June 12/13

June 12, Olden, Norway. Pretty much the same as yesterday. FYI, sunset last night at this latitude was at 11:35 p.m. and sunrise this morning was at 3:47 a.m. Makes me glad I have an inside cabin. When I got up about 8:00 a.m., sunrise was just creeping down the mountainside toward the town.

By the way, the info about flat, non-diet Coke having all the electrolytes you need comes from a perky blond British nurse named Stephanie. I just figured it was too useful not to pass it along. But I will say that it will be a long cold day somewhere before I drink another dozen 150 ml teeny tiny toy cans of flat Coca Cola in about 36 hours. It works, but bletch!

Yea! I am free! No more isolation (probably a politer term than quarantine). No more Niky and the HazMat boys (the real name for them is Hit Squad, but I like HazMat better). The first thing I did was to take a nice long nap. Go figure.

Olden is a really lovely little place, and I think I see a few shops right at the end of the dock, so I'm going to head that direction if my strength holds out. (I am rather wobbly after the better part of a week of being ill and no activity to speak of.). Yes, I wobbled over (after my card didn't want to let me off the ship), looked around, and wobbled back. My card not only didn't want to let me back on, it refused to rulet me into my cabin. So, up to the main desk for card #2.

After another rest and some rehydration, about the time we were to sail,  I headed out to explore the ship for the first time and find a good place to watch our departure. The Captain announced that the strings were being removed, the engines' rubber bands were fully wound up, and he was going to pirouette around the other ship in the harbor. Sure enough, it all happened as he said, and he did the pirouette going backwards! with less than 100 feet to spare in any direction! Progress back down the fjord was slow and gorgeous!

Card #2 may have opened my cabin door, but it would not work correctly at any of the shops or bars, so back again for card #3. So far, so good.

Ventura is essentially the same plan as Caribbean Princess with a few differences in pool structure on the Lido and other upper decks (no flying Skywalker's equivalent although Metropolis comes close),, and a very different decor through the public spaces. Ventura is heavily urban-techno-modern (which probably isn't the right name for it). It has more character, and I actually like it a lot better, than Caribbean Princess, but that's a matter of personal taste. I can't say much for the public areas' background music which is too loud, hard driving, repetitive, mostly tuneless, and senseless, but that's true of most cruise lines and just about everywhere else these days.

June 13, Stavanger, Norway. It is raining today, but since I've been here and done the main tour of Lysfjord and Pulpit Rock here, I don't count this against the weather magic ... or at least not by a full point. 

A fair number of people stayed aboard what with the weather being uncooperative, but I grabbed a good spot in the Metropolis with a great view of the harbor and the MSC Poesia next to us. Poesia left first, sailing straight out.at a good clip. We had to wait for some late passengers ... one pair of which were the same as yesterday's. Then the captain "let off the last strings," and did another backwards pirouette to get us going. Pretty quickly we got into a thick fog, so with nothing to see, I opted to go back for a nap. 

For dinner, it was a formal night, and I had no interest in unpacking the suitcase down to the sparklies, so I nipped up to the Italian dinner buffet on Lido Deck for a quick bite. P&O's version of penne carbonara is definitely NOT my idea of the dish ...iIt was almost inedible. However, yesterday evening, their room service folks produced a truly superior bowl of spaghetti Bolognese. The sauce wasn't quite as good as Tom's home made version, but it was close ... very close!