Bob:

After a surprisingly good night's sleep, we were up, washed, and and had a preliminary breakfast of Coca-Cola and Rug Goe (a small, tasty biscuit/cookie) before heading out to see if we could find something more substantial for breakfast, say a Danish! It had rained during the night, so the morning was cool, damp, and overcast as we wandered to the South to see if we could find a reasonably priced cup of coffee or other comestibles. We were surprised to finally run across a "Netto" corner grocery store that was open on a Sunday morning. That certainly would not have happened in Germany were grocery stores are generally locked up tight on Sundays! We bought 4 sweet rolls with a central filling and covered with vanilla or chocolate icing (which I later learned are called "Viennese" by the Danish), and a submarine sandwich. After Monika found some $3 coffee (!), we settled down on a bench in a nearby park while I consumed the submarine sandwich and we split the sweet rolls.

Shopping in this manner and having breakfast with Al Fresco, (a very open and natural kind of guy), we spent a total of $10, whereas our hotel wanted to charge us a cool $20 EACH for breakfast. We also saw prices in restaurants that started at $30 apiece for the most basic of menus. A club sandwich al la carte cost $15, and that reminded us of the $15 "hamburgers" that we had seen in Bermuda on Ausflug 35. So our immediate impression was that the government of Denmark considers eating out a luxury and makes sure that the taxes are high enough that it stays that way! Our response, as always, was to find grocery stores where local folks shop and purchase the raw materials for our own meals.

Monika:

Bob:

Having finished our second breakfast, we continued walking through the King's Gardens where we found a great playground for little kids complete with large, beautifully carved wooden dragons guarding a big bronze dragon egg, little mazes, rope bridges, stepping stones and such like. Scattered around the rest of park we found a wild variety of modern sculptures. Some, like a car half-buried in the ground and a really big motorcycle helmet, I could kind of figure out or at least identify with. But with other sculptures, like a woman riding a pig or a big packing crate with paper-mache figures on it, I had my usual "modern art" problem of figuring out what, if anything, was intended by the sculptor.

Monika:

Bob:

Rosenborg Castle in the middle of the King's Gardens park was quite picturesque, however, and apparently it really did contain the crown jewels because there were two no-nonsense guards out front with automatic weapons and fixed bayonets marching up and down in front of the entrance. Goodness. Unfortunately, we had to get back to our hotel to pack and check out, so we put the castle as well as the museum of modern art across the street on our list of things to see when we came back and wandered back along an old canal, I think, to the Osterport train station that was next to our hotel.

Monika:

Bob:

We checked out about 11:30 and, guided by my new GPS, we trundled our luggage slowly along the main street North to the cruise ship terminal, a distance of maybe a couple of miles. Pulling the luggage really slowed us down, particularly when street renovations reduced the sidewalk to a narrow, rocky path between the bicycle lanes and a fence, but about an hour later we rolled up to our ship, the Costa Mediterranea.

Monika:

Bob:

The process of having our travel documents checked and signing on board was very carefully and efficiently organized, as was the security screening as we stepped on board the ship. I was surprised to see our stateroom door waiting wide open for us (security?), but pleased to find that all four pieces of our luggage were already there. Our cabin's interior was a tastefully decorated medley of wood cabinetry, beige walls, and a queen bed decorated with multi-colored pillows and mats.

Our exterior cabin had, as advertised, an obstructed view in that we were right behind a lifeboat, but again we were pleasantly surprised that instead of just a porthole we had floor-to-ceiling French doors that opened to the outside. A safety railing kept us from falling to the deck below, but having the doors open gave us a tremendous amount of light and fresh air, both very welcome indeed.

Monika:

Bob:

Rather hungry, we proceeded to deck 9 for a quick lunch from the buffet. Along the way we noticed that the decor of the ship was distinctly Italian. Most of the time the statues, murals, and color patterns of the tiles or carpeted floors were visually complex but worked together quite well, in my view. The color and shape combinations were uniformly pleasant and interesting to look at, giving us the impression of a very pretty ship indeed. The color palette was almost all in the yellow-orange part of the spectrum rather than the blue-green part of the spectrum favored by, say, Holland America Line ships. Sometimes, like when I saw curtain draperies inserted into the ceilings around the pool, I did get the feeling that the interior decorator had overdone it a bit, but on the whole the ambiance was pleasant.

The buffet offerings were in some sense more limited than the huge buffets of other large ships we have sailed on, and the majority of the offerings were, as one might expect, Italian cuisine. However, the quality of the entrees that Monika and I had was all uniformly excellent. The strategy for the buffet restaurant was also a bit different in that each table was already equipped with place settings complete with cloth napkin and nice flatware, so we only had to take our plates, serve ourselves, and then search out a place to sit. We had a leisurely lunch while watching a mob of sailboats out in the harbor, and then returned to our cabin to unpack. First Monika unpacked while I worked on the journal, and then I unpacked while Monika worked on the journal.

The English-language orientation session was quite interesting because in addition to the normal basic information about the arrangement of the ship, shore excursions and so forth, Susanne, our English cruise director, also specifically addressed the mutli-cultural aspect of the ship. Costa is an Italian cruise line that attracts a wide variety of Europeans, so they have 5 official languages and a few unofficial ones. Each major announcement was given in Italian, English, Spanish, German, and French, often augmented by Portuguese and Russian, which, as you can imagine, took a bit of time.

Susanne emphatically warned us not to miss the ship's departure times from each port, but she added that Costa has a port agent at every port who is notified if folks do not return on time and will wait on the pier to meet them and arrange alternative transportation to the next port of call. Although missing the ship would still be expensive as the costs would be borne by the tardy passengers, it would certainly be preferable to have a Costa agent guide your steps than to be left alone and friendless in a foreign land. Susanne also showed a short, humorous video on the cultural differences that we might encounter on the ship, ranging from topless sunbathing to the ubiquitous smoking (allowed most places except the main restaurant), and the very late eating. We had already noticed the latter because although we had booked the "early" seating for dinner, that turned out to be 7 p.m., which would have been closer to the "late" seating on any of the previous ships we have sailed on.

Monika:

Bob:

So after a shower and a quick change, we went to our "early" dinner and were pleasantly surprised to see that we had a table for 8 right next to a large window. We were joined by two other couples, Raul and Michelle from Caracas, Venezuela, and Glenda and Lou from Colorado, and curiously all three couples at our table represented intercultural marriages. Raul was Venezuelan whereas Michelle was Canadian, Glenda was American while Lou was ethnic Chinese, and of course I was American while Monika was German. The wait staff recognized the Americans at the table and gave us a pitcher of ice water, but unlike other cruise ships we were expected to fend for ourselves in pouring, so I took on the duty of being water boy. I could kind of understand that laissez-faire approach to supplying something as esoteric (from a European point of view) as ice water to us "foreigners", but surprisingly the wait staff took the same cavalier approach with a bottle of wine that Raul had ordered and he had to pour for himself and Michelle.

The food was acceptable but not excellent and the portions were small, which was good for me to avoid over-eating, and we filled in the time by chatting mostly about Hugo Chavez, Venezuela's current President. Raul filled us in about his slow consolidation of absolute power since being originally elected in 1998 or 99, and it bore an uncanny resemblance to the tactics Hitler used in the 1930s except that Chavez professes to be on the far left while Hitler, of course, was on the far right. Basically, it always comes down to the goons with guns running the country and it doesn't matter what philosophy they profess because they are really out for absolute power, amassing money, and all that comes with it. Embarrassingly, we were discussing this so enthusiastically that we were once again one of the last ones out of the restaurant, which unfortunately seems to be becoming a habit with us on these cruises.

But we were so tired after dinner that we just couldn't stay up for the show that started at 10:00. We spent a brief time shopping, where we bought some Russian pens, Danish shirts, and Swedish mugs that were discounted to less than 25% of normal price because this was the last Baltic Sea cruise for the season for the Mediterranea, and then staggered up to our cabin. After Dennis made up our beds for the night, we turned in early, hoping for a good night's sleep. With this type of dinner schedule, I fear we are fated not to see many of the shows on this cruise!

Monika: