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| T with his badge (we all had them too) and a 'thru the ages' banner |
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| With is brother, sisters and a multitude of pics |
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| T and Me ❤ |
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| The whole gang |
9/9/16
Satellite problems meant the internet connection was
totally disabled earlier today......this is the first chance I've had to post T's birthday bloggy stuff
8/9 Cruise Day 004 - Happy Birthday to T
Well, talk about someone trying to upstage T on HIS
big day......
After waking at 6 and putting banners & balloons all
over the room (without waking the birthday boy, go me!), I took my netbook downstairs to
post Wednesday's news (it's a nuisance having to do that but at least I can
upload something which is more than I can do from our cabin) and then I went to get some hot drinks for us both from the
IC
Back in our room, T was woken by my dulcet
tones belting out another round of happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you
etc and he laughed his head off when he saw what I'd done to the place. I must admit, it does look fun
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| We put the poster on the mirror the day we 'moved in' |
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| So !!, ever stood in your cabin's bathroom at 6:00 trying to blow up balloons....quietly?! |
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| We'd already put the poster on our door, but Princess decorated it too T woke up to this on the big day |
T opened all his birthday cards and then we got ready.
We were going to have some
breakfast & a bucks fizz or 2 but decided against it in the end - we needed
to get out to tour the town.
We left the ship around 10, took approximately 20 paces and,
cue drama #1...........
I somehow twisted my foot, lost my balance & went
flying, ab.so.lute.ly flying - I don't know what it looked like but it felt
like I was in some kind of slapstick comedy that had gone terribly wrong. I landed on my side and cut/scrapped both
feet, my knee, my elbow & hand.
Because I needed help to get off the ground, the security
guys insisted that a wheelchair was ordered. I really didn't want one but they
wouldn't take no for an answer. I did
refuse medical help though because I can't see the point of paying an
astronomical bill to get a bit of grit out of my hand (ha, what a martyr) so I
was taken back to our cabin to clean up.
When I sorted myself out and plastered (aka band-aided)
where necessary we left the ship for the second time, with me keeping tight
hold of T until we were on the main drag into town.
We made our way (via a couple of souvenir shops) to the
funicular and waited for about half an hour to catch a train up to the top of
Mount Floyen.
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| The queue to get on the funicular - tip.....always buy tickets on line prior to your trip - the line for those buying tickets on the day was unbelievable |
For those of you who have checked the webcam view, you'll
know how beautiful it is up there - well it's even more spectacular in 'real
life'.
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| Beautiful views of Bergen and the surrounding countryside - they even have mountain goats up there 😃 |
I got on my phone & tweeted to my bestest twitter pal so she could check us out on the web cam. She is such a star, she took some screen shots of us and tweeted them back to me. I was so grateful because that's what I'd planned to do but my phone was taking an age to log onto the webcam. So thanks to C, we have a few pics of our time 'on screen'.
Here we are in front of this ⬇ map
We also managed to speak to one of T's sisters and
text/chat with another. They both got to
say happy birthday to their baby brother & I got to find out that Pongo is
doing great and apparently not missing us at all.
Fairweather friend
dog or what?
We got the train back down & just as it stopped, I
realised I'd left my phone in the ladies......we jumped back on the funicular
(illegally cos we'd only paid for one round trip), got to the top and, after checking in a couple of places, found the
phone lying next to the till in the 'boutique'.
Thank you so much to the person who handed it in - I'd be lost without it and a big thank you to the funicular guy who, once we'd told him about (mini) drama #2, let us go back down on the train for free .
Thank you so much to the person who handed it in - I'd be lost without it and a big thank you to the funicular guy who, once we'd told him about (mini) drama #2, let us go back down on the train for free .
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| The view we had from the front of the funicular on our 2nd trip back down the mountainside |
Phew.....I think that's enough theatrics for one holiday - back to
the main plot.
Bergen is a beautiful city - especially around the sea
front.
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| The views that greeted us from our balcony |
Everywhere reminded me a bit of those quaint villages
that were pictured on the box fronts of jigsaws you could buy years ago - the
ones that had about 3,000 tiny pieces (but by the time you were nearing
completion you discovered you actually had just 2,999!).
We strolled around Bryggen and popped in & out of a
few souvenir shops. I can't believe how
much everything costs here. It was £17
for 2 beers, £15 for a shot glass & bottle opener and £8 for some
antiseptic cream from (for all you UK-ers out there) Boots - it was a little
bit of home from home in Norway (even the logo is the same 😊).
We got back to the ship around 3:30 and, as we'd not eaten in town, we trotted up to the Caribe Cafe for a very small snack & a drink. The red wine in a (chipped) plastic glass was novel, particularly as it felt like I was drinking out of something as thick as stein, but other than that, it was an uneventful half hour
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| The harbour, Bryggen (Unesco World Heritage site), lovely winding streets and the famous fish market (if I'm honest, despite hearing some wonderful things about it all, I wasn't totally impressed with that!!) |
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| This is what your money buys in Norway - the beer cost £8.50 and that cake was just over a fiver |
We got back to the ship around 3:30 and, as we'd not eaten in town, we trotted up to the Caribe Cafe for a very small snack & a drink. The red wine in a (chipped) plastic glass was novel, particularly as it felt like I was drinking out of something as thick as stein, but other than that, it was an uneventful half hour
(how thick is that glass???, the chip is on the front of the base)
Rather than go to the MDR to celebrate T's birthday, we'd decided (pre cruise) to have an Ultimate Balcony Dinner. Thinking it would be cold at this time of year, we weren't that bothered about having it around the 5pm sailaway so I'd ordered it for 7pm but wouldn't you know it, the weather turned out to be glorious.
I tried to change the time but the earliest it could be moved to was 6:30....apparently, a lot goes into the timing of these dinners and getting waiters, chefs and photographers to re-arrange their timetables is a bit difficult.
Birthday Fate lent a hand though and, thanks to leaving port a little later than planned, along with the staff pulling out all the stops, we got our sailaway dinner at 6:00pm.
(A big thanks to everyone who made it happen.)
Abel was our server for the evening and he, along with his assistant, did a
fantastic job of making sure everything was just perfect (he didn't create the scenery - but as you can see, that was pretty fantastic too).
Is there a little spy camera somewhere that tells them
when to top up your champers or that you've finished your food? Both of them appeared at just the right moment to take
care of whatever needed taking care of.
And talking of food, here's the menu
Salad
Crab cakes
Steak & lobster
Choccy desserts
It got a bit gale-force windy just as we were finishing the main
course so the table was brought inside & we finished off the meal in our
room.......as Abel and his assistant brought in the puds, they sang Happy Birthday
to T - it was so funny - what a lovely touch and it ended the meal on a
definite high.
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| We were sooooo surprised that the cake had a candle with a real flame - always thought they were banned on board |
To be honest, we were both a bit shattered and, thanks to my fall, I was
starting to feel like I'd gone 10 rounds with Joe Frazier (or a.n. other boxer)
- in the end, it was the best plan for us really.
The most important thing was that T totally enjoyed
the day (he said the bit were I fell wasn't that good but the rest of it had
been) so, if he's happy then I am too.
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| We couldn't have picked a more spectacular sunset for the end of T's special day |
We now have another 2 days in port so I think my 'live
from' may be even more delayed than usual.
I definitely won't get today's (Flam) done any time soon, so here's a heads up.....
.....Don't forget to check out Lerwick's webcams tomorrow morning (at a guess,from around 9:30ish UK time). There's a good chance you'll see passengers milling around the town for a good few hours (you'll find the cam link in the tabs at the top of the page).
