Breakaway Day 2

We had breakfast at the buffet this morning. Not as much variety as we found on some other ships, but the food was good and there were enough choices for us. They had very good, buttery croissants, so Ray was happy. We took a little walk around the ship after breakfast and went back to our balcony to read and enjoy the sea breeze.

As part of the deal for getting a free cruise, we are expected to attend a private art auction every morning. It is a great opportunity to see some of the finest works Park West has to offer. Today's auction showcased a lot of original works by Peter Max, with some hard to find mixed media and serigraphs thrown in. There were also some pieces by Renaissance masters such as Rembrandt, Goya, and Chagall on display. The surprise of the day was that Peter Max has now taken up acrylic sculpture. They showed 4 pieces, each one styled after one of Peter's iconic figures - an angel, 2 hearts, a vase of flowers, and the umbrella man. Each was painted on the back so it showed through the acrylic.

After the auction we had lunch, wandered through the shops, then went back to our room for a quiet afternoon of reading and embroidery. I am trying my hand at red work. We had a lesson in this style of embroidery at Fabric Fun Arts & Crafts a week ago. I traced a pattern onto cloth before we left and brought the project along as something light and small to work on.

I did go back down to the shops at 3pm to attend a jewelry presentation and prize drawing. I won a t-shirt that says "Happy Wife, Happy Life" and a lanyard with the jewelry distributor's name on it.

At the cocktail hour we were introduced to a new up and coming artist, David LeBatard, better known as Lebo. He is well known in South Florida and was chosen to paint the bow of the Breakaway's sister ship, the Getaway.

Dinner for our group tonight was at "Moderno", a Brazilian steak house. This was very different, as we didn't have to order anything. The meal began with salad bar. We each had a little card next to our plate that was red on one side and green on the other. When we were finished with salad and ready for the meal we were to turn the card over to green to signal the waiters. They came around with skewers full of meat, each one different, asking if we wanted each one. Of course we had to try a little of each. There were ribs, 2 kinds of sausage, lamb, several cuts of steak and I don't remember what else. After all the meat had come around once they brought out rice, mashed potatoes, fried bananas, and something I couldn't identify. They continued yo come around offering more of the meats until we all had turned our cards back over to red. Then they offered our choice of 3 desserts. Needless to say, we went away very, very full. This trip is not going to be good for our diets!