Vision of the Seas

In less than 2 weeks, we will be getting on the Vision of the Seas for a wonderful cruise.  We LOVE cruises.  I could happily spend the rest of my life on a cruise ship.  When I was at Bible Study on Thursday (first one after summer break) one of the "ice breaker" questions was "Where can we find you when you are not doing housework or with the kids?".  That was very easy for me.  I'm either traveling or in front of the computer planning my next trip.

Since our next trip is the cruise on the VOS (Vision of the Seas) I started researching and planning that a while ago.  The best place for me to research a cruise is on Cruise Critic.  We always join the roll call so we can "meet" some of the people on the trip before we leave.  We talk about tours, which rooms to pick, find people to eat dinner with, plan sail away parties ... it's just a blast.  Absolute first place I go before I even actually book a cruise.

During the roll call for our cruise, I have found that there are several people that are spending almost a month on this ship.  They are doing several Scandinavian tours, then the TransAtlantic and then the Panama Canal.  And it just so happened, our ship is in Stavanger today!  I met a couple on Cruise Critic that was asking me about what to do in Stavanger, so I suggested they do the fjord cruise (starts at  noon and lasts 2 1/2 - 3 hours) and then we would meet them and walk around town with them.  So, after church today we headed down to the harbor.

Ron was head usher so we didn't get out until almost 13.00 so we took our lunch down and had a picnic sitting next to the water.  We saw one of the tour boats heading out (it was 13.30) so if this is the one they went on, we're going to be waiting a while.  

 I just love looking at all the boats.

After lunch we decided to walk through town to find a shop that we can "sometimes" find just in case A&J want to go shopping.

I just love all the hanging flowers.  And there is my hubby walking ahead of me.  Guess he wasn't scared that a friend said I looked very frisky in church this morning.   :)

We found the shop and then headed down to the harbor to see MY ship!  We actually have already cruised on her twice.

So we just wander around.  Because we are VERY early still.

You know, I've lived here almost 2 years and I never noticed the feet that are part of the walkways.  All from Nobel Prize Winners.  I did not see Obama's though.

And, I did not know that Stavanger has a Hop On Hop Off bus!  Shame on me!  In case you are wondering, it is 150 NOK and only runs when cruise ships are in port.  10 stops.

Here we are trying to find our cabin.  We are on the back of the ship so it is there!  I can't wait to be standing on our deck!

And here come the boat they should be on!

But they are not there!  Instead we meet "Little Flower", Bernie and Irene.  They said that it was a HUGE mess this morning.  The boats were all oversold and they couldn't get on any of them.  :(  So, we never had a chance to meet "usetobemoss" but headed around with Irene and Bernie who will still be on board when we arrive and another couple from their ship Camilla & Kurre from Visby, Sweden.  We headed over to Gamle Stavanger (old town) and wandered around for a bit chatting.

Here is Irene.

 And Bernie and Ron chatting.

 And some pictures of old Stavanger.

Whoops, more feet.

Cool!  These belong to the guy that told the world he invented the internet. NOT!

Well, they ended up heading back to the ship and I was left gazing wistfully at the ship, wishing it was my turn.  Take care of our room people!!!

Fjord cruise with dinner on a TALL ship.

Every year the tall ships (A tall ship is a large, traditionally-rigged sailing vessel. Popular modern tall ship rigs include topsail schooners, brigantines, brigs and barques). There is a tall ship race every year and often they come through Stavanger.  It seems like we are never here though when that happens.  So I was very excited when we received an email that one of the tall ships were going to be doing 3 dinner cruises this summer.  And even more excited when I realized that we would actually be here for one of them!  So, in honor of my mom's birthday yesterday, we went on a dinner cruise.  Sorry you couldn't have joined us, Mom!

There were 10 of us from NATO that went and we were very lucky that by the time we had arrived, Gordon and Ann had saved us a table for 10 on the deck so we did not have to sit below.  It was a wonderful evening!!

Here we are waiting to get on the ship.

On the deck.

Our table of 10 (well, 9 since I'm taking the picture)  :)

And we are on our way!

It promised all you can eat of prawns and herring.  I really thought there would be other things to go with it (or at least the heads and legs would already be gone!) but the only things extra were bread and butter.  My mom would have gone hungry!  Oh wait ... they had lemons too!  Not sure if I should mention this but there were TONS of eggs inside these prawns!  Kind of gross (IMHO)

Look at all the different ways they can do herring!

My baby!

Ohhhh ... a little baby prawn.  I'm guessing no eggs with this one but not sure it's worth the effort to take off the head, legs, and shell.

There was even live music!

Steering the ship.  I want to do that!

Norwegian flag.

BEAUTIFUL day and beautiful views!

We talked them into letting me steer.  Watch out people!

Then of course I had to have all the other women at our table have a go at it! Way to go Ann!

Paula's turn!

I think they got scared after Adrienn had a try and wanted to reroute the ship.  :)

Nice, nice views.

I was trying to take a picture of Ron and this DRUNK guy jumped in the picture.

And then he came up and gave this pose.  Ron said he wanted a kiss .... I said he wanted me to take a picture of his gold tooth.

He's going to walk the gangplank.  Drunk guy was there too but we pushed him overboard.  JK

 Fish farm

Funny, true story.  There is a bell there, right behind the wheel.  The guy kept ringing it here and there either once or twice.  I gathered my courage and practiced what I would say in Norwegian to him (knowing he more than likely speaks English but I wanted to practice since I've been gone for a while).  I went up and gave my speech that I had practiced and he looks at me and says in English "I'm Danish not Norwegian and don't understand what you said".  Sheesh!  I asked him if I had a mouthful of potatoes and repeated it would it help and he smiled and said maybe.  Anyway ... ringing the bell means there is something in the water ahead.  One ring it's ahead, two it's on the right (or left) and three times it's either the left (or right) .... of course he used words like port and starboard instead of left or right.  LOL

Check out the moon!  And it's light out.  Only 21.00!  (Or 9 p.m.)

Something REALLY strange happened on the boat.  I wore a brand new coat that I had shipped here from Kohl's.  The coat was from Apt. 9 and it still had the plastic on it when we got ready to leave.  I dressed in lots of layers and didn't need my coat so it stayed on the back of my chair almost the whole night.  When we were close to pulling into the harbor, I put my coat on and put my hand in my pocket and there was a golf ball!  Why in the world would a coat from Kohl's have a golf ball in the pocket?!?!?!  So I asked around if anyone in our group played Golf and Andy did so I gave him the golf ball.  And then he shows me that it is a range ball advertising Kvadrat (the Stavanger Mall).  Maybe drunk guy put it in my pocket. I told him if it's a door prize and whoever has the ball wins a million dollars then we can split it, but if he goes to jail because they think it was stolen from the range, then he is on his own.

Back home and how depressing.  It's 22.00 and it's dark already.  We had a FUN night!

I'm Back! With pictures of a friend running the Stavanger Marathon.

I have not forgotten about my blog but I’ve been busy!  Our third grandchild arrived on July 30^th, so I was back in the US for about 6 weeks for the birth.  It was very exciting and for the first time I actually got to witness the arrival of one of our darling grandbabies.  And we FINALLY got a girl in this family!  I’ll post some pictures of the grandkids later for anyone that is interested.

This morning Rob Jurriansen, one of Ron's colleagues, was running in the Stavanger Marathon preparing himself to run in the New York Marathon on 4 Nov 2012.  He is a cancer survivor and is running to raise money for KiKa, a non-profit organization that is raising money for children with cancer.  Their website, if you are interested is Run for Kika New York and his blog is KiKa Rob Jurriansen.

The marathon’s halfway point was close to our house, so we told him we would be out with some Gatorade and bananas.  It was fun to be out there – not only to support him, but to cheer on and offer energy support to others that came along!

And here he comes!  Number 60.

Getting some refreshment.

Some more runners.  After Rob had what he wanted we handed the rest out to other people that may have needed some refreshments.

Ron passing out food, drinks and words of encouragement.

Since Rob is Dutch, I wore my Nederland T-shirt.

GO ROB!!!!!

We heard from Rob after the marathon.  He said that he ran almost 30 minutes faster than last year and finished in 3h40m; a post-surgery record. WAY TO GO!!!!

We actually had a lot of fun!  And, we probably will hand out food next year if it comes by again even if Rob is not running.  Fun morning.