After returning from playing with puppies and having a meal, I went back out in the evening – hunting for northern lights. We started at the Tromsø planetarium, where we watched a 360-degree movie about the science of aurora with images created by a local photographer. We then boarded buses and drove around for 90-minutes hoping that the clouds would open up. Which they did not. The most excitement was when our bus almost hit a reindeer.

Upon return to the ship we were told that our next port of Alta was cancelled due to gale-force winds coming from the north. Thus, there went my other two scheduled evening northern lights photography chances. There were still clear weather forecast in the coming days, but no events planned. We shall see.

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Long-time Cruiseboysians may remember Silversea’s “Sea and Land Taste” program, or “S.A.L.T.” The ship has a restaurant and bar with a changing menu reflecting the local tastes of the foods and drinks of the lands we are sailing near. In addition, they have a teaching kitchen. Which has been totally booked by other passengers during this cruise. But with the change in itinerary I managed to sneak in to learn how to make traditional Norwegian open-faced sandwiches, or “Smørrebrød“.

We had ingredients to make three types of sandwiches – roast beef, salmon and veggie.

The veggie was a mix of beet and celery root, sliced like cole slaw, mixed with egg, flour and nutmeg. This was the only part we cooked during the class.

After cooking you add yogurt to the veggies as a topping (I mixed it in instead). The salmon dish included sliced fennel marinated in lemon juice and olive oil and the roast beef used pickled onions. The chef prepared both beforehand.

The bread was a buttered rye, and they all were quite tasty, What I enjoy from the SALT classes is learning how tastes I would never had thought to combine work together.

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As a last note, here is how proper chefs make french toast on this ship.