Day 10 – Cruising the high sea

Cruising has changed significantly in recent years. Not only has the technology been modernized, not only are the ships getting larger and larger, also the experience and comfort for passengers on board have changed. Where once his trip was spent in total isolation from the rest of the world, excluding those days ashore, we are at the moment fully aware of what is going on in the world. Even on days at sea, which we spend at considerable distance from the coast of Norway, and the receipt of the Norwegian telecom operators are out of reach,  ‘Cell Phone at sea' offers a solution for cell phone connection. Or better yet, the vessels are also equipped with WiFi. Admittedly, the latter comes with a price tag. But even those who have not purchased a WiFi plan on board, are not  deprived of the outside world. Every morning, newspapers are printed with the most important news: there is for the Belgians and Dutch the ‘Nieuwsoverzicht’, for Americans ‘The Times Digest’, for the English 'Britain Today', for the Australians 'Australia Today', etc.  And if this were not enough, each stateroom has a mega large flat screen TV with a number of services. There are the news channels BBC World, FOX television, CNBC and ESPN. Films and TV series on demand in different genres are available with only a  press on the remote control. And this is all for free. Further on the TV, you can check the weather conditions for our various destinations and perhaps most importantly, we can check our trip and especially our progress  through the travel tracker, similar to those on an airplane.

In order not to sleep late like yesterday, the alarm is set for 8 am. It is calm at the breakfast buffet on the Lido deck. Today is yet another day at sea.

Again today a lot of things are planned. We do not want to miss Ian's 10 am talk about the destinations that have yet to come. He knows what we'll have to see. The World Stage is packed. With his English humor he catches everyone’s attention.

At 11.30 am I am back in the computer lesson, this time it's about safe computing.

After lunch at the Lido, I join a presentation on the famous Fabergé egg. We travel to learn, and that does not necessarily has to be about the destinations of this trip.

I go once more to the casino, just to watch though. I do not have plans to play, you need to set boundaries. Our older, mostly female passengers, can’t be dragged away from the one-armed bandits. They pull nervously on their cigarettes, are hitting the buttons with conviction, rack their brains, sip their drinks, these are clearly winners. Amusing to see. Chinese roulette players use clearly swearing words, even if it is in Chinese J. Other Asians (I suspect Koreans) have fun at the blackjack table. They are on a roll.

Meanwhile, among us, we have  a winner too. Eddy took part in a trivia game on travel hosted by  Ian and knew as only one the answer to a question about our beloved Taormina in Sicily. His reward: a beautiful HAL pin. I think he would have preferred a drink J.

He has glared at the horizon for the past days now in search of whales. So far without success. But today he sees something else on the horizon: oil drilling platforms. Fjords and Norway are inseparable, but that is oil and Norway as well. Oil has ensured that Norway is the second richest country in the world.

As the sun quietly tries to break through the thick clouds that have been haunting us since our departure from Trondheim we take our dinner.

Tonight Patrick McMahon presents a new program to us. Our Australian guitarist brings  songs from  Neil Diamond, Don McLean and Bob Dylan. An energetic performance in any case. Tonight the sun will officially set again. But as always it will remain light. From the midnight sun, we go back to the ordinary white nights.