London, England. Our travel to London was a little challenging but nothing too bad. Our flight was delayed due to weather but we were flying Norse Airlines again and the preferred seats are awesome so we did not mind sitting on the plane for an hour. We landed at Gatwick and made our way to the train which never showed. The very nice train helper guided us to a different train and we finally made it to the hotel. We have decided that no matter how bad the news is, when it is delivered with a British accent, it sounds so nice! “Your train is never coming,” “Your wait will be at least 3 hours”.....say it in British…so much better! We did not have the time or energy to do anything our first day in London but we made up for it on Day 2. On Day 2, I tried to kill us by scheduling the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey all in one day. Then, just to make it even more exhausting, we threw in a side trip over to see Buckingham Palace. I think we easily walked 10 miles but we also learned the Tube map by heart! Tower of London was really cool and not overly crowded. We are still adjusting to post Covid world and actually having people at tourist attractions but we are coping! Westminster Abbey was beautiful but it took a great deal of patience to not kill the tourists with the headphones and phone apps stopping in the most inconvenient spots! At least if we had killed them, we were in a good place to pray for forgiveness….
Day 3 we decided on an easier schedule. We headed over to the British Museum followed by the Sherlock Holmes Museum and the Burough Market. The Museum was a little overwhelming because it has so many items. My daughter, the archeologist, would say, “That’s because they stole everything from the rest of the world and refuse to return it” but we enjoyed the “stolen goods” none-the-less. The Sherlock Holmes Museum was not as cheesy as I expected it to be and it was nice walk in a part of London I had not visited previously. From the museums, we headed to Burough Market. I had pictured a busy farmer’s market with some food stands for lunch. Busy was an understatement. The market was filled with thousands of people waiting in line for every kind of food on the planet. The smells were amazing and it was difficult to decide on which cuisine to eat! We finally let our feet decide and we chose a sit down restaurant and left the long lines to the younger set. After lunch, we stopped by an Italian shop in the market and found a little piece of heaven! We bought meat, cheeses and bread for a bhotel picnic. We added in fresh raspberries from one of the farmers and I waited in line for the most amazing donuts….well worth it! Our final day in London was a long train ride out to Highgate Cemetery (you knew there would be a cemetery visit!) followed by a tour of the Churchill War Rooms. The walk through the cemetery was beautiful and while the graves were not as old as those at the Abbey, it had plenty! Over 54,000 gravesites! The Churchill War Rooms was a very interesting tour. They were underground so they might survive any bombings and on the last day of the war, everyone walked out, locked the doors and left everything just as it was. I can imagine they were very glad to be able to enjoy sunny days again. Speaking of sunny days, we were blessed with bright sunny days and 72 degree weather all week so excellent for London! We pick up our rental car tomorrow and drive out to the countryside. We are looking forward to a little peace and quiet after the hectic days in the city! Ratings for London Overall: 7 Points of interest: 10 Ease of communication: 10 Ease of transportation: 7 Friendly people: 7 Cost of living: 6 Weather: 10 for these miracle 4 days!! Bill’s favorite thing: Tower of London Sally’s favorite thing: the Italian deli store at Burough Market
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Oslo, Norway. Our flights from St. Maarten to Oslo went very smoothly and we arrived in Oslo bright and early on Monday morning. Needless to say, we were exhausted and headed straight to the hotel to get a few hours sleep. Once we had a catnap, we were ready to explore. Or at least, we thought we were. We were not prepared for the prices in Norway! To use the bathroom costs 2 euros but since a beer in a restaurant costs $10 to $12, a six pack at the grocery store was $18.00 and water was over $4 a bottle, we didn’t have to use the bathroom much because we were dehydrated most of the time! Other than the sticker shock, Oslo was a great place to begin our trip. The city is small compared to other capital cities, clean and easy to explore. Thank goodness everyone here speaks beautiful English because we have only managed to secure two Norwegian words that we can remember which are “thanks” and “water”. Luckily, many Norwegian words are close to English as well. Our favorite is “parkering” which means “parking”. Like all Norwegian words, they seem to add letters just to make them longer.
Our adventures have included Vigeland Park which was a large greenspace with some rather adventurous sculptures, the Royal Palace which, like the Norwegian people, was pretty straightforward, the Norway Maritime Museum and the Fram Museum as well as a gin distillery called Himkok (Norwegian for ‘moonshine’). At the distillery, we had two very interesting and very different conversations with the bartenders. The first was from Sweden and when Bill asked why beer and liquor prices were so high, he responded, “Because the government thinks it is their duty in our socialistic society to decide what is best for all of us. They tax all things they think unhealthy including alcohol, cigarettes and sugar. The politicians can retire at age 35 and have a pension forever. It is ridiculous!” The other bartender was from Italy. He responded, “I moved to Norway so I would not have to work as hard as I had to in Italy.” Well, that about summed up Bill’s question! The Fram museum was all about the exploration to find the Northwest Passage and we could have spent hours exploring. The actual ship, the Fram, was in the museum and we were allowed to walk through the ship which was exciting. We voted that Galt was much more comfortable though! Tomorrow we head to London on an early morning flight. For our fellow travelers, we both give Oslo the following score: Overall: 5 Points of interest: 5 Ease of communication: 10 Ease of transportation: 10 Friendly people: 10 Cost of living: 1 Weather: 8 (in summer months) Bill's favorite thing: Himkok distillery night Sally's favorite things: Fram Museum I will now attempt to upload pictures to the site! Getting the blog done on Bill's Chromebook has been challenging! Galt’s projects are coming along and we have almost finished our pre-trip boat chores. This coming week will be a very hectic one as we finish packing, apply for Visas, double and triple check flights and about one million more little things that need to be completed prior to a four month long journey. I am quite impressed that we have been able to pack only carryon bags for the trip. Bill’s bag was about a quarter filled when he was done packing so that allowed room for my overflow which saved me. I’ll be doing a lot of laundry in the sink as we go but the light bags will be worth it.
During our travels, the blog will be changing just a bit to accommodate our hectic schedule and possible wifi issues. My plan is to post pictures at least every couple of days with a bit of information about what we have been doing. Hopefully that plan will work and you can all come along on the trip! There will be no blog next Sunday because we will be on our way to Oslo so be sure and check later in the week. Until then, wish us “trygge reiser” which is supposed to be “safe travels” in Norwegian….Thank goodness for Google translate! Update: We sold Big Boy this week so our first dinghy flip was a success! A Dutch military guy who is stationed here with his family bought it so we were glad we had rescued Big Boy from the scrap pile! Haul out day finally arrived! We secured Galt and headed out for the hour long trip over to Phillipsburg where we were hauling out at Bobby’s Marina. Since we had been planning this haul out for months, we had informed the yard we would arrive at 11:30am so they would be ready. Ah, Caribbean time strikes again. When we arrived, there was already another boat in the travel lift. The yard manager told us to pull in behind the other boat and tie up to the dock. Bill somehow managed to pull Galt into the tight spot and we tied up without issue. By that time, it was lunch so we knew nothing was going to happen for at least two hours. We went to grab a quick lunch and even had time for an afternoon nap before the guys were ready to haul Galt. The main guy in charge came over and said, “Okay, we’re ready. Now, just flip the boat around so we can load it in stern first.” Flip the boat around??!! We barely got the boat into the space in the first place and now they wanted us to “flip it around?” Bill explained that Galt is not like a motor yacht or a catamaran that can “flip” in a tight space. The guys finally seemed to get the picture and they decided they would “flip” it around using their scow (small boat). Thus began the wrestling match. First, they tied the scow to the side of Galt. Then, as the pilot pulled Galt away from the dock, the other dockhands pushed as hard as they could to swing the bow around without knocking off the anchors. At the same time, they had to closely watch the back end of Galt because there were old posts sticking out of the water. Keep in mind that Galt weighs in the vicinity of 30 tons! Then, as if it could be made any more difficult, a charter catamaran returned from their day on the water and parked directly across from where the guys were trying to move Galt. One hour later, they had successfully “flipped” Galt into position. The next step for a haul out is to place large blocks on the side of the boat to prevent damage from the haul out straps. Getting the blocks in place and the straps tightened with five workers all doing the Caribbean yell-at-each-other-loudly-at-the-same-time routine had Bill looking like he was herding cats. With the straps finally in place, Galt lifted easily out of the water and had a nice power washing to knock off the sea. From the time we left the marina at 10:15am until Galt was out of the water was between 6 and 7 hours so it was a long day!
Since the haul out, we have been working our way through the boat chore list. We think we finally identified one drip/leak that has been a mystery since we bought the boat. The good thing about pulling the boat out of the water is that water that went into the boat generally comes out of the boat following the same path. So, day one we walked past the propellor and there was a steady drip of water coming from the prop shaft. Luckily, the prop and prop shaft were already on the inspection list so no new surprise! Our first tackle of the week was to pull out five thru hulls that we want to eliminate. Thru hulls are holes that are purposely put under the water line to allow water in for things like cooling the engine, supplying toilet water, etc. Over time as the boat is reconfigured, some of the thru hulls become obsolete. For obvious reasons, leaving unnecessary holes in the boat is not the best plan. After watching several YouTube videos, we were ready to go! Bill started on the first one only to discover that the seacocks (the device that keeps the boat from flooding) had been installed with an adhesive known in boat world as 5200. 5200 is great for boats because it is waterproof and once it is stuck, it is stuck. Great for keeping items stuck on a boat….not great for wanting to get items unstuck. Back to YouTube to see how to get 5200 to unstick itself. Take heat gun and heat the 5200 for at least 1.5 minutes. Take screwdriver and loosen heated area. Take needle nose pliers (Sally’s tool of choice) to grab putty and attempt to pull loose. Slam arm against bathroom cabinet door. Curse. Start at step one again. Meanwhile, Bill was outside the boat cutting the flange that holds the thru hull in place with a grinder. Grind, grind, grind. Remove flange. Stick large peg in hole. Beat peg with sledgehammer. Nothing budges. Curse. Beat again. We are proud to tell you that we successfully removed the thru hulls with only a few bruises and scrapes but if we were Catholic, we’d need a few Hail Marys for the amount of cursing that took place! We voted that Sunday was our day of rest so we hopped in the car to go exploring. Bill found a parrot sanctuary that looked super touristy but we figured we give it a try. It was a definite highlight! There were so many species of birds and they were all used to humans so they would land on our heads and shoulders which could be startling if you were not paying attention. As we prepare to go to Europe, I made a goal to only take two pictures of each site so that I do not end up with hundreds of pictures to edit every night. I am afraid I failed terribly at my new goal today. With 105 bird pictures under my belt, we headed out to the beach for a quick lunch between rain showers and then home so I could go through the pictures for the blog. Hopefully I will do better with my goal on the trip! Only twelve days left until we fly off to Europe so it will definitely be a busy week! More projects and more cursing ahead I am sure. I hope you have a wonderful week and if you stand very still, perhaps a bird will land on your head! |
AuthorSally Miller Archives
May 2024
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