Ch-ch-ch-Changes!

 "There is nothing permanent except change." ~ Heraclitus of Ephesus, circa 500 BC

Notice how the size of his brain makes his forehead bulge!

The older I get, the more I think that most of the time those ancient Greek philosophers were onto something. Everything changes. We may wish it were not so, but none of us can stop change from entering our lives. 

And nowhere is this proving more true than with cruising recently. Every day I see YouTube posts complaining of itinerary changes--usually weather related--or reductions in services or food or entertainment, or ships that because of deferred maintenance have finally broken down badly enough to cause whole cruises to be cancelled. Sometimes with no notice until the passengers have already boarded!

However, we're getting plenty of time to adjust from Cunard. We've received two notices of changes of itinerary for our 2025 WC on Queen Anne & Queen Mary2. The first involves a port stop swap. Due to a change in how Australian authorities clear ships, now requiring an extra day, we won't be calling on Bitung, Indonesia, but instead will have Tauranga, New Zealand added to our lineup.  And all our northerly Oz stops will be pushed back by one day.

I'm fine with this. We've never been to Tauranga, but sad we can't check Indonesia off our bucket list just yet. (I'm taking it as a sign we'll have to go back!)

Then this week, we got a lovely email regarding our QM2 transatlantic from Southampton which will bring us home to the USA in a week instead of an over-the-Pond flight. Our berth in Red Hook (Brooklyn) will not be available on May 4th, so an additional day will be added to our cruise with a stop in Le Havre, France. Our 7 day crossing is now 8. Yay! 

Last time we were in Le Havre, we visited the Rouen cathedral and Monet's lovely house and garden in Giverny. Maybe this time we can swing a day trip to Paris. (Because of the distance involved, this would absolutely be a ship sponsored tour. We definitely don't want to miss the boat as it heads across the Atlantic!)

There is no extra charge for the additional day and Cunard has offered us an additional $50 OBC. 

I don't believe in fussing over itinerary changes. The passenger contract, which few guests ever actually read, stipulates that the cruise line may make those sorts of changes for any or no reason at their sole discretion. That's why we always try to pick cruises where the ship itself will be a satisfying destination for us. 

Cruising is like life. You make your plans. As much as possible, you make your choices, but you never really know what's going to happen until it does. At that point, you have yet another choice. 

Whine and complain or accept that it is what it is and look for the strawberry in the situation.  

Wishing you many strawberries...

Never Would I Ever...

 "I know this isn’t scientific, but this ship’s warning me she’s gonna die and take a lot of people with her." -Thomas Andrews, Managing Director of Harland and Wolff Shipyards, Builders of the Titanic

On June 18, 2023, the experimental submersible, Titan, suffered a catastrophic implosion during its descent to view the wreckage of the Titanic on the ocean floor. Five more souls joined those who went down with that original "unsinkable" ship. The only mercy was that the implosion would have been instantaneous, with no time for panic or terror like those on the doomed ocean liner suffered. As a musician, I'm always moved by thoughts of the band members who continued to play, trying to calm those who didn't make it into a lifeboat,  while Titanic's deck slanted downward and the great ship sank. 

But the related disasters have caused lots of after-action hand-wringing. There should be more regulations, some say. Why would anyone take chances like that? Surely that sort of experience isn't worth the risk.

However, throughout history nothing has been accomplished without risk. There is a long list of inventors who were killed by their creation, among them Marie Curie who discovered radium, and Francis Stanley, who died in a crash of his steam-driven "Stanley Steamer" automobile. 

And what of those Type T explorers? Gus Grissom and Christa McAuliff reminded us that space travel might have become more routine, but it is not safe. If no one was willing to brave the North Atlantic in sailing ships in the 1600's, my family would still live in England. And all of us have realized that sitting in our easy chairs during the pandemic can be just as deadly as seemingly riskier behaviors.  

All that said, when I travel, I do tend to channel Goofy, my favorite Disney character, because he famously once said, "I'm brave, but I'm careful!"  

Not that we haven't done some adventurous things in our younger years. The DH earned his private pilot's license and we flew all over the American West, weaving our way through the mountain passes and zipping over the plains. We saw a barracuda (a really big one!) while snorkeling in the Bahamas. I got caught in a rip tide in Hawaii but managed to keep my head and swim parallel to the beach until I was out of it. I wandered Tokyo and the capitals of Europe solo, using public transit and my winning smile to get me where I wanted to be.   

But that was then. It's easy to get caught up in the spirit of adventure while traveling and take chances and make choices we wouldn't in our everyday life. So, here are a few things I will never do:

• Skydive--No need to bail on a perfectly good airplane.
• Bungee Jump--The feeling of impending doom has never called to me.
• Parasail--There are easier, and more fun, ways to get a thrill.
• Swim in the ocean--See the above mentioned barracuda and episode with the rip tide. Those happened when I was a strong swimmer in the pink of health. I'm definitely a paddling around in a sheltered cove girl now.
• Book an excursion labeled "Demanding."--It's important to know your limits, not just for yourself but for others as well. My friend once booked a hike through the rainforest, knowing she needed knee replacement surgery soon but thinking she could make it. Unfortunately, she couldn't. She was miserable, in pain, and slowed down the whole group. They weren't able to complete the entire tour itinerary due to time constraints caused by her debility. She was not voted Miss Popularity. 
• Hop willy-nilly into a cab in a foreign port--Without making sure the driver knows where I want to go, has told me what the fare will be and whether I can pay with American dollars or the local currency. Sadly, there have been lots of  scams perpetrated using credit cards.
• Try to be the last passenger back on the ship before it sails--Some feel the need to squeeze every drop of time from every port. I would not do well as a "pier runner."
• Slide down a water slide--The last time I did this on a Carnival ship, I was unable to draw breath during the twists and turns. It had never occurred to me that my weakened lungs would be unable to function at all if I threw in an extra G or so. 

And yet, it's hard for me to say "never." In fact, there is a place I'd love to see on our Queen Anne WC in Malaysia called the Batu Caves. It's a famous Hindu shrine about a half hour away from Kuala Lumpur. The only drawback is that it involves climbing 272 stairs. 

However, I have 568 days and a plan. More about that later...

So how about you? What would you never ever do? What do you wish you could try? 

All Inclusive or a la Carte?

As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it or leave it. ~ Buddy Hackett 

Our 2022 Viking WC was considered "all inclusive." Our airfare was covered--business class both ways. Viking paid for two large suitcases to be sent to the ship through Luggage Forward so we could travel with less stuff to embarkation. There was an included excursion in each port. Wifi was free, if not terribly reliable. Viking provided the Silver Spirits package for us so we could drink anything we wished, anytime we wished on board. (In our case, that meant plenty of sodas.) There was no fee to dine in specialty restaurants. We could use the opulent spa anytime we wanted. Gratuities were built into the fare, but we gave our cabin stewards and dining room servers extra tips each month we were on board. We were given a lavish amount of on board credit to use for additional excursions and on board purchases. Even so, we owed about $2K by the time we arrived back in the States.  

How does this deer under our apple tree relate to this topic? I'll tell you! She can either stick with the all-inclusive grass we're blessed with in the Ozarks, or she can stand on her hind legs to reach the little green apples from the a la carte menu over her head! 

Our 2018 Pacific Princess WC was a la carte. We managed to catch a "last minute" (read: within 7 months of departure) sale because I'd been watching fares on Vacationstogo.com * and when it dropped precipitously, we pounced. It was an incredible deal. Our TA kicked in enough to pay gratuities (though we gave our room steward and servers extra as usual) along with two free specialty dining opportunities. We bought our airfare through Princess and I have to say, we got a spectacular price on first class both ways. I'd never heard of shipping luggage ahead, but we could check 2 big bags apiece without fees in first class. We are not drinkers, so buying a drinks package makes zero sense. In the seven months leading up to our embarkation, I booked our excursions through the very user-friendly Princess website a few at a time so we could spread out the expenditures. By the time we boarded in San Pedro, we had some activity for almost every port planned out already. We pre-purchased some internet minutes at a discount pre-cruise price and then once on board, we received additional minutes gratis because of our loyalty level for each of the cruise's segments. (That perk has sadly gone away now.) Our onboard account was zero at the end of the voyage. 

There are pros and cons to both styles of cruising. Viking treated us like we were made of spun gold and protected us in the time of Covid with almost nanny-ish fierceness. Princess was more our traveling partner, affirming our choices and offering a full slate of things we could take or leave. 

While an all-inclusive experience is lovely, we paid for things we didn't use, like all the alcohol and repetitive "city highlights" or Old Town walking tours. But because they were part of the fare, we also had to pay for insurance on them. (For purposes of comparison, our travel insurance for the Viking WC was double what we paid for our coming Cunard voyage because all those extras aren't included.)

And I really like choosing my own excursions instead of feeling I need to take the included one since I have already paid for it. It's important to me to have different experiences in each place, so picking and choosing what we'll do reflects our personal tastes and interests. And because we'll no longer need to travel in a Covid "bubble"--please, God!--we should be able to do some independent exploration next time, especially since our Cunard itinerary has so many overnights.

You can argue that by the time all the extras are paid for, the difference between all-inclusive and a la carte cruising is negligible. If we were drinkers that might be true, because that's a big ticket item for lots of folks. We can be more creative with our excursions and choose less spendy alternatives. (For example, our Viking 13-hour excursion to Luxor was $700 a piece! A comparable tour through ShoreExcusionsGroup.com is $251.) Our all-in expenses for the 2025 voyage on Queen Anne will be considerably less than an all-inclusive fare. Especially since the entry level fare for Viking's 2025 WC has now risen beyond our financial reach. We'll have an elegant adventure on Cunard and not break the bank. 

We are who we are, and I am my father's daughter. He's most charitably described as..."thrifty." 

I can live with that. 

Queen Anne continues to take shape in the Fincantieri shipyard. She will have a woman as her first captain, Inger Klein Thorhauge. I hope Captain Thorhauge will still be in command by the time we board, but on both of our previous extended voyages, we saw the captain's seat cycle to a new person as each mariner's contract with the line concluded mid-cruise. Ditto for cruise directors. 

*We have used VacationsToGo to book shorter cruises in the past, but now I typically use it to track fares and discover cruise deals. Then we call Teresa Skeim at CruiseSpecialists.com when we've found something we want to book. She deals with extended voyages regularly and has always been very helpful and responsive.  

First Things First--Travel Insurance

 Good luck doesn't last forever. Good insurance does. ~ Plucked from a meme on Pinterest

When we were much younger and believed ourselves quasi-immortal, as all young people do, we never bothered with travel insurance. I always considered it betting against myself. 

I've given that ridiculous notion another think. 

Especially on our longer cruises, we've seen disasters happen to our fellow cruisers and despaired for them. The first was on our 30 day South Pacific cruise on HAL. A lady had a health emergency that required her to be put off the ship in Rarotonga, even though the seas were judged too rough for the rest of us to tender in to that port of call. From there, she was airlifted to Australia (about 3000 miles away!)

Our prayers went with her, and part of that prayer was that she had adequate travel insurance. The cost of emergency medical transport on the high seas can easily wipe out someone's life's savings.

Even the most healthy of travelers can have an accident. Lots of places we visit feature cobbled streets and uneven ground. One moment of inattention, taking a photo while still walking, and it's easy to go tail over tea-kettle. On our Viking WC, one of our fellow travelers lost her footing at the pyramids and fell, breaking her hip. She had to have hip replacement surgery. 

In Egypt.    

Medicare does not follow us beyond the US borders. Ditto for our supplemental insurance. If we are hospitalized outside the US, it's on our dime unless we have adequate travel medical insurance. 

And if you have a pre-existing condition, like I do with my NSIP (the least virulent of all the fibrotic lung diseases), a clock is ticking for complications from it to be covered by travel insurance. This waiver period is usually 14 to 21 days from the date of your first deposit on a cruise. In our case this time, because we had bought insurance for the Oceania voyage we later cancelled, we were able to transfer that coverage to our 2025 Cunard WC. I just had to call our carrier, give them the new details of our planned travel and policy was changed to cover us on Queen Anne & Queen Mary included travel to and from the embarkation/debarkation port. We are good to go.  

There are lots of different travel insurance companies out there and your travel agent can help you find a quote. There are plenty of options available, but here are the things we always look for:

• Trip cancellation (of course, we want our money back if we can't go for some reason)
• Trip interruption (in case of ...oh, something like a pandemic)
• $100K in primary emergency medical care (some insurance specifies that it provides secondary coverage. Remember, our US insurance will likely not work anywhere else, unless we happen to be visiting a US territory, so there is no existing primary when we're on the move. Our travel medical must be primary.) 
• $1,000,000 in medical evacuation and repatriation

But that doesn't keep me from wanting to wander!

There are usually a few extra bits and bobs included like flight delays, lost luggage compensation or coverage for car rentals, but we're mostly interested in not losing our travel investment, and being medically covered in case of accident or illness. And more than anything else, we want a way to get home if we need to. 

Even if that means coming home in a box. 

Morbid, I suppose, but it's a relief to know we wouldn't be burdening each other with that detail should the worst come to pass.

So...we've checked off the first box in planning for our 2025 Cunard WC. Our trip is insured and we can travel knowing we will be cared for if things don't go completely to plan. Our policy will be among our printed-out travel documents in case we need to make a claim. To date, we've never had to use any of the travel policies we've bought. Please God may that continue. 

But unlike my younger self thought, I'm not betting against myself. I'm gifting myself with peace of mind. 

The Next Big Thing!

No man ever steps into the same river twice. ~ Heraclitus

I think I understand what the esteemed Heraclitus is saying. Even if it was the same river, people grow and change. You are different each time. And even if somehow you could be the same, the river is always in a state of...well, flux. More or less water, more or less flotsam. You get the drift.

I guess Heraclitus is saying it's impossible to repeat an experience, even a good one, so that it is exactly the same. Our previous extended voyages on Princess and Viking have each been wonderfully exciting in their own way, and both very different. There are things I like better about each of them. Yet if we chose one of them for our world cruise in 2025, I'd be awfully tempted to compare our new experience to the first go around.

So it seems sensible to choose something that will be completely different than either of those voyages, yet meets all our "must-have's."  

After much searching and comparing, the hand's down winner for our next extended adventure is Cunard's Queen Anne!

Shortly after we booked our 2025 adventure, we received this "royal mail" welcoming us to both Queen Anne & Queen Mary 2! It's our first brush with the "Downton-esque" vibe of this voyage.

Cunard fits the bill perfectly for our first circumnavigation. We'll board in NYC and spend 98 nights on the Queen Anne. This is her maiden World Cruise so I'm sure Cunard will pull out all the stops for us. Then once we reach Southampton, we'll transfer to the Queen Mary 2 for a leisurely transatlantic back to the Big Apple--105 days afloat in all!

We do have 21 days on Cunard and know we appreciate its traditional style, so we aren't going into this blind, as we did on the Viking WC. But there are some distinct differences between this voyage and our previous ones. For one, both the Pacific Princess and the Viking Star were the oldest ships in their respective fleets. The Queen Anne is a brand new ship. In fact, she's not yet completely built! 

Her maiden cruise will be a week long sailing out of Southampton in May of 2024. Then she'll go on to a full season in the Med and Northern Europe. Plenty of time for them to work out all the bugs by the time we board on January 18, 2025. And I'm sure that Cunard will go the extra nautical mile to make Queen Anne's Maiden World Voyage something really special! 

Not all the port stops are marked on this map. I'll post the full itinerary soon, but we'll see 9 new-to-us countries and lots of new ports, along with some old friends we'll be happy to see again, like Luxor and Singapore and Sydney. 

You may notice from this map that the journey seems to start in Europe. That's because it does. The World Cruise officially begins in Hamburg, Germany, stops in Southampton to pick up more cruisers and we'll join the party in NYC. That's also why we're jumping ship in Southampton at the end of April and sailing home on the QM2. Queen Anne will continue back to Hamburg. 

What this means is that we, as Americans, will likely be a minority contingent on the ship. Even though Cunard is technically under the Carnival umbrella of cruise lines, it's thoroughly British in flavor and there will be more Brits than any other nationality aboard. It's going to be like visiting the world while traveling in a floating version of the UK. English will be the main language spoken on board, but in addition to Germans, there will be a lot more other European passengers as well. A more cosmopolitan experience than we've had before. 

The DH & me with Caspar on the Star

Part of the aesthetic of travel is the feeling of "other-ness" you get when you visit another culture. We won't have to wait for a port day to experience that feeling. When I am in the role of "other," I am forced to see with different eyes and try to understand things from another's point of view. Maybe that's why they say travel is "broadening." It's certainly a stretch sometimes.

Anyway, even though we are still nearly 600 days out, we've already started planning and preparing for our next big thing! We're so grateful for the opportunity to explore more of this beautiful world. And I'll be sharing every step of the way, so if you'd like to hop in my pocket and go with us, please consider signing up to receive these posts in your email! 

And as always, I love to hear from YOU!     

What now?

 65 degrees, partially cloudy--a lovely spring day in the Ozarks

"To travel is to take a journey into yourself." ~ Danny Kaye

We've been back from Norway for a while now, and if you've been following my blog at all, you know I always like to have a sparkly thing glittering on our horizon--a new adventure to anticipate and plan for. So the DH and I have been kicking around ideas for what our next extended voyage should be like and when. The when is 2025. (We have a total eclipse of the sun coming to our town in April of 2024, otherwise, we'd have tried to go next year!) 

And until our next adventure, the view from our back isn't too shabby...

We stumbled into our 2018 Princess World cruise when the fare took a serious nosedive about 7 months before embarkation. Where was it going? It didn't matter because we hadn't been to most of the places a world cruise typically visits. We agonized over our next big trip, first booking on Cunard, then Princess, and finally landing on Viking for 2022, (I suspect our longsuffering travel agent, Teresa Skeim of Cruise Specialists was ready to tear her hair out by the time we booked the Viking voyage, but she very kindly helped us with all our bookings and refunds and rebookings without complaint. Bless the woman.) 

So as we started thinking about a new adventure, we looked at Oceania's Grand Voyages for 2025. Before Christmas, we booked part of their 2025 WC, leaving Miami and ending in Singapore. The itinerary was chockful of new-to-us countries and ports, including the Amazon and South Africa! We got so excited because the only repeat ports for us were Montevideo, Cochin and Singapore! 

77 days on the Insignia! Awesome itinerary & small ship casual elegance!

And then I started thinking about the Yellow Fever vaccine that was required for this trip. I'd thought I could squeak by with a waiver from my doctor because, due to some meds I take for my lung condition that suppress my immune system, I can't take a live-virus vaccine. And it could work for me to do that, but the more I read about the actual disease--bear in mind, I am a mosquito magnet--the less I felt like rolling the dice. Then there's the super long flight home from Singapore...

So we called our TA and cancelled. Oceania was quick to refund our deposit, but our insurance through AIG was not refundable. We could, however, transfer the coverage to another trip, so we were committed to making another big decision.

While we were on the Viking Venus, we toyed with the idea of doing their Australia, Asia, Alaska 78 day Grand Voyage on the Orion. We were offered a nice discount for booking while we were on our trip to the Northern Lights, and we know we love the Viking experience. 

Lots of new-to-us countries and ports! 

While we were considering whether to make this booking, we realized it had the same problem  as the Oceania trip--the long international flight. We could probably do it, but I need to use my portable oxygen concentrator when I fly. Even though I've always been able to plug my POC into an airplane outlet for long flights, I'm still required to carry enough batteries with me to cover one and a half times the amount of time the entire trip takes, including time on the ground. So if the flight to Sydney takes 25 hours, I need to have 37.5 hours of battery life to cover it. That's a lot of batteries! 

And I hate to think about it, but there have been times when either Herkimer (my big POC that rolls around like a carry-on) or Percival (my purse-sized POC) have sputtered out an error message and given up their battery operated ghost. It would be a catastrophe if, somewhere over the Pacific, I lost one of them. Without the support of supplemental O2 at a plane's cruising altitude, my O2 sats drop to below 80 in about a minute. 

Not good. 

So we did some research, talked about what we really wanted in our next big adventure, and decided to go full out for another World Cruise instead of a shorter Grand Voyage. Here is our list of must-haves:

• Full Circumnavigation--Even though we've been blessed to take 2 world cruises, we've never sailed all the way around this beautiful blue marble. We'd like to have a Phileas Fogg experience of crossing every longitude line and returning to where we first embarked. 
• Under 120 days--Our Viking WC stretched the limits of our willingness to be away from family and friends. I hate to give up our land life for any longer than that.  
• Westward travel--When you sail westward, you lose a day crossing the International Dateline, but you are rewarded with multiple 25 hour days to get it back. Traveling east means 23 hour days and if it is tiring for us to lose sleep, just imagine how hard it is for the crew! 
• Embarkation & Debarkation from a US port--No international flights. 
• Emphasis on enrichment, art classes, passenger choir, a bent toward classical music on board, and if there's a spa with heated stone loungers, we'd be in heaven. We love sea days, and are perfectly capable of entertaining ourselves, but it's always good to have full slate of activities on offer. 
• A relaxed itinerary with enough sea days to rest between ports. Especially when you hit the Med, you're likely to have port, port, port. We'd rather be able to thoroughly enjoy the ports we visit and take longer excursions, knowing we'll have time to recuperate before the next one. 
• Traditional cruising--This means we want a set dining time and table so we can have the same wait staff each night. For choice, we'd like a 6 place table so we can make some new friends. We'd also enjoy some Formal Nights. Life's too short not to be able to see the DH in his tux more often!
• Self service launderette--Even if we have free ship's laundry, there are still some things I like to wash for myself. 
• Must meet our budget--I hate debt more than just about anything. As much as I love the romance, the excitement, the wonder of an extended voyage, I want it all paid for before we step on the ship. 

So that's our list. How about you? What are your "must have's" for an extended adventure? 

Munch Moments & The Way Home

 

“I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.” ~ Edvard Munch

I'd be remiss if I didn't spend a little time sharing about the Scandinavian-centric art on board Viking vessels. From the ABBA show in the main theatre, to musicians around the ship featuring Grieg and Sibelius in their repertoire, to the onboard mini-Viking museum and reproduction of the Bayeux tapestry in the stairwells, to Mamsen's yummy waffles and other Norwegian treats, the Venus is a floating celebration of Scandinavian culture and contributions. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Munch Moments each evening when, to delicate piano and sometimes violin accompaniment, some of the most important works of Edvard Munch, Norway's most famous artist, are displayed in giant pixilated form on the big screen in the Living Room. 

The Sick Child

Born in 1863, much of Munch's early life was dominated by the deaths by tuberculosis of his mother and sister Sophie, and his father's heavy-handed belief that God was vengeful and given to fits of divine punishment. As a result, a deep sense of melancholy emanates from his canvases. His work is a departure from Impressionism because he strove to paint his emotions and infused his art with the turmoil he carried within him. The Sick Child is considered a break-through canvas in the new school of art known as Expressionism. 

Love & Pain, sometimes known as The Vampire (though not by Munch himself!)

Perhaps it was inevitable that Munch would rebel against his father's strictures and adopt a bohemian lifestyle which saw sex as a tool that brought liberty from social norms. He never married. 

But the Love & Pain canvas above, as well as the other five that treated the same subject--Munch often produced multiple copies of his work, tinkering with them a bit in each iteration--indicates that he knew that love was interlaced with pain. The male figure seems fraught with anguish and if the kiss on his neck was meant to comfort, it doesn't seem to be working.   

Then there is Munch's most iconic work--The Scream. I found it a disturbing, yet profound insight into the nature of reality. There is a sense that this world, as unnecessarily beautiful as it is, is not quite what it was intended to be. There is death. There is loss. There are the undeniable laws of thermal dynamics that decree decay for all things.  

And Munch is not the only one to notice this undercurrent of despair. The apostle Paul wrote to the Romans: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time." Paul heard nature's scream too. And beyond the scream, there is a longing, a straining toward what was lost in Eden, that peace, that innocence, that perfect balance and relationship with ourselves, each other and with God.   

Does everyone sense this tension in the created world? Or is it muted by the flurry of our lives, always distracting ourselves, resisting the urge to really look at the people and things around us? This reminds me of a bit from Thornton Wilder's Our Town. Emily has just relived one of her birthdays and found that no one was really noticing each other, no one was recognizing that they would lose each other someday, everything was going so fast and even the mundane was all so incredibly precious. Overcome with emotion, she declared, "O Life! You're too wonderful for anyone to realize you!"

Then she asked:

  

EMILY: "Does anyone ever realize life while they live it...every, every minute?"

 STAGE MANAGER: "No. Saints and poets maybe...they do some.” 

Saints and poets... I don't fit either category, but I do want to realize life. I want to examine things with an eye to their true substance. I long for wholeness in all the worlds--physical, social and spiritual. I don't want to miss my life because I'm too busy focusing on the urgent instead of the important. 

 

So as we flew homeward, I resolved to spend more time with the people I love. To appreciate the many blessings I've been given. To spend more time in silence and prayer. And to remember that one day Nature's scream will be stilled when God makes all things new.  

Our flight from London to Chicago was smooth and comfortable. Our premium economy seats on Delta on the international flight were like first class domestic seats. It would have been nice to have the lay flat seats in Business, but I couldn't justify the difference in price. Our captain was retiring and we were on his last flight. As we pulled up to the jetway, the ground crew at O'Hare had prepared a water cannon salute for him on both sides of the plane! 

Even though we weren't able to make all our scheduled ports, I highly recommend Viking's Search for the Northern Lights cruise. And as an added bonus, Viking sent us a voucher worth 15% of our fare to use on another Viking voyage! 

Now we're planning our next big adventure. I'll be sharing more about that soon!  

 

Amsterdam--Venice of the North!

March 7, 2023
Drizzly and grey

“In Amsterdam, the water is the mistress and the land the vassal.” – Félix Martí Ibáñez

Back when the DH was still working, he had to go to Amsterdam for a week to get a new office set up for Google, the company he retired from in 2015. And as often happened when he traveled someplace interesting, I got to tag along and play tourist all day. While he slogged away, I was wandering the cobbled streets of this charming city, visiting the Rijksmuseum, the fascinating Biblical Museum, and the Van Gogh Museum, weeping through Anne Frank's secret rooms in the Annex, taking a peek into the mind of a genius in Rembrandt's house and riding on the excellent public trams when I wasn't dodging the ubiquitous bike riders. Honestly, the Netherlands must have the most aerobically fit populace on the planet! 

In that week there, I got a sense of how the Dutch people lived, what was important to them, and what cultural treasures they had to share with the world. Our visit today was, as my friend Kristy likes to say, "a sampler platter." You only get a small taste of what a place is like.

But it was a totally different view of the city for me because today, we took a canal boat tour! Move over, Venice! Amsterdam is the true city of canals and unlike its southern counterpart, which still doesn't have its sewage problems under control, this northern city is pristine by comparison.

Our long canal boat was surprising agile, easily maneuvering the tight turns from one watery "street" to another!

Our guide explained that living on one of the long boats mooring along the sides of the canal was more expensive than having a home in one of the charming, tall and oddly listing-toward-the-street buildings that line the canals. The slight lean forward is intentional because the interior staircases are often too small to bring up large pieces of furniture. Instead, they are hoisted to upper floors from the street and taken in via the windows!

The canal homes run the gamut from aging houseboats to sleek new designs that, while beautiful, don't resemble a vessel at all. The boats and barges are all connected to the city utilities, including water and sewer. Every 4-5 years the steel boat style homes must go into dry dock to check for needed repairs to the hull. It was not unusual to see a small dinghy tethered to the bigger boats, an easy way for residents to travel the canals. Sort of like a Vespa on a rack on the back of a Class A motorhome. 

I was surprised by the amount of traffic in the narrow canals.

Another boat filled with looky-loo's like us! 

Sometimes, the oval openings between canals seemed so small I wondered if our boat would make it through!

All the houses are tall and narrow. The white and yellow horizontal residence in the foreground is one of the "woonarks," barge-like iterations of the houseboat.

 

You'll see a few cars in Amsterdam, but bicycles seem to be the main mode of personal transportation!

Amsterdam is a fascinating place and definitely not one you can understand in an hour long canal tour. Its architecture, art, museums, flower market, and history are so layered and intricate, if my only experience of the city was just this day and this tour, I'd have felt very frustrated. However, since I'd had my boots on the ground in the past, this included Viking tour was a lovely supplement to those memories.

Stavanger

 March 5, 2023

“I’m a bit biased, as I married a Norwegian, but Norway is an incredible country.” – Edd China

Me, too, Ed. Norway is fascinating and its history and culture shaped incredible people who are deep enough to require a lifetime to know.

Likewise, Norway's special sites are worth more than one visit. Stavanger is one such place. 

Fair winds and following seas...Now that we're back in the southern part of Norway, we're enjoying blues skies and calmer water!

We first visited Stavanger on our Queen Mary 2 cruise in 2019. Back then we did a fjord cruise to view Pulpit Rock and enjoyed our first Norwegian pancakes. This time, we traveled to two historical sites--an Iron Age farm and a medieval monastery.

My favorite Northman!

The Ullandhaug farm pre-dates the Viking era (793-1066), but the way of life probably did not change much from this 350-400 AD farmstead to the time when all the Christians of Europe joined in the fervent prayer "Deliver us, O Lord, from the fury of the Northmen."

Actually, the reason the Northmen went raiding had to do with agriculture. There was not enough arable land along the fjords, so to avoid chopping farmsteads into increasingly tiny pieces, only the eldest son could inherit the family farm. Second sons and on down the birth order had to shift for themselves or rely on the largess of their older brother, so they began to look west to Bretland and the incredibly rich, weakly defended sacred sites.

A layer of birch bark topped with sod kept the family dry.

The longhouse at Ullandhaug is a reconstruction on the original archaeological site. From its stacked stone foundation and packed earth floor to the birch bark covered with sod roof, the dwelling is authentic in every detail. Twenty-five or more people would have lived here communally, probably an extended family group. Everyone in the household would have responsibilities. Believe it or not, the children were in charge of making sure the fire didn't go out!   

A hand mill used for grinding barley, oats and emer wheat. So much stone ended up in the flour, the Iron Age Scandinavian's teeth were worn down by the bread they ate.  

From Ullandhaug we rode across the city of Stavanger and into the countryside to the medieval monastery of Utstein.

Such a peaceful setting 

Originally a stronghold of Harald Fair Hair, the monastery was built as part of the Augustinian order in the late 1200's and in its heyday had as many as 12 "silent brothers" in residence. There were twice as many non-holy persons working on the grounds, building, cooking, and farming. Because it was a silent order, there were peep holes build into the walls from the kitchen to the dining hall. No one at the table could call out for the next course, you see, so the staff had to spy on the brothers during their meals!  

In case that's not creepy enough for you, there is supposedly a resident ghost at Utstein. In the 18th century, the monastery fell into the private hands of Christopher and Cecilia Garmann. Sadly, Cecilia died in childbed at the age of 25, but not before extracting a promise from her husband that he would never remarry. Christopher remained single for 20 years before succumbing to the charms of a woman 36 years his junior. To escape Cecelia's notice, he arranged to marry his new wife, not in his home chapel, but in the Stavanger Cathedral. However, the vindictive first wife was not to be scorned. After the ceremony, Cecilia's apparition appeared to him on the cathedral steps. Christopher died 8 days later. 

Cecilia and Christopher Garmann in happier times

Some have reported seeing a woman, or rather the tail of her long, full-skirted white gown slipping just around a corner as they entered one of the upper rooms. So Cecilia's ghost still hasn't found any rest.   

At least that's the tale as it was told to me. I suspect it's been embellished for tourist consumption. 

Don't miss the montage for more of these fascinating places. Maybe you'll catch a glimpse of Cecilia that I missed! 

Flam, or the Land Where Trolls Still Walk...

 March 4, 2023

Flam--Rhymes with Foam

This is our second visit to Flam. The first was in 2019 on board the Queen Mary 2. We're delighted to be back because Flam is tucked away, deep in 90 mile long Sognefjord, home to the DH's Norwegian ancestors. Three brothers came to the US in the 1800's, not through Ellis Island, but through Chicago via the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence seaway. From there, they settled in northern Iowa, but Norway was still in the family's hearts. Norwegian food and traditions, hymns and prayers were all part of my husband's growing up. My father-in-law spoke only Norwegian at home until he went to school.

A little skiff of ice lines the shore

Our excursion today was the Flam railway, a truncated version of the trip we took in 2019. Then we rode up to Myrdal and transferred to another train that would take us to the alpine town of Voss. Today, we did a much quicker up and back. Probably a good thing since the train that connected in Myrdal was coming from Bergen/Oslo and was delayed by snow by a good two hours. 

There's a newer Disney-esque version of Flam down by the waterfront. The Old Town pictured here is several miles up the canyon.

The railroad continues to be a source of amazement for me. There are several tunnels, some originally hewn from the rock by hand, and one which completes a 180 degree turn inside the mountain. The views are spectacular, no matter what time of year. 

How lovely to see a patch of blue sky after many days of grey. The dark horizontal streak up on the left side of the mountain face is a partially exposed railway tunnel. We could see out of those dark windows in a few minutes!

Up top, we got out of the coach to stretch our legs for a bit and before the cold drove us back inside, we chanced upon this little fellow, the nearest thing we saw that suggested there were trolls about...

The big mystery is where someone got the cherry tomatoes to use for his eyes!

I'll let the DH's photo montage tell the rest of our scenic story:

Back on the Venus, we were greeted with cups of hot chocolate and then went down to the thermal suite to warm up in the thellasotherapy pool. The show, after another excellent supper, was a one-woman wonder from Heather Clancy, our exceptional cruise director. She sang everything from opera to the blues with devastating conviction and has such incredible comedic timing, she is simply a treat on every level. 

Good night, Sognefjord. Your sons in the US and their progeny still remember you, even those who've never been there.

Cabin 3021

Itinerary update: We have lost the stop at Alesund due to turbulent seas. Better safe than sorry and in our case, we don't feel the loss too profoundly because we were blessed to visit Alesund in 2019 on the Queen Mary 2! 

"You can have more than one home. You can carry your roots with you, and decide where they grow." ~Henning Mankell

We've been a pair of vagabonds since the day we married. The DH and I have lived in 9 different states, all four contiguous US time zones. I used to say our frequent moves were just extended vacations on which we happened to drag along all our stuff. As long as we are together, there is home. 

So it's no trouble for us to be happy setting up housekeeping on a cruise ship for long periods...or short as in the case of this trip. And Viking makes it easy to settle in to our cabin. 

Here's a little video tour of our V2 stateroom on the Viking Venus. Let apologize in advance for my heavy breathing. I sound like an old plow horse because I'm "winging it," i.e. walking around while talking without the help of my oxygen concentrator. Sorry about that.

One thing I neglected to show was the other side of the closet where it's a nice long space for hanging dresses and pants. There's plenty of storage. Though to be honest, the location of the closet is the one design flaw I see in the Viking balcony cabins. I much prefer to have wardrobes located across from the bathroom instead of jammed up against my side of the bed! 

Do you have a favorite cruise cabin? Or any other vacation place you like to call home sometimes?

Trondheim, Norway's First Capital

 March 3, 2023

I once stood on a street in Trondheim, Norway, looking up at a statue of a Viking. There came to my mind at that time a fable of the Norsemen that when a man won a victory over another, the strength of the conquered went over into his veins. Therefore, in this sense, adversity is good, for it produces in us a source of strength as we learn to conquer our weaknesses. —Alvin R. Dyer

The sun never seems to climb into the sky. It just floats across the southern half, hugging the horizon.

I don't know if Mr. Dyer is right, but it takes tough-minded people to live above the Arctic Circle and even in Trondheim, which is considerably further south. You have to really like winter and be okay with brief cool summers. Perhaps this explains why my DH's ancestors found happiness in the upper Midwest! But I recently learned a new Norwegian saying: "There is no bad weather. Only bad clothes!"

The River Nidelva. It's only 19 miles long from its source to the sea but there are 6 hydro-electric plants along its course. Norwegians refer to their hydro-electric power as "white gold."

Trondheim is where the first Christian king of Norway, Olaf Tryggvason was crowned and the custom continued after a fashion even after Trondheim was no longer the capital. The current king Harold V, was coronated elsewhere, but he was consecrated (which means the crown was displayed beside him while the priest put his hand on the king's head) in Nidaros Cathedral.  

Midmorning in Old Town and the shadows are still long.

Nidaros is the world's northernmost gothic cathedral. Construction began in 1070 and it was finally completed around 1300. The bones of the building are pure poetry, but we only viewed it from the outside during the day. We returned in the evening for a special organ concert arranged by Viking! They do this sort of thing so very well. One of the many reasons we love Viking!

The organ is built into the structure with ranks of pipes distributed throughout the entire space so when the extremely accomplished organist played antiphonal portions of her pieces, there was a true call and answer from one end of the nave to the other. To give you a sense of scale, the largest of the pipes in the photo below were 11 meters (36 feet) tall! Sitting there, enveloped by glorious sound and soul-lifting architecture, I had the odd sensation that the entire cathedral was one big organism and organ was its lungs.

 I was transported! 

Hope you enjoy the DH's Trondheim montage:

Let There Be Light

Cloudy with showers

 "There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." ~ Hamlet, Shakespeare

Norway has an extensive system of barrier islands that protect its coast. We wound our way through these channels to escape the tail of the hellacious storm still plaguing the far north.

The sun struggles to break through!

We left Narvik convinced we'd lost our chance to see the Aurora Borealis. Even though we'd hoped to be wakened last night with a three dings from the bridge announcing they'd been spotted, we slept uninterrupted. No lights for us as we streamed southward. 

So we did the next best thing today. We watched a lecture about what causes the Northern Lights. People have pondered this question for ages--even the Greek philosophers wrote about them!--but it is only in the 21st century that we have the definitive scientific answer. 

To create a borealis, you need an active star for a sun with lots of flares and spewing of solar material into the void. Your planet must also have a electromagnetic field, which we thankful do, otherwise life would be impossible due to the solar radiation bombardment. (This is why I always shake my head when people start talking about colonizing Mars. Even if we could get there, we'd have to live exclusively underground lest we be fried by that radiation.) 

Back to the lights...when solar particles hit our biosphere, the planet's magnetic field draws them to both of our poles, concentrating them in those areas. The colors created are the product of interaction with the elements in the atmosphere--oxygen for green at low altitudes and red in the very highest, hydrogen for blue, helium for purple.

And our eyes are not always able to perceive the lights, even when they are present. However, another lecturer explained that our cameras can! Because the human eye has cells designated as rods and cones, rods for night vision and cones in daylight, we don't see faint colors in the dark. It's more like gradations of grey. The camera, however, has no such limitations and can "look longer" in one place to amass more data about what it's seeing.    

Don't get too excited about this picture. It was from the lecture, not from our experience. 

But we spent a restful day on the Venus, visiting the spa, reading, listening to live music, and generally basking in each other's company. 

He loves his creme brulee!

And, as the DH says, no day is wasted if it ends with creme brulee! 

Our onboard entertainment team presented an ABBA review in the theatre, which is always fun. As a Scandinavian band, ABBA is afforded a place of honor on Viking ships and along with the Beatles always gets a tribute show! Most of the music is fluff and would likely have passed into oblivion if not for the success of the Momma Mia franchise, but I can't deny the heartfelt cry of "The Winner Takes it All!" 

We went to sleep satisfied that we'd had a "close encounter" with the Northern Lights, if not an actual one, by learning so much about them and our cruise was certainly not wasted just because we hadn't been able to see them.

Then at a little after 11PM, 3 dings sounded in our stateroom and the captain announced that the lights had been sighted off the port side. If we wanted to see them, we were urged to go to Deck 9.

Pandemonium!

Imagine for a minute a whole ship's company of eager sky-watchers stampeding for the port rails, jostling for a place. Then imagine a few who'd skipped the photography lecture trying to snap pics of the sky with their flash on! There was so much light pollution on the ship itself, the added flashes only made things worse. The DH and I eventually worked our way down to Deck 8 with a bulkhead to our backs to create a little darker space. 

To the naked eye, the lights appeared as ripples of grey or very light green. I learned to hold my phone still for about 10 seconds so it could grab as much color as possible. 

Managed to get some reds and blues along with the greens in this "celestial city!"

Eventually, I could see movement in the sky, albeit in undulating shades of grey, and knew where to direct my camera's eyes to capture something.

Even the lights of the small town in the distance couldn't outshine the aurora! 

All this goes to show that we are constantly surrounded by things of which we are not always aware. I'm not talking about just natural phenomena. I'm talking about the spiritual realm. All we can see, hear, touch, taste or smell is not all there is. There are things beyond our ability to perceive. Truly, there are more things in heaven and earth...

Here is the DH's Northern Lights montage. Enjoy!