Author: Susie

Actually we are west of Newcastle near Hadrian’s wall and driving well on what some call the wrong side of the road.  I rejected GPS and am using an AA map (In the US we call it triple A AAA) We haven’t gotten lost… made a few wrong turns at roundabouts but corrected easily. We had pretty good half sunny day on the day we landed in Harwich  and drove north.  I suggested we pull off the main road and do some side roads looking for a local pub for lunch and for two hours we drove on country roads…  found a restaurant that was nice, but Chuck was concerned we lost a lot of time.  We actually arrived at Nick and Liz house at 6:15 when I had planned 5pm arrival.  Nick came home from a cricket match and had planned to spend the day at local event next day (Sunday) playing cricket with village against another village… but oh the stinky weather gave us a black sky, wind and rain that cancelled the village festivities but ended up quite nice later in the day.  We walked to the hotel George and had a drink and then to the local pub for a drink and music (anyone is invited to play in a jam sort of situation and they sang American, English and Irish songs! )  Today, Monday Chuck and I drove to Hexham and Corbridge and walked through the towns and churchyards. Visited Hexham Abbey and shops. Later we returned to Hexham to a Waitrose (think Publix) and bought wine! Liz is feeding us too well and we are drinking too much beer and wine!!!!  Nick is taking us around tomorrow (Tuesday). We are really bundling on walks as it is cold… in the 50s and tonight is planning to go to 40s….  I painted today in the hotel garden and my fingers were freezing!!!  Friends are warm and hospitable so that’s all we need! God bless you.

3453 nautical miles from Harwich to Harwich round trip. St Petersburg was supposed to be the highlight, but I think the experience at Stockholm Sweden with cousins was amazing! And we saw a Palace and the changing of the guard, but on a much more personal level!!!! And missing Skagen was sad as I love the little sea fish villages… I wanted to walk Chuck out to the "edge" and see the North Sea meet the Baltic. Maybe someday one of you or your children can do that and take a photo we can see. My photos from the ship will be very foggy. We will be let off the ship about 8:45am and trundle all the luggage to the rental car place and begin the long trek north. Our friends Liz and Nick weren’t expecting us until Sunday.. Let’s see how flexible we all can be! Not only do I invite myself but I give the wrong date! Ah isn’t it wonderful knowing Susie Peabody! Sun is half shining and it is 50 degrees. Enjoy the beginning of summer! God bless you!

Today was busy with packing the 10 suitcases that get luggage tags and set outside the door. We will carry off 4 bags. Hope we give away a lot of presents and we can ditch bags as we go along the way. Friends we meet say a Ford Focus will NEVER do for this road show. I swam in the pool and then we visited the future bookings guy who gets us into so much trouble so we set up some (3) advanced bookings to celebrate Chuck’s big 70th birthday celebration. Join us in 2017? God bless you!

We were out to sea headed away from Denmark into the North Sea when the Captain advised we are turning around for another evacuation. It seems the Danish Coast Guard refused the mission so our boat came into a small port called Hitchalls (someone please look at the west coast of Denmark and find a town with a similar sound… this is the best I could do with the Captain’s announcements). We turned around at 5:15 pm and pulled to a stop near the beach as we could not get into the small port. We launched a life boat with the patient and the doctor and they bounced into the town. Seas are high and the little boat looked like a toy bouncing around. By the way the couple air lifted this morning was "an elderly lady" who had a stroke and her husband who "used canes." This report was from a fellow traveler. I imagine their baggage will be all packed and delivered to safe keeping in Harwich. Lesson learned? Travel now, and then later, settle in to our home near hospitals. As we waited, we dined on lamb chops and veal osso bucco at Giovannis, one of the Specialty restaurants on board compliments of our travel agent. And we talked about other cruises we have taken and the great Renaissance cruise we took with Dave and Debbie with about a 1 day notice… and how they also traveled with us to England. It’s fun to have compatible traveling partners. Finally we watched the little bucking bronco life boat bounce back and now (8:15 pm) we are underway again. A rainbow shone over the small town as if to say, "job well done and goodnight!" Tomorrow will be a day of weeping and gnashing of teeth as we try to pack all our stuff and we put the bags outside the door in the hallway before midnight. God bless you.

Skagen was declared a no-go at 10:15 am when pilot and Captain agreed that with winds of 45 knots directly out of the south and currents and high seas also too dangerous to land. At the same time a passenger was taken ill and required immediate treatment. The Danish Coast guard was called and arrived within 10 minutes. Meanwhile we watched on our room TV the crew trying to lower the 2 "masts" out on the bow. Radar and deck railing went down easily, but 2nd mast with flag blowing straight out would not lower. The helicopter hovered in high winds as the ship turned a full 360 degrees to try to come around with winds directly against the starboard. Meanwhile I tried to take photos outside, but it is grey and the land looks like a grey blob if we can see it at all. We watched the precarious maneuvering of the helicopter and ship as they tried to hover together in the wind and seas and hold still long enough to land 2 red uniformed rescue team and a stretcher on to the bow. With that mast up, it probably was very dangerous as a line might blow and snag. Even if the helicopter wanted to land, he couldn’t. The flag on the mast whipped straight out at 30 mph from starboard to port. The pilot boat hovered off the bow waiting for her pilot who stayed on board as we came close to the spit of land in Skagen that marks the joining of the North Sea to the Baltic. I had hoped to walk out and stand on that point of land, but will have to depend on a very grey photo for the experience. While we waited and the helicopter hovered, I thought back to two other rescues during this trip: In Norfolk, an ambulance picked up a stretcher and a person carrying two back packs (perhaps a father and son team going on an adventure), and in the Baltic we had another helicopter rescue by the Swedish Coast Guard, but not in such grave conditions. In 26 days at sea we have witnessed 3 rescues. I wonder what the statistics are. Our Big Pine Key renter works at the Lower Keys Medical Center, and she says they get ship mates for surgery sometime so I guess this is like a traveling small town with 3360 souls in total and 3 in a month need surgery. The rescue completed, the stretcher and a civilian hoisted up on to the helicopter, the Captain thanked the Danish Coast Guard for a professional job well done. It was a treacherous rescue, but all went well. God bless this crew, passengers, and God bless you! Onward to Harwich we go with a sea day tomorrow. Sipping a glass of wine, I salute you!

Good morning! We’re inside the ship, looking out the windows, watching the Baltic sea go by as we don’t dock for another 2 hours. There is a lot of freighter traffic in the Baltic and it seems that the ships pass very near to each other! I guess they are used to this. Today might be a bust as the forecast is 100% precipitation (we can see this from our windows) and barely 53 degrees with a low of 45 degrees. Chuck and I might take this as a rain day and read our books. Newcastle (our first English stop), doesn’t look much better with a forecast of 56 degrees and rain for Sunday. We will be able to visit with old friends so hopefully we’ll sit and sip and not get too wet! I hoped we could go out to the market in Hexham, but … we’re not hardy Englishmen so we’ll see how the day shakes out. Nottingham (our second English stop to visit Emily and Stephen and 2 babies) looks better at about 69 to 71 degrees and partly sunny! Yea! come on summer. We knew this early season visit might be wet and cold, but we always hope for sunshine! So my dears. If anything happens, I’ll let you know! Happy spring and early summer. God bless you!

An "at sea" day means a sleep in day! At sea there is nothing to do… so what’s the first thing we do? wake up at 7am! So… we look at each other, "Oh well" and we roll out of the sweet covers, and we have a very important decision to make right off: Eat in the dining room or the Windjammer? We chose the dining room (very posh, table cloths and all that), get a daily soduku and trivia paper, but the dining room is not open! So. Windjammer it is! NEXT. Do laundry. Pack a small bag with all the underwear and sox and one tee shirt. Then I washed some of Chuck’s tee shirts (these are the long sleeved "warm" tee shirts we will need for the next few days and in England), and finally my little undies. Hang everything out on the balcony! Even the leopard undies… After all, those container ship crews need some excitement as they pass us by! Those of you who have passed through my yard have seen the laundry I hang out. Moving on… Very busy day. I went to passenger services to check on some credits we got, but that haven’t shown up yet on the bill. And finally, The Captain’s Corner. Here is where the Captain reveals all like the building of the ship (took 4 years and $500 million), Did you know they no longer "launch a ship? They fill the building with water and float her out. She has Azipod "screws" that turn 360 degrees and I have been up top when he has turned on a dime in ports. A 5 ton helicopter can land on her pad although we had a sea rescue and the Swedish coast guard did not land, rather dropped in a doctor and then attached a line to a stretcher and lifted off a staff member. In the food department we use 18,400 eggs and 3500 gallons of milk per week (we are a hungry bunch). When she is full the ship carries 3000 tons of fuel. Pretty amazing. In 2016 RCCL will not be using Harwich which was very convenient for us. Finally the ship’s front end is shaped like the submarine… the bulbous bow is a rounded bow that allows for increased speed at lower fuel consumption. I talked Chuck into going to the pool which was warm like a bathtub… OK he did it, but was like a cat in the water…. not moving too much and watching all the exits. I let him go after about 20 minutes. Nap, and now it is formal night… busy busy. We have dinner at 6 and a party at 7:45. Hope all are well. Tomorrow is our last port: Skagen, Denmark. God bless you!!!

Good evening friends and family. A single guitar plays in the Centrum (which I have on occasion called the atrium.) The ship is sailing away from Stockholm and I took about a million pictures starting at about 8am. The day progressed from foggy, rainy, sunny, SUNNY! so some pictures will come out. We met Chuck’s cousins Ingela and Hakan (Ingela and Chuck are related by having the same great grandmother Anna from Sweden!) They were waiting for us at 8:50 am and we began our adventure. We toured and finally parked at a marine museum and I took us off the beaten path to the entrance because I thought I saw a memorial. Indeed it was a memorial cemetery to seamen (a lot of commanders, admirals etc) How beautiful. When we finally got to the museum there were about a million people waiting in line. Ah…. not this time we said… So we took off for more garden walking. We decided to take a boat tour and so climbed aboard a boat to tour the many bridges over the waters of Stockholm. How beautiful Stockholm is with lots of gardens and green spaces for walking and running. Then we saw horses at the Palace and hurried up to see the changing of the guard. The guard are so young!!! I took many photos. Then Ingela and I lost Chuck and Hakan but never fear… They were talking to horse policemen. I forwarded the photo via email; if I forgot you, please let me know and I’ll send to you! Ingela and I went into the Cathedral which was built I think in the 1600s. We read tomb stones and I think this was about the earliest date on the tombs… It was really beautiful and bright. Then we went out to find the boys… and wait!!! where do you think they were? A pub about 20 paces from the church door sipping beer! We ate lunch of herring, salmon, and Ingela had reindeer (is that legal? It tasted good, but what would Santa say?) Then Ingela had to go to a business meeting in Italy (you know these Europeans… off to Italy.) We walked in the old town and then met up with the boys (Oliver and Felix – beautiful nearly 14 year old twins all ready for summer vacation). By now it was warm enough to strip down to long sleeved tee shirt and by now (7pm) the sun is shining brightly! We came back to the ship and I put on bathing suit to swim for 1/2 hour then go drink wine with Chuck and the crowd we have met at Vintages. It’s almost bedtime and the sun won’t go down for another three hours! Tomorrow is a free day and I intend to do nothing! Be happy and look up! God bless you.

I heard the fog horn, mournful, yet threatening, in the night. Long and low, from the throat, growling, "I’m here; I’m big! Move out of my way!" I woke again to watch the archipelago that makes up the opening to the port of Stockholm float by, well I guess we were floating by; it is granite. Sweden has thousands of granite islands. As we neared harbor, a big cruise boat passed. She is called Viking Grace, with Grace written on her side three times. She made me think of Mom who loved adventure. "Mom would love this!" I whispered to a few sea gulls sitting expectantly next to me. "Mom would be up for this!" "Perhaps she is," they cooed back. And so our Stockholm adventure begins. 8am and tying up to the pier which faces a big granite hill, I wave to a couple walking a big black dog, "Good morning!" but they don’t see me. I’m just another bit of white in my RCCL bathrobe with white coffee cup, leaning against one of hundreds of balconies. They don’t wave back, but I wave! "Good morning Stockholm! I bring Peace!" God bless you!

I think I was a little "down" from Russia. There was so much overpowering Palaces, Domed churches, gold, glorified empresses… Today was different. Our guide’s name was Maria. She almost sang about spring and flowers … We took a boat trip and the boat captain pointed out mating birds and talked about Spring! "Every year is a new spring! Summer will begin ‘soon’ and last ‘a while’…. and the birds return every year to mate!" I took photos of geese and ducks and tulips and daffodils. After a tour of Helsinki (very clean and artsy) we traveled to Porvoo (a small old fishing village), took a boat ride to a manor house turned spa and conference center, ate a lovely lunch and then toured back to Helsinki for a visit to 2 churches, including the rock church literally carved out of a giant rock, and an outdoor market. Did I mention I sampled home made Finnish chocolates, licorice and a beer? Yawn. I’m ready for bed. Tomorrow we are meeting cousins in Stockholm, Sweden. God bless you.