Today is our last Sea Day – this usually means that it takes my time entering and for the most part losing tournaments in the Casino. We missed our lunch reservation in Tamarind, completely forgot about it until we got the voicemail from Jamie wondering where we were. Again, today I made the final table in Black Jack with a prize of $500.00. I knew exactly where these winnings were going – there was a nice watch in the shops that would have only left me $15.00 short if I won the table. No such luck. Tonight's our last formal night so that means "Land and Sea" with a double up on the scampi order. T&J have been somewhat cabin bound since Tom got sick hopefully he’s on the mend quickly so that doesn’t effect the balance of the trip for him.

With only five days left on the Eurodam, it’s overcast but the seas are calm. We’re told that we should expect some hot weather in Germany tomorrow and Wednesday possibly up into the 80’s, which means “shorts”.

Leading up to this adventure I wondered whether we’d get cabin fever on the 24-day cruise – it’s definitely not been the case as I said earlier. With eleven days left until we jump on the plane for Vancouver we’re excited about our time in Holland and France. I’m mostly looking forward to meeting an old friend, Berre Zinkweg, who lives in Oldenzaal, Holland. He is making the trip to Deventer with his wife, Ingrid, to have dinner with us Sunday afternoon. It’s been close to thirty-one (31) years since we traveled throughout Europe for about a month visiting some of the various fashion manufacturers and selling them on the idea of garment-on-hanger distribution. It’ll be great to see this “old” friend.

It goes to show that we live in a very small world – it seems that my cousin Tony and his wife Roswita will coincidentally be in Amsterdam on Saturday. We’ve arranged to meet them at our rented houseboat and then head out for some traditional Indonesian dinner called a “rijistafel”.

As of 4:00 p.m. on the 19th we have traveled approximately 4,300 nautical miles and written over 13,000 words in my blog - is there a winning port-of-call so far? Looking at the magnets that are stuck to our stateroom wall we have visited fourteen cities in twelve countries and I’ll rate the top three cities in the order as I see it - as there is no distinct winner – they’re all great places to visit.

Number 1 – Stockholm, Sweden

Number 2 – Cartagena, Spain

Number 3 – Gibraltar, U.K.

We have five more cities in four countries to go with great anticipation for Paris being the last 5-days of our amazing trip. Stay tuned, there is more to come I’m sure.