DAY 25 – ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND – SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2012 (after days 22-24 at sea)

After our longest time at sea, three days, we arrived on the North American continent again, and I have to say I am happy to be nearing home. For many travelers, cruising is the thing, and the ports of call are little side diversions to see a city or country briefly, then get back on board where the real fun takes place and the 4,000 calories a day are “free.” For me it is just the opposite, the culture of the country or city being visited is the main attraction. Perhaps I will do a blog post on the pros and cons of cruising, from my opinionated viewpoint. Or maybe not.

At any rate, I looked forward to being on land again and exploring our first “surprise” port of call, since Greenland had to be canceled. I knew nothing about St. John's, except that my brother, St. John Traxler spent time here (or was it nearby Labrador?) in the Army during the Korean Conflict. Fortunately, there was no conflict here. Since neither Princess nor St. John's knew we were coming until three days before, both scrambled to arrange tours, etc. The Emerald Princess has 3,080 passengers and it just so happened that another cruise line was in port the same day with maybe 2,000 passengers, meaning that a town of 100,000 had its population increased by 5% that day!

We decided to explore the town on our own, armed with maps and a little internet-based research. However, the research did not show that everything is up steep hills, not the best for Karen's stamina. We walked three blocks uphill to look at St. John the Baptist Anglican Church with its beautiful stained-glass windows, then decided we needed some help to get around. St. John's tourist bureau had red-vested folks on the dock and around town to answer questions and provide help. (As far as I know, none of them were Dixieland musicians.) Imagine being besieged by hoards of tourists wanting all kinds of information and wanting to book tours, taxis, and boat rides. The good people of St. John's took it all in stride, never losing their cool.

Discussing the people of the town with our dinner tablemates in the evening, we were amazed at how nice everyone was, absolutely wanting us to have a good time. Then we remembered that these were the same people who, when inbound international flights on 9/11 were diverted here, and thousands of stranded travelers were taken into homes all over Newfoundland, fed, lent clothes and other items if necessary, for several days until they could reboard their planes for destinations in the U.S. These are some great people!

We managed to book a bus tour in the afternoon, so with time to kill, we wondered up and down Water Street (which did not change elevation!) and found a great place to eat called the Gypsy Tea Room, although I didn't see any gypsies, and we didn't have tea. But we did have fantastic cod chowder with mussels.

Boarding the bus (which was actually a city transit bus pressed into tour bus service) our first stop was up the hill overlooking the city, the narrow inlet from the sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. This was the site of Cabot Tower, perhaps 300 feet (my guess) above the city. The tower was built in 1897 on the 400^th anniversary of John Cabot's discovery of a “new founde lande” in North America. What impressive views! The hill is call “Signal Hill” because on this site in 1901, Marconi received his first wireless transmission from Europe, a single letter S. Probably at about the same speed as our onboard internet today. :-) More about Signal Hill later.

The view from Signal Hill, St. John's, Newfoundland

From here we went down the hill (well, where else, come to think of it) and outside the city to a picturesque fishing village, Quidi Vidi, which means... well, no one knows what it means. Then back to the city along the streets with so many colorful houses, actually low rows of tenements. The guide explained in answer to a question that the town was 60% destroyed by fire in the 19^th century and had to be rebuilt in a hurry, so long rows of identical tenements were constructed. A rule was passed at that time that no two tenements in the same block could be painted the same color, hence the very attractive houses that would otherwise be dreadfully boring. Also, drunk citizens could find their home (as long as they were on the right street and block!).

Quidi Vidi - with Jimmi and Kareni - and no jackets! First warm day in two weeks!

I did not realize that until 1949, Newfoundland was a country, a British colony. That year they had a referendum with three choices: Remain independent, join in an economic union with the U.S., or become a province of Canada. The U.S. union was not at all popular, so it was dropped from the ballot and the citizenry voted by a narrow majority to become a Canadian province. Its history in the world wars was important, too, as the easternmost point in the continent, and thousands of British and American troops were stationed there as a first line of defense for the Western hemisphere. However, there was no invasion, of course, although German U-boats were in the area.

Our last stop was another St. John the Baptist church, this time the Catholic Basilica. We could not get a tour of the church, as there was a wedding in process, but we were able to peek in and see this beautiful church, also with incredible stained-glass windows like its Anglican cousin down the hill.

Back on the ship we went on our balcony to watch this huge vessel go through the narrows, with very little clearance on either side. As we made this passage, up on Signal Hill, hundreds of feet above us, there were a hundred or so citizens of St. John, waving goodby. Apparently this is a tradition in this town that does not get a lot of cruise ships. Again, we were impressed by these impossibly nice people!

As we cleared the narrows with the sun setting over St. John and we sailed into a dense fog, I had a foreboding feeling as a knock came on the door and a darkly dressed person entered, waving a pistol in my face. I immediately threw myself over Karen to protect her, and...

Oh, wait, that's a novel I'm writing. Never mind!

Jim

DAY 21 – REYKJAVIK, ICELAND – TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2012 (day 20 at sea)

As you know by now, I'm a country counter and proud of it. A couple places I never thought I would get to are Iceland and Greenland, and they are part of the reason I selected this cruise. So now I have been to Iceland and will describe that adventure here, but when we got back to the ship we received bad news: the call at Greenland has been cancelled! Oh, no! And for no particular reason, other than expected 21 foot waves, 40 knot winds, and icebergs in the area. What a bunch of wusses! (Says the traveler who was mildly seasick two days ago in less stormy seas.)

They have substituted two ports of call, St. Johns, Newfoundland and Saint John, New Brunswick. Big deal! I've been to Canada, eh? But I haven't been to those provinces, so maybe I'll start counting provinces. I've been to all 50 states but to only three provinces, Ontario, Quebec, and British Columbia. But this trip will end with my country count at 42 instead of 43. Dang! So, anyway, back to Iceland visit yesterday.

I had no idea what to expect as we began our tour, as I had done almost no research on Iceland. I'm betting most of you don't know much either. Here's a very short version: picture Yellowstone without any trees. Reykjavik (if you ignore the letter J, it's easy to pronounce) is a really nice, clean and somewhat colorful city of about 180,000 inhabitants, or just a little larger than Parma, I think! The entire country of Iceland has only 400,000 residents, less than the city of Cleveland. Our tour took us out into the countryside and we spent no time in Reykjavik other than to have some key sights pointed out to us as we drove through.

Even before we left the outskirts of the city, we began to observe the lava fields, vast areas of what appeared to be giant gray sponges that stretched for miles. Some had no vegetation, but most had some mosses, lichens, and at times grasses growing on them, but no trees whatsoever. It seemed like a moonscape. As the elevation increased we began to see steam coming out of various places on the hillsides. We stopped at a bubbling mudpot area where wooden pathways had been built over the hot areas. Our guide said, “Stay on the pathways. Tourists can be soft-boiled in four minutes!”

We also drove past lakes in the mountains that have no inlet and no outlet, but are fed from springs. Since Iceland was formed “only” a few million years ago, virtually all the land is basaltic rock. They have no granite or sandstone, for example, so almost everything is black or brown. It is a fascinating landscape. We did go through farming areas, where the rock has broken down to form soil. They have an abundance (relative to the human population) of sheep and cattle, and crops are mostly vegetables and hay.

Icelandic horses are very interesting. They are not much larger than ponies, but are truly horses. They have stubby noses and long fur. Our guide said they are the only horses in the world with five gaits. Besides the normal walk, trot, canter and pace, they have a unique gait where only one hoof is on the ground at any point in time. She said the ride with this gait (which can be as fast as needed) is so smooth you could drink a cup of tea while riding without spilling a drop.

We stopped for lunch at a little town called Stokkeyn, where we were served very efficiently in a family style with lots of veggies, salad, potatoes, and.... langustini (sp?). They are similar in size to prawns but taste like lobster, and they were delicious! They came well-cooked in wooden bowls with loads of garlic butter. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. We threw politeness and gentility to the winds and tore into them with our hands, pulling out the meat, gobbling it down, then reaching for more. I don't know how many I ate, but surely you would have to count in dozens. Yet with eight of us sharing that bowl, and most as greedy as I, there were still three of the little critters left in the bottom of the bowlwhen we left. Also wonderful was the bread, which we dipped in the garlic butter in the bowl. Best meal of the entire trip, and there have been some great ones.

This town was within sight of Eyjafjallajokull (easy for them to say), the volcano that erupted in 2011 and caused all air traffic in Europe to be canceled for several days. Also, we could see the Myrdalsjokull glacier. Glaciers cover about 10% of Iceland (so, despite the name, it's 90% ice-free!). The lowlands near the coast are green in their summer, but the highlands that cover most of the island are pretty much barren. The climate, at least in the inhabited coastal lowlands, are surprisingly temperate, despite being further north than most of the rest of the world land areas. She said Reykjavik rarely gets below 20 degrees F in the winter, actually more moderate than Cleveland in January. However in the summer, if the temperature gets to 70, it is a major heat wave. (It was in the 40's but sunny on our day there, comfortable with layers of clothing.) They benefit from being in the Gulf Stream flow, of course.

Like all the other Scandinavian countries we visited, it is very much a high tax country with high levels of government provided services for education, medicine, and other benefits. Despite their recent financial troubles, almost entirely due to the banks, they are a very prosperous nation (4% unemployment) with the average income at about $36,000 per year. The first $12,000 is tax-free and the rest is taxed at 27 to 47%. They have no army, but are members of NATO. They have not joined the European Union for a number of reasons, principally because of EU restrictions on fishing, which is Iceland's largest industry.

One of the most interesting aspects of Iceland is that geothermal resources are their primary source of energy and heat. They drill down 1,000 feet and are supplied with extremely hot water or steam which they can convert to electricity or use to heat their homes and businesses at very low cost, perhaps 20% of our costs. It is so cheap that a major Australian aluminum manufacturer ships its bauxite ore all the way to Iceland to be smelted, which has a major energy requirement. Despite the cost of shipping ore halfway around the world, then shipping the finished product to market from Iceland, it is cheaper than producing it in Australia!

Hope I didn't bore you with a bunch of facts and figures. I'm an information junkie. But you can understand from all this, perhaps, that Iceland is like no other place on earth. It's worth a visit, and I learned that if you fly to Europe for vacation, you can make a stop in Iceland, stay up to seven days before continuing, and it is still the same flight, i.e. it does not add cost. A great idea, and one way to alleviate jet lag.

Well, now it's three days at sea before we see land again, as we cross the Atlantic to North America, so you probably won't hear from me until after Newfoundland, unless I begin to suffer from blogging withdrawal. Nothing that exciting on bored, I mean, on board, except for round 2 of the Princess Pop Choir, coming up tonight. Oh, What a Night! No, you misunderstand. That's the name of our first song.

Jim

DAY 19 – BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND – SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2012

Only a few years ago, no cruise ship ever stopped at Belfast, for obvious reasons. With the decades-long sectarian violence there, no cruise line could guarantee the safety of its passengers on a port call there. Thankfully, those days are behind for the good citizens of Belfast as well as travelers who want to see the beautiful city and the striking vistas of the coastline of County Antrim. That is not to say that the differences and generations of mistrust do not simmer beneath the surface, but to almost everyone's amazement, there is peace in the city and a somewhat integrated government. More about that later.

We had chosen a tour to see the Antrim coast, including the Giant's Causeway, a World Heritage Site. The Antrim coast begins just north of Belfast and goes around the northeastern tip of Ireland to the town of Portrush. Our bus driver skillfully negotiated a narrow winding road that hugs the coastline most of the way giving breathtaking views of the Irish Sea, high cliffs, and rolling hills that include “stepladder farms,” so named because they have the hillside divided by horizontal and vertical hedgerows that from a distance look like stepladders.

We had an excellent guide (haven't had a poor one yet!) with a delightful Northern Irish accent (at least it sounded different from Dublin) where every diphthong that we would pronounce “ow” as in “town” came out sounding “eye” so “town” became “tyne.” “House” was “hice” and “south” was “sythe” and so forth. I had to smile every time I heard it – after I figured out what she was saying in the beginning.

We stopped at a miniscule town called Carlough with about 300 of our closest friends in 7 buses for tea (or coffee) and scones. What appeared to be a small cafe kept opening up into more and more rooms until all were seated and promptly served. Amazing! Obviously set up to handle bus tourist crowds and presumably a contract with Princess.

Then a photo stop at Portnareevy to take pictures of a rope bridge. Really? Well, once I understood what it was, guess so. It connects a mainland cliff to the cliff of an island maybe 100 yards away. The Carrick-a-Rede rope bridge was used by fishermen to take their gear to the island and to bring their catch back to the mainland. One could say that it has been “shored up” to be a tourist attraction now and you can take your life in your hands to walk across it, but we merely got a few photos from several hundred feet above it, got back on the bus and continued to the main attraction.

The Giant's Causeway is a four mile stretch of coastline with basalt columns which look like a giant must have stacked some hexagonal poker chips, oh, maybe 37,000 or so stacks. Some are a few feet high and some are 50 to 100 feet high. It's not like anything I have ever seen before (except in one of the internet forwarded emails about fantastic sights – where I have seen them!). Now geologists explain that they were formed from lava flows that apparently cooled slower than usual for some reason and contracted and crystallized into mostly hexagonal columns. It's almost impossible to describe with words, so I'm going to gamble that I can reasonably upload at least one picture on the tortoise-like internet on the ship.

Giant's Causeway - one small section of it.

Now for the real story: The causeway was made by Irish giant Finn McCool who wanted to get access to a giant living on the Scottish island of Staffa. He built the causeway from stone and went to defeat the Scottish giant, but retreated quickly when he saw the the Scot was much larger than he. Finn came home scared and his wife told him to wrap himself up in a blanket and go sleep in the bedroom. The Scottish giant came across the causeway to Finn's house to see what was going on. His wife told the Scot, “Oh, my husband is out at the moment, but if you'd like to see my baby boy, he's sleeping in the bedroom. The Scot was so shocked at the size of the “baby” that he was panicked by the imagined size of the baby's father and ran back to Scotland, tearing up the causeway as he went. By the way, the same geologic formation surfaces from the Irish sea at the Scottish island!

This was one of the highlights of our trip so far – one could say a “giant” highlight. It's worth seeing if you come to Ireland. Reluctantly leaving the site, we had “lunch” (really dinner) at a Portrush hotel, near the Royal Portrush Golf Club, where the Irish Open was recently held, a first for Northern Ireland. At the hotel we had the same dinner I remember having at virtually every hotel on a coach trip of Great Britain many years ago with Karen, her brother Ken, and her mother Alice: roast beef, two kinds of potatoes, peas and carrots, and Yorkshire pudding. It was very good, however, and I finally got my pint of Guiness!

On the return trip, our guide gave us a very objective view of the history of the conflict between the Protestants and Catholics, including the partition as a result of an agreement reached between the British government and the new Irish Free State in 1921, which was opposed by many in Ireland, in fact sparking a civil war throughout Ireland between former allies in the struggle against England. But in the end, the partition has stood and reunification with the south is very unlikely.

She mentioned that 93% of children in Ulster are educated in sectarian schools and opined that integration and friendship between the two factions will not happen until Catholic children and Protestant children are educated in public schools together and find out they are not so different after all. She seems like a wise woman to me.

One final word about St. Patrick, who grew up in Northern Ireland. It was here that he became converted himself to Christianity and vowed to bring all the Irish people to Christ. It is interesting that he did so in a very inclusive way. The Celtic Cross, for example, incorporates a circle that represents the sun, a symbol used in pagan worship on the island. In so doing, he brought people gradually to a belief in Christ, and the pagan ways faded. I think he would have agreed with our guide as to the way to bring all of Northern Ireland together.

On to Iceland!

Day 18 – Dublin, Ireland – Saturday, September 15, 2012

I'm baaaaack!

I write this as we are docking in Reykjavik, day 21, so I'm a few days behind, but happy to say that we are both doing well... now! Your prayers for a quick end to my cold worked, but then Karen got bronchitis, I got a cough, and I also was mildly seasick yesterday as we had extremely rough passage to Iceland. Consequently, we have had four visits to the medical department. Hopefully we have seen the last of them, although Karen will be on antibiotics for 7 days.

I had briefly described our trip to Loch Lomond in Scotland and the brief description is enough, so on to our next port of call, Dublin. We decided to explore Dublin on our own and bought a ticket on the HOHO (hop-on, hop-off) bus.

Our first stop was at Dublin Castle, the seat of English rule in Ireland for 700 years. It was built originally near a pool of black water, which in Gaelic is Dubh Linn, hence the name of the city. One of the pictures you will see eventually (if you come back after I have added pictures to the blog) is that of the statue of justice above the gate – minus the blindfold and admiring her sword – hardly the image of justice, eh? As Dubliners say (with apologies for minor bad language), “There she stands, with her face to the palace and her arse to the nation.”

Next stop was St. Patrick's Cathedral, which I would have assumed to be Catholic, but to my surprise it is the “Church of Ireland,” i.e. Anglican! I wanted to see this church primarily because this is where Handel's Messiah had its premiere performance as a benefit for the poor. It was well received in Ireland, but was ignored in London for about 10 years thereafter. The cathedral is also of interest because its dean for 32 years in the 18^th century was Jonathan Swift, author of “Gulliver's Travels,” intended at the time as political satire. The church was built in the 13^th century on the site where St. Patrick first baptized local pagan converts.

We had lunch at the Temple Bar, a famous nightclub in the best party district of Dublin. I didn't have a Guiness due to still suffering at the time from my cold. We didn't party much.

Because of time limitations I decided to skip the tour of the Guiness Storehouse, probably the most popular tourist attraction in Dublin. I wanted to get to Kilmainham Gaol (jail) which was highly recommended by my Rick Steves travel book. Glad we did, although I almost passed it up when I saw a long line to get in, but then decided if there is a long line, it must be worthwhile. After a 20 minute wait to get to the gate, I was told that they only accept cash (euros) of which I had none. But they were very nice, telling me there was an ATM just around the corner, and they would hold our place in line for the next tour, which they did.

The excellent docent for our tour gave us a very informative and inspired talk about the jail and its prominent place in the Irish struggle for independence from the British. It was opened in 1796 as a debtors' prison and was supposed to be a model facility, but very quickly became a terrible house of punishment for political prisoners, leaders of rebellions throughout the 19^th century, leading up to the Easter Rising in 1916. A major rebellion took place that year because the leaders felt that England would be too busy with WWI to deal with an uprising in Ireland. However, the rebellion was not successful and 14 of the 16 leaders were summarily executed in Kilmainham Gaol. The result of these executions by the British general without trial, was a major shift in sentiment by the Irish people from a preference for Home Rule within the British Empire to a strong desire for complete independence. Had this not happened, Ireland today might have a status like Scotland, which does have home rule. I learned more about Ireland's history in this hour than I had in my previous 72 years! There is a lot more to the story than I presented here, but you didn't sign up to read a book, so I'll move on.

Sweet Molly Malone and a tourist

By the time we exited the gaol, our time in Dublin was growing short and I wanted to make sure we had enough time on Grafton Street for Karen to take my picture with my arm around Sweet Molly Malone, so we took a taxi rather than waiting for the HOHO bus. And there she was, my Molly, or the “tart with the cart” as the locals call her. After a walk down Grafton Street and a stop for a latte at a coffee house, it was back to the ship.

The short time precluded so much I would have like to have seen, including Trinity College with the famous Book of Kells, a beautifully illustrated book of the four gospels preserved from the 8^th century on calfskin vellum! They turn one page per day for display.

One reason, as mentioned before, I don't particularly like cruises is that the time in ports is so short, it's like taking one sip of the finest wine, but then being told that's all you can have. But the one sip was indeed grand. On to Belfast and more history lessons of the Emerald Isle (from on board the Emerald Princess).

Jim

DAY 15, 16, 17 AND BEYOND!

Just a quick update to let you know we are still alive and breathing, just barely, in my case. I have caught a cold and have spent most of the time on the ship sleeping to try to shake it off. When I'm feeling better and we are at sea again, I'll catch up gradually. Since six of the last seven days are at sea, I should be able to catch up before we land in New York.

The port call at Kristiansand, Norway on Wednesday (Day 15) was canceled because we needed to beat the remnants of tropical storm Leslie and hurricane Michael to Scotland. Otherwise we would have been going right into the teeth of the storm. It was very rough anyway (8-12 foot waves and 40 knot winds) and Karen lost her cookies (and several other morsels) at one point. I managed to survive the rough seas, but didn't escape the cold germ. So we were at sea for two days and arrived at Glasgow, Scotland late in the evening yesterday (Thursday).

Today we had an excursion (in the afternoon, thankfully) to Loch Lomond, which was quite beautiful, but our loch, I mean, luck ran out on the weather, cold and rainy. At the quaint village of Luss, with quaint houses, quaint tea shops, quaint WC's, and quaint parking lot for tour buses, we had a great view of the Loch. As I walked out to the end of the pier, I noticed something moving in the water that had three humps AND I REALIZED THAT I WAS SEEING THE... No, wait, that is a different loch. I really messed that up didn't I? You could call me the Loch Mess Punster...

Check back in a few days. In the meantime, pray for a miracle cure for the common cold! And keep Karen safe from it!

Jim

DAY 14 – OSLO, NORWAY – SEPTEMBER 11, 2012

(Blogger's note:  Due to the agonizingly slow bandwidth on the ship, I regret to say that I will not be uploading any pictures.  I regret to say that because now you have to be entertained by text only, an infinitely more difficult task.  However, when I get home I will edit the post and add pictures, so then you can go back and read everything over again!) :-)

The second part of our cruise has begun, which takes us back to Oslo, then another stop in Norway, the port city of Kristiansand on the western coast. From there we cross the North Sea to Glasgow, Scotland, thence to Dublin, Belfast, Iceland, Greenland, and New York City. Although we are on the same ship, this is considered a separate cruise, so we are now on our second Princess cruise: Trans-Atlantic. That makes us Gold members of the Captain's Circle with so many benefits. Let me count them: 1. We get to attend the Captain's reception, along with a thousand or so of our closest friends, 2. We might get a discount on our next cruise.

After 15 cruises, we reach Platinum, for which we get the additional benefit of free laundry. Wow!

But enough of the cynicism. Upon disembarking from the ship in Oslo, we hopped on a Hop-On/Hop-Off bus. We eschewed (there's that word again) the center city stops in favor of seeing again the Vigeland Park which I described in an earlier blog (see Aug. 31). Since we were not on a guided tour this time, we could take our time and admire these incredible statues by Gustav Vigeland. We took our time until it started pouring down rain and we ran for the entrance. The only disadvantage of the HO/HO busses is that if you just missed one, as we did, then there is another half hour wait. So we went to the cafe in the park to use the WC. Oops, they are pay toilets! Need 5 kroner coins! Not very tourist friendly, I say. But the cashier in the restaurant was kind enough to exchange two dollars for two coins. Yep, a buck to pee!

Finally back on the bus and on to the Kon-Tiki museum, where we saw the boats of the famed explorer and scientist Thor Heyerdahl. You readers who are nearly as ancient as I am will remember his amazing voyages. . The Ra II was a boat of reeds, basically, that sailed 3,000 miles from Morocco across the Atlantic to Barbados in 1970. (It was the Ra II because the Ra I didn't make it.) The point of the journey was to prove that Africans of several millenia ago could have made that journey.

Even more fantastic was the voyage of the Kon-Tiki from the west coast of South America to the Polynesian Islands in 1947. They built a raft of balsa logs, which were light enough to float, but support a superstructure of essentially a large hut and a large sail. Instead of a keel it had four vertical boards that provided stability in the water. They had to cut the logs in the interior of Ecuador, construct a temporary raft to take them down the river to the sea and navigate south along the coast to their starting point in Peru, where they constructed the Kon-Tiki (the name taken from an ancient god). The voyage was 4,300 miles across the Pacific, which isn't always pacific, if you catch my drift. (See what I did there – drift, heh, heh.) The voyage established that the Pacific islands could well have be settled by Incans of South America (although anthropologists doubt that they did). For both voyages, nothing was used in the construction of the boats nor in the navigation which would not have been available to the natives of the time.

We watched a good portion of the Kon-Tiki movie, narrated by Heyerdahl, which actually won an Oscar in the documentary category in 1951. I will get a copy of the movie when I get home, for about half the price of the version being sold in the gift shop, I'm sure!

We also visited the Maritime Museum, which showed a wonderful movie about the western coastline of Norway on a 180 degree screen, a la a mini Imax. What an incredibly beautiful country! And what a hardy populace to live, farm (a little), and fish (a lot). No wonder they were, and are, such a sea-faring people, exploring all over the world, including the North and South poles, especially Roald Amundsen and Fridtjof Nansen in the early 20^th century. I may wax philosophic about the Viking spirit on our day at sea coming up.

Day 12-13 – At Sea and Copenhagen (again!) Sunday, Monday – September 9-10, 2012

Sunday – at sea.

Very often on a cruise you will have as many days at sea as you do in ports of call. But with the Scandinavian cruise the ports of call are all so close together that most are reached overnight. So in a way it has been a grueling cruise without time to breathe. So today (Sunday) it was nice to get up late, have a leisurely breakfast and wander around the ship.

But even this day was not without its busyness, because Karen and I are singing in the “Princess Pop Choir,” so we had two rehearsals and sang for our supper in the atrium area, where there was a good crowd on the three floors that open onto the atrium. We actually did quite well, considering that we only had four hours of rehearsal and sang from lyric sheets, no music. Since I'm not really into pop music, I didn't know half the songs. Nevertheless, I learned them, along with the choreography(!) and the audience was enthusiastic, cheering and giving us a standing ovation on every song. Of course, there were very few chairs, so they had to stand.

Our dinner table friends took pictures and even made a video recording which they will send to us, so you may even get to see it!

Stayin' Alive, Stayin' Alive

Monday – end of the first phase of the cruise – Copenhagen

This was the end of the 11 day Scandinavian cruise and about 2300 or the 3100 passengers got off here, with only 800 continuing on for the Atlantic Crossing cruise. However, new passengers came on board, don't know how many, but now we experienced sailors have to break in a whole new crew.

Karen and I went into Copenhagen and took the canal boat cruise, which was very nice, and we got to see (besides lots of buildings) the back side of the Little Mermaid statue. To see the front side you have to be on land, so we'll have to go back someday so we can see her front.

We had lunch in the Nyhavn area (where the boats depart from) and it was only $50 or so. (See how I'm not complaining?) I had raw salmon on bread and Karen had liver pate with mushrooms, so I know that certain in-laws will be very jealous they didn't get the chance to share these delicacies. (You know who you are!)

So back on the ship and sailing for Oslo – again! This is the only duplication from the first cruise, but since I complain about the limited time in the ports of call, I'm happy. We'll do the “hop-on/hop-off” bus tour this time and eschew the cruise line excursion. (Eschew is one of my favorite words...and I'm not even sure what it means.)

Enough frivolity for now. The serious educational in-depth travelogue will resume tomorrow.

By the way, if you are following the blog, drop me a brief email. It would be nice to know who is reading it (if anyone!). jimtraxler@gmail.com.