Life at sea heading to Copenhagen was pretty sweet. I got to do a bridge tour, where you get to see where the captain and his crew control the ship. Some of the technology looks like the dials and devices in the 1970s, and some looks cutting edge. It’s an odd mix.
Also, dolphins! There have been sightings through the voyage but I was never able to get the camera in time. This time, they frolicked for quite some time right outside our cabin, before heading under the ship to the other side.
We also held the sea Olympics, which is always fun. The faculty, staff, ship kids, companions, and life-long learners (basically, the older people and the kids) make up the “White Sea” team. There are a variety of other seas on board and students are assigned to seas. The White Sea won the basketball tournament, and I got to play, so that was fun, but really, really cold. The court is on the top of the ship, and it was only about 2 degrees C and very windy. Our team also did a very funny rendition of “the Time Warp” from Rocky Horror Picture Show for the lip synch contest. With everyone having to wear masks, the lip synch contest really became more of a dance contest. I got to do Magenta, and again, super fun. No pictures though, as I was competing.
But not goin’ to lie, Copenhagen has been sort of a tough port for us. Maybe it is just because we are nearing the end of the voyage, and both students and faculty are very busy with end of term academic work. Maybe it’s also due to the cold weather; the ship wasn’t really built for the cold, and we had a couple of days where our cabin (and others) was quite freezing. And ice on the decks means staying largely indoors. We even had a bit of snow at sea.
But also, Denmark was added to the itinerary recently, to replace Poland. It’s difficult to find lodgings off the ship while at sea, because the internet is not good enough to search well. We had three Airbnb bookings cancel on us, our bank decided to “protect us from fraud” by cancelling our main credit card while we are still travelling, and most hotels and restaurants in Copenhagen are very, very expensive. And literally no one here wears masks, anywhere, and we were told several times we don’t need to wear ours. So, weird.
We had two days of sun (although cold, still very lovely). But then it switched to cold, dark rain. After using the ship as a hotel the first night, we found a hotel for a couple of nights of good wifi and “off-ship” time. The room overlooks the water, so today (as I write this) we just worked and looked out at the harbor and the pouring rain. We’ll see what happens tomorrow… For now, here are some pictures from our sunny first days in the city.
June, Dan, and Joe go travelling 