Wednesday August 2, 2017
It took us four hours to drive to Boston yesterday along the “Mass Pike” on a glorious sunny day. We had rented a car to make the trip and left it off at Logan Airport. We checked into a hotel with a gorgeous skyline view across the bay overlooking Boston Harbor and relaxed.
The anticipation of this trip was worse than that old Heinz ketchup ad! “Aaaann-tiii-ci-paaaaaa-tion” the song stretched out the word. For several weeks, I made lists, packed and re-packed, and tried to think of everything I might need for a month in the North Atlantic in every kind of weather imaginable. How does one prepare for a 38 day cruise along the Canadian coast up to Greenland, Iceland, across to Norway, Holland, British Isles, and then home? Two suitcases and a backpack later, I was ready!
Today we boarded the Holland America Line’s MS Rotterdam for our “Voyage of the Vikings” cruise. We’ll be sailing the North Atlantic Ocean and stopping at ports which had been explored by the “Vikings.” Yes, those Norse seafarers who raided, pillaged, and traded all the way from their Northern European homelands south into the Mediterranean Sea and west all the way to what is now Greenland, Iceland, and Maritime Canada.
We spent the day exploring the ship and settling into our stateroom. We splurged on a larger cabin with a balcony because with so many days at sea, we thought we might need extra space. Finally, at 9:45 in the evening I felt the ship move. We went out on the promenade deck and watched the glittering lights of Boston as the Rotterdam slowly moved away from the harbor and out into the Atlantic Ocean.
