Evening 6/17/10

This is an alumni cruise, our third. The 2 couples seated were from Los Alamos, NM and Shirley, standing in the yellow shirt, was our Iowa University host. We saw a lot of all 5 of them as were on most of the same tours. The beginning of the cruise it was light pretty much 24 hours of the day so a bit hard to get use to the evenings not being dark!

There was no tea today as there was the Sail Away cocktail party, but the string quartett still played in Horizons and we sat listening to them and watching as we sailed through the Archipelago. After the Iowa "meet & greet" we went down to dinner and sat with 3 other couples. One couple from CT, 2nd from Overland Park, KS (where we lived in the early '70's) and the 3rd couple from Calvary. Funny to discover that Jack from Calvary had been at the 1957 Jamboree with Bob! And here they were together on a cruise 53 years later. We left the dining room at 9:30 to go to the evening's entertainment.

The evening's entertainment was "The Dynamic Duo of Mark Friedman & Rodi Alexander". They were a married couple and the show was music & comedy. Rodi sang familiar show tunes and Mark did comedy as well as playing the piano. We were plenty ready to head to bed at the end of the show!

Stockholm, Sweden 6/17/10

Alarm went off at 6:27. Turned on the ship's program and the temperature was 59 degrees so wore a light sweater & jacket. We unpacked one of the 2 big bags before going to breakfast. Sat with another couple from Iowa U, Gene & Diane from Ottumwa, IA. He is a retired juvenile judge. Very nice couple & we enjoyed visiting with them often during the cruise. Our tour today was "Highlights of Stockholm" which left at 8:45. The population of Stockholm is 1.5 million which is over 1/6 of the entire population of Sweden. Great bus and tour guide. We made several stops for photos seeing the old town with some medieval buildings, very beautiful facades with carvings & statues. We drove through Ostermalm which is full of museums & parks. We saw shopping areas, embassies, parliament building --we are standing in front of the Royal Palace. The oldest princess is being married this week-end so there is much preparation in the city.

Many beautiful flowers all over the city and we saw these costumed men along the river front.

This is a view of some of the beautiful buildings along the river. Stockholm is actually a series of islands so there is much water through out the city. We came back for late lunch on the Terrace, sitting outside as the day had warmed up considerably. We sat with 2 ladies from Michigan who had sat in the seat behind us on the bus and enjoyed visiting with them some more. Back to the room to finish unpacking and then napped for an hour.