Scandinavia

I am less than 24 hours away from disembarking the Sea Princess!! The taste of freedom is on my lips, but first, here’s a briefing on my final ports.

Let me start out by saying that I could never be a permanent resident of Scandinavia. There is absolutely no way that I could handle the lack of warmth and summer weather. There was very little sunshine throughout the week and I don’t think temperatures broke 60 degrees. Grey skies and rain really don’t mix well with me.

Oslo was possibly my most favorite sail away of the cruise. Sailing through the fjords was breathtaking (despite the gale force winds trying to blow me overboard!). Just imagine if all the valleys of the Rocky Mountains were full of water, that’s pretty much what sailing through the fjords feels like. Oslo as a city didn’t impress me too much, but I did visit a very interesting sculpture park. The park was created by one man, Lindevine, and he sculpted over 900 statues. They all depict the life cycle and were quite stunning and profound. I also visited the world-famous ________ (insert name which I’ve forgotten here) ski jump that was used for the Olympics and World Championships and offered beautiful views over the city.

Copenhagen was a bit of a bust for me as I was on in-port-manning and didn’t receive relief until 5:00 in the evening. I would have skirted my duties, but there were internal auditors on board and there was a fiasco the night before, so being the goody-good that I am I followed the rules. I was looking forward to the nighttime adventures since we weren’t sailing until 4:30 a.m., but unfortunately traveling in large groups can be crippling. I went with a big group (mainly dancers) to the Tivoli Gardens, but we got there and nobody could make a decision about where to eat, so they defaulted to comfort and chose the Hard Rock Café which wasn’t even in the Gardens. Basically we paid 20 USD to walk into the park and turn right back around to go somewhere I could go within 20 minutes of my house in Colorado! I ended up ditching the group and returning to the ship without any Danish adventure. I think it made me realize that friendships at sea aren’t quite the same as friendships on land.

Helsingborg was a very short day and I have to say there is not much happening for this Swedish city. The highlight for me was visiting the Sofiero Palace which was one of the Swedish Royal Family’s summer houses. I could definitely get used to living like royalty. That was pretty much the extent of excitement in Helsingborg.

I have to say this was the easiest cruise of my contract in terms of workload. We only had 2 major shows and 3 nights off…I think I was making about $100/hr…it’ll be hard to find that on land!

Thank you all for following me along this adventure and I look forward to seeing everybody on the other side!