ROCKIN' GOOD TIME!

No blogging for the past two days because I've been out sailing on the Seven Seas! Well, to be honest it was only one sea, namely the Skagerak - yes, and a little bit of the Baltic too. My daughter Johanne had invited me and her sister Sophie and the little girls on a two-day mini-cruise from Oslo to Kiel, Germany. The main purpose of this kind of trip is to eat, drink and be merry. And perhaps get some tax-free shopping done as well. It was the end of the girls' half-term holiday, so it was fun for them to get a break "abroad."

The departure from Oslo began with the check-in having huge computer problems, and when everything is digitalised, and you have no manual back-up - well, then you're lost. It was absurd - everyone was just hanging around! The check-in staff staring blankly into the crowd, twiddling their thumbs!

When we eventually received our boarding cards/key cards, my name was spelt wrong. But there was no way I was going to queue up again to have it changed. It did strike me though, in the unlikely event of shipwrecking, that they'd be searching for the wrong person.

What they didn't tell us however, was that we had to hang on to these cards for dear life - it turned out they were your passports in and out of the ship when it was docking in Kiel, and when you disembarked back in Oslo - as well as your cabin keys.

The Color Magic 

Color Line

When getting off the ship in Kiel you had to swipe the cards through a scanner at the terminal, and my daughter thought it would be enough to bring her own card, and not the children's. But no. Going back to the cabin to look for the other cards in all their mess was not an option, so Sophie decided to run the 500 metres back to the ship's reception to have them print out new ones. They in turn managed to print two cards with the same name (Mira's), which subsequently showed that one Mira had already passed the turnstile, while the real Mira was still waiting on the ship side of the barrier. She was not allowed through until yet another card had been printed, which took another fifteen minutes! We did wonder if we were the only people on board to have problems with this system.

Kids' drinks with lots of unhealthy additives, but having a good time anyway!

I did my Big Mama duties and babysat my granddaughters both nights and fell asleep with them in the cabin they shared with their Mum and aunt. After being woken up and escorted back to my own cabin in the early hours of the morning by Sophie, I discovered that the wretched key card didn't work. There I was in my bare feet, make-up all over my face, contact lenses that were still in and practically grown into my eyeballs, my hair all over the place - in an empty ship corridor. After about twenty minutes two security guards came to my rescue and pointed out to me that my card had a small fold in it. How can you not get a fold in a card that's made of paper? 

Cod on a bed of potato and cauliflower purée - the Oceanic Restaurant

Norwegian farm cheeses

Disco night!

All the ship's corridor and cabin floors are carpeted - is that hygienic? Well, it's not up to me to decide, but all I can say is that if you walk along the corridors and look down on this pattern the stripes begin to move - seriously! It's an optical illusion of course, but when the boat rocks from side to side it's a bit nauseating - even for someone like me who has never been acquainted with seasickness!

Our two-day cruise was wrapped up with breakfast at my house this morning. I for one had to take a nap this afternoon - and I KNOW the other girls did too. But we had a rockin' good time!