After our three interesting days in Iceland, we began a four-day, 1,430 nautical mile sail on a southwesterly course toward Newfoundland at a speed of 13 knots. A nautical mile, by the way, is equal to one minute. What? Better yet, multiply nautical miles by 1.15 for the kinda miles we’re used to [statute miles]. Wild and crazy stuff these sailors deal with. Don’t get me started on the definition of a knot. Temperatures ranged in the mid 40s to low 50s. Seas were calm. Skies overcast.

We all slowly settled into a relaxing routine of too much food crammed into too short a period of time. Between episodes of strapping on the ole feed bag we amused ourselves with afternoon movies [The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and Far from the Maddening Crown], lectures [that tackled the light and fluffy topics of anger management, forgiveness, worry/fear/stress], the casino, snacks, and reading. Cocktails, a delicious dinner, and live entertainment flushed out the mellow evenings. Conjure up in your imagination a) a juggling comedian whose piece de resistance was somehow managing to lob a bowling ball from the top of his foot to the top of his head. Really. b) A soprano with a breathtaking voice who did Broadway standards, light opera, and French cabaret classics. c) a young, handsome dude with a powerful voice. All of them were terrific.

One afternoon as we were all inventorying the clothes we could still get into, the captain came on the loud speaker and explained that heavy seas and high winds would accompany a storm heading in the direction of St. John’s, Newfoundland, our first stop in Canada. He explained that the winds anticipated would be too strong for us to approach the city by sea and for that reason he decided we would skirt as much of the storm as possible and bypass the stop altogether. As quick as that, four days at sea turned into five. We were all ready to put our feet on terra firma in spite of the relaxing time we had enjoyed on board, so it was a small disappointment but a wise decision on the captain’s part for sure. We simply spent one extra day in much the same fashion as we had the previous four. The food was great and the entertainment terrific.

Here’s the fly in the ointment: the day after St. John’s was a sea day, so we soon realized our four days at sea had turned into six consecutive days. We placated ourselves with more food and relaxation. I flushed out the final day at sea with napkin folding class, an ice carving demo, two scoops of vanilla with sprinkles, and some book time on deck in the sun (A Walk in the Woods).

At bedtime on day four Dan and I reinstated our Dramamine maintenance program. Seems we were not able to skirt all of the storm. The ship started heaving back and forth due to what were referred to as moderate seas which made for a bit of rock and rolling that lasted through the night.

At the end of day five we set our watches back another hour.

Cleone is nursing a bad cold and a low fever and Dan is crossing his fingers that his mild sore throat does not turn into anything.

More galley trivia…

• Thirteen members of the galley crew focus on soups, pastas, and vegetables cranking out, on average, 500 pounds of pasta, 2,700 pounds of potatoes, 2,500 pounds of vegetables, and 550 gallons of soup each and every day.
• Ten bakers use 1,500 pounds of flour daily when they make and bake from scratch all the sweet rolls, croissants, bread sticks, pizza dough, rolls, puff pastry, and biscuits we enjoyed.

Overnight we continued to sail in a counterclockwise direction around Iceland ending in Reykjavik, the northernmost capital city in the world. We chose to spend our time outside the city, so we saw very little of it but from the bus it looked to be thriving and well kept. We passed the location where the 1986 arms controls negotiations between the U.S. and Russia took place as well as the location where Bobby Fisher, an American, won the 1972 world chess championship.

Our tour took us out to 9,000 year old lava fields where we enjoyed amazing views of beautiful landscapes and vistas, small glacial rivers and lakes, and mile after mile of open space covered with a variety of low growing vegetation and more than a couple explosive craters. Trees were not plentiful. We passed, lucky us, the mountain where the Christmas family lives: Mother Christmas, Father Christmas, and all 13 of their naughty sons. Iceland is famous for its sturdy, sure footed horses and we passed hundreds of them. A treat for the day was abruptly coming upon hundreds of sheep being driven down the mountain by dogs and men and women on horseback. There was a riding path alongside the road and the sheep were being driven down this narrow space, so we had a birds eye view from the bus.

Our first stop of the day was Thingvellir National Park, established in 1930. Here’s the deal: two tectonic plates meet in Iceland, the American Plate and the Eurasian Plate. Fascinating, right? I read your mind? Often when plates meet, they collide, overlap, and disrupt the ground by forming taller and taller mountains. These two plates have decided to astound the viewing public and do the opposite; they separate. For real. A whopping two centimeters a year (2.54 centimeters = 1 inch). This continental rift, or ‘New Iceland’ varies in width from 18 to 30+ kilometers and continues to grow. The national park is comprised of this new land. The guide pointed out the end of one plate, which was very easy to see … then New Iceland … and then other plate. We strolled through two walls of lava rock down into this new, beautiful valley. We went past a pool where, back in the good old days, women found guilty of certain crimes were drowned after being put in a cloth sack. It is aptly named the drowning pool. From a distance we saw where guilty men were beheaded for their offenses.

We drove past moss covered rocks, wild blueberries, mushrooms, and loads of sheep to get to our second stop: Gullfoss Waterfall, a spectacular tiered fall with a final plunge into a deep ravine. It was worth the 110 steps down (and back up) to get as close as possible.

Strokkur, a geothermal hot spot, was our next stop. We had seen loads of small puffs of steam rising from the ground over the course of the last three days, but this area was a veritable mine field of these outlets where the earth literally lets off steam. It was nestled in a barren, brown, ugly moonscape with, of all things, a glacier in view a short distance off. Talk about contrast. It was a bit like the mud pots we had seen earlier but clear water was boiling here, not mud. One particular geyser gets most of the attention since it explodes steaming hot water into the air whenever it’s in the mood. Sometimes 60 feet up. We were treated to one huge burst and a few medium sized ones. The other geysers just boil and burble.

The last stop of the day should have been a yawner by virtue of the fact that it was a geothermal power plant, Hellisheioarvirkjun, but we were intrigued and very much enjoyed the short film and brief tour that explained how Iceland has learned to harness this wonderful, free resource. In 2008 volcanic activity was utilized to heat over 90% of the buildings in Iceland, so they kinda have this figured out. Hot water is produced on one side of the plant and electricity on the other. They have learned that earthquakes can result from doing this wrong.

Fun facts

1) By law all Icelandic children must know how to swim, so heated outdoor pools are the norm in even small communities.
2) One quarter of Iceland is in an active volcanic zone with an eruption, on average, every four years. There are 130 volcanoes.
3) The pipelines that take the hot water from one place to the next are always curved. Something about bursting under the pressure if they were to be run in straight lines.
4) Before good roads, children living remotely had to go to boarding schools in the closest larger community.
5) Literacy was the law from the very beginning. The translated Bible was the first textbook.
6) Irish monks saw to the translation of the Bible and recorded Icelandic grammar for the first time. Because of the isolation of Iceland over the centuries, the grammar has not changed.
7) There are 11 glaciers.
8) No wars have been fought here but there is a history of some world class family feuds.
9) Elves are to be taken seriously! They go back as far as Adam and Eve and are believed to be their other (besides Cain and Able) children. They reside in stones called elf stones. Still today you can see large stones decorated with small doors and windows so the elves will forever feel welcome.
10) Five wild animals live in Iceland: mice, rats, reindeer, mink, and arctic fox. Only the arctic fox is native. There are no snakes. Woo hoo.
11) Iceland was named the most peaceful country in the world in 2013 and 2014. Running a close race are Denmark and New Zealand.

We headed back to the ship after our satisfying day wondering what the others had seen. We swapped stories over a delicious meal at our preferred table with our favorite wait staff of two: Tamas, the waiter from Hungary, and Ivan, his #2 from Serbia. We always request the same table in their station and look forward each evening to seeing them and riddling them with our questions. They are usually one step ahead of us and already remember that Walter does not eat dairy and likes his tea before dessert; Dan and I drink decaf and usually eat fish; Hettie and Ronnie drink high octane coffee and love beef; and Cleone loves ice cream more than life itself and does not drink hot beverages after dinner.

Ken Block, a comedic impressionist, had us laughing for 45 minutes straight before we set our clocks back an hour and turned off the lights.

Galley believe it or nots…

• Average daily consumption of
  • coffee: 470 gallons
  • Coffee creamer: 62 gallons
  • Sugar: 400 pounds

Dan and I lumbered out of bed in time to grab lunch and be on the 2 pm tender. We met our tour bus and headed out with 40 of our closest friends. We were in Isafjordur, a town of 2,700 in the west fjords, home to the annual European mud football championships. It is among the top ski destinations in Iceland and has illuminated slopes for night skiing. This small town, only 183 nautical miles from Akureyri, used to be the last watering hole for ships heading west to Greenland and North America and looks like it’s a town with a mission. There are very few decorative features to the buildings, things like breezeways, porches, balconies, porticos, and flower boxes. There are lots of windows though. Fishing put Isafjordur on the map way back when. Buildings and homes are made of corrugated metal, concrete, and wood. We could not see a single tree from the ship. We saw, a first for me, an avalanche wall designed to keep the town safe. Wash was hanging on lines to dry.

Our bus headed straight out of town and went through a six kilometer (multiply by .6 for miles) tunnel that was a godsend to the town once completed since it spared everyone the long trip up and over the rocky, treacherous mountain in winter and lessened isolation considerably year-round. Roads were not the norm in Iceland until after World War II when time and money were spent on creating some and improving others. We drove on roads built on lava fields and saw little but rolling hills and mountains covered in a soft, velvet colored green blanket of who-knows-what except to say it grows close to the grounds. It was beautiful in a stark, proud way. Reforestation is taking place all over the country, but we did not see much evidence of that here. We drove past villages of 200 to 900 people and wondered what life was like for them.

Our first stop for the afternoon was at a fascinating restored fisherman’s cluster of huts. Think pebble floor, shoulder height walls of large rock that meet a pitched sod roof, a loft, wooden door, and tiny windows. The proprietor of this fascinating museum was a dead ringer for the old man in the sea. He was decked out in traditional fishing garb, gave us a translated explanation of life there, and then posed for pictures. A fun thing to note is that a Norwegian woman established fishing in this area of Bolungarvik in the year 900+/-. Girl power.

Our second stop was at a beautiful, small, corrugated metal, two story church built 100+ years ago on the spot that has seemed worthy of a house of worship since one was first built there in the 1200s. It was immaculately kept and very quaint. Two teenagers sang, with no accompaniment, three traditional songs in a two part harmony unique to this part of the world. They were dressed in traditional dress and sang beautifully.

Our drive back into town took us past old fish drying houses, quaint cemeteries facing the fjord, and beautiful countryside. Our last stop for the day was at the Maritime Museum. This was a stumper in that aside from a very nice video showing the life of a fisherman, there was an odd collection of things. Accordions pretty much outnumbered other items. We were offered a small sample of the local schnapps, dried fish, and a shark delicacy that I was careful to sample in the minutest amount possible for good, as it turned out, reason.

Dan and I were back on board in time to join our pals for dinner and the evening’s entertainment provided by Neil Lockwood, the guy who knocked us dead with his Elton John show a couple nights ago. He did not disappoint this time around.

Cold kitchen stats…

A staff of 11 works in the cold kitchen area of the galley. On average they:

• Serve 1,600 pounds of assorted salads
• Use 400 pounds of shrimp
• Make 1,500 sandwiches
• Use 13 gallons of mayo

Who knew this country was so stunning? In a stark beauty sort of way. We pulled back the curtains to find ourselves docked at the 4th largest city, Akureyri, in this country of a third of a million people, which is situated in a wide fjord. Trees hugged the shore but soon faded to short underbrush which bled into brown mountaintops that appeared at a distance to have no vegetation at all. Many were snowcapped. Very pretty!

Our ship towered over the city that struck me as a lookalike for a very sophisticated movie set for a series about a lucrative mining town that has it together. You know, the lawful kind with a library, bowling alley, and an annual Midnight Open golf tournament. All of our stops have been at beyond-neat, tidy, and clean places and this was no exception. Some buildings were made of corrogated metal, others stucco or cement, and others wood. Metal roofs seemed the norm. The red stoplights, I kid you not, are heart shaped.

The wind we were spared in Lerwick decided to show us a thing or two about wind and met us here. With temps in the low 50s we felt the cold but had, thankfully, brought our winter coats. The wind was so ferocious that the cruise ship scheduled to dock the day before us had to sail right on by and could not dock at all, so we pulled our caps down over our ears feeling very lucky. Plus, for the first day of the trip, we had full sun which made things all the more beautiful and cheerful.

Our tour today took us out of town. We drove part of the ring road past farms, long haired sheep that looked from a distance like fluffy cotton candy, cows, small waterfalls, streams, brooks, Icelandic horses, and small lakes. First stop: Godafoss Waterfall. In the world of waterfalls this small one is not spectacular, but in this setting of volcanic rock, fine black sand, and rushing water, it’s beautiful. The wind almost seemed fitting.

We drove on…into the volcanic zone where the road is built on ancient lava fields. We passed a plant where fish heads are dried and prepared for export, primarily to Nigeria where they are used in soups and stews as a protein source. While we were on the subject of food, we learned about an island speciality: singed sheep’s head. Oh boy! Anyway, on both sides of the road there were fields that looked like small islands. Had they not been so deep and wide, what separated one field from the next would have resembled irrigation ditches, but they were as deep as small streams so the fields looked more like islands. Erosion seemed responsible for the ditches but I did not confirm that with the guide.

Second stop: The guide explained that each small, remote or not so remote community has a community center used all year around but especially in the winter when snow can isolate the villages. We stopped for tea at a community center in the ancient lava field. The locals were ready for us with tables set up and coffee, cakes, and ham sandwiches all prepared.

Third stop: Dimmuborgir … for a nature walk through 2,500 lava that has slowly allowed tenacious vegetation to take hold. Everythng from low, aspen looking trees to lichen. Some had begun to change color and looked striking against the black of the rock and sand.

Last stop: We thought we had landed on the moon. Mountains and hills of brown dirt leading up to and near the Namafjall Hverir. Don’t these Icelandic names just roll off the tongue? Anyway, this is a high-temperature geothermal area with fumaroles specializing in a rotten egg smell and mud pots which are small ponds brimming with boiling mud. Very cool.

We enjoyed the drive back to the ship, got in line to board, changed for dinner in 10 minutes flat, and headed for the dining room to hear about the adventures of our group since we  had all gone in different directions today. I went out on a limb and had ox tail pasta for dinner. A delicious first for me. A fun production number called Born to be Wild was the evening’s entertainment.

Galley trivia…

Five butchers, three assistants plus helpers slice and portion meat and poultry before sending it to the galley where 12 chefs do their magic. On average my shipmates and I consumed the following:

• 1,400 pounds poultry
• 1,700 pounds beef
• 1,400 pounds pork/pork products
• 300 pounds veal
• 200 pounds lamb

Dan and I popped out of bed at 10:00 and eased our way into what promised to be a relaxing day. It did not disappoint. Fortified with Dramamine, we headed to lunch with Walter and Cleone. While the captain put us on a northwest heading into the North Atlantic we lazed away the afternoon. I got help with the Internet, explored the ship for the first time, and read [Paris Wife]. Dan walked the deck for a little fresh air, played electronic blackjack in the casino (he’s now up $50), napped, and read. Before long, by darn, it was time to meet the gang for happy hour followed by dinner. Alison Ward, reputed to having put the viva back in diva, sang her little heart out for our enjoyment before we went to our respective staterooms for the night.

Before calling it a day, we set our clocks back an hour knowing we’d be inside the Arctic Circle for a short time while we slept. One gets international bragging rights for that. Correct me if I am wrong.

Fun fact
The Arctic Circle fluctuates; it is not fixed. You heard it here first. Currently it is drifting northward at the breakneck speed of 49 feet per year resulting in a net fluctuation of 2 degrees latitude over a 40,000 year period.

The galley…

• Fish: On average, 1,700 pounds are prepared on board each day. Three butchers clean and cut the fish before it is sent to the chefs.
• On average 70,000 dishes and 21,500 glasses are washed a day

We woke anchored a mile or so offshore with a beautifully romantic view of the rocky coastline, undulating green landscape, grazing sheep, a couple tiny beaches, and a few quaint homes and farms. It was like a scene out of a British novel. There was not a tree in sight.

If rain is the hallmark of the weather in Bergen, wind is the hallmark in the Shetlands. It’s been clocked at 200+ miles an hour. Needless to say the hearty folk who have called this home for centuries figured out how to built homes fit to stand up to the wind. The ones we saw were all built of a sober looking brown stone with nothing taller than three stories. Little midges, the biting kind, buzzed around us intent on being irritating. We were told they only come out of hiding when there is little to no wind. Lucky us/lucky them for having such a fine day. Overcast but dry, low 50s, with just a soft breeze.

The Shetland Islands, all 100 of them, comprise the most northerly part of the United Kingdom. They have a long and rich Viking history having been part of what we think of today as Scandinavia. Things changed mid-15th century when the islands became part of Margaret’s dowry when she married James III of Scotland. We visited the old port city and capital of the Shetlands, Lerwick, on the largest of the islands, oddly named Mainland, which is 50 miles long and 20 wide. Lerwick is on the North Sea side of the island.

A guide gave us a walking tour of the impeccably clean, charming, picturesque city of 9,000. We roamed the small streets, toured the city hall, fort, a small church that had needlepoint kneeling pads made by the parishioners, and learned fun facts like the growing season is a whopping 100 days which means it takes two years to harvest a cabbage. Fishing was king for centuries and remains strong; oil has been a major player since the boom of the 1970s. There are more sheep than people, so they have to have a place in the economy also. No? The islands are famous for the ponies that bare their name but we sadly didn’t have time to see them. Our guide explained that they were specifically bred to work in mines after labor laws were passed forbidding children to work before a certain age. A sad historical distinction for the Shetlands:  relative to population, the Shetlands lost more lives to the two world wars than any other British county.

We had a lovely day onshore. Dan and Walter managed to each find a treasure at an antique store and the rest of us settled for small souvenirs. Three of us had tea and a treat at a cute tea room on the main drag. We took the tender back to the ship in time to change for a delicious dinner followed by a comedy mind reader, Graham Hey.

With zero faith in the havoc the “moderate seas” can wreck with our tummies, we put ourselves on the Dramamine maintenance program for safe measure. Our stash expired in June of ’14 but seems to have adequate oomph to keep us on our feet and symptom free. Lights out at midnight. 1,014 nautical miles [1,166 statute miles] under our belts so far.

A two hour delay leaving England plus yesterday’s rough seas had us docked in Bergen, the old capital of Norway and Seattle’s sister city, around noon with all stomachs ship shape. Dan and I got up just in time to join the others for a burger before our respective tours started.

In a city that gets 90 inches of rain, who would expect anything but inclement weather? We lucked out totally with gray clouds that allowed the sun to peek in and out all afternoon. Dan and I enjoyed a walking tour of Bryggen, the charming old wooden city that sits on the waterfront [a UNESCO World Heritage Site]. Our guide was a young guy with a great sense of humor. He referred to McDonald’s as the American Embassy and told us how many American Embassies there are in Norway. We got a quick tutorial on trolls, wood nymphs, and cowgirls. Cowgirls? Little vixens of the woods who entice men to misbehave with them for which they get, much to their humiliation, a cow tail for one and all to see. He explained that Norway has a king and queen and that the currency is the Krone even though it’s a member of the European Union and could choose to use the Euro. Vikings had the last say for some 900 years and left their mark before cod became king.

From Bryggen we took a boat ride on the Hardangerfjord, the fourth largest fjord in the world. The scenery was beautiful with lots of small rocky islands with no buildings at all or low lying ones that often came right to the shore. We passed a couple of salmon farms. Needless to say everything was green and there were countless trees, lots were talllllll and as straight as telephone poles.

So, what exactly is a fjord you might ask. Per Walter, our resident expert, a glacier is a river made of ice. When the ice melts the resulting river is a fjord. Easy peasy.

We decided to grab a quick bite at the buffet last night and go to the early show, Neil Lockwood impersonating Elton John, with a great six piece combo backing him up, which was absolutely fabulous! Hettie left after three numbers, sadly, not feeling tiptop.

We set our clocks back an hour before we turned out the light.

Our group of six rallied at the front door of the hotel around noon for the quick ride to the port. The check-in and boarding process was quite efficient and we were on board the Caribbean Princess and having lunch before we knew it. Next we settled into our very nice, spacious mini suites …three in a row on deck nine… before exploring the ship and getting ready for dinner. We chose ‘anytime dining’ and mozied down to the dining room around 6:00 eager to begin devouring our individual shares of the approximately 110 tons [tons!] of food brought on board for the trip. An Irish comedian, William Caulfield, was the featured entertainment that night. After the show I headed back to the room while the others explored the shops and put a few quarters in the slots. Dan ended the night up $18.75. Before turning out the light we set our watches ahead an hour.

About Princess Cruise Line

• 2015 marks its 50th anniversary [with no shortage of logo merchandise highlighting its Seawitch logo in the gift shop].
• Princess Pacific hosted The Love Boat TV series back in the 70s. No surprise to find an entire channel dedicated to Love Boat episodes. We were all avid viewers back in the day, by the way.
• Ships have been christened by Hollywood royalty [Audrey Hepburn, Sophia Loren, Olivia de Havilland, Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal], Olympic gold medalists [Jamie Sale and David Pelletier], TV celebs [Martha Stewart and the Bachelorette’s Trista and Ryan], as well as the likes of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
• In the late 90s the first wedding chapel debuted and Princess became the first cruise line where captains could legally marry couples at sea.

Our first full day was at sea. Hettie and Ronnie were up in time for what Cleone calls a Big Boy Breakfast. Walter and Cleone had a light breakfast and Dan and I slept through the first meal of the day surfacing around 11:00. We rallied for a light lunch but went straight back to the room for a Dramamine gum chaser. As soon as my stomach settled I took a Dramamine pill and was fine from then on. Dan stuck with the gum. By gum I mean The Same Piece of gum. More on that later. Come to find out Cleone left the salon looking for Dramamine before her nail appointment even started and Hettie spent the entire day in her room due to rough seas. Walter and Ronnie were iron-men and made it through with no help from the first aid kit.

We enjoyed our first of three formal nights. My dinner was fabulous: mushroom soup and pate for a starter; veal ravioli followed by blueberry sorbet to cleanse our delicate, yeah right, pallets; and then the main course which for me was turbot that melted in my mouth. A signature dessert topped it off: heart shaped chocolate mousse sitting on a heart shaped shortbread cookie with raspberry sauce in a mini-well on top. Sadly Hettie and Ronnie were unable to join us for dinner.

The entertainment was as good as the meal. It was a song and dance review titled Do You Wanna Dance which sounded a bit hokey, but it was wonderful. Bollywood, Spanish, 60s American, Irish, and others were rolled into a fast moving, energetic, and fun show. Although we all felt well, we headed back to our rooms for an early night so we’d be in top shape for the next day…our first day in port.

OK, more about Dan’s gum. He was reluctant to give it up because a) he had such great faith in it and b) we had no more. So he chewed it from 2:00 in the afternoon until dinner at 6:00. Then he somehow tucked it between his gum and cheek during dinner, pried it out with a toothpick after dinner, and enjoyed it again until lights out at 11:00. A miracle on the high seas.

Fun fact about the Caribbean Princess

• There is a crew of 1,100 specialized in seeing to our every need.
• The ship was built in Italy [2001-2004] and is registered in Bermuda.
• It is 946.8 feet long and 118 feet wide.

We successfully executed a noon meet-up with Walter and Cleone @ the Holiday Inn, our home for tonight at the port. The rental car was returned and we headed off to a delicious, huge (think small whales) fish and chips lunch at a nearby pub, the Duke of Wellington. This old pub was built in the late 1400s and has been an inn ever since. Right inside the pub, sitting on a bar stool, was a cute cocker spaniel that clearly was a regular and not at all uncomfortable on its high perch. We gave him the attention he demanded before settling down at our table.

Joining our merry band of six for lunch was Margie and David, friend’s of Walter and Cleone’s from their days in England. Dan and I had had the pleasure of meeting them in England back in the late 80s. Margie, as a matter fact, invited me to her home and prepared my very first afternoon tea!

We wiled away the afternoon on foot popping in and out of shops, wandering the streets, and walking parts of the old wall. We learned that Southampton was one of the departure points on D-Day. Later we stumbled onto a huge anchor from the original Queen Elizabeth II (QE II) which was given to the city by Cunard in 2010 to commemorate the fact, according to a nearby plaque, that Southampton was QE II’s home port from which she set sail for the first time in 1969 and the last time in 2008.

An Englishman heard our accents and asked if we were from America. Once he got the answer he was looking for he pointed out a plaque on the old city wall that in part read, “The Pilgrim Fathers embarked here from the west quay on the Mayflower August 15, 1620.” I’m sure we would have never noticed the plaque had he not pointed it out. Suddenly the name Mayflower Cruise Terminal made more sense as did the tall statue with the tiny sailing vessel on top dedicated to the Mayflower. Duuh!

With our huge late lunch, none of us was starving for dinner, so we ate light in the bar at our hotel and headed to our rooms to get organized for a deep, satisfying (a lot of wishful thinking going on with jet lag lurking) night’s sleep.

Our seven hour flight went without a hitch and we landed a few minutes early at 6:15 local time (1:15 am at home) just as the sun was rising. We dozed off and on for a few hours during the flight and landed feeling just like you’d imagine if someone woke you in the middle of the night with the gentle request to “move it…move it…move it.” We hustled to immigration/customs with the zest and grace of zombies and then things took a lovely (as they say her) turn when we zipped right thorough immigration and found the Arrivals Lounge, a first for me. The airline tickets in business class that Dan had arranged for us apparently entitled us to this treat. I like! The attendant offered us each the use of a shower room with all the amenities followed by breakfast at a nice, small buffet. We are there now and will camp out until time to find the Hertz counter at terminal 4 where we’ll hook up with Hettie and Ronnie.