July 21, 2017 Southampton

I am going to skip to today, I will try to catch up with the past days, today later. Right now I am sitting in the B&B we have been at for the last three days, it has been a real lit down from the last one, in Dover. Dover we had such a marvelous time at the Stratmore house....... But I will try to catch up on that later. 

Our taxi will be here about 12 pm to take us to the turminal we are not suppose to be there before 1:30, so it will be interesting what happens. The stay here has been a chalange, as there was no safe in the place, and I didn't want to walk around with my jewelry, and cash money so we pretty much stayed in the room. We did quickly walk a couple blocks to the Pig and Whistle Pub for dinner, it was cute. I'm sure they wouldn't appreciate that description. LOL. The food was pretty good and they were nice, even the locals. The first night we got take-in as they call it here, Chinese as it was really raining hard. 

The reason we're sittin in the lounge waiting for the taxi, is they wouldn't let us stay in the room. It is one of many things that was misrepresented here. We told them months ago we would need, a late chick out, but the chose to ignore our emails, and also asked if they had rooms down on the ground floor, as we would be traveling heavy, but no one responded, and they only had one on ground, and they gave it to someone else!  And not a person that needed it more then us, but a workman, that does landscaping, and needed to be able to go out and smoke a lot, I guess. That is all I could observe. 

Hopefully we will have a good experance on the Queen Mary. 

Lofoten part 3

Now Ellen drove us to her home, and it was also very beautiful, and she had a big beautiful dog named Sissy, 

Reindeer stew, sweet potato and mushroom, yummy

Yummy cake and what a wonderful day we had. 

(Backup) Lofoten continued

So as we were going around the beautiful island, Ellen asked if we remembered Liv, she was also an exchanged student, but while Ellen was with us she was in virgina beach, well we did, and she said Liv said we had to come to her house too, or she would be soooooo disappointed, well we didn't want to diapoint, and it would be fun to see how she grew up. She was a very happy and vivacious young woman. 

So off we went seeing a bit more of the island, and then on to Liv's house. A beautiful house, and a beautiful woman, she had not changed, she was still that happy, vivacious girl we knew from the past. And now she had a husband, who was the builder of there home. We did not get to meet him but did meet one of there three boys. Liv made Norwegian pancakes, for us, with cheese and cream, and jam, and tea. And what a view, from her home you could see our ship. 

Liv, Ed, Ellen and me

Liv and her son. 

July 9 and 10, 2017 at sea and Gravadl/Lofoten

Today was a VERY special day for us, we were going to see our Norwegian daughter Ellen. We were so excited, I had a hard time sleeping. 

We had a sea day before, so we could be sure not to forget anything, we were ready to get off the ship right at 8:45 so we were off and waiting for Ellen. 

She came right at nine. The port is very small, and manageable, but you can't walk to town and there was no shuttle that we saw. So it was great we had Ellen, in so many ways. 

Ellen picked us up at nine, and drove us first to her favorite beach, where she walks her dog, it was beautiful. 

Ellen

The beach at I think, Leknes

We then had a bit of a picnic, she brought cookies and hot water for tea, it was so nice to have time to just relax, and catch up about the last 18 years. 

After this time it was time to go and do a wee bit of sightseeing. 

The island is very beautiful and I wish we had more time to see more of it. To be continued.....

(Backup) July 8, 2017 Honningsvag, Norway

Today we went to the North Cape, Gjesvaer, which is a small fishing village, we boarded a boat to visit the Stappen Islands, for bird watching. It was a beautiful day, and we were all grateful for that. The trip was amazing. There were so many Puffins in the water, and many other sea birds we have not seen before. One was a huge brown eagle, I didn't get a picture, but I will once again try to post a foto I took in the museum of one. 

It was a great day. 

Now I am trying to catch up this blog, so bare with me.  No eagel it was on Ed's phone. So I'll try something else. 

There are two, but well hidden

Not good foto, but maybe you can tell something he is huge.