{"id":6375,"date":"2017-07-17T09:00:39","date_gmt":"2017-07-17T16:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=6375"},"modified":"2017-07-16T08:51:14","modified_gmt":"2017-07-16T15:51:14","slug":"exploring-new-places","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromabirdseyeview.com\/?p=6375","title":{"rendered":"No. Sea Cruise"},"content":{"rendered":"

by Bob Sparrow<\/p>\n

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Hamburg water statue in Alster Lake<\/p><\/div>\n

The title seems to infer that there is no sea cruise – there is! The title is simply my way of trying to label our trip of cruising both the North Sea<\/strong>\u00a0and the Norwegian Sea<\/strong>.\u00a0 By the time you get this blog, we will have embarked from Hamburg, Germany<\/strong>, leaving all the local Hamburgers behind and will be adrift somewhere in the North Sea<\/strong> on a 12-day cruise aboard the Norwegian Cruise Line<\/strong> ship, Jade<\/strong>. It\u2019s actually a 14-day cruise, but they\u2019re throwing us off early \u2013 more about that later. What I can tell you now is that I\u2019ve never been to any of the destinations we’re visiting, so Wi-Fi willing you’ll join us as we discover some new places.<\/p>\n

The \u2018we\u2019 on this trip, joining Linda<\/strong> and me, is the same as our Baltic Sea Cruise<\/strong> gang (where you could always find a \u2018john\u2019), Jack & JJ Budd, John & Judy VanBoxmeer<\/strong>,\u00a0John’s \u00a0sister and brother-in-law from Canada,\u00a0John & Mary Billham<\/strong>, plus friends of theirs,\u00a0Steen & Sue<\/strong> also from Canada (I believe Steen is Canadian for John). \u00a0Why so many Canadians? \u00a0Just in case we get called ‘Ugly Americans’<\/strong>\u00a0we can all say were from Canada, eh?<\/p>\n

Getting to Hamburg, Germany<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Our trip over started ignominiously with a European air traffic controllers strike, so our original flight to Europe was cancelled along with our up-graded seats, so we ended up in ‘steerage’<\/strong>. \u00a0The good news is that after 27 hours of airplanes and airports we did eventually get to Hamburg, so either the strike was settled or the pilot landed by<\/p>\n

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Jack, JJ, me, Linda, John & Judy prior to Copenhagen Segway ride in 2015<\/p><\/div>\n

the seat of his pants. The bad news is that my luggage went to Dubai<\/strong> and our golf clubs went to Kuala Lumpur\u00a0<\/strong>or at least somewhere other than Hamburg.\u00a0\u00a0As of this writing I’m wearing the same shirt I started out with two days ago, no wonder no one wanted to sit with me at dinner! \u00a0Hamburg has been in the news lately as the recent meeting\/protesting place for this year’s\u00a0G20 Summit<\/strong>. All the leaders and protestors have since left the city, but the Putin-Trump “I Got You Elected Comrade”<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0t-shirts were still available in the gift shops. \u00a0We only had one evening in Hamburg to scarf down some schnitzel<\/strong> and German beer<\/strong>, which we did as we were pretty sure we weren’t going to get much to eat or drink on the cruise.<\/p>\n

The Ship and\u00a0<\/u>Her Measurements<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

Many of our blog readers are big cruise enthusiasts, so I don\u2019t have to go into a great deal of detail about the Jade<\/strong>, but I will anyway . . .<\/p>\n