Tulips and Windmills: Interlude of Odds and Ends

 

I thought I'd share some pictures of our cabin. We enjoyed having the little balcony and actually did use it sometimes.

Viking is attentive to small details. One of them is the in-cabin entertainment. They offer movies that are relevant to the theme of the cruise. This time we could watch The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, and The Monument Men. I thought that was a nice touch. 

We seldom attended the evening programs, one of which was Dutch 101 where people learned to say "good morning" and other essentials. However, I did go to the classical music evening where a lovely string trio performed an hour of familiar light classical and semi-classical pieces.

Each dinner menu would include among the options a starter, entree, and dessert indigenous to the area, different each evening. We enjoyed the likes of bitterballen and waterzooi and stroopwaffles at various times.

We were fortunate to have found our tribe on Gefjon very early in the trip. At the very first breakfast, I approached a table where a friendly-looking woman was seated alone and asked if we could join her. By the time I was seated, another woman had come and the first one said, "I'm C, and this is my wife, M." And just as Joe joined us, another couple filled out the table; they turned out to be G and H, the couple that C and M were traveling with. The connection was immediate. The next day we all met Ch and J, and after that we took most of our meals with at least part of the tribe. This photo is a special one: It was C&M's 51st anniversary of being together. A few days later we were privileged to also celebrate Ch&J's 31st anniversary! Viking provided a special cake (and for Ch&J, it was vegan), a chorus of waiters, and led us in the singing of "Let Me Call You Sweetheart." 

It was perhaps the second day aboard Gefjon that we passed what appeared to be Noah's Ark. I took two photos, just to be sure I wasn't seeing things! When I asked our program director about it, she said that the person who had created it had hoped to launch it for sailing the sea, but this hadn't worked out so it was being used as an event space.

We were both amused by this vehicle!