and a worm. And the Earth. The raisin things are … elephants?” To which Mom replied, “Yes … more effort exerted in presentation rather than taste. The arch of heaven was too crunchy and collapsed immediately.” Jenn replied, “Sounds like reality.”

:). We have fun with these things.

At last dinner was over. Mom and I went right to bed – tomorrow in Istanbul was going to be a LONG long day.

Steps: 2,401