When I woke up today I was nervous to look outside, wondering if we had outrun yesterday's rainstorm. I opened the curtains to a beautiful sunny sky. It’s an adventure each morning to fling those curtains open, never knowing what you might see.
We had our breakfast at Hudson’s, the coffee is still horrible, but the food is excellent. The “sit down” restaurants are so much calmer than the buffet, and they don’t start the day off with that frantic rush that the buffet seems to have. The buffet is massive, yet people act like the food will run out in 15 minutes.
Today we are in Akureyri a town whose name I cannot wrap my tongue around. It involves rolling your R’s one after another and I just can’t do it. But what a beautiful place it is. It’s a very walkable city, and a much milder climate than you would think even though it’s only 100km south of the Arctic circle, and that’s due to the influence of the Gulf Stream. It’s also known for it’s heart-shaped stoplights as well as a famous waterfall and whale watching. The shore excursions through NCL are ridiculously expensive, and we have seen many waterfalls and also many whales, so I passed on those. There are a lot of local companies that take you to the same places, for much less money (much less), but you have to accept the fact that if something goes wrong and you are on an NCL (or any cruise line), the ship will wait for you; but if you are on an independent tour and something goes wrong….you are out of luck, and you find your own way back to the ship, or worse yet, to the next port. The day the Viking rescued us (and I will die on that hill) was a prime example. I mean, we weren’t cruising yet, but it just shows how easy it could happen. I booked independent shore excursions only on days when the tour ended at say, 5 or 6 PM and the ship didn’t sail until 11 pm or so, theoretically giving lots of time to get to the port should a disaster occur.
Anyhow, we walked through the downtown area, and everything was still so green and lush, which seemed odd for early September and so far North. There many, many stores selling yarns of every hue and as a matter of fact, knitting is so huge here that children are taught to knit in school! The tour guides we have had all had a bag of something they were knitting close at hand and out came the needles “click, click, click” at every opportunity. It was a perfect day to just stroll around. I spotted a cute coffee shop and had to have a cappuccino. All the cappuccinos are fabulous, so why the regular coffee is so foul is a strange, unexplainable phenomena. 😊
We spent the rest of the afternoon just enjoying the sunshine, checking out the shops and the walking path around the waterfront with lots of benches to enjoy the views.
After we returned to the ship we decided to check out The Vibe up on the top deck. I had purchased us passes for it, it’s an adults only, private “beach club” with guaranteed lounge chairs and cabanas and a bar that also serves light snacks. They cap the amount of passes so it’s never crowded, but I think I might have been the only one who bought passes on this cruise because we never saw another soul. The stewards and bar tenders were so happy to see us whenever we were there, it must be boring for them when no one shows up. I think a lot of passengers might have thought that the weather wouldn’t be good enough for sunbathing and hot tubs, but it was perfect for us as neither of us likes the hot-heat.
At one point there were fighter jets flying overhead, 4 of them, swooping down over the town and then taking off over the mountains. We never did find out why.
So we spent a few hours at The Vibe, and then headed back to change clothes and have some supper. There is a time change tonight, but the cell phones won’t automatically change, even using ship wifi, or Elon’s Starlink. I don’t know why that is, but the captain came on the intercom and warned us all. Luckily no alarms needed to set as tomorrow is a sea day. And while I know it’s quite simple to set an alarm when you know the that your time will be wrong, you can compensate for that, but it is something that I cannot comprehend. Do I still set the alarm for 7? I mean, 7 is 7, right? Or do I set it for 6, because the time is going forward? Or do I set it for 8? I know it’s a simple fix, but I don’t like that kind of conundrum. To me it’s like “A train is going 50 miles an hour one way and another is…….” You know what I mean. 😠Thank goodness I have a regular wind-up watch with me. Sometimes being a Luddite is a good thing.
Anyhow. We are leaving Iceland tonight and will transit through Eyjafjörður which is one of the longest fjords (70 km) in Iceland. We will see most of it before the sun sets, and then we will wake up in Norway.
Oh, there was a Glow Party in the atrium tonight, where people wore sparkles, white and/or neon, and black lights made everything glow like it was the 1980’s with all the appropriate music. It looked very cool! We, however, went to an Adele tribute at Syd Norman’s Pourhouse, which was one of the more “average” shows. Lots of fun, but not a great performance.
There are so many yarn shops, I guess because there are so many sheep.
A lot of streets are pedestrian only, good for folks like me who wander without looking.
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