Mon. May 30...Day 14

Day 14 May 30, 2011

FRANCE

Yes, We are back in France. No, we are not home!! That was one of the hardest things was to be in France but not head home. We are in Cherbourg.

We came here two years ago on vacation. The boat docked right at the same quay as the Cité de La Mer. If you remember, we visited a submarine. We can see it from the deck.

We had already decided that we would get off the ship and find a McDonald’s so that we could catch up on internet. I remembered that there was one not too far from the ship. We took the shuttle to town and then walked to the McDo. We had a beautiful morning for a walk.  We spent all morning getting caught up on the news at least the most important.  Then we walked back to the ship to have lunch on board.

This is the view that we had as we ate outside on the back deck of the 8th floor.

The weather changed in the afternoon. It clouded up and rained some so we didn’t go back into town like we thought we were going to. We walked around a covered area by the ship just to get some fresh air.

When the ship goes into the port, it flies the flag of the country it is in. There is the French flag flying on the Rotterdam.

We left France at 7:30. The weather had cleared up again and we had a beautiful sunset. We sat in the library. Emily has been sitting there at night while Mike and I go for an evening walk around the deck. It has worked out really well, since she doesn’t like to walk all that much. She sits there and reads her books.

They’re just pretending to sleep here.  But you can see a lot of people taking their afternoon naps in the library.

 When Mike saw these chairs like this, he said that they look like the chairs are doing their leg raises.

And one. . .and two. . .

You don’t think we’ve been exercising a little too much, do you? Enjoying the sunset over the English Channel and the last sight of France until Wednesday.

 At least half of the crew, stateroom stewards, dining room stewards, etc, are from Indonesia. In the evening they had the Indonesian Crew Show.  It was late (11:00) because they had to be off from work. But I decided to go. It was good. There 70,000 Indonesian Islands. The show was a combination of traditional dances (1000 hand dance in this picture) and songs and one folk tale acted out.  The last thing was two songs played on a traditional bamboo instrument. Each “frame” has its own note. The frame holds hollowed out different size bamboo and they shake it to produce the note. It was very interesting.

These two fellows on the end are our room stewards. They have been taking excellent care of us. The shortest fellow is the one that makes Emily’s critters.

Speaking of critters. . .

This one is a mystery. Can you tell what it is???

Goodnight from the English Channel somewhere between France and England!!