Saturday 1st July 2023
The second half of the year began early for me. Waking up in the pitch dark room, as we don't have a window so I had no idea of the light of day. I found my watch and saw it was 6.30am, except it wasn't because the ship changed over to European time one hour ahead of Britain.
I lay wondering if I could go for a run and plotted where my running gear was. Fortunately I had remembered all the bits and got dressed in the bathroom. I was impressed by remembering the floors and places and as I turned the one corner I was met with a full on headwind that pushed me into a standing position. Gym seemed the sensible thing so I made my way in with a few other keen people and managed a 4km run on the treadmill while watching the map version of the ship journey. It's fascinating to really look at the different city names and I realised that my high school geography really didn't teach me much.
I woke Angie up for breakfast when I got back to the room as the advance in time pushed the breakfast availability. After eggs Benedict Angie decided she wanted to climb in the jacuzzi on the pool deck. The sun came out for a while and was swayed into joining her. We got chatting to a British couple who seem to be constant cruisers and I was fascinated by the idea of their upcoming 6 week trip of Sydney to Hong Kong. My fingers began to wither so I got out of the water just as a big dark cloud came overhead.
The food on the ship is a little disappointing. I find it very bland although it looks great. I suppose cooking in bulk can be like that and apparently there's 2400 passengers on board although it hasn't felt that busy. The included ice tea, lemonade, coffee and tea are also a bit bleh. There are other paying places on board but they won't used by us cautious South Africans. We found out that some of the other restaurant meals are included too so we will visit those over the next few days.
The staff are all brilliant and friendly and organised. We saw a musical show this evening which was charming and then we saw a very unfunny comedian in the bar next door. Today was a full day at sea and tomorrow we start the shore trips. Starting with Bergen. I'm super excited to be stepping on the ground that I'd originally planned to visit back in 2020 for the Oslo marathon. I'm also hoping that I find some wifi somewhere to send off my two days of blogs, haha.
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