Day 11 – May 10 2010 – Corfu, Greece, Doc’s bday

One of my favorite things to do is make someone a birthday present. Those of you who have been lucky enough to receive one from me (KIDDING!) know how much I like to personalize and put a lot of thought into it. Last night, I found out that it was my friend, Pieter’s birthday today, so it was emergency mix cd time! I busted one out yesterday and I have to say it was one of my best birthday mixes yet. The doctor (Pieter) was scheduled off for the whole day and Eric and I had lots of plans made to make it a fun 44th on the ship.

First stop was Corfu, Greece – a small city on the west coast with a quaint bazaar district and beautiful fortresses.

We walked from the port to the bazaar and headed pretty directly to one of the restaurants that offers crew a discount. :)

On the way through the streets, I had my first sight of the famous bright crimson bougainvillea hanging between two colonial buildings. It was stunning against the pastels of the architecture.

Lunch was delicious! I had my first authentic Greek Salad – tomatoes, cucumber, onions and feta with olive oil and herbs. The feta was especially divine, but I have to say…. I really was missing some good old American Greek dressing! Haha… Eric tipped the waiter off that it was a birthday lunch, so they brought out some fantastic fruit and pudding-type of dessert.

After lunch, we walked around some more, walked past the Palace of St. George and St. Michael… LOL. We walked slowly along the water on our way back to the ship, taking in the remains and influence of colonial rule.

Once back on the boat, we only had a short break before the evening’s festivities began. Once of the nurses, Sydney organized a birthday Tea in the medical center and invited Eric and I to join them in celebrating. We had a really wonderful cake there that was sort of a spice cake with buttercream icing. Rich and yummy… Then we all quickly changed and literally ran to the Theatre where there was a Magic Show. On our production show off nights, there are various special guest entertainment and the Magicians were here this week. After seeing lots of really great magic this past year at the Magic Castle and related events, I guess I’ve been a bit spoiled when it comes to seeing quality acts. This duo was not the best I’ve seen, but it was only 45 minutes of the night.

After the show, we had dinner reservations at the ship’s steak house, where I had the most amazing chopped salad and a Saffron Vegetable Casserole – basically mixed vegetables in a squash and saffron puree. We had the third birthday cake there and headed to the Spinnaker Lounge where the dancers were about to start their weekly Dancing with the Gem Stars competition. Guests get to volunteer and choose a dancer from our cast. They have to do a series of dances (The Chicken Dance, a Salsa, the Cupid Shuffle…) and they are judged by a panel of one of our male singers, the asst. cruise director and a hostess at reservations. It was actually a lot of fun and the guests and crowd really get into it.

As if we hadn’t done enough, we had one more stop on the birthday train… BOWLING! Eric got us the VIP room at Bliss and we had a 4th cake and the whole cast came over from Spinnaker and we bowled one huge game…WHICH I WON! It’s unheard of, I know, but I did!

I was so exhausted by the end of the night and had a very full day of show laundry and SANTORINI ahead of me!