Warnemunde/Rostock, Germany - August 10, 2018. First port on this cruise was Warnemunde, Germany. It's the nearest port to Berlin and many, many passengers took the 2.5 hour train ride into the city. Since Stan and I spent nearly a week in Berlin during our 2017 trip, we opted to stay local and see what was going on in Warnemunde. It turns out, a lot was going on! While having breakfast, we gazed at the city-skyline from our ship. There was a quite lar...

Hamburg, Germany - August 7 & 8, 2018 It occurred to us yesterday that while we are here in Europe, we might as well make the most of it and extend our stay. Why not??? We contacted our friends, Peter and Sumarah, from South Africa , who have a house in Figueres, Spain and told them we'd like to take them up on their offer for a visit. Well, things lead to things, and we think we'll stay even longer. We are working on a trip that will take us from Co...

Hamburg, August 5, 6, 2018 What a super, fantastic, amazing day. Thank you, Stanley Craig Weeks and thank you God. Today is August 6, 2018. I just turned 71. Who knew I would ever live this long, much less be vital and strong at this point! I am a LEO and I feel that strength through my veins and my bones. Granted, the years and my life show in my face and body but my spirit is young and ready to live many more days. Hamburg is a wonderful city. We...

Hamburg and first day at Sea - July 27 & 28, 2018 To make a long, stressful story a bit brief, we sat there on that veranda trying to relax and calculating our next steps. By 11 am Stan's luggage still had not been delivered. We sat patiently waiting and tried not to think about the fact that we were wasting a perfectly good vacation day. Plus, remember, the hotel had no air conditioning so as the morning turned into afternoon, that beautiful pleasant...

Hamburg, Germany - July 26, 27, 2018 "The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry." Sometimes things fall magically in place like a line of well-placed dominoes or a well-oiled machine. Sometimes they just don't. On this first, let's see roughly 28-hour leg of our travels, we encountered a perfect experience that is until we made the connection from Istanbul to Hamburg. First, the flight was almost two hours late in leaving and second, it carried ...