Today we’re scheduled to go back to Razzle Dazzle for brunch at 9:15. Then we’re going to head over to Corfu where Shannon wants to have a beach day. I’m more inclined to want to explore the old city a bit.
We went down to the coffee shop around 8:45 to get a cappuccino and wait for our 9:15 brunch at the Razzle Dazzle. We played Go Fish and Shannon trounced me. I was trying to talk her into going to work a shift down at McMurdo in Antarctica but she was not very interested; its not super likely we would both be chosen, and her skill set isn’t related to the needs down there.
The Razzle Dazzle brunch was OK. I had a pistachio cherry waffle thing, which wasn’t very crispy, but was rather sweet. The actual best part was the side of scrambled eggs and side of bacon. Shannon called it “million dollar bacon” and compared it to something she’d had previously and seen on social media. Basically it was smoky bacon with maybe some kind of pepper flake/heat and brown sugar. She didn’t like it much, but I thought it was great. Shannon had vegetable dumplings, a fried egg, and a little bit of the bacon.
After this, we went over to Corfu. Thankfully we’re docked here, so no tender was required. It was meant to be a two-stage bus ride, but we couldn’t get on the bus from the boat to the end of the terminal because a ton of people rushed in front of us and got on instead of us despite us being in line first. So we walked down to the end of the terminal and then got on the other shuttle bus.
We were dropped off in a park area on the edge of the old city. Corfu is an interesting mix of Greece and the last couple places we went. I guess I’d actually say it was more reminiscent of Athens again. It’s a bit grittier than our other Greek ports. No white plaster and blue roofs here. It’s 4-6 story buildings, close in on each other. The streets were very close, and nearly everything was little cafes, churches, and souvenir shops. The souvenirs were back to being also much more sexual.
Our first destination was St. Spyridon church. I went in a couple others on the way to that one. In the Orthodox ones, people were in lines to kiss icons around the church, and in the first one I went into, also a casket with a dead person or some other form of relics in it. It was definitely a casket with a glass case so you could see whatever was in it, but I didn’t get close enough to see if it was a person, or bones, or what.
We had to generally ascend elevation to get there. Eventually we arrived, and it was somewhat impressive. Lots of the churches we’ve seen, particularly the Orthodox ones, had things for sale. The icon kissing was a lot more here than anywhere else we’d been so far.
This is a much bigger city population wise, also clearly very lived-in compared to the tourist-only areas.
Our next destination was the Liston Promenade. This wasn’t that interesting, as it turned out. There were a lot of little restaurants in and around the colonnade. Finally we made our way up to the Faliraki Beach, and then back to the bus rendezvous point.
All things considered we spent a couple hours over in Corfu. It may have been our least favorite port, but I think it is suffering from being the last port.
Tonight’s dinner is the Italian place, Extra Virgin. Shannon will hopefully enjoy this. I’ll see if I can figure out a way to get a satisfying experience.
I hung around, took a nap, finished listening to the Psalms on audio, and generally relaxed. I also took a shower.
Dinner at 6pm was Extra Virgin. I started with the Crispy Artichoke, which I should have had the last time we went to Extra Virgin instead of that weird burrata cheese. The artichoke was the highlight of the meal. I got the potato gnocchi for my pasta, which Shannon told me was too mushy. It definitely needed salt and pepper. For the dinner, I picked the pork cheek, and it was very small and came on a bed of those farro grains despite the menu not saying so. I basically immediately ordered a steak, which was OK but too sweet again. I tried to skip dessert, but they had a raspberry rose sorbetti and after Lisa said it did have a rose flavor, I got some. It didn’t taste very rosy. Shannon had the meatballs, pappardella pasta, and the steak. She ate off the raspbery rose sorbetti a bit as well.
After dinner, we went to the Red Room to watch a mentalist. Shannon was not excited to go, as we had already seen a couple magic shows, but this was a bit different. He started off doing some kind of math grid thing to warm up, where he had 4 by 4 boxes, and got some digits from the audience, a 7 and a 5, and then had a third person say whether it should be 57 or 75. The person went with 75, and then in less than 30 seconds he filled in the grid so almost any way you did math on it, the digits he filled in added up to 75.
His next demonstration was to have everyone stand and then mentally draw a picture, and then he had a huge chunk of the audience sit down if they drew common things like a house, flower, tree, vehicle, etc. We were left with ultimately 3 people with “different” and “impressive” minds. These 3 people had to choose from 4 envelopes on the stage where he used word manipulations to direct people to which envelope they would choose. One of them had $100 in it. Each envelope he had a message in it saying the order it would end up being chosen and who would choose it. No one won the prize.
Finally, he had someone write down the name of their pet from childhood, and a friend or lost contact from childhood and he was able to come up with the names, which he did successfully.
Shannon asked Gemini later how this was all accomplished, and basically, as the performer confirmed, it was not any type of actual psychological ability. It is achieved via subtle looking at the papers, cold reading, manipulation, etc.
After the performance, we went to get an ice cream. I had the malted strawberry milkshake and Shannon got the coffee chip. We sat out on deck 7 and enjoyed the cool evening, then later went up to the back of deck 15 for some decaf coffee and conversation, while watching the evening commence. Back at the room later, I was ready for bed, but the coffee chip ice cream had Shannon a bit wired up.
