First Day at Sea

Surprisingly enough, I was able to get up in time to make it to morning stretch, which seems to be a yoga-lite.  Fine by me.  A little more challenging when the floor lurches a bit, but mostly not balance-intensive, which is better for me anyway.  Troy made it up in time to have room service deliver breakfast.  We then did a morning round of trivia to get the brain waves going.  Out of 15 questions, we got a grand total of six correct.  We did not do well with baby animals (baby alligators are hatchlings, as it turns out) and several other categories.  To really ramp up the friendly competition, the group in front of us got 15/15.  Apparently, they had heard it all before.

After trivia, Troy was feeling a little seasick, so we went back to the stateroom and dozed for a bit.  When the Dramamine kicked in, we nursed our wounded trivia pride in the hot tub for a while, and then read on the deck.  Pretty gorgeous weather – cool and sunny.  We went to the buffet for a late lunch and roamed the decks looking for shuffleboard.  No such luck on shuffleboard being an option.

At 4:00, we went into the Rendezvous Lounge to wait for the progressive trivia tournament to start, and we had the opportunity to hear the end of the passenger choir’s first rehearsal.  I just think it’s awesome that that’s an option for participation on board.  Now all they need are some arts and crafts, and I’m set.  You’ll be happy to know that Troy and I performed considerably better during the progressive trivia round, missing only three of the fifteen questions.  These are the ones we missed.  I’ll put the answers at the bottom.

·         What color is most common in the flags of the countries of the world?

·         What color is slug’s blood?

·         What is the only word in the English language to end in –mt?

After trivia, we had our first formal night in the dining room.  I once again had French onion soup, and lamb medallions for the entrée.  Very tasty, and we sat with a couple from Australia, and a couple from Southern California.  Learned some about Australia (was able to drop some knowledge from the history of the periodic table of elements book that I’m reading (The Disappearing Spoon)), and generally had a good time.  Both couples were veteran cruisers.

The next “event” was the Captain’s Address.  Captain Tasos is the youngest captain ever in the Celebrity fleet and had a nice sense of humor.  He introduced his senior officers, and talked for probably five minutes before the event turned into “Production Spectacular: Hollywood!” which was a singing dancing number that was very high energy and had a whole lot of costume changes.  We finished the night off with Emily and the Nightcaps.  And by “finished the night off,” I mean, we were two of four people who hung around to hear Emily and the Nightcaps go until “late.”

Tomorrow is Excursion the first!  We’re going to Rostock, Germany and doing a tour of the town and the brewery.

More later!

Answers:  Red (we said white), Green (we said yellow), and Dreamt (we said... nothing)

Celebrity Cruising!

Cruise day sub 1

We were startled awake by someone coming into our room unannounced.  We’re pretty sure that it was housekeeping, since they opened the door, didn’t say anything, and then closed the door again.  To be fair to housekeeping or whomever, it was later than we might normally have slept.  But, I’m pretty sure that we’re now on board with local time.  So anyway, the unanticipated and slightly creepy wakeup call got us going.  To make the best use of our 24-hour public transportation passes (and our hotel’s 11:00 AM checkout policy) we got organized and headed to the ship for check-in.

Wait for it.  In the pouring rain.  Because of course.  By the time we navigated the tram and did the 15-minute walk from Central Station to the Passenger Terminal for cruise ships, we looked (and felt) like drowned rats.  Let me tell you, the “first picture after having just checked in” is a less than flattering presentation (at least of me – Troy looks very nice, as usual).  Because we were checking in a few hours before the deadline, we made it through all the opening stuff in less than a half an hour, and were greeted on board with champagne and mimosas.  Nothing not to like there.

We didn’t have our luggage, and our stateroom was still being prepped, so we went to explore the ship and find some lunch.  Thankfully, their buffet was open and we were able to grab a solid amount of food.  The downside was that everyone else on the ship had the same idea at the same time, so we took it outside where we were covered, but still damp.  We’re embracing the damp at this point.  Plus, the ship has an entire ice cream bar that is open basically all the time. We bummed around in the solarium until we were able to get into our stateroom, and then we took the opportunity to try out the solarium’s hot tub/thalassotherapy pool.

We opted for the “classy casual” dining option, and based on the quality of the French onion soup and the salmon, that will be my preference moving forward.  It was AWESOME.  We chatted some with the couple sitting next to us, who were from Worchester, Massachusetts.  It was a very pleasant experience.  After dinner, we went to one of the lounges to read for a while, and listen to Emily and the Nightcaps, who played an interesting variety of covers.

The only thing that really annoyed me was that I had used pretty much all of my Bank of America credit card points to purchase a $500 Celebrity gift card, which I assumed (based on zero information to the contrary being provided by BoA when I purchased) that the giftcard could be used to pay for excursions and on-board expenses.  Lies.  It actually says pretty specifically on the back of the card that it can only be used in booking new travel, so I won’t be able to use it on this trip.  Guess we’ll have to book another.

Tomorrow is our first day at sea.  My plan (we’ll see if it happens) is to get up and do Morning Stretch, and maybe yoga.  Then, there are two trivia periods, a “buy another cruise” talk (that I already have an incentive to go to), BINGO!, dinner where lamb is the suggested entrée, and all sorts of other things to explore.

Yay for cruises!

Amsterdam!

Hey All,

I know that a post never showed up detailing our day in Amsterdam.  That’s because the place we stayed had very selective internet accessibility.  As in, some internet algorithm decided which pages would load and which wouldn’t.  Gmail? Fine.  Google blogger? No.  Facebook? Fine.  Facebook messenger? No.  Anyway, here’s Amsterdam sub 1.

After getting up especially early on Monday so that we could get breakfast before getting on the train to Amsterdam, we were surprised to learn that Belgian Waffle stands aren’t open at 7:45 for breakfast.  FOR REAL? WHO DOES THAT?!?  So no waffles for us L.  Taking the train to Amsterdam was very easy, and we got there right on time at 10:40.  The metro that would have taken us straight to our hotel was out of order, so instead we took the metro to some random stop somewhere, where we then took a bus to our hotel stop.

We dropped our stuff and headed back to Central Station, to meet up with the hop-on, hop-off bus, which came every 15 minutes (ish).  At the first stop, there was a line about 50 deep to get on, so we were a little worried, but we were able to get on to the second bus.  We rode several stops, and listened to the tour (this used to be the post office, but now it’s the mall… this used to be a crappy place to live, but now even Rembrandt couldn’t afford to live here… etc.).  We got off in an area with a lot of restaurants, grabbed some lunch and walked around for a while (while trying not to get run over by a tram, bus, car, vespa, or bicycle, all of which seemed to have a better sense of the unwritten rights-of-way than we did).  Then, we got back on the bus and listened to most of the rest of the tour.

The next time we got off, it was to go to the flower market, which was crowded, but still managed to smell nice, and not like a sea of sweaty humanity.  I appreciated that.  It was relatively close to Rembrandt Square, so we walked over there after the Flower Market and caught a canal cruise.  The canal cruise was pretty awesome, because the buildings that line the canals are all super pretty, and we even got to go out into the harbor and see all the larger ships and whatnot.

After the cruise, neither of us were starving, but we found a place to stop by Rembrandt Square and got a snack and a few drinks while we debated what to do next.  The hop on-hop off tours had ended at that point, so we decided to head back to the hotel (via the most time consuming tram ever) and get dinner around there.  We both fell asleep within ten minutes of getting back.  An hour and a half later… it was pretty late, so we grabbed dinner at the hotel, and went back to repack, and get ready to head to the cruise ship the next morning.

One day closer to caught up J I’ll do another later.

Catherine

Waffles and Parliament

Hey All,


Hope everything's going well stateside :).  We got a slightly later start on the day (I think we were trying to make up for little to no sleep on the way over).  But luckily, in Belgium, breakfast is an all day event.  Assuming you want waffles (which of course we did).  And they were delicious.


After that awesome start to the day, we wandered over toward the European Parliament.  I say wandered because it was off the map that the hotel gave us, so we had a general sort of sense of where we were going.  I wouldn't say that we took the most direct route, but Brussels is very scenic, so it all worked out. 


We got to the EU Parliament around noon, and started exploring the exhibits.  The internet had told us to expect to spend around an hour in the museum, and around 30 minutes in the actual EU Parliament building.  Lies.  We finished the museum around three hours later, and among the things we learned in the museum was that Parliament is actually on vacay this week.


The museum was very well organized, and had a lot of cool technology to walk you through the history of the EU and the current state of things.  Everyone got their own iPod-like speaker that you could just swipe in front of certain symnpls, and it would either give you information on the screen, or it would start talking to you.  There were a few frustrating parts (for example, you would swipe your iPod-like-thingy and be reading through the information on a large television monitor when someone else would come up and swipe theirs and the screen would reset and be in their native language - European collaboration, my butt), but for the most part, it was very well put together.  Lots and lots of information.


After wandering back by a large gate (in the rain, because let's be real, apparently that's pretty much the weather here), King Leopold's Park, and several other significant areas of Belgium, we finally found the metro, and were able to get back to the general area of our hotel.  This was obviously cause for ice cream celebration :)  Or just ice cream.  I don't need an excuse.


Tonight for dinner, we followed a recommendation from Neil and Katie and had a very tasty dinner, followed by more wandering around.  Pictures to follow, as soon as I recharge my computer.  Tomorrow, we're off to Amsterdam!


Catherine

Mini-Europe, Atomium, the Grand Platz, and the Rain. Mostly the Rain.

Hi All,

When we arrived at our hotel at 7:00 in the morning, the somewhat grouchy (but maybe just aloof, non-morning European) lady at the front desk informed us that there would be no rooms available for several hours.  So, not wanting to waste time, we glanced at a map and took off for the metro.

Rather than noticing the metro stop 50 feet in front of the hotel, we walked a few blocks in the direction that our taxi driver had pointed us.  To a tram station.  Not, as it turns out, the same thing.  But there were several people sleeping outside in tents, so that's something.  After we got our bearings, we walked back and found the metro stop by our hotel, went down, and hopped on the number six line to do what we considered to be probably the height of awesome tourist activities.  We were on our way to Atomium and Mini-Europe.

This is what we found when we got there:

That, my friends is Atomium.  A description will follow, but please note the impending rain and complete and total lack of other people.  Because Mini-Europe opened at 9:30 and Atomium opened at 10:00, we headed over to Mini-Europe.  Got there around 9:00.  No one was there.  No one.

So, it's a Saturday morning, in the summer, and there are exactly zero people at what seems to be a reasonably popular tourist attraction.  Granted, within the next 10-15 minutes, it was actually raining pretty hard.  But still, we weren't sure what to make of that.  At around 9:25 a girl showed up, got things organized, and opened the gate so that we could buy tickets.  She seemed pretty surprised to see us, and didn't really give us any hint as to what we were about to encounter.  Which was totally awesome.

Mini-Europe is a series of models of major European landmarks.  They're made meticulously to a scale of 1:25.  It really was like touring all of Europe in a day.

Seriously, they really had pretty much everything.  Best parts:

• It was totally interactive.  They had buttons that you could push to hear the national anthem of each country, knock down the Berlin Wall, and make the Dutch windmills turn.  They also had a lot of little games that you could play.  For example, in the France section, they had a Mona Lisa heist set up.  Troy was the robber, and I was the police, and we both had to run in place on a special mat.  I caught him, and the Mona Lisa was safe.
• The Romania section featured Dracula!
• We were literally the only ones there for the majority of our visit (and at some point the rain tapered off some).

(Note the Charlotte love (and lack of weather-appropriate clothing))

After learning more about the spirit of cooperation that forged the EU, it was on to Atomium.  Atomium was built as the showcase structure of the 1958 World Fair.  According to placards inside, architects were generally unimpressed, but the public went wild :).  We were able to go in to four of the electrons, via a series of elevators, stairs, and escalators.  And we had a lovely view from the top :)

Most of the exhibits talked about what went into hosting a world fair (300 multi-lingual hostesses, dressed in red blazers and blue skirts, who both were coy and coquettish) and some of the scientific advances that were being presented.  The permanent exhibition also included a really neat light (and somewhat trippy) light show in one of the spheres that was set to music, and supposed to make us think about artificial intelligence and what would happen if it were to get out of control (that was on a plaque after the light show... I missed the memo until then).

After leaving Atomium, we grabbed lunch near Mini-Europe and headed back to the hotel, where we were able to check in a little after 1:00.  We fell asleep almost immediately.  When we finally got moving again several hours later, we were excited to see blue sky, and headed off toward the Grand Platz, to see what it was all about.  We got there just as the Belgium-Argentina World Cup game was beginning.  While it was cool to be walking around in the midst of that (there were a lot of restaurants that had it on with crowds outside), I was a little underwhelmed by the lack of general pandemonium.  Oh well.  We found a nice place to sit outside and have dinner, and just as we were finishing up, it started raining again.  Surprise!  Oh well.  

Tomorrow we're off to eat waffles and visit Parliament.  There's also apparently a comic book trail around here (we think we may have met TinTin at Atomium), so we may venture off in search of that.

Such a fun day!

Catherine

Hey all!


After a mostly uneventful flight (who knew that there are international flights without TVs on the chair backs?!?!?!), we've made it to Brussels, and are getting ready to go explore.  I'm sure that excellent pictures will follow.  Troy has already documented the signage in our taxi, which either meant "wear your seatbelt in the taxi" or "don't be naked in the taxi."  We don't speak french, so it was a little hard to tell ;)


More later!


Catherine

Honeymoon!!

Hi All,


Yup, that's right - just three-and-a-half-ish months after our epic trip to Portugal, I'm packing up and hitting the road again! And this time, Troy's coming too!! Given that this is our first big international trip together (Montreal doesn't count), and also our honeymoon (!!!), we have quite the awesome itinerary ahead of us. And here it is:


Friday, July 4: Fly direct from Charlotte to Brussels

Saturday, July 5: Arrive in Brussels, hang out, maybe watch some soccer with the Belgians, maybe visit Atomium (which I hope will be reminiscent of Chicago O'Hare).

Sunday, July 6: Continue to hang out in Brussels, eat chocolate and waffles

Monday, July 7: Depart Brussels via train, arrive in Amsterdam, do the hop-on, hop-off bus, see tulips

Tuesday, July 8: Hang out in Amsterdam, board cruise ship (!), depart Amsterdam

Wednesday, July 9: Day at Sea, read books. All of them.

Thursday, July 10: Warnemunde, Germany - walking tour, brewery, BRETZELS! There will be sooo many bread products coming back on board with us.

Friday, July 11: Day at Sea - Explore the ship, eat the food

Saturday, July 12: Tallinn, Estonia - Touring the city, exploring the 159.2 km2 of Tallinn, which houses 32.7% of Estonians. Thanks for sending us on the tour, Jenn!

Sunday, July 13: St. Petersburg! We're going to do Peterhof and the Hermitage. So many pictures forthcoming there. Peterhof is modeled after Versailles, which I haven't been to, so I need to soak this experience in and count it twice. Speaking of twice-ing things...

Monday, July 14: St. Petersburg again! I believe that we're aiming to take a tour of all the places Rasputin died. Who doesn't love that this even exists?

Tuesday, July 15: Helsinki, Finland - See the sights, bask in the not 98 degree weather of Charlotte, NC

Wednesday, July 16: Stockholm, Sweden - Play I Spy with Nobel Laureates, find the chef, eat the meatballs

Thursday, July 17: Day at Sea, re-read all the books. Probably nap and play shuffleboard.

Friday, July 18: Copenhagen, Denmark - Learn what the Danes do all day

Saturday, July 19: Day at Sea, Eat all the rest of the food - all of it!

Sunday, July 20: Dock in Amsterdam, train back to Brussels

Monday, July 21: Remember to miss the cats, feel bad, return to the States to find them generally disinterested in our presence.


Temperatures are forecasted to be between 65 and 78 the whole time we're there. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a really, really stellar honeymoon. I cannot wait to get going!


Until tomorrow!


Catherine


Currency Exchange Rates:

$1 = .74 Euro

$1 = 11.73 Estonian Kroon

$1 = 34.27 Russian Rubles

$1 = 6.82 Swedish Krona

$1 = 5.48 Danish Krone