A little of this and a little of that!
Trip Start
Jun 03, 2010
1
20
56
Trip End
Jul 02, 2010
Where I stayed
Norwegian "Sun" cruise ship
Oresund Bridge, Skåne, Sweden
Monday, June 14, 2010
Today was a day of rest. I got up early and went to the gym but Sam and Danielle slept in. Not too much exciting happened on the ship today but it was nice after the last five very busy days.
Today I decided to share some of our more memorable moments both on the ship and in ports. Most of these are very random but after 12 days with each other the three of us are getting a little slap happy, so here goes.
Steps on the ship, between the third deck and the tenth deck there are about 75 steps. We made port six times but went up and down the steps eight times; by the way for those of you that don't know Sam makes us walk he says it’s good free exercise. Anyhow, just disembarking and re-embarking on the ship I have climbed around six hundred (600) steps. Now lets do the math for the sea days and the after port times. We go from the tenth deck to the fifth deck and sometimes to the twelfth deck four or five times a day. That means I climb about one hundred to one hundred and fifty steps every day (except for the 1st day in St. Petersburg), so 125 steps (a split down the middle) every day for eleven days is 1375 steps plus the 600 from the port days means I have climbed close to 2000 steps during this cruise. I just thought you might want to know that fact and by the way I am still breathing hard when I come from the sixth deck to the tenth deck after the show every night.
A second random thought, our guide in St. Petersburg was the same one for the two days we were there and she kept using the same two phrases "please, walk this way" and “mind your step”. Ok after two days of this and then Danielle adding “we’re just walking and walking and walking” every time the guide told us to ”please, walk this way”, well let’s just say all three of us will not forget those phrases any time soon. By the way Sam and Danielle love to torment me with both of those phrases but especially “mind your step” and for those of you who know how light on my feet I am (NOT) you understand why they keep tormenting me.
Oh hooray they had a laundry special on the boat, everything we could fit in the laundry bag for one low price and yes I did use the tape I packed to keep the bag shut once we filled it. Anyway we got our clean clothes back today and we all did the happy dance!
On to a more interesting topic, today we went under the bridge that divides the Baltic Sea and the North Sea and also allows for travel between Denmark and Sweden. They gave a bunch of facts about it over the PA but I couldn’t hear what they said so anyhow it was pretty cool but since we have the Mackinaw bridge in Michigan Danielle wasn’t that impressed I kind of was with the whole connecting two countries and all. Below is a few facts about the Oresund Bridge I found on google.
Perfect for travelers wanting a quick connection between Sweden and Denmark without flying, the Oresund Bridge now carries more than 60,000 travelers daily - amongst them both local commuters and visitors. The Oresund Bridge offers a 4-lane road carrying 6 million vehicles per year, and two train tracks (another 8 million people each year).
Oh by the way did I tell you about our cabin, no, I thought I had forgot to. Well our cabin is on the tenth deck and we have a wonderful balcony which Sam and I have enjoyed, however, on the very first day when we entered the cabin there were two twin beds but no berth (for those of you who do not know what a berth is it is a bed that is lowered from the ceiling). So I kind of wondered where the third person was going to sleep, as we soon found out the couch converted into the third bed. Well being the great kids that I have they each took one of the twin beds and left me with the couch, now not to sound ungrateful but after eleven nights of sleeping on a couch I will be one very happy cruiser to sleep in a real, I hope, bed Wednesday night.
Just as a side note sort of related to our cabin, as some of you knew all three of us only packed carry-on size luggage plus one hand bag/back pack each. Since our luggage is so sparse our cabin actually has quite a bit of room left over in it and even though my kids took the good beds they have been very neat cabin mates. Andrew I hope you are reading this and are taking note about how neat I know you are keeping the house.
Tonight at the end of the show they had the crew celebration and it was very neat. The singers sang a song written for NCL about it being the crew’s home and them welcoming us as guests followed by representatives from all of the different departments walking up on stage and the crowd showing their appreciation by applauding them. The cruise director, Pedro, said this ship has 950 crew members from 60 different countries and if they, the crew, could work, sleep, and play together peacefully on a ship maybe the United Nations and the rest of the world could learn something from them, a good point I thought.
Other cruise ship things, a few nights ago Sam participated in Battle of the Sexes. He along with four other men battled five women. Danielle and I missed most of it but we both saw Sam’s attempt to hula-hoop and laughed hysterically. Danielle went back to the cabin then but I saw Sam get close to his teammates in the final competition. Each team had to blow up and tie off four balloons. After each member had completed their balloon they had to one at a time hop towards Sam (the women had their own person to hop towards) with the balloon between their legs. When they reached Sam they had to take the balloon and stuff it up Sam’s shirt and then without using hands find a way to burst the balloon. I have not laughed so hard in a long time. These grown men hugging Sam as hard as they can trying the burst the balloons, it was hilarious. The men won and received titaniumish NCL pens.
By the way for those of you who don’t know FIFA World Cup Soccer play has started. Every day they show the game/games in one of the lounges, well the other night it was the Brits against the Americans. Let me tell you on a cruise ship where the majority of the passengers are American or British it could have gotten ugly, but to the crew’s relief the game ended in a tie and the points were split between the two teams. Yea!
Well got to go Happy Monday, luv to all Ann, Sam, and Danielle
Comments
Will pass the message too Jeff as soon as he arrives. Thanks for all the fantastic updates... This is a great way to keep up with you and your travels. Continue to have a great time. :)
you are not giving me much to go on. Webmail is one of your favorites. Your user name is your emails address. I can't give you your password here. all I can tell you is it starts with r.
Ok I got to the website but it wants me to run a set-up wizard and it is telling me to press start or closes, that's great except I don't have those botton's on the screen any suggestions?
Thank you so much for keeping us up to date on all your stops. Stockholm sounds very nice. I really enjoy reading your blogs. Can't wait to see all your pictures. Take care.
Couple things: Been in communication with Craig and Andy. We are doing an estimated estimate! So we should be okay there. You had a payable set up for $295, Ron printed that check. I am assuming that I need to void that check, and just J/E the payment I am making. This is the process I am going to take unless you tell me otherwise!
Stockholm sounds terrific. I am very Proud of you for eating STRANGE things. And as for the Vodka, I can totally understand, can't say that I would have done things any differently.
Continue to have a great trip! Have seen Andrew a couple times so know he is still alive and kicking. Thanks for the update!
So I just talked to Jeff. He says his laptop is largely configured exactly the same as yours and he can't get a wizard to come up when he opens web mail so he doesn't know what to tell you to get rid of it.
He wonders if you added any software before you left that might be in conflict with web mail. If so, try uninstalling it and then see if web mail will operate properly.
If you did not install any software, how about any changes to your browser? I use Firefox and you can download add-ons and all kinds of stuff to customize your browser, could something like be it? If so, try uninstalling that and then try web mail.
It it's none of that, is there a message that appears with the wizard - any kind of an error code or message? If so, could you copy and paste that into an entry so Jeff could see it? Maybe that would help him identify where the wizard is coming from and help you determine what is causing the wizard to open.
Sorry you're having this trouble, it must be soooo frustrating!
Finally was able to get on today I think it had something to do with the cruise ship. All's good now except I have over 1200 e-mails I do believe most of them hitting the trash can. Have a great day and thanks.