Locations:

Southampton, England
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Invergordon, Scotland
Reykjavik, Iceland
Akureyri, Iceland
Trondheim, Norway
Geiranger, Norway
Bergen, Norway
Eidfjord, Norway 
Stavanger, Norway
Southampton, England


I landed back home after a very long flight still feeling pretty sick from Russia. We decided that it would be good to have one of the guys drive us down to Southampton. It was going to cost us £140 to park the car and the way I drive the kids would have been too scarred to really enjoy the cruise. I am one of the world's worst drivers but at least I know it, since I have ridden with quite a few of you I know I have many friends with the same affliction. The weather was very nice and we got to board the ship as soon as we arrived. 

We sailed out of Southampton on the Aurora, a very large, very British ship. Unfortunately the other people on the cruise picked these two weeks because the British kids are not out of school yet. It is a very old crowd and they did not seem too happy to see my two wonderful kids. Our cabin was on deck ten, a nice little room with a bath, balcony, one large queen size bed, and a sofa that folded down into a double bed. Matthew was pretty unhappy about having to share his bed with Katie and Katie was unhappy about me sharing a bed with her mommy. 

The first port of call was Amsterdam where Cheryl had set-up a tour of some Windmills and a cheese factory. The cheese factory was closed, the kids and I where devastated. The windmills were kind of cool and Cheryl bought us ice cream so all in all it was a pretty good day. Matthew decided that he wanted wooden shoes. Of course he didn't decide this until ten minutes before we were suppose to be back on the bus. The first pair he picked out were too girlie, trust me I know it sounds funny but some wooden shoes are for girls and some are for boys. We got a pair with some military looking crests on them and Cheryl was smart enough to get me to buy a pair for Katie as well. Later on the bus Katie was crying because her wooden shoes turned up at the front and Matthew's did not, I think she thought they looked too girlie. 

Matthew decided that he would wear his new shoes on the walking tour in the old medieval Dutch town we visited. He was the hit of the tour and I was just happy that he was young enough to want to wear wooden shoes and cute enough to get away with it. Seeing him clomping down the cobblestone road was a memory that will stick with me forever. He got plenty of comments, which he liked. Some were from the other people on the bus who seemed a little unhappy because he made us look like a bunch of English tourist. I am pretty sure the little stickers on our shirts saying "Aurora Tour E," our cameras, brown shorts, black socks, and sandals, plus the fact that we all got off a tour bus gave it way. They still did not seem to enjoy the looks and pointing as much as Matthew did. I of course was thrilled. 

I was less thrilled when he decided that his new preferred footwear for the rest of the trip was going to be his wooden shoes. I tried to talk him out wearing them at breakfast but finally gave in. It is one thing to wear wooden shoes in the Netherlands, I mean they sell them there and they have shoe sizes in them so someone must understand that people or going to be silly enough to wear them. Wearing them on the ship is a different story. First, because they make a hell of a racket on the steel decking. Second, they do look kind of silly and are harder to explain in Scotland, which is not exactly the land of wooden shoes. I was also afraid the other kids would beat him up or at least pick on him. It is kind of hard not to pick on the only American kid on the boat clopping around in one bright yellow and red wooden shoe and one white and blue wooden shoe. I let him wear them to breakfast where he almost killed himself and some unlucky passengers who thought he was funny until he slid across the deck at them when the boat rolled in their direction. That as a good enough excuse for me to explain that he would have to put them up for the rest of the trip. 

This cruise is bit different than our last one. Last year we cruised in the Bahamas on Disney's Big Red Boat. We had dinner with Mickey Mouse and Snow White walking around the restaurants and stopped off at an Island owned and managed by Disney right down to a sunken pirate ship from Peter Pan. This cruise was very British, even down to the tour guide asking if there were any colonials on the tour. Cheryl and I did not raise our hands until he explained that he meant Americans. It has been along time since we were called colonials. 

Very British also means that all of the dinners are black-tie. Dinner jackets, Tuxedo's for you Colonials. I brought my dinner jacket and was sure I packed my bow tie, even remembering to pack the instructions on how to tie it, but we could not find it anywhere. Cheryl had to go buy me another tie, this time one that was a clip on. I had to run around like a mad man before dinner first looking for a bow tie that I could never find and then taking Katie up to have dinner. She did not like much of what they were serving except for the spaghetti hoops (Spaghetti-0's, again for the colonials among you.) So you get the picture, I am sitting in the family cafeteria, where the poor people that did not bring dinner jackets have to eat with their kids. I am wearing my tux and trying to ensure that I don't get any spaghetti hoops on it while Katie complains about the lack of chocolate for dinner. 

Dinner is very nice. We signed Katie in to the kids club. Which really means that we just plopped her down in front of a video in a common area and the staff promised not to let her wander off. We decided that Matthew was really ten and not nine years old, I don't know how we made the mistake in the first place. We signed him into the 6 to 9 year old program but when we came back to pick him up, he was more than happy to see us, always a bad sign. Cheryl was smart enough to check out the 10 and older area. The kids were more his age and he didn't have to be signed in. So Matthew got to hang out with the older kids and could come and go as he pleased. I allowed him to sign for as much candy and soft drinks as he wanted. We are cruising up north which means that the Sun will not set until after midnight and I promised him that he would not have to go to bed until after sunset. So Matthew is living every kid's dream, no bedtime, all of the junk food he can eat, and complete freedom on one of the biggest boats ever made. 

So, as I was saying, we had a very nice dinner, great food, excellent service, fine wine and no kids. 

We travelled across the North Sea all night on our way to Scotland. We closed with the Scottish coast around 6:00am. The Sun was up but the fog had settled in, so we were in Scotland and the weather sucked. I hope not to shock you as much in the rest of this travel log. I know, bad weather and Scotland, it just doesn't sound right but I am not making any of this up no matter how unbelievable it might all sound. 

It was kind of romantic to hear the lonesome sound of a foghorn playing across the harbour echoing off the ship. Well it would be romantic if I wasn't sleeping alone and Cheryl wasn't squeezed in between our two kids on the folding sofa bed. 

Katie caught a cold so she was up late with a cough. We decided at breakfast that she was too sick to go on the tour of Invergordon, Scotland. Matthew wishes he was the one that caught the cold, he loves the days at sea and the tours not so much. I volunteered to stay onboard with Katie, assuming Cheryl's maternal instinct would force her to stay onboard. Thirty minutes later Cheryl and Matthew were off on a tour of Invergordon. I let Matthew take the camera on the stipulation that he had to return with a photo of the lock Ness Monster. I got to stay onboard with Katie and see the fog slowly lift and then settle back over a small oilrig near where the ship is anchored.

Day four at sea was just basically lots of water

This cruise is the last cruise that comes before the British kids get out of school so not many kids and lots of older couples. Cheryl and I were told that we had to leave the adult only pool because we are too young. Cheryl thinks it is great. She is one of the pretties women onboard and feels very thin and sexy. I on the other hand fit right in, since all of the other guys are overweight, balding, and get short of breath climbing up the two flights of stairs that lead to the buffet. I spend most of my time lying to the other passengers since there is little else to do on sea days. One of my better stories is that I am an American comedian that will be on playing the second show in the Curzon Theatre onboard. I told them that I do a comedy routine covering computers and how America won world war two. I assume this will allow me to keep up the lie for the whole cruise. The night I tell everyone I am working has some late walking tours of Eidfjord in Norway. Old British tourist are not going to stay up late to see some overweight balding American tell jokes about computers and world war two after walking around all day on-shore. I am really looking forward to my reviews at breakfast. I plan on starting my conversion by saying the lights were too bright and I could not see anyone in the audience and then asked it they caught my act and if they enjoyed it. 

My second story is that I am a Canadian, everyone likes Canadians, that I was married to a terrible women from America, everyone hates Americans, and that I got full custody of the kids. I am terrified that my ex-wife is going to kidnap my kids and take them back to America which would then side with her over the Canadian courts since our kids are duel citizens. My new wife, Cheryl, who hates to talk about this, convinced me to move to Windsor in England and this is our first trip out of England for two years. I got that one started when the guy behind me heard me tell Matthew all of the stories that people make up to get kids to come with them. He asked why I was so nervous about someone taking my kids. I suppose he was hoping someone would grab them since it would be one less child onboard. Cheryl and I keep getting described as that nice Canadian couple, which drives Cheryl crazy. We heard one couple telling the other about me being an American comedian and thought I had been discovered for the no good salesman, I mean liar that I am. Luckily the husband explained that I wasn't really American but I was hiding out from my crazy American ex-wife, the guys wife then said, "And he is a comedian too? We will have to see his show. Shame about his kids, but you know how those Americans are. 

I have two other stories that I only tell in bars but I will not bore you with them. The first involves me being a writer and the second a Director of a large computer company but that one does not play as well since it is a bit too over the top. 

Day five, Iceland I think, but the fog is so thick that I could not see the deck chairs on our balcony. We have dropped anchor outside the harbour and we will be taking the ship's tenders in for a tour of the city. 

We saw the Geothermal sites around Reykjavik on Thursday, not really worth the trip. You get the smell of sulphur but no lava induced fireworks, no bubbling, no geysers, no smoke or fury. We also saw where the European plate meets the American plate, kind of a big ditch but still something to see before you die. Matthew thought it was kind of cool just because he could climb on the rocks. That he was climbing on rocks that formed the newest part of the earth and would some day subside somewhere near Los Angeles did not really help or hurt his enjoyment of climbing on the rocks. Rocks is Rocks. 

Matthew and I stayed up to around 1:00am and watched the Sun still high on the horizon. We hit a few golf balls and wanted to do a midnight swim in the sunshine but they closed the pool at around 23:30. We crossed north of the Arctic Circle at around 2:00am and will drop back below it to dock at Akureyri, Iceland for another day, then we will follow it for most of the trip across the Norwegian Sea. It is summer here but it was cold this morning. We all ended up wearing a couple of shirts and our jackets, I wish I would have thought to bring my gloves and a hat.

The Aurora has a ship's newspaper called Aurora Today. In the paper on Friday 29th June 2001 under Information: 
SUNRISE & SUNSET 
The sun will neither rise nor set today. 

When we left Southampton sunrise was at 04:54 and sunset was at 21:18. Leaving Scotland sunset was at 23:54 pretty close to a midnight sun. It came back up about three and a half-hours later on Thursday morning. The sun then stayed up until 00:06 on Monday the 2nd of July our 24th wedding anniversary. Cheryl brought two books for the kids. Exploring the Night Sky and Skywatch. My wife, you have to love her. I suppose it was because on our last cruise you could see every star in the sky, on this one it never got dark enough for the flash of my camera to activate. Even when the sun sets it really just drops below the horizon and we have a bright twilight. 

We went ashore to see all there is to see in Akureyri. The organisation of the tours is still a bit rough, I suppose it is because the British are still kind of new to this cruising stuff, having only done it for around 400 years. We had 1500 people signed up to go ashore so they decided to have us all get together at the same time in the main theatre and wait as they loaded the ship's tenders with around 50 people at a time. 40 minutes after we sat down we stood up to leave for the tours. We were on tour A7 that means we signed up for the first tour and were the seventh bus, there were 6 more buses behind us. In the same organisation skill that allowed the British navy to evacuate Dunkirk we headed out in a column of buses to see the sights. Amazingly everywhere we went seem exceedingly crowded. I suppose it had to do with 13 tour buses all showing up in the car park at the exact same time. 

We saw the pseudo volcano craters of Iceland. I am not sure why I travelled 1400 miles by sea to see phoney craters I mean; Iceland is volcanic I am quite sure they have real volcanic craters somewhere. I think they don't want us crazy tourist mucking up their real volcano craters. These pseudo craters were near a very shallow lake. This lake is used to grow all of the mosquitoes, midges, and biting insects for the Northern Hemisphere. The next stop was at some very small sulphur vents, from these vents across a beautiful mountain range you could see huge volcanic vents shooting billowing white clouds of steam into the air. Of course we didn't visit these huge vents, again I think it is so the silly tourist don't mess up the real good sites of Iceland. We did get to breathe in the rich clear sulphur laden air steaming from the vents. It was also nice because, then we got to get back on a tour bus with a couple hundred other people that all smelled like rotten eggs. The last place we visited was a beautiful waterfall it was very nice except a bit crowded. We were suppose to be back to the ship at 18:00 with the last tender leaving the dock at 19:30 and the ship leaving port at 20:00. It was 20:30 when our bus, that had been stuck behind a container truck, finally turned the corner and we could see the fjord. I half expected to see the ship sailing out to sea but luckily it was still waiting for us. We did miss dinner so had to eat with the kids and the other sulphur smelling riffraff.

I promised Matthew that we would stay up late so he could experience the Sun never setting. His interruption of this was that he could stay up until the Sun finally set. That would have meant four days awake. I felt like I was attending SE training no sleep and we keep wondering from one bar to the next, plus I kept hoping that one of us would be smart enough to call it quits and head off to bed. The first night we hit golf balls like I wrote, the second we bar hopped, I ordered all kinds of silly nautical drinks like a Singapore sling, really just so I could tell the guy next to us that they always seem to taste better in Singapore. Matthew drank enough Hot Chocolate to float the Aurora. He discovered that if you let your Papa drink enough, he would let you put as many packets of hot chocolate mix in the cup as you want. The current record is three, it has to do with the amount of water the automatic hot water dispenser dispenses. We also eat chocolates at the chocolate bar, and played about £20 worth of video games. We talked about life and waited for the sun to never set. At 01:59 the ship changed the clocks so we got to watch the minute hand move around the dial as if it was a second hand. One minute it was 01:59 the next it was 03:00, it brought a smile to my face. We decided it was now late enough to eat again so we went to the 24-hour café. Matthew and I both ordered Chips and a Steak Bap, which is British for a sandwich. The waiter did not bring us any ketchup until I reminded him that we were American. I finally had to give up after we did one more walk around the deck with the sun was still hovering in the same spot on the horizon. Matthew was disappointed but I explained that I wasn't willing to stay up until Monday. 

Dinner is of course black-tie again I am getting to like black-tie since the cumber bun is sort of like a male girdle, it covers up a multitude of sins. I mean nothing is going to make me look svelte but black is slimming and with my cumber bun, I look like I could some how make it back into the military. It is even better than a girdle because you can slip the damn thing down while you sit through the play and pull it back up when the show is over. It is nice to be a guy. 

We when to a piano concert and I made the mistake of speaking to the guy whom sat next to me. He told me that he thought it was rude to leave a space empty. I mistakenly agreed with him saying, " Yes, I have seen a few couples that had to split up because all that was left was single seats." He responded, "Are you Canadian?" Cheryl gave me a dirty look so I told him no we are American. That got it started, first he told me that he knows that America is big so would I please not tell him how big it is. It had not crossed my mind, but it must be very common, I was going to tell him I lived for 5 years in Texas but I am pretty sure that would not have helped. Then he told me he was from Whales and challenged me to tell him where Whales was. I told him I lived in Windsor so I was pretty sure I knew where Whales was. I then told him, "Isn't Whales the part of Britain that the France didn't want when they kicked your ass in one of those wars you Europeans always seem to be fighting?" I must have been right because he said, "Well you live in London so I guess you would know where Whales is, but most Americans don't." Next he told me that he has been to America 39 times because it was very cheap there. I just agreed, but Cheryl made the mistake of saying she thought he visited so often because he liked America. We then heard all that was wrong with America. The last President he liked was Kennedy and I believe only because somebody shot him. He really hated Reagan; they will never forgive us for Reagan. He thought that Clinton was a liar, I did not ask him about Tony Blair. He is convinced that Bush will put us into a war, so much so that he told me five times. It was like he wanted me to fly to Washington and get Bush out of bed to tell him to knock it off. 

Matthew came back from the Kid's Club. It is where parents like us dump their kids so they can enjoy the cruise. He was in a chocolate eating contest, sounds like fun. The idea was to keep your hands behind your back and eat as much chocolate as you can. Poor Matthew lost his footing and fell face first into a piece of chocolate cake, unfortunately the cake was sitting on a metal table so he chipped a tooth. I don't know if he was more upset about chipping the tooth, losing the cake eating event or missing out on the rest of the chocolate eating contest. 

First port in Norway, we did a little sightseeing and had a little dental work done. Matthew has his first capped tooth. He was pretty unhappy about the whole thing but all he ate for breakfast was some jellied soft candy and lunch was Jell-O, so I was afraid he was going to become diabetic if we didn't get his teeth fixed allowing him to eat solid food again. 

The dress code on the ship is a little different then us poor American slobs are use to. 
TONIGHT'S ATTIRE
Informal: Lounge Suit or Jacket and Tie for Gentleman, Cocktail or Day Dress for the Ladies 

I always thought that informal was jeans a white shirt and cowboy hat but I guess not. So the days I am not wearing a Dinner Jacket I am wearing a suit, mostly because I don't have the slightest idea what a Lounge Suit is. 

At dinner I ordered steak it wasn't very good, British beef never is, unless it is from Scotland. The Headwaiter came over and asked me if there was something wrong with the beef because I didn't finish it. I replied, "No, it is fine." Cheryl laughed at me, so I asked, "What am I suppose to tell him?" She told me to just tell him the truth. Our regular waiter came by five minutes later and asked me, "Is there something wrong with the beef." I didn't want Cheryl laughing at me again so in my best Texan accent I said, "No, taint nothing wrong with whatever this is. I mean I'm from Texas and I don't know what this here thing is that you served me, but it ain't beef. Hell, I've ate just about everything that walks, runs, slithers, swims, flies, or climbs. I've eaten live drunk shrimp in Singapore, Monkey in Panama, snake in Louisiana, curried fish-head in Bangkok, baobab worms in Zimbabwe, turtle in Vietnam, shark fin soup in Hong Kong and buried fermented hot spicy cabbage in Korea. I ate the distended liver of a goose in Paris, Deer chilli in Kentucky, birds nest soup in China, Chocolate covered ants in New York, Springbok in South Africa, Reindeer in Finland, and Mexican food made with Velveeta cheese in Utah. I once even ripped the head off of a live chicken in the swamps of Georgia and drunk its still warm blood, but I ain't going to eat anymore of this here thing you served me tonight. I have had steak in thirty-three countries around the world but I still can not figure out what critter this meat came from. I'll tell you something, whatever animal it came from it would be safe from all the guys I hunt with. One of my friends would drop a bead on this thing and I would have to stop him saying, Billy-Bob you don't want to shoot that critter they taste terrible we couldn't even feed it to our dogs." The waiter was turning pale and looked like he was going to pass out. He finally stopped me and asked if I wanted something else? I just dropped my accent and said, "No this is fine, Thanks." 


Dinner the next night went smoothly, the service was excellent. I had the chicken and Cheryl had the fish. The waiter brought us a very large tray of chocolates at the end. I assume it is because it was the only thing we eat during the meal the night before. This was to become a ritual for every meal and we ended up with a drawer full of chocolates by the end of the cruise. 

The last day was a sea day. It was enjoyable to just relax. I head back to work the day after we dock in Southampton. I will have a couple thousand e-mails that I will have to respond to and I got a voice mail message that I need to create two executive summaries outlining my plans for next quarter. Novell will officially merge with Cambridge Technology Partners on July 11th two days after my return. So now the fun really begins. 

Sorry about the length of this travel log. Lots of time at sea and to few books to read. My show went great by the way; all the people that told me they attended thought it was hilarious.