Charleston to New York


Charleston turned out to be more of a success than we had in Savannah. Although it was 

overcast, we were able to walk around and see a good part of the central city. We first 

took the local bus in a loop that ran through most of the downtown area and then we 

walked around the areas we had seen that interested us. It is a very old and historic

 city mixed with a section of university town. There are lots of boutiques, antique 

stores and old buildings, both as retail stores, office and public buildings or homes.

 We spent the morning walking and then headed to a restaurant that friends of friends 

had recommended, called SNOB or Slightly North of Broad. It seems everyone knows 

someone who recommended the place as we waited for an hour to get in. SNOB specializes 

in Low Country style cooking, which means the Carolinas. There are grits in a lot of the

 menu items, for instance. We ended up sitting at a small counter looking into the 

kitchen, which of course worked well for us as we could see  what was going into the meals

 we ate. Charleston could be a two day visit as there is probably a lot in the 

surrounding area to see as well.

We set sail at 6pm, heading for New York, New York. This would be Oceania's first time 

stopping at Savannah, Charleston, New York or Bermuda, so it is all new to all of us, 

guests and staff. We had lobster and filet mignon as we sailed away from Charleston.

The next morning was the first of 3 cooking classes for Daryl – a 3 part course on making 

pasta. We spent 2 hours making pasta dough from scratch and learning the best ingredients 

to use. We also learned how to use various equipment items for rolling the dough and 

cutting it into fettuccine or angel hair. We also learned to make tortellini from wonton 

wrappers. Ask me about the correct uses for various olive oils and salts – I am so into 

this now! At the next class we will use the dough we made in class #1 for actual “summer” 

pasta dishes. The instructor is a senior instructor at the Culinary Institute of America 

and is very into healthy eating, etc. She is assisted by a chef from the special 

restaurant on board, La Privee, where the meals cost $1000 extra each and another 

instructor from the CIA who will take over the classes on the next cruise. 

The afternoon was less interesting as it involved laundry. However, we are now charging 

though all the paperbacks we brought and moving on to our experiment of reading on a 

Kindle. If we had a fireplace in the cabin, all would be perfect. As it is, there is 

certainly no complaint about anything.