HEAVE HO, AND AWAY WE GO!

This is it.  The actual river cruise.  We are finally on our ship, the Emerald Luna, a long, narrow, floating hotel complete with a luxurious dining room, a bar and lounge, a small pool, and an observation deck with a putting green on the top deck, staffed with friendly, helpful people whose mission is to make sure we enjoy ourselves so much that we will want to come back again.  It was a pretty sweet ride.

Having done two cruises now I will testify that this is the best way to travel.  You can literally unpack once but still holiday in a new city every day.  Your hotel goes with you.  It’s the best.

But because the hotel keeps moving you need to heed the rules about checking in and out if you leave the ship.  Your room card is also your electronic identity.  The very first night they made repeated calls for room 324 to prove they were aboard before we left.  I’m still wondering if they ever found him.

We spent the first morning on an excursion to Keukenhof Gardens where the tulips grow in wide swathes in fields.  It was early in the season so they were mostly yellow (did you know the varieties bloom by color sequence? Learn something new every day!)  We went totally tourist mode … explored a windmill, walked through the gardens, took a whole bunch of pictures, bought the tiny pancakes dusted with powdered sugar, looked around the souvenir shop and then it was back to the bus that took us back to our boat.  Day 1 was done.

There were some tense moments the next day when our promised wifi had disappeared.  Imagine a whole boatload of people with NO WIFI!  The Emerald cruise line had changed their provider and everything had not gone smoothly.  Owners of Apple products were the last to be saved.  It was touch and go towards the end.

I have to confess, from there on things get a little fuzzy.  No, this memory haze has nothing to do with wine consumption, although there was plenty of that.  I just quit taking notes.  I thought I would remember, and I do recall the things we did, just not the order we did them in.

There was the day in Dusseldorf where we did a tour of the old part of town (think: Middle Ages) and the guide bragged up the fine German mustard made there.  I live with a guy who loves different mustards so I wanted some of that for a gift for him.  Spent our free time making sure I had some.  I think that was Day 2, cannot be sure. 

In checking with my fellow travellers who did continue to write things down, that wasn’t the end of Day 2.  I had Cologne and its fantastic cathedral on Day 5 but apparently Cologne was the afternoon of Day 2.  All the other stuff I have written about Day 5 is true, or corrected.  The trouble was I needed help getting my cathedrals sorted out.  Cologne is where there is a magnificent cathedral.  Spectacular.  Awe-inspiring.  Hundreds of years in the making.  Survived the war because the allied pilots used it for navigation purposes – it’s that impressive.  I thought we were there on Good Friday but were at another church on Good Friday (see how easily it is to get these things mixed up?)  I do remember that it rained on Day 2.  I have a picture of us all standing in a circle so that I could capture everyone’s soggy shoes and raincoats in front of the Cologne Cathedral on (not) Day 5.

If Day 3 was also on the Wednesday, that was the day we paid extra to go tour a castle.  The scenery was breath-taking.  The walk downhill to the castle and back up to the parking lot was great exercise and provided vista views at every turn.  The forest trees were just leafing out and the edelweiss was in bloom.  I could almost hear Julie Andrews singing the song from The Sound of Music.  AND I found the perfect rock to take home from my trip.  It’s a thing that I do, and this rock was perfect. 

Now … just let me check my photos … oh yes!  We spent most of the afternoon going through the Rhein Gorge and spotted nearly 40 castles in 4 hours.  It truly is a fairytale land and to soak it all in a person should rent a house for a month and stay with the locals to learn it all.  Speaking French and German would be a real asset if I were to do this.

The next day (Day 4, I’m fairly certain) we took another bus trip to see another palace and gardens.  More history showcasing the furniture and décor of centuries past.  The dishes, the diet, the clothing, the customs.  The loveless arranged marriages to keep property in the family’s control.  The resulting love affaires, the secret doors, the illegitimate children, the humans being humans.

That afternoon we had free time to do our own thing.  There was a big, modern mall a few blocks away so we stepped up into the 21^st Century and went shopping.  The smart one of us bought a new sweater to broaden out her choices of something to wear for the last few days.  To put it mildly the weather had not been kind, and every day had been a quandary on how to look fresh in the only warm clothes we had brought with us.  By this time we were beginning to look pretty recycled.

On the REAL Day 5 we visited another awesome church in Strasberg.  This time we were allowed in even though it was Good Friday.  I have read books about the engineering and artistry that went into these masterpieces of architecture.  It’s mind-blowing, and their beauty is exquisite.  The sun shining through those stained glass windows (packed up and hidden in a mine to save them during the war and then lovingly restored to their glory when peace made it safe) is something everyone needs to experience – it makes you believe that good can triumph over evil.  We rounded out the day with lunch in a sidewalk café and later on eclairs from a shop on “Temptation Street”.

Day 6 (and by this point I confess I’m leaning heavily on stuff I don’t necessarily remember myself).  We took another bus trip to another place that had another medieval town center to showcase.  I don’t mean to sound disrespectful or bored.  By this time we were on overload.  This day I remember thinking about how we were on the edge of the fabled Black Forest and close to where The Sound of Music’s story originated.  We toured the town, we shopped in the huge street market, we bought souvenirs, we were treated to Black Forest cake and samples of the local sausages and cheeses.  It was all wonderful.

And that evening there was a farewell party and disco on the ship.  I don’t remember when the last time was that I got up to dance to Y.M.C.A. but my sisters and daughter were there and the time seemed right … there are pictures … no worries … it was on the other side of the world …

All that was left to do was get up the next morning and pack for the trip home.  We had been told to always check the safe before we left our room so that we had everything, but as far as I can figure it was my drawer I should have checked one more time.  The mustard I went to extra lengths to buy for Glen did not come home with me.  Neither did my perfect rock from my castle climb.  I can picture them so clearly in that drawer, nestled right up beside my favourite bra!  I am so disgusted with myself that I left these things so close to my heart so far away but there is nothing to be done about it.

Instead I brought home what is probably the 2026 version of Covid.  Glen says he would rather have gotten something more touristy like a fridge magnet.

 

 

THE TIME/SPACE CONTINUUM

I’ve seen travel guides that tell you it’s possible to do a trip on X amount of dollars per day.  Is there equivalent advice on how to do – let’s say a city like Amsterdam – on X amount of sleep hours per day?  This is not about a lack of things to see or do.  Like any world renown city Amsterdam offers beauty and history and culture in endless supply.  You could literally sightsee 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  The trick is to be conscious and aware while you’re doing it.  For that to happen a person requires sleep.  That’s the tricky part.

Day one of our adventure began at 5:00 because we live three hours from the airport and we are catching an international flight which requires travellers be there three hours before takeoff.  That’s six hours of up-and-at’em before liftoff.  The extra hours are to give you time to trouble shoot the fallout of snow storms in other provinces (see previous post).  I don’t begrudge them as much as I used to.

If you’re lucky (and we were very lucky) there’s another plane that will take you east instead of west and still get you where you want to go so that ten or so hours later it’s 8:30 in the morning the next day when you get there.  At best you managed two hours of fitful sleep on the plane, it is midnight in the time zone you woke up in, and you have all of Holiday Day # 1 ahead of you on an empty tank.  Welcome to jet lag.

As I mentioned before, travel agents are invaluable and we were lucky enough to have one in our group.  Our baby sister always bemoans how she missed out on the green thumb gene but she makes up for it with her detailed planner DNA.  From the moment we booked this trip she stepped up with research on where, when, and how to get the most out of our dime.  The core of our adventure was a week long cruise down the Rhein River but we had two days in Amsterdam first and with her organizational skills we made every minute count.  She even put together a book so that she could stay on top of every element. 

She was the reason our airport to hotel shuttle wasn’t allowed to leave without us when our plane took extra long to park.  She had done the research into what was close to our hotel so we could explore on our own without fear of getting lost.  She was the one who booked the canal boat tour on our second night.  The only one of us she didn’t worry about was Sandy, come to join us from South Africa, saying that “She is a strong independent woman!”  That way she had more time to keep tabs on her older sisters whom she didn’t seem to have the same confidence in.

Day one we checked into our hotel, explored the immediate area, found a tulip market, watched furniture being delivered through a third story window, marvelled at the pretty buildings and trees leafing out, picturesquely mirrored in the canals, and found a restaurant that served Argentinian beef for our evening meal.  By 7:30 we called it a day, only to wake up a few hours later because it was wake up time at home.  The South African girl had it the easiest – she flew farther than we did but never left her time zone.

Day two was breakfast and then a walking tour; lots of history, cobble stones, photo ops, tipsy houses, trees in bloom, and our guide reminding us constantly to watch for bikes.  There are thousands of them and they have the right of way.  Also, they are every bit as deadly silent as the electric cars.  We all survived.  

After a quick street lunch of fish and chips we took a taxi to an open street market confident in the promise that our scheduled canal ride was only 12 minutes walk away.  That’s what Amy’s book said.  But, whether Google Maps let us down or minutes go faster in The Netherlands, we did not make that date on time.  We are pretty sure we saw our boat chugging away as we approached but it didn’t matter – we had missed it.

There’s no keeping that girl down though.  She worked her way through feelings of frustration and disappointment (in herself – she felt that she had let us down) but then came up swinging!  She would get our money back!  This led to being offered an after dark tour (After all, who needs sleep anyway?).  It was a cold, wet wait but our tour guide made it worth it so all was good in the end.

All that was left to do was to get to the river cruise ship the next morning.  There were a few hiccoughs … the transfer shuttle thought we would have the address of where were going.  We thought he would have it.  Amy’s book only had a very unhelpful phone number but GPS saved the day and finally we were aboard the Emerald Luna – Home Sweet Home for the next seven days. 

And shortly after that two of us were in a taxi headed back to the hotel for a wallet left in a safe.  If things happen in threes we sure hoped that the kerfuffles were all behind us.

This was night number three and I slept almost the whole night.

 

 

GETTING THERE IS HALF THE FUN

Remember the last line of my previous post?  It was a rhetorical question actually … “I can sleep on the plane, right?”

Wrong.  The answer is ‘wrong’.  Hard no.  I am not able to sleep on a plane.  Glad I’ve got that cleared up.

And also, you might recall on my airport adventure I misplaced a passport and nearly had to abandon my husband to the grumpy guy at Customs?  Well, that didn’t happen this time but I seem to enjoy extra adventure so we did something different, you know, just for fun.

Our departure date was for the end of March – definite ‘lamb or lion’ territory so as the day crept closer we watched carefully what Mother Nature was doing in southern Saskatchewan. We were quite pleased that she seemed to be keeping busy further west.  Seasoned travellers would not have been so reassured, but we were pure innocents in how a part day shutdown of an airport 1000 km away the day before your departure can turn the whole system upside down.  We are much wiser now.

West Jet warned us our flight to Calgary was delayed before we left home.  Halfway to Regina we were told it would be even later.  As we entered the city we were told there was no way to make our connecting flight and we should talk to a West Jet representative about other options.  The text sounded so matter-of-fact that all still seemed well with the world until we went up to the gal just opening up her work station for the day.  We told her our problem and she smiled and told us she would take a look at what she could do for us.  It might have been the only smile she managed all day.  She logged on and her eyes flew open wide, she made a valiant effort not to bite her lip, and she began to scroll.  When her co-worker arrived a few minutes later and told her “good morning!” she merely said “Is it? Take a look.”  He literally jumped back from his computer and cried “Oh my god!” like he was faced with a backed-up, overflowing toilet bowl.  Come to think of it, that’s probably a pretty good comparison.

The bottom line was that air travel in western Canada was at least six hours behind because Calgary had a snowstorm yesterday.  Our WJ gal couldn’t help us.  We left her to deal with growing lines of people desperate to get where they were supposed to be going.

I always feel a little inadequate when other people do all their own booking flights.  I have managed it for single domestic flights but I just feel so much more secure if I get a professional to take care of anything more technical … and this is the perfect example of why.  We called our friend and savior, Jaime, at McPhail Travel in Moosomin, told her our dilemma and she was on it instantly.  Within a half hour we were booked to fly east instead of west and get to Amsterdam almost the exact same time as our first flight was to arrive.  It was a little scary because we had to make another connection in Minneapolis but we survived and made it to The Netherlands before the tulips were done blooming!  One of the first things we did when we got home was buy Jaime flowers.

The way time zones and travel work is we were up at 5:00 to drive to Regina to catch a flight to Europe.  We left the prairies shortly after noon March 26 and landed in Amsterdam at breakfast time on March 27 but it’s only a ten hour flight.   The airlines provide meals(?) and attempt to control the lighting in the cabin so that humans can better manage the adjustment to the new time zone they will be landing in but really, there’s no saving humans from their folly.  We evolved as walkers and it’s pretty hard to hop time zones at a walking pace.  We are not built for this.

Long story short, we had a few days of sightseeing before our cruise started and if I hadn’t made notes of what happened those days they would be lost forever.  A sleep-deprived brain can barely function on a minute-to-minute basis, let alone recall events in any kind of order. 

I’ll check my notes and tell you all about it next time.