Aarhus, Denmark & Oslo, Norway: Last two stops

Wednesday was a full day at sea and I spent it nursing a sore throat, head cold and cough.  I felt so bad that all I wanted to do was sleep.  MA came to my rescue with a bottle of Robitussin cough syrup, the last bottle on the ship I’m told.  With rest and sleeping most of the day and all night I woke up Thursday morning feeling better.  MA said that some guys would do anything to get out of wearing a tuxedo for formal night. (Not true, I was really under the weather.)

The Emerald Princess sailed west from Tallinn, Estonia to Aarhus, Denmark, docking at 7AM on Thursday At Aarhus, MA decided not to go ashore so I took off, camera in hand, around 9AM.  My goal was just to walk around and find some photography subjects and walk back.  What I noticed about Aarhus was that, like Copenhagen, everyone rides a bicycle.  Life in Aarhus seems simple and satisfying to the Danes who live there.  I walked through a university and saw students going and coming to class and getting on their bicycles to get around town. 

After about a three mile circuit I made it back to the ship and met MA for lunch.  Later we got together two new friends, Heather and Dave from San Diego, for team trivial pursuit.  A gentleman from Long Island, NY joined up with us and after the twenty questions it was a two-way tie for first place, our team being one of the two. But we lost the tie-breaker question which was:  The Eiffel Tower is painted every seven years, how many tons of paint does it take?  The answer is 50.  We guessed 7, the other team 90.  They won the Princess water bottles. The questions we should have gotten right for the outright win were: Which country has zero exports? What does the H.G. stand for in the name H. G. Wells?  Answers were Vatican (we said Monaco) and Herbert George, we said Henry George. Who was it who said cruises weren’t educational?  J

On Friday morning I made a coffee run to the buffet and went back for a light breakfast and brought that to the room.  We had decided that if it was raining, as predicted, we would just stay on the ship. But although it was very cloudy, there was no rain so we set out to find the Hop-On-Hop-Off guided bus tour that takes you around the high spots of Oslo. 

We ran into Giovanni and Eleanor at the gangway and the four of us set off for today’s adventures.  We walked about three long blocks to the bus stop.  We decided to get off at Vigeland Park, a park with human statues by none other than a guy named Vigeland.  The statues portray human life in different stages.  One of the statues is of a small boy with his fists clinched and the statue is called, “The Angry Boy.”  It just so happens we came across a real life angry little boy while waiting for the bus.  His father kept his cool and calmed him down.

We made the entire loop of Oslo and came back to downtown getting off at “City Hall”.  MA wanted to go inside to connect with the free Wi-Fi but it was closed.  Instead we found a spot just outside where she turned on the I-Pad and got online.  She was quite tickled to find numerous happy birthday wishes in her email. 

We walked back to the ship walking along the waterfront where local fishermen were selling shrimp from the back of their boat.  I’ve included a couple of photos of them.  After lunch we set about packing for the trip home tomorrow. The crew takes our bags the night before and we next see them at the airport tomorrow.  The bus for the Continental flight leaves at 6:30am. The flight leaves at 9:05 with a layover in Newark and then “home sweet home”. 

This trip, like all the others, has been memorable, not only for the places we visited, but also the great folks we’ve met along the way.  We booked our next trip already, next year, Transatlantic from Ft. Lauderdale to the Azores, then Cork, Ireland, Southampton, UK, Normandy, France, Oslo (again), and ending in Copenhagen.

For now we are anxious to see our great friends in TLC, to see Susan and Jacob in their new home in Nashville, and Jim and Sue and kiddos up there in Chicago. 

That’s all for this time folks! Thanks for tuning in! J