19 May 2006: Day 7 – From College Fjord To Whittier.

College Fjord… Well, I can’t remember what exactly a fjord is, but I think it’s some U-shaped water body so created by glacier formation. Nonetheless, we sailed into College Fjord early this afternoon.

What happened was I got woken up by my father, and then we went to have breakfast. Seemed like any other day on the ship, except tt today was our so-called final day onboard. My mom wanted to do laundry today, so we helped out with tt before lunch. Then we had to do our packing, coz we had to get everything tt we intended to check-in out our doors by 9pm.

After packing, I decided for the lack of having nothing better to do, to hit the gym. So I was there from between 3pm and 6pm. Interestingly enough, we were entering College Fjord just as I’d gotten on a machine. So I got this spectacular view of mountains and mountains and more beautiful mountains tt just flowed in never-ending succession in front of me. And the sea was so calm and beautiful tt you just forgot the pain and the exhaustion, if indeed there was any, and you could just go on and on, propelled by the view.

And there were mountain goats again. Could see them on the sides of some of the mountains. Apparently some people saw some humpbacks and dolphins as well, but unfortunately I didn’t catch them.

What is interesting about College Fjord is tt the glaciers (yes, there are glaciers here too) are mainly named after the famous American colleges. You’ve got for example, the Harvard glacier, and the Yale glacier. I think the only glacier tt isn’t named for a college is the Crescent glacier, and tt is only coz it is so named coz it is crescent-shaped.

The fantastic thing about being in the College Fjord, is tt you were once again, completely surrounded by great scenery. So when I returned to the stateroom, I managed to get quite a few good photos of the glaciers and the icebergs from my balcony.

This is one view…



And another…



And another…



And finally, my mom and I. Yes the wind is very strong.



We went to the lounge for a couple of cocktails, and then it was onward to Pacific Moon for dinner. Tomorrow would be my mom’s actual birthday, so we decided to settle it one day beforehand here.



Me before dinner. Looking spastic. Hee hee.



My appetizer for tonight was creamy chicken and mushroom vol-au-vent – meaning served in a puff pastry. Entrée for the night was prime rib.



I liked my beef medium-rare. Bloody good, as I’d like to say.



And dessert for me – Brandy Alexander Pie, which consists of a layer of pure whipped cream and hazelnut cream served on a pastry base with chocolate krispies sprinkled on the top. But if you think tt is good, wait till you see my mom’s birthday cake.



That’s her with the cake.



And altogether now.

All the waiters in the restaurant gathered round to sing Happy Birthday to her.

Speaking of which, there were 2 waiters here who served us regularly, one of whom was called Leo tt my parents liked so much tt they tipped him generously and gave him their contact numbers.



This is him. I think he won them over from the night he dashed downstairs to find my father’s elusive English mustard (he won’t take any other) to go with his prime rib steak.

After tt, it was to settle the exorbitant shipboard account…

At which point I’ll give you a look of how the grand atrium looks like from a grand angle…



Voila! Complete with all the other people lining up to settle their accounts.

And then it was on to bed. We arrived at the port of Whittier around 10pm. Even before the sky had gotten dark (the sun is setting later and later now. At some point in time it will definitely probably only set past midnight).

So this is Whittier as the ship approaches…



From far… And then from close up.



I watched “Walk The Line” to sleep, finally. But I didn’t really get to sleep tho. Too used to sleeping too late. And it seemed more uncomfortable tonight. I don’t think I managed to fall asleep even before 2am.