Some recap

I can't believe that today marks a week that our trip ended.  What a wonderful time we had experiencing Europe with our friends.  I am still in awe of the things we saw and got to experience.  But it is good to be back home with family and friends.

I have moved all the pictures into a Shutterfly account and I am going to share it here so you can all see what we saw. I plan to include David's, Wayne's and Frieda's pictures  in this album soon just give me some time..

https://londonand12daybalticseascruise.shutterfly.com

We are home!

I had every intention of blogging last night but sleep overcame me!  We had been up since 4 am Sunday UK time so 11 pm Saturday night EST. With our flight being delayed almost an hour we got back later and by the time we cleared immigration and customs and found our driver exhaustion had really started to set in for all of us.  Then as we were trying to leave the airport the ticket machine ate the drivers parking ticket and that took what seemed like hours to get solved.  But finally we were on the road and 95 South was A-okay!

We got home and started unpacking and ordered some Chinese food for dinner or a midnight snack however you want to look at it but I only ate a few bites.  To tired to eat and by 8:30 pm after being awake for 22 1/2 hours Michael and I couldn't keep our eyes opened.Not sure how our friends the Thomas and Jones fared but I know they were equally as exhausted.

I woke up at 3 am and tried to fall back to sleep but couldn't so I just got our of bed at 4 am.   I am all unpacked now!   Now to stay awake all day and get some food in this house.  Cause the eating frenzy is OVER!

Here are some more of our pictures! In the coming days we will all have albums from each port but I have more to share about our adventures as my brain wakes up! Photo credit for these go to David!

Here are a few from Amsterdam!

A few from Estonia!  I do think this was my favorite place besides London!

  Climbing up the tower at St. Olaf's

I think this might be at the top but I didn't make it so not sure. ;)

Stay tuned.......... 

Carnival Legend Amsterdam, The Netherlands Day 12

Today was an incredible day in The Netherlands!  Michael, David and I were up and on the upper deck while the ship was going through the Amerongen Lock & Damn this morning!  That was quite impressive to watch! 

  

After that we all ate breakfast and then got off the ship for a couple of hours to shop in Amsterdam. 

We didn’t stay out too long since we had to be back for our Windmills & Edam tour!   Although the tour was rushed we saw some beautiful country going from Amsterdam out to Edam.  Lots of Windmills, farms, and they have lots of canals.  In fact there are over 16 million people living in The Netherlands and they have more bicycles than cars.  Actually the Dutch typically have 2 bicycles 1 that is used for work and a nice one they use on their time off.  Also because there are so populated and are surrounded by so much water a lot of them live on house boats!  Our tour guide actually lives on a houseboat.

If only we didn't have our # on our shirts.  LOL

We drove out to Edam and got a tour through a cheese making establishment and bought lots of yummy things.  Had cows on the loose! Took a while before road was clear so we could move on.  What a site!

 Did a little cow tipping too!

Then we were back to the ship for an early sailing and we dropped off our purchases and got ready for what…..DINNER…you guess it!  And what a great group of people we had waiting on us every night.

This has been an amazing trip and we have been blessed with the most beautiful weather.  Everyone comments on that when we arrived in every country.

Michael and I had a wonderful time with our friends, Freida & Wayne and Grace & David exploring Europe.  We are all sorry to see it end but ready to get back home to our families and other friends.

I will continue to blog after I get home and share more of our fun adventures and pictures!  

Carnival Legend 2nd day at sea - Day 11

Hard to believe that we are on day 11 of our 12 day Baltic Seas cruise.  We had another wonderful relaxing day at sea.  Tomorrow morning we arrive in Amsterdam! 

We found out today that the submarine that was alongside of us yesterday belonged to the Germans and evidently early this morning a Danish fighter jet flew over the ship  Sorry we missed that picture.

Today I want to share with you a story about our 2 days in Russia and Mr. Snappy!  Hmmm where to begin….. Some of you may know this but we had to be on a tour or have a Visa to be on shore in Russia.  Most people don't have Russian Visas so we had a tour.  That meant for us we have the same bus of people for those 2 days because we purchased a 2 day Russian tour!  Also it is problematic if you are not in Russia with a Visa or on a tour group to be out on your own and the tour guide can be in trouble for losing you.  We were all given a listening device and Daria our guide would share with us as she guided us through all the places we visited.  So the first day after leaving the Peter and Paul Fortress an English lady with us started telling Daria that her travel companion was waiting on a bench back where we entered.  The problem with this is we never left the way we entered so that created much unrest for Daria.  She had to get us all on the bus and the bus driver had to go back to the entrance so Daria could go back in and retrieve this lady.  Daria told us then that we had to all stay together and if we needed to leave the group she needed to know and she would tell us where to meet up.  That being said it would seem that Mr. & Mrs. Snappy were late back to the group after that many times because he was constantly running around taking pictures. 

On the 2^nd day Mr. & Mrs. Snappy held up our tour  from departing about ½ hour.  We were to depart at 7 and they didn’t show up till about 7:30 and we were given the impression by her that they overslept. However, Michael being a pacer had been up on the Lido deck early and had seen them before we ate breakfast. So where were they…running around taking pictures I am sure.  

After coming out of the Summer Palace we had time to shop and visit the WC (bathrooms for those of us that need to learn the term when traveling to Europe).  I have mentioned in previous posts that in most of Europe you have to pay to use the WC’s.  Grace was in line when Michael and I arrived and we were watching the scene unfold while waiting in line as someone was locked in the WC and the girl working at the shop was talking to the person through the door and telling them what to do and what to stop doing.  Low and behold the door opens and out pops Mr. & Mrs. Snappy!  Yes they were both in the same stall…..mind you these are tiny spaces.  I am sure they were avoiding having to pay 2 Euros each to use the bathroom so they chose to share.  Talk about laughter from the line.  So it was our turn and I started towards the stall and Michael kind of moved too and I turned and snapped “you are not going in there with me!”  He looks stunned and says I had no intention of trying to. LOL   We all had a good laugh at that too.    

  

The final straw and thus their nickname came when we were in the Winter Palace and Hermitage.  He was always running around running over people to take pictures every time we entered a new room.  He was pushing and shoving and I might add that I was pushed and shoved often.  He took pictures in the Amber room where it was forbidden. ;)   By the time we ended that tour people were begging Daria to leave him behind.  I know it does not sound nice but really by the time he shoved and pushed everyone and got in front of all the pictures people were done!  Okay okay…. I will go ahead and admit it…..I photo bombed several of his photos and sorry to say it but it felt good to do so! 

So the kicker to this story is that we were all heading out to show last night here come Mr. & Mrs. Snappy and yes he has his camera but guess what…….their room is right across the hall from MINE! How can this be?!?!

Meet Mr.  & Mrs. Snappy!!!!!

Check out our picture of the Amber room at the Winter Palace--photographer  will remain unnamed! 

This is where they ended up after the big walk up the church tower at St. Olaf’s! So glad I chickened out.  This would not have been good for me.

Yep Michael can work that phone from anywhere.! LOL

But check out more of the views they saw and a few more pictures taken...

This gentleman here is from San Diego his wife is from Estonia and they come every year for a 2 week visit. He heard our American ancient and asked where we were from.

The life on board ship on days at sea are hard!

Love the open air shopping in Europe! It seems to be everywhere!

Actually we love shopping anywhere :)

Look who showed up tonight!  I don't like real frogs but I love this!

 FROG = Fully Rely On God 

Stay tuned for our last day of adventures in Amsterdam!