Stockholm

Crown Princess Deck Log
Noon position: Alongside in Stockholm
Sky: Cloudy
Temperature: 59F

It was lovely to arrive in Stockholm. There was a band on hand to welcome us to the pier and to the country. It was a lively little band - eventually 12 members showed up - and they played for all of the passengers leaving the ship to go on the tours. It's a charming welcome to Sweden! There was a shuttle on the pier to get handicappers from the gangway to the customs house - a very thoughtful service.

Our tour today was on a sightseeing boat - the tour was called "Waterways of Stockholm". We saw a lot and learned a lot. Stock means log or stick or wood, holm means island. Stockholm is built on 14 separate islands, and the name means forest island, or woods island. Our narrator's name was Lars, and he talked like a typical Swede (not surprisingly), calling June Yune :) We learned that only 3% of Sweden is inhabited, and that 80% of Swedes have cottages on the water. Our boat went through a lock to Lake Malaren and back.

The stage show tonight in the Princess Theater was a magician, Tony Laffen, and his assistant Kasy. They were fantastic! It was a great show, and we wonder why they're stuck on a cruise ship when they should be famous!

One of the locals helped Dick find 290 Swedines in the Stockholm phone book for Tim.

The little houses on the shore are allotment houses that people rent for day use only. They can be used for outings, or for tending community gardens nearby.

A view of Stockholm from the waterway.

This little band welcomes us to Sweden.
Jan on her balcony - don't know the other person.

A Baltic Sea car ferry in the Stockholm Harbor.

Busses and taxis wait for the touring cruise ship passengers.

The aft end of our lovely big ship.
We're off to explore Stockholm from the water. Can you even find us?
Scandinavians are basically fun-loving I think - based on the Tivolis and these cranes which are made to look like giraffes! You have to love it!
This is the Vasa Museum with the masts of the ancient ship poking up through the roof so you can get an idea of the size of the ship.Beautiful Stockholm from the water.

At Sea

Crown Princess Deck Log:
Throughout the day Crown Princess continued on her various courses towards Stockholm.
Sky: Clear Skies
Temperature: 52 F
Copenhagen to Stockholm: 719.3 Nautical Miles
Average Speed: 18.0 knots

We all went exploring to learn more about this huge ship. Jan and I went shopping and checked out the Casino. She has more luck than I do playing slots. I lost my money so fast you wouldn't believe it. Note to self: stay away from the Casino!
We had drinks again in the Atrium. We heard the string quartet, a pianist, a guitarist, and watched some acrobats. The ship has great entertainment!

Dick and I went to a lecture on St. Petersburg. It was a good, illustrated lecture, but the theater was too warm, and lots of people nodded off - including me. I did learn a lot about Peter the Great, and about the siege of Leningrad (St. Petersburg) druing WW II.

.St. Petersburg lecture in the beautiful Princess Theater.


On the ship, the Atrium is called the Piazza. We called it the Atrium anyway - force of habit. These pictures show the staircases, ceiling, elevators, and entertainment area. It's a shiny, polished, elegant atmosphere, as you can see!


It was formal night on the ship, so we all ate in the Buffet - not in the mood to dress up. Following dinner, we had drinks at Crooner's, followed by a great stage show at 8:15 p.m. in the Princess Theater. It was called "What a Swell Party" and it was a tribute to the music of Cole Porter. The singers and dancers were very talented and enjoyable.Here are Jan and I in the Theater waiting for the show to start. We all went in early to get the seats we wanted because by 8:15 there was standing room only.
What a Swell Party it was! We really enjoyed the show.

Copenhagen

Crown Princess Deck Log:
Noon position: Alongside in Copenhagen
Wind: Light Airs
Sky: Cloudy
Temperature: 59 F

We woke up in the SAS Royal Radisson Hotel in Copenhagen this morning. The room is small, but very nice - furnished in the sparse Danish style. Our room had what might have been the world's softest bed.

Last evening after dinner at the Cafe Royal, Dick and Bill went for a walk looking for a cache called "Rysensteen". They found it, but it was so high up that Bill had to give Dick a boost to reach it!

May 19 by basswoodbend (1762 found)
It was 31 hours since we had been to bed when we searched for this cache following a long cramped flight from the US. We are beginning a cruising vacation in the Baltic and hope to find a cache at each stop. This search would have been unsuccessful had it not been for a shouted alert from the cache owner. We signed the log and left our coin which we have named Denmark. Thanks for the help and thanks for the cache

We had the breakfast buffet at the Cafe Royal, too. We didn't really have a choice -nothing opens until 10 a.m.! The hotel has some great new coffee machines which dispense your coffee one cup at a time - you can select either regular or decaf. It was fun to watch people try to figure out how to use the machines.

The city of Copenhagen is loaded with bicycles! There are bicycles everywhere - at the train stations there must be thousands of bikes lined up six deep. There are big bike lanes on all the streets - and everybody rides. We were totally amazed.
We just had time to do a short bus tour of Copenhagen, with a stop at the Little Mermaid.

Then we caught the Princess bus to the ship. The boarding was the easiest yet, except for the gal who had trouble scanning our new passports, but that was very minor.

Our stateroom is nice - small, but with a balcony and a huge closet! We were surprised and pleased. We all had lunch at the buffet on the Lido deck, and drinks in the Piazza Atrium, listening to the string quartet play light pop! We met servers Anna and Biljana from Macedonia, the first of many Macedonian kids that we met.

The lifeboat drill was at 5:15 p.m. - and it was the easiest one yet, too! We didn't even have to go on deck - just learned where to go and how to don the life jacket, and that was it!

We had more drinks in the atrium before dinner - listened to the string quartet again. They are quite good. This time they played "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring". We did the Anytime Dining in the dining room - shared our table with a couple from near Quebec City. Dick and I went to bed early - Jan went to the Casino!

Bill, Jan and Dick in downtown Copenhagen:



Here we go on a sightseeing tour:
The Little Mermaid is a must-see:
We took this bike picture for Tom. It's in the Copenhagen Visitor Center.

Arrival in Copenhagen

We flew from Detroit to Chicago, Chicago to Heathrow on British Airways, then Heathrow to Copenhagan - a real red-eye adventure! But here we are in Copenhagen!
The Copenhagen Airport thinks of everything!


Off to the Royal Radisson Hotel

The view from our hotel room.
Copenhagen Street SceneThe SAS Royal Radisson Hotel
We learned that Tivoli means amusement park all over Scandinavia.

Several buildings in the big cities are covered with Logos. I don't know whether it's advertising, or it shows what businesses are in that building.

European cities seem to be big on statuary of all kinds. We saw many great statues.

Fly Away!

So much luggage, such a small taxi! Bill and Jan each had to carry a bag on their laps on the way to Metro Airport.

We're Off!

We're leaving this morning! All that's left to do is zip up the bags! We'll be at Sniders tonight and fly to Copenhagen tomorrow evening. Arriving in Copenhagen at 3:30 Monday afternoon, staying at the Radisson Monday night, boarding the Crown Princess cruise ship Tuesday afternoon! And then we'll be sailing away to Stockholm.

We're not taking our laptops - there are computers on board the ship that are rented by the minute (!) - so we will occasionally check email (quickly).

Bon Voyage!

I Supervised

Here is the perennial garden as it appeared in early May. Some work needed to be done, some assembly required. It's my garden, and I wanted it to be spruced up for the spring and summer - but not by me! So along came the guys from Traverse Outdoor, and they helped me out quite a bit!




Here is the perennial garden as it looks today. The Michaelmas daisies, which have been taking over the entire garden, have been dug out, it has been raked, weeded, and prepped with compost. Whew! That's a job well done. I supervised!

Early Memorial

Oakwood Cemetery

New urns, new geraniums with really huge blossoms, good soil with built-in fertilizer - Mom and Dad should be all set for summer.

Buddha's Eye

Matthew 25 "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?

Thousands of people on the other side of the world are hurting, homeless and hopeless today. The cyclone in Myanmar may have killed 100,000 people (One Hundred Thousand), and now the earthquake in China has killed thousands more. Even the survivors are in peril because there's a shortage of medical care, clean water and food. These are dreadful events each by itself. Combined, it's very hard to imagine the horrors that men, women and children are having to face. There's an old spiritual called "His Eye is on the Sparrow (and I know He watches me)". Is it possible that Buddha's eye is not on these people?

It would be horrible enough if these were the only treacherous places in the world today. "Horrible enough" is not an adequate phrase. There are other shocking events in Africa, Iraq and Afghanistan - each an outrage in its own right. Aren't there supposed to be some gods keeping an eye on those places?

Support disaster victims in Myanmar & China: American Red Cross and/or Save the Children