Northern Lights 2025

 Our second day at sea started in the north Sea and eventually we reach the Arctic Ocean. We didn't set an alarm but we got up in time to have a little breakfast before attending the first of two lectures on upcoming ports. An independent contractor, Debbi Shields, gave two excellent, very detailed presentations about our next two upcoming ports of call Trondheim and Tromso. These presentations were recorded for later viewing on the state room television. We also found some well done fruit/vegetable sculptures in the Piazza. The remainder of the day was quite laid-back as I commented in yesterday's blog that the Princess does not present very many enrichment talks. After a nice lunch in the Lido, I adjourned to a comfortable chair on deck seven and read a few chapters in my book about the formation of the cruise industry for several hours. The title of the book is Devils on the Deep Blue Sea.  Tonight was a dressy night, but we don't dress up so we enjoyed dinner in the Lid...

 Overnight I slept pretty well, but woke up too late to attend the 8am interdenominational church service.  Angela, however, did get up early and attended it and reported that it was well done and well attended. After preparing for the day, I went up to the Lido to have my customary breakfast of Congi (rice porridge embellished with onions, ginger, shredded chicken, mushrooms, a fried egg, and two link sausages).  After breakfast found a chair in the little pool area caught up on my blog is this task behind me? It was then time to find some lunch and I was able to locate some really nice barbecue ribs and fruit and chicken wings. Angela then joined me and found some lunch for herself as well. The only real activity for this day that was the Deal or No Deal game show in the Princess Theatre.   This game show has become quite popular on most cruise ships and the two contestants were a lot of fun to watch. Neither won the thousand dollar grand prize, in fact, the second...

 As has been our custom the last few days, we did not set an alarm but allowed the light filtering into our loft bedroom to wake us up. We gathered our possessions, enjoyed a small breakfast of the leftover chicken and toast and a couple donuts and some English tea. Around 10:30 AM I used the Uber app to summon a car & driver to transfer us to the ocean terminal. The driver that arrived claimed that we were booked to go to a different location, which I disagreed with, and he got a little bit huffy and canceled the ride saying that he couldn't go to the Ocean Terminal. I went back to the app and rescheduled a different driver who was certainly able to go to the Ocean Terminal and I confirmed that before he arrived to pick us up. We're only a few miles from the Ocean Terminal but traffic is pretty significant and it took about a half an hour to reach the drop off point. There were four cruise ships in Port today. At the terminal we found where we were to leave our luggage and...

 On this, our planned rest day, we did not set any alarm to get up and it was well after 9:30 before we stirred. After getting ready for the day, we prepared a simple breakfast of toast and jelly and hot tea and some cereal and talked about what we would do this day. The general plan was to head out in search of a grocery store to buy a few provisions and then to walk around the neighborhood and perhaps walk the Southampton Commons, which is a very large park right near our Airbnb. With breakfast completed, we headed on out and walked to the west about 10 minutes and found a nice little grocery store where we bought some provisions. The next stop was to find a hardware store where I could see if they had a door latch set for our daughter's home. Her home was built by a person who used all European hardware and they have a latch assembly that's broken and we couldn't find anything in the US to fit. So we strolled south along Winchester Avenue and found a Wickes home center, ...

 After many months of waiting and planning, it was finally time for this next adventure to begin. Our Pastor, Ronal, picked us up shortly after noon on this our 57th wedding anniversary day and drove us to the SeaTac airport. We were booked on an Alaska Airlines flight to Los Angeles, where we would connect with a British Airways flight to London's Heathrow airport. At the Seattle airport, the ticketing software would not issue us baggage claim checks and we had to see an agent. When we finally found the correct agent to see, that agent couldn't do anything either. He had to phone into his help desk and the issue revolved around attaching our electronic travel authorization for the UK to the reservation, which he was unable to do. I tried to explain to them that the ETA is not tied to a reservation, but rather is linked to our passport. In the end, his help desk counseled him to allow us to proceed and to deal with the issue in Los Angeles with the British Airways folks. With a...