It was an odd feeling to walk across that gangway for the last time, but at 7:30 in the morning, we were also half asleep. Cruise terminals are actually pretty weird because they are such bare-bones, basic buildings. Copenhagen was no different—it looked like a temporary building and was nothing more than a big room with everyone’s baggage laid out and stacks of city maps by the exit. It was well-organized, though, so we immediately found our bags and exited the ‘building’.

The other thing about cruise terminals is that they are usually in the middle of a very industrial area, as was this one. We knew we could walk to a train station so we bypassed the taxis. Within a few feet we were all alone and trudging along the blue path in a very desolate area, but we did find the minimal train station fairly soon. As we stepped onto the upper platform, a huge blast of wind swept Mike’s hat off and onto the track. Welcome to Copenhagen!

There was no place to buy tickets on the platform, but another passenger told us we had to go back to the 7-Eleven to get tickets. For which we had no money! There was no cash machine at the terminal and we do not have the computer chip credit cards like they have in Europe and that are the only kind you can use in the machines. So off Mike went to get tickets. He came back with tickets in hand only because of the kind generosity of a stranger in the 7-Eleven! With no Danish cash and a non-functional credit card, he was kind of out of luck, so we were so fortunate to have someone buy the tickets for him.

So we finally made it into the Copenhagen Central train station, where we were able to get some cash, and we continued our trudge to our hotel. It was cold, windy, threatening rain. It was a long way to the hotel from the train station. It was so early on a Saturday morning that we were the only ones in the street. We were looking for the address of our hotel, 66 Vesterbrogade. Addresses were scarce, but we did pass 38, then a long time until 62, and then suddenly we were at 72. Huh? So back we went. We could look up and see a big sign for a hotel on the side of the building, but no doorway. Then we realized that the entrance was inside a small driveway off the street. We had to be buzzed in and climb a flight of stairs to check-in. We stuffed Mike with all the luggage into the very small elevator and I know I was wondering what we were in for. But the desk clerk was extremely friendly and helpful, and while our room was not ready (not surprising at 8:30 am), she was full of ideas for places we could see, how to get there, and stored our bags while we did some exploring. We had arrived.

-T

The view from our room, overlooking the castle

Today was a half day stop in Oslo, Norway. I woke up early at 5:30 to the sight of the fjord leading to Oslo slipping by the window. This far south in Norway, the fjord is not very steep sided. It was a very grey, misty morning and the view was very reminiscent of home and Puget Sound. When the ship docked, we found ourselves directly overlooking the castle. It was right across the street from the ship—what a nice view we had!

We could leave the ship at 7:00 am and had to be back on the ship by 1:30. We did not sign up for any tours, as usual, so we saw no reason to be off the ship too early since nothing was going to be open until 9:30 or later. After leaving the ship, we walked through the castle grounds and then headed for the famed city hall, which is where the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony is held.

The murals lining the main hall are quite beautiful, and we also really enjoyed the series of carvings on the exterior of the building that illustrate many Norse myths.From there, we made a series of literally jaw-dropping observations on the streets of Oslo. We were looking at restaurant prices! The lecturer had prepared us the day before for the high prices, but I guess you just don’t believe it until you’ve seen it for yourself. So here we go: a McDonald’s burger- $20, basic burger in a restaurant- $28, nicer burger in a restaurant- $40. Pretty much any lunch entrée was at least $30 to $40 or more. You would easily drop $100 for just a very basic, minimal lunch. Sheesh, it was truly astounding.

Other items in stores were also expensive, but not to quite the same extent. We figured that restaurant prices were 3-4x the prices we’re used to and other items were 2-3x our prices. We didn’t even get any money out. We just wandered around looking at prices! And then decided to just eat lunch on the ship and save ourselves a bundle. Will Copenhagen be this expensive?????

Oslo was a nice city with some nice, old architecture, but also lots of modern buildings. There are lots of statues and sculptures and great building decorations. The 17^thof  May (Norwegian Independence) celebration is just around the corner and there was a military tattoo apparently going on in honor of that. We kept hearing a tattoo band playing somewhere in the streets, but we just never got any closer to it. We did see lots of kids wearing red pants with Norwegian flag patterns on them. We had fun speculating on what the pants were for, and never found out the truth.

I'm a lumberjack and I'm okay...

I've been meaning to tell you...

We can guess what this says, but thought it would be more fun for everyone to contribute what they think it says!

Back on the ship, we found time to attend the Copenhagen lecture since we will be spending a few days there. I also had to hurry up and finish the book I had checked out from the library. Hard to believe I only managed to read three books in over two weeks—what’s the matter with me! We also had to pack our bags and get them out in the hallway by dinner time. It’s a little sad to realize that this portion of the trip is over, but we are also very excited about the next stage. As I was packing, I came across three of my favorite purchases, which others might find kind of odd. Ever since I was a kid I have always had a thing about flags from other countries and places. Can’t explain it but there it is. I like to collect unusual flags from places we have been and research them before we go so I know what I want to look for, so here’s a picture of the three flags I picked up on this trip, top to bottom:

Cornwall, Normandy, Amsterdam

Cornwall, Normandy, Amsterdam. I’m getting enough now that we need to design a new scheme for flying them all.

It took about three hours to travel the entire way out of the fjord that leads to Oslo. It was very pretty and again reminded us so much of the northwest. It was funny to me at one point because as I was out on our balcony watching the scenery go by, our neighbors, the ones who needed bundling, were out exclaiming about how fantastic the scenery was. And it was, don’t get me wrong, but they had clearly never seen such scenery and it is just what we have at home, so we suddenly felt like we were home again!

Heading to the North Sea

Just like home

As we exited the fjord and entered the North Sea, we hit some high winds, gusting to 65 knots. We got some good motion going on the ship and some great choppy waves. It made walking around problematic, and at one point they even closed the outdoor decks. For a while we were quite heeled over at times—I took a picture of a glass of water to try and show the angle of the floor. It would have been fun to see what the pools were doing—they really got sloshing pretty well in some of the other active, but milder, weather we’ve had. We enjoyed the drama, but there were probably others who were not so enamored.

We have also noticed today that there are a bunch of new people on the ship. How can we tell? Well, my first clue was when I realized that many of the people standing around us as we entered the dining room did not have silver hair! And we also started noticing a lot of different languages, many of them Russian or Eastern European sounding. It seems odd that they are joining the ship before Copenhagen, but we also know there are a fair number of empty cabins. I think the tone of the cruise will change quite a bit from here on. Well, and we’re leaving, so obviously there will be more food available!

-T

Today is a much-needed day at sea. After five days straight of full day touristing, we are ready to take it easy. Yes, it’s hard work being a tourist. Of course, we still have to fit in the lecture on Oslo, the galley tour, and there’s a movie we want to catch in the theater. I am still struggling to finish just my third book.

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For our stop in Rotterdam, we decided to do one of the organized tours. This was mainly because going in to Amsterdam is definitely the most interesting thing to do, and the tour we picked was actually a fairly cost effective way to get into town, for a change. We opted for the tour that included a short walking tour, a canal cruise, and then a couple of hours on your own.

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Can you tell that I like to write about food?  Well, here I go again.  There is quite a variety of food related options aboard ship.  That makes us happy!

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Back to England, back an hour in time, back to the pound sterling. Today was Dover and after the wonderful visits to Ireland, Falmouth, and France, we actually had lower expectations for Dover. The main side trips they offer take you into London, and that was certainly not how we wanted to spend our day. Aside from spending several hours on a bus, as the Paris trips did, we have both spent plenty of time in London. Dover has apparently been hit pretty hard by the poor economy and the town is mostly known for being the terminal for ferries to the continent. We did know, however, that there is a castle of some sort in Dover and it has tunnels that were used during WWII.

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This morning we awoke to a wake up call and fog in Le Havre. Our plan was to once again skip any of the ship’s tours and find our own way to Honfleur, known as the Gem of Normandy. We knew that there were buses running there from Le Havre, but the times were very limited. We had to find our way to the bus station by 8:49 and it was a fair walk from the ship terminal.

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We are finding ourselves in an interesting world of free form time and money. As we headed across the Atlantic, our time changes were quite regular. Each night we moved our clocks forward one hour and while it did start catching up with us, at least it was regular. Now we are doing this crazy criss-cross between continents and time zones. As we left Falmouth two days ago, we moved our clocks ahead before landing in France. Then we had to turn our clocks back again last night since we were headed to Dover today. But tomorrow we head back to the continent, The Netherlands, so we once again turn those clocks ahead. Who knows time it really is.

Money is posing a similar issue. In Ponta Delgada, the currency was Euros, as it was again in Ireland. Then we invaded Falmouth and had to get Pounds Sterling from the trusty cash machines. Next up, France, and pull out the Euros again. Tomorrow, in The Netherlands, we will be back to Euros. After that, we enter what I think of as the land of the Kroners. Or Kronas. Or Krones. Denmark, Norway, and Iceland each have their own currencies. We’ve heard that Dover will sometimes take Euros, as will Copenhagen, but we get a bit dizzy trying to keep straight what money we’re supposed to be using!

We set out today looking for just two things, Cornish pasties, and fish and chips.  We found, we ate, we waddled back to the ship.

This was the one place on the trip we have to tender, i.e. anchor out from shore and take small boats in.  The trip in this morning was uneventful, but the water was a bit rougher for the trip back in the afternoon.  We did manage to get seats in the open on the small second deck of the ship, so we had the cold wind, and the spray when we hit the bigger waves.  T and I thought that was great, but several women around us were less than happy with their husbands for wanting to sit up there.  I did have to tell one large woman to stop ducking, though, as I was using her as my shield from the worst of the spray.

This was after having to wait in a loooong line to get on the boat back.  Since the weather was beautiful today, everyone used all their time ashore and showed up back at the dock near the time the last tender was supposed to be running.  Needless to say, the ship was a little later than scheduled in leaving for France.

Falmouth did prove to be a delightful town.  It seems to be a bit of a yachting center, so the shops had lots of nautical clothing and lots of art.  We had great fun catching the galleries and looking at or through many of the other shops.  T also found a couple of good postcards to send to Keenan. (Keenan, you’ll see what I mean when you get them.)  The majority of the shops are on one long street that goes up and down and around curves, so you think it is never going to end, and for quite a while it didn’t.

For Keenan

Being in the heart of Cornwall, there were numerous Cornish pasty shops.  Once we managed to find a bank where we could get some pounds, we hit a particularly good looking one we had just passed.  Not only did they make a great pasty, they made a darn good croissant as well (a little warm up for tomorrow).  My pasty was pork and apple, a less traditional but wonderful combination.  Keenan – Of course I had to spend map time finding everything!

Having met our first goal of the day, we walked that off a bit to make some room for more.  While shopping we leaned hard on one store keeper to reveal the hidden knowledge of the best fish and chips in town.  He steered us to a place called the Harbour Lights.  He did NOT steer us wrong.  They had such a nice space overlooking the harbour, we decided to pay the extra to eat in (over here the take out price is often cheaper than the eat in price for the same food).  I really do think that was the best fish and chips I have ever had.  Absolutely fresh and absolutely perfectly cooked.

Beer with your fish?

One thing I like in England is that the fish is generally a full fillet, not just some pre-frozen uniform size and shape piece of fish.  We each got the regular order which included one HUGE piece of fish (T had cod, I had haddock).  That one piece was more fish than you would normally get in a whole order (three pieces?) back in the States.  I have to assume the large portion would have involved two such pieces, which sounds like more than even I could eat comfortably.  Then there was the fry plat, with cod, haddock, mackerel, calamari, and scampi.  That would be of biblical proportions. (Remember the story of Jesus feeding the crowd from the never ending fish and chips bar? OK, maybe you don’t, but it made a big impression on me when I was young.)

For Melinda

Finally, I just have to post a picture for Melinda.  She asked about the purple soccer shoes.  Tami was so proud of them she did in fact take a picture of them last night.  These might be enough to get you playing, Melinda?

-M

This morning we steamed into Cobh, Ireland, (pronounced Cove) and had a full day to explore this little region of Ireland. I woke up early, excited to spot my first view of the Emerald Isle, and shocked Mike when he woke up and I was already dressed and on the balcony. Our first view of Ireland was of a pretty lighthouse overlooking a row of multicolored houses marking the entrance to the inlet that leads to Cobh, which is outside of Cork. We wended our way up a channel past green fields, fishing boats, and well, a couple of factories. But the factories were backlit by an awfully pretty sky! Overall, though, it was a very beautiful introduction to Ireland. Continue reading →