She Said
Today is our last day on the boat. It is a sea day. It is always somewhat a sad day, the day before you get off the boat when you try to suck out all the relaxation left in the cruise.
As we sit in the Wine Cellars, I am watching these two ladies who came and sat right across from us who set up an iPad or Notebook, put on earphones and are clearly watching something. It’s a bit awkward as I sit here and watch them.
Stockholm
We were in Stockholm, Sweden on Sunday. It was a lovely day. We bought the tickets for the Hop On Hop Off bus and boat. We never used the bus. The boat was easy and gave us a great view of the city quite easily from multiple locations.
We first went to the Vasa museum. Our timing could not have been better. We got there about 9:45. No lines and although there were some tour groups there, it really wasn’t that busy. We found out later at dinner when others went, the lines were long and the place was packed.
Vasa Museum is the big brown thing on the left
This museum was built around a wooden boat raised from the harbor that had been there since 1628. It was extremely well-preserved because of the cold water in the harbor. The craftsmanship is beautiful.
The boat
The story is, the boat sunk 1500 meters into its first sailing. Something about not installing the ballasts.
Someone commented about how this is a museum about a total and utter failure. Quite true.
I found one of the most interesting things is how much they could learn about the lives of those who died by examining and testing their remains. For example, if they were malnourished as a child.
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| One of the many remains on display |
It was a lovely day boating around the harbor and seeing a couple of sites. After the intensity of Berlin and St. Petersburg, it was nice to visit a couple sites, then relax.
Third Day at Sea
This day was spent reading and relaxing. We ran into a couple of our dinner mates who invited us to play trivia with them. They had discovered Phillip, one of our other dinner mates from Essex, was playing trivia on his own and not with a team so they decided they would surprise him and join his team. I went with them and Blaise went back to the room to read. We came one point from winning. Had Blaise been there, he would have at least had us tied for first with his knowledge that a male donkey is a “jack.” We just couldn’t come up with it.
Copenhagen
Yesterday we were in Copenhagen. By then, were were all palaced and museamed out. We know we will spend a big chunk of our time in Amsterdam at museums so we opted to wander around Copenhagen taking in the sites and people watch.
We discussed doing the Rick Steves walking tour, but just couldn’t bring ourselves to that much thinking and effort.
We bought the shuttle bus tickets through cruise ship and got on the first shuttle. The bus dropped us off a block away from the entrance of Tivoli Gardens. Our bus driver did not give us any confidence that he even knew he was in Copenhagen. At one point early on, before the cruise port disappeared in the rearview mirror, he had to backup the bus quite a bit to turn around because he went the wrong way. Then five minutes later, he had to make a u-turn. When we got to our drop off point, we had no idea if it was the right spot. The map the cruise ship gave us had the drop off point somewhere entirely different. But when we read the daily schedule, it indicated our drop off point was indeed where we were dropped off.
We made our way to Rosenborg Castle. While we did not go in, we did wander the beautiful gardens and grounds, relaxed and watched the people.
I particularly enjoyed the safety cones in the garden
We stopped for espresso and a small bite to eat.
All in all a lovely, relaxing day.
A couple things to note about those crazy Danes (which is what I have called them since I worked for a Danish company in the early 90’s called UNIRAS, yes, UNIRAS) - they like smoking more than any other stop we have had on this cruise and they have more redheads than I’ve seen elsewhere.
Also, I don’t think their language translates well to English. Among other odd signs and names, we saw a bus called “Turistfart.”
Other Notables
While there were two at our dinner table who knew of the scones at the 4 PM tea time, we now have everyone at the table going for the scones at 4. They are delicious and the past few days they have had mini jars of clotted cream, a very English and very delicious way to eat scones. I learned of clotted cream from my paralegal, Kay a couple years ago. Clotted cream is like a thicker version of whipped cream - that’s the best I can describe it. I wish they could come up with a better name. It just sounds gross. Blaise and I get the honey and raisin scones. They also have cinnamon.
No injuries for either of us. I actually DO watch more carefully where I walk and yesterday when I walked across a wooden planked bridge, my steps were higher and my eyes never left the ground. Also, cobblestones are scary for the clumsy.
What’s Up Next
We get off the boat bright and early tomorrow and make our way to the Sofitel, where we will spend the next 3 nights. Blaise wants to take the tram to central station and then the train and then walk to our hotel. I just want to take a cab so I don’t have to haul all the luggage.
The next 3 days will be in Amsterdam and I am looking forward to it. The other day we boght an IAmsterdam 3-day card which gives us entrance into many museums, a free boat tour, and unlimited public transportation. We fly back Sunday.
Dana’s Food Watch
Last night - Blaise and I both some sort of fish croquettes for an appetizer. For our entrees, Blaise had the fall-off-the-bone braised lamb shank and I had a fusilli pasta dish with a balsamic sauce, chicken, and way to little goat cheese. I had a bite of Blaise’s lamb shank and it was delicious; better than mine. For dessert Blaise stuck with his cheese and cracker plate and I had the grand marnier souffle’. That souffle’ was to die for!
The night before was the last dress up night. Blaise looked quite nice in his new suit. Yes, it has nothing to do with the dinner, but I had to mention somewhere how great he looked!
This night, Blaise and I had the same dinner except for dessert. We had scallops with spinach and hollandaise sauce for the appetizer and duck l'orange for our entree. Both were yummy but we both really enjoyed the duck. For dessert, wanna guess what Blaise had? Yep, you are right. I had what they called a chocolate tombstone which had chocolate ganache on the top some sort of think vanilla pudding in the middle and a rice crispy crust. Absolutely delicious!
He Said
Stockholm - I had been here before so I wasn’t expecting a great deal beyond showing Ami the sights we had visited the first time I was here. First up was transportation, I must say, paying for transportation when you have two perfectly usable limbs designed for the purpose drives me crazy. I am more than willing to walk an hour to get to town to save $120 bucks, but not Ami, she wants to take a shuttle, today it was Hop On Hop Off, so that’s what we did. The only upside was that you can use the water taxi as well as the buses, we took the water taxi directly to the Vasa; first in line, even beat the excursions across the harbor!! I think Ami enjoyed it, it really is quite impressive and all under the guise of a monumental fail, imagine your biggest failure will be celebrated with a museum 400 years from now, not anything I’m interested in.
Then from there we decided that we would go see the Abba Museum, which was being relocated when I was here last, only to find out that it was $35 dollars to go see a group whose last hit was 48 years ago, I said no way and we left!! The Vasa was $18, Abba $35, not in this lifetime!!
From there we decided to go to the Royal Palace, it by the way, only cost $18 to get into as well. It was worth the cost, it was quite opulent, but not in the same ways as the palaces in Saint Petersburg, it was much more livable than anything in Russia. But the one thing that was new for me was 3D sculptures in the ceiling cornices, it was unbelievable. I’m not certain how they would have been able to keep them up there but it was magnificent and when I build our palace I’m going to incorporate the practice, perhaps some sort of small cherubs or something… Beautiful place, I wished we would have had some more time for the audio tour but we weren’t going to be here long enough for that. Ami got a kick out of the one guard stationed mid-palace to protect the massive complex from invasion, we skipped the changing of the guard and made our way back to the ship and enjoyed the daily scone from the top deck.
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| Dutiful, and I am sure, useful protection of the castle. |
Sea Day - Not a lot to say about sea days, I ran through the normal regimen, up early to go get my skim milk for my protein shake, go weigh in, on both scales, and take the average as one of them is so far off that Ami made me start eating peanut butter for breakfast because I was too low. I’m thinking I won’t be telling her my weight anymore; that said I’m sitting here with an espresso and peanut butter cookie to make sure I have enough calories today. Otherwise it was reading the Brett Battles Cleaner that Ami thought I would enjoy, I’m at 87% now, still not thinking it’s my cup of tea but let's see how it ends. Dinner was really good and I’m certain Ami is keeping you up to date on the dinner selections and my propensities to select the same things night after night; if it works stick with it.
Copenhagen - I didn’t really expect a lot, I had heard a lot about from Ami just because she worked for a company headquartered here when she left Dose (where we met 25 years ago) although she had never visited here previously. We, once again, took the shuttle to downtown and were dropped off after the driver made two wrong turns and drove us right by the little mermaid; no picture but you can google it if you’re interested, not much to it from my perspective. Once downtown we attempted to use a new offline maps tool, we had some newbie issues but did manage to get around with it and it proved valuable in the end.
Anyway, once downtown, and not at the same location the cruise map said we would dropped at, we made our way to Rosenborg castle. We had decided that we were both “castled out” and decided to just walk the outside grounds and “cop a squat” and enjoy the grounds as two lovers should. We truly enjoyed the 3D effects that they had engineered into the box hedges and wondered if we could do the same at home, hopefully she’ll include the pic so you can see how impressive it was, very imaginative. Beyond that we went back by the guard barracks and to where we got lost on the way to have a bite to eat and grab an espresso; very relaxing and we enjoyed the locals chatting it up; I do believe there was a woman in there consoling her friend about the man troubles that she was having, or at least that’s what I took away from the few words and facial expressions that I was able to glum together. I could be totally off base but that was my view, and now we’ll never know will we? We made it back to the shuttle stop and headed back, we made it back to the ship at 3 and readied ourselves for high tea at 4, oh those scones!!!
Tomorrow we hit the walk off and I’m certain we’ll argue over the over priced taxi or the tram, but then we’ll be in glorious Amsterdam for three days. One note before we get there, if you haven’t been to the Van Gogh museum they actually advertise that it’s 20 euros or something but free if you only have one ear, could you imagine what the PC patrol would do with that in the US; I thought it was hilarious, can’t wait to see it in person!! More later, enjoy your Wednesday.
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