Trondheim, Norway

The Captain welcomed us to Trondheim this a.m. by announcing it was a very dreary, dismal day to be had! As he pulled up along the pier, he announced, " Sorry it's taking so long to pull up to this rinky dinky pier with it's rinky dinky gangplank"! He's rather humorous at times. We spent 3 hrs this morning touring the city on a bus, visiting a Cathedral where St. Olav is buried (he brought Christianity to Norway), and visiting an open air folk museum (a small village back in the day as Rachel Rae would say). We got drizzled upon most of the time, but the clouds cleared out by the time we got back to the ship at 12:30. We've just been lazy this afternoon. Resting up for bingo at 9:30pm! Tomorrow is our second day at sea. WE'll probably play bingo twice tomorrow.

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

But before I blog about how cold it is, let me go back to yesterday. Larry and I received an invitation to go to the Art Gallery to meet Howard Beheren's, the artist of the painting we bought. We went after dinner and me him, his wife, son and daughter. We were asked to have dinner with him and several other well know artists that are on board this cruise. We had to decline b/c we had just eaten dinner. Anyway, we got a picture made with the artist and the painting we bought. We will hopefully get it autographed. Rob, do you like anything by Michael Goddard? Look him up. Every time we see his work on board, we think you would like his stuff. He's on board as well.

Back to today. It really was a cold day, but a beautiful, cloudy, misty, rainy day. I say beautiful, b/c this are is just gorgeous. Even clouds and rain can't mess this up. We arrived at Hellesylt this morning at about 8 and let off a few passengers who were go on a tour and would meet us in Geiranger later in the day. Then we slowly cruised through the Geiranger Fjord and saw many, many beautiful waterfalls and mountains. Our excursion was up the mountain, hairpin curves, stopping along the way to take pictures of the village, fjord and our ship. After 3000 ft up, we stopped for dessert and coffee. Then on up 2000 more ft., twisty turny curves. I guess - b/c it was so foggy that only the bus driver knew where the road was. Maybe it was a good thing that we couldn't see the cliffs on the side of the bus. All in all, it was a wonderful day. And very educational! WE learned that Norway has only 2 seasons. White winter and green winter. That's very true. It was very cold today. We learned that the kindergarten has 13 students and the rest of the school has 35. We learned that the nursing center has 2 inhabitants - a 96 yr old man and an 82 yr old man. It has 2 employees - a 75 yr old woman and a 62 yr old woman. Supposedly all they do all day is make biscuits and give them away. Yeah, right!! We learned that snow skiing is done in the summer months only b/c it's impossible to get to the slopes the rest of the year. AND, there are no ski lifts. It's a 2 to 2 1/2 hr hike up the mountain and a 5 minute ski down. Do this twice and the day is spent! WE learned that the population of Geiranger is 420, but when one cruise ship is in port, it's about 3420. Sometimes there are 5 cruise ships in port at once!

We watched our return trip out of the fjords - waterfalls are beautiful here - then we went to dinner. Turning in early tonight - 10pm so we can be up and out of here for a visit to Trondheim tomorrow.

Hope all is well at home!

We're here, We're safe, We're having fun!

Made it to London safely. Stan & Lana made it on the plane in Dallas by the skin of their teeth. I believe we started backing out from the gate by the time they got buckled in!
Arrived at Heathrow a little early. Got our luggage and made it to the bus for transport in good time. 2 hr ride to South Hampton, in the rain.) Got checked in quickly and was on the ship in time to run up to Horizon for some lunch. Yesterday was a day at sea - and a very rough day it was. Stan was sure my dream of a Tsunami was going to come true! It was actually the roughest day I've ever been at sea. No one got sick, though. Went to an art auction. Larry and I bought an original Beheren and an embellished lithograph by Beheren. He is abt 75 yrs old. When he passes on, his status will be compared to Monet in the art world. Very good artist. We are now Beheren collectors!

Arrived at Stavanger this a.m. Nice calm waters. Took a boat excursion to the fjords. What a beautiful place the Lord has made! Looking forward to the rest of the cruise if it's anything like today. In rained most of the morning on us, but we were in the inside of the cruise boat. Temperature in the low 60's. Very nice!

Will post again tomorrow, maybe.

Day at sea and Oslo, Norway

Yesterday was a day at sea. We did our usual - played cards, read and played bingo - and ate, of course. Didn't win at bingo, but will have one last chance to win $2000 this afternoon. We also were part of the audience that watched the live taping of the Wakey Wakey show which runs from 6am to 11am every day. I even got my name mentioned because I knew the answer to the daily question. Yesterday's question was how many nautical miles did we sail from Ft. Lauderdale to Rotterdam. If you are wondering it was 4902.5! At noon we went to a weightloss by hypnotism for about and hour. I was so hungry by he time it was over, the first thing I said was, "Now, let's go eat!"

Today we went on a bus tour around the city of Oslo and out in the beautiful country to Hageland where there is a glass blowing factory. We watched a demonstration and bought souveniers and gifts. Then we headed back to Oslo where we visted the Viking Museum. It was very interesting. We got back on the ship at 1:30 and set sail for Copenhagen at 2:00. We spent the afternoon packing since our luggage has to be outside our room by 6pm (before dinner). But first we will play bingo at 4:30!

Tomorrow we will dock at 5am at Copenhagen where we will disembark to the airport at 8:30am. Our flight is not until 3:35pm. I just love sitting in airports all day! We will arrive at DFW at 10:34pm!

I will say that this has seemed like a long trip, mainly because of the number of sea days (10). We had one extra day at sea b/c we couldn't dock in Dover, England. We have enjoyed our ports of call, meeting SOME of the passengers (some I could live a lifetime without ever having met!), all the activities on board and the entertainment.

All in all, we had a good time. But I can't wait to see my kids, grandkids, dog, cat and kittens (in that order, Amy:)

Rotterdam

We opted to stay on board the ship while in port today. We've been to Amsterdam a few times before and there wasn't much to do in Rotterdam except shop in their expensive shops and pay 20% sales tax! We played gin ALL DAY - just the two of us. We would play a while in one lounge then go somewhere else and play there. That way we could do more people watching. We also played trivia with one of the crew staff and other passengers who opted to stay on board. We had a relaxing day. BTW - Holly beat the pants off Larry playing gin! We set sail from the port at 7pm and will be at sea all day tomorrow arriving in Oslo Norway Friday morning.

At sea yesterday and Belgium today

Yesterday was a rather boring day, although I must say that the cruise director and his staff did an amazing job of coming up with things to do. We had to toodle around the English Channel all day and were able to get the Belgium Port pilot on board about 20 miles out. He safely guided us into port where we docked about 8:30 last night. Before I tell you about Belgium, let me just say that it is amazing to me how safe they build these huge floating hotels. We were in 60-80mph gales and the water was very rough, but we hardly noticed at all. They have the stablizer things that go out from the ship under the water that keeps it stable as we move along. I am more convinced now that sailing is safer than flying and driving on the highways! Another aside - we weren't able to play bingo yesterday b/c England has this regulation that you cannot gamble while you are in their channel! Prudes!

This morning we took a tour bus to Bruges Belgium. Another surprise. A small old village that has canals running all throughout it. VEry picturesque. We walked the cobblestone streets for about 4 hours, watched a chocolate making demonstration, and Belgium chocolates - yummy!, and shopped. Can't wait to share pictures. When we got back to the ship at 1:30, we had a sandwich down in the International Cafe and rested up for dinner and the "I've Got Music" show in the theater. A lovely evening. We've been out on the balcony watching the other ships go by and we even saw an oil platform way out there.

Don't know what we'll do tomorrow since we did not book a tour. Will let you know.

Girls, how are my animals?

I hope we get to play bingo!

Well, it looks like we might have at least 2 more days at sea. Our port today was to be Dover, England (we were going to Canterbury). However, the seas are rough and winds are expected to get up to gale force (60 - 70 mph). Yikes! Our next port of call is Brussells Belgium and the port authority there said they will not allow their pilots to board our ship to lead us in there. So right now, we are circling the English Channel with no wear to go! That's why I hope we aleast get to play bingo! Will report more later.