Adventures of Beth and Dan: Is this August?

Lazy days have taken over since the weather outside is blustery and wet. We meet friends around the pool deck area which is under the retractable roof and play games or cards or catch up on visiting. So far I’m so proud to announce arhat not once have we taken an elevator in a week! Our cabin is on deck five and the Lido is on deck 9. The shows and lounges are on two and three with deck one being the atrium and guest services. Our stewards keep our room tip top; we often don’t have them come in as we feel we can make our own bed and replenish our ice bucket :). They have many rooms to keep up and have the usual guests that are demanding so we give them a day or so off.

We watched a few good movies in our room in the afternoons or evenings and try to make it to the gym on sea days. Dan has played pickleball a few times if it isn’t raining or blowing your socks off. They have about 8 good players that call each other to get together. We listen to the lectures too on sea days. The talks mostly have covered the Sagas of the Vikings and their settlements in Greenland. Most of the history about the Vikings was written hundreds of years after their decline which was news to me. They were regarded as violent sword bearing beasts with horned metal hats but in reality they were farmers and fishermen. It seeems they rebelled against the Catholic Church because they tried to convert them and shame them. They did go to raiding and pillaging but also worked hard at just surviving. There is confliction in the stories or sagas about their history. Much of it has been romanticized and isn’t entirely true. We have two presenters and often their lectures repeat what the other has shared.

We haven’t been to the formal dining room once. We prefer doing our own thing and just having what we like rather than sitting for an hour to hour and 1/2 sitting with folks we don’t know. We like the view from the Lido and the more casual setting. We get to know the waiters and enjoying hearing about their families and way of life on a cruise ship.

The music in the BB King Blues lounge has proven exceptional and most nights after the entertainment we park ourselves for 45 minutes on a comfortable chair and sing along with the band and singers. They also have a piano bar with dueling pianos which is sometimes fun to listen to also.

One evening we enjoyed dinner at the Canaletto which is one of their pay to enjoy restaurants. This time it was part of the package we received from our travel agent. Dan had lasagna and I had Veal Parmigan. Some Arizona friends we met on the Grand Asia accompanied us and we all had way too much to eat but enjoyed all of it.

They also have been showing some of the new Planet Earth videos in the screening room. We haven’t made it to those yet but feel we have plenty of time to do that with more than 20 days left of this voyage.

Nanortalik, Greenland is another tender port. We got off with a little bit better weather and actually saw some sunshine. This is a native village which is predominately a fishing village. Life is very simple. None of the homes have running water ; they get their water at small blue huts positioned along throughout the streets. Most folks don’t have a vehicle but have a boat. Today a barge was docked right after we pulled in. We heard that the villagers were so happy to see the supply barge because the entire town was out of toilet paper! Most folks looked tired and worn out. Many smoked and we could tell that alcohol here too is a problem. There were a few grocery stores that carried everything from toiletries, to clothing, bedding, baby items, etc. There is one church that is historic and under renovation. The small choir of the church performed several times on the hour singing mostly hymns in their native tongue. For $10 you could enter and enjoy the music. We took advantage of walking around the town and paid to partake of their Open Air Museum for $5 per person. You could tour the old historic buildings and get some lovely vistas from several benches that were positioned along the route. I took us about an hour to go through all the buildings and see how meagarely they existed. We took photos of many of the wild flowers that were growing along the paths.