Sunday, 25 Aug 2024 – We just embarked on our second Viking River Cruise. Sally had wanted to book this cruise for several years, but we kept putting it off. We purchased 2-day extensions on both ends, in order to spend extra time in Amsterdam and Bucharest (to tour “Dracula’s castle”). Sally had never visited any of Europe east of Vienna and wanted to see as much as possible.
Our daughter-in-law, Terri, drove
us to the Sioux Falls airport. Our 3:15
PM Delta flight took us to our connection in Minneapolis/St. Paul. We had ordered Sally a wheelchair, which
helped get us to our gate. There, we saw
a board that gave the Delta flight to Amsterdam departure as 8:15 PM. But when we tried to board the flight, the gate
attendant informed us that we were on a later Delta flight, leaving an hour
later from the same gate. (The attendant
was not polite to us, even though many of the other passengers were also
confused.) On the overseas flight, we were served wine, and
then chicken dinners, though it was about 11:00 PM when dinner was served! Sally dozed on that flight, but Jesse watched
several episodes of Star Trek Discovery on TV.
(Paramount is not included with our cable subscription, so the series
was new to him!).
Monday, 26 Aug 2024 – As we
were getting our luggage in Amsterdam, representatives from Viking cruises met
us at the airport and directed us to a waiting area. There, we talked with two couples who were
also on our cruise, Jim & Karen from Seattle, and Bob & Nancy from
North Carolina. After a while, we and
others were taken to Hotel Okura in Amsterdam. In the lobby, we were given our cruise
packets and were told the schedule for the next two days. Our room was on the 15th floor at end of the hall,
with a beautiful view on two sides of the room.
Sally lay on the huge (family size) bed, and slept until 8:30 PM, while
Jesse searched for English programs on the TV.
Then we went downstairs and ate in the café (no reservations required). We had a huge layered sandwich, French fries, and
sweet potato fries. Delicious! Afterward, Jesse did email messages, while Sally
got out things for tomorrow. We were in
bed by 11:00 PM.
Tuesday, 27 Aug
2024 – We ate breakfast downstairs in the restaurant
(with reservations made last night).
Breakfast was complementary. We
drank grapefruit juice, coffee with milk, vanilla yogurt, scrambled eggs (Sally
requested an omelet because she hadn’t seen the scrambled eggs) and bacon. After more than an hour in our room, we met
at 9:15 AM in the hotel lobby to start a 9:30 AM tour. Our tour guide was Marja (pronounced Maria)
Amaya, who led 10 or 12 of us. Two of
the others had walkers with wheels and seats, so Sally wasn’t the only
“crippled” one. We walked down the main
street, then through a food market (fresh market with veggies, fish, etc.),
past a place to board canal cruise boats, beside a canal, and to a museum. Some were going to the museum, but two other
couples and we followed the guide back to the hotel, taking a tram much of the
distance. Soon after that, we went down
to the café for dinner. We chatted a lot
with a couple (Ian & Cheryl, from New Zealand, near Auckland) at the next table,
also on our Viking Cruise. Jesse had
forgotten to bring his wallet, and Sally tried to pay with her [new] VISA
credit card, but it was not accepted, so he went back upstairs to get his
card. (Later, he called VISA and found
out that her card had never been activated.
He also had to list for the guy all of the stops on the cruise.) For dinner, Sally had lamb roast and peas,
plus sweet potato fries; Jesse had a burger/BLT. We both drank Heineken beer (we had walked by
the big plant here). Jesse stayed up to
watch a movie on TV but Sally went to sleep under the big, bulky cover.
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