Seeing the Palace and Gardens of Stockholm WHY?

---

Our arrival in Stockholm was delayed a bit from our itinerary schedule due to the port authority’s concerns for navigating some of the narrow channels through the archipelago into Stockholm’s harbor without the benefit of good daylight. We’d been notified two days prior that this would be the case; but, it had little effect on us since the tour that I had booked didn’t start until after noon; however, we also had an earlier departure time due to the same concerns. Daylight seems to be dwindling away in these northern climes. My toe was feeling much better, and the swelling is down; so, I guess the meds are working. Still, I didn’t feel that I should aggravate things now that I’m feeling better. We caught a brief breakfast in the Lido, and then waited for noon to roll around. I went up for pizza at 11:30AM when NY Pizza opened on Deck 10; but, Sharon didn’t feel that she had time to eat. Already I can see that this isn’t going to end well for me. Sharon is already complaining about the tour, “You booked a tour to see palaces and gardens. Haven’t we seen enough palaces and gardens!” And then I think she figured me out, “What did you do, sign up for the shortest cheapest tour?” I’ll turn things over to Sharon to inform you of the beautiful palace and gardens…

Well John is definitely going to have to pay for this one. Since we canceled his tours because of his toe I was stuck going on the Drottningholm Castle and Gardens tour by myself. Even before the tour I couldn’t figure out why he picked this one other than it was only 3 hours and was cheap. He finally admitted that later. I had to be in the Queens lounge at noon for the tour so didn’t have time for lunch. There were just over 20 on the tour, the other 2000+ passengers being smart enough to book something good in Stockholm. I think I was the only American on the tour. We had a double decker enclosed bus and another older woman school teacher for a guide as we headed for the royal families summer palace. She also told us that the queen used to have an important job as a tour guide in Germany where the king saw her at the 72 Olympics. But she is well liked in Sweden as are their 3 children. The only boy is the middle child but they have voted to change the succession rules so that he is now behind his older sister.

It was about a 30 minute drive to the castle which is a UNESCO site as one of the oldest that still has many of the original features. But it’s still a castle with rooms and rooms of paintings of royalty and battles etc. Obviously we didn’t get to see the part they actually live in. We spent about 1 ½ hours in the castle and then had 30 minutes to see the baroque and English gardens before heading back to the ship. Though as usual one couple was very late and they couldn’t find them for quite awhile. So with that and the traffic from their parliament opening day we didn’t get back till 15 minstrel after all aboard time. The guide gave us information on living in Sweden on the way much as we heard in Norway, Denmark, and Holland. In other words how everything is “free” with their 50 – 89 percent income tax rate and at least 25 percent on everything they buy.

Back on ship I spent some time up in the Crow’s Nest doing the Daily Sudoku, again without annotations, took a brief nap. I got a waffle cone with gelato before returning to the cabin and watching “Bourne Ultimatum”. Sharon returned in time to go to mass, and it was clear that she was not a happy camper. I don’t think that I’ve ever heard her growl before. I believe the word is seething. “I am so going to pay you back when I choose the tours next year!”

Our trivia team was going to need to make due without our “Token Catholic”. And she was missed when nobody knew “What was the name of Moses’s wife?” When asked later she said, “It’s some funny sounding name with a ‘Z’,” so I’m sure Christina would have given us credit for “Zipporah”. We didn’t know what animal does the “waggle dance”. It is the bumble bee. The bonus question was to name the four members of the Million Dollar Quartet as introduced to the world in that famous photo taken at Sun Records. Christina gives partial credit, so each name was worth one-half point. I think I prefer the all-or-nothing bonus questions that really can change the outcome of a game; especially since I knew all four: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. It really wouldn’t have mattered though as we only managed to score 12 out of 17 points. The winners made 16 ½ points only missing Carl Perkins.

We had another repeat dinner in the Dining Room, and one couple at our table from Quebec have eaten with us twice before on this cruise. I messed up with the soup again, getting a very bouillon-like curry chicken orzo soup. I did enjoy the red lentil dahl and Sharon said that the prime rib was a bit tough and it came without the baked potato that she ordered. I did enjoy her cheesy twice baked dollop; and, maybe they thought that that was just the same as a baked potato. We both were happy with the obligatory “Chocolate Selection”.

Up in the Crow’s Nest they wanted to know “What was the first film that Meryl Streep was nominated for an Academy Award?” I thought for sure that it was “A French Lieutenant’s Woman”; but, it was “Deer Hunter”. And we also didn’t know what was the only other nation, besides “Liberia”, that was independent in WWI. We went with “Switzerland”. I’m thinking that maybe we missed part of the question, namely “in Africa” because Becka was looking for “Ethiopia”. Shame on me for not working on learning the capitols of the world. Today there was an easy question: “What is the capitol of Costa Rica?” For some reason I was trying to come up with the tongue twister capitol of Honduras (Tegucigalpa) when all I needed was “San Juan”. And we also didn’t know what a “Dactylogram” is; but, neither did anybody else. It is a fingerprint. We did know that there are 11 players on a cricket team; although, another team managed to wrangle half-a-point out of Becka for having the answer 12. We knew that there are 12 signs in the Chinese Zodiac. Becka offered a bonus of one point to name them all. We did the best on that score, getting 11 of 12, and Becka took a vote as to whether we should get the point. Needless to say, there was a biased majority against us. Joan argued that we should at least get half-a-point and she was rewarded for her effort. Our problem was missing the bonus. Jackie and Joan wanted “Ionosphere” for the part of the atmosphere that contains the ozone. I wrote down “stratosphere” for them; but, they were following the “go with the first answer” winning-trivia-strategy. This time we wound up one-half point out of first place behind two other teams. And we would have won the tie-breaker: “How many seconds does it take light to reach the earth from the sun?” I wrote down 480 to 510. Team A went with 60 seconds. Team B went with 5,280 seconds. Becka was looking for 499 seconds.

We rushed down to the show to watch John Nations give his very watchable juggling act. He juggled balls, and juggling pins, and swords, and bouncy balls, and he involved audience members as assistants to toss him items, and all of that went flawlessly. He has a lively banter that covers any misses, and it wasn’t at all clear that his few misses weren’t intentional. He seemed adept at juggling three, four and even five items at a time, and his demonstration of the different types of juggling patterns was quite entertaining.

We went to the “Call My Bluff” show that we’ve enjoyed immensely in the past. But on giving definitions for four words, the crew members (Christine, Becka and one of the Trainers up in the gym) all proved to be adept liars and when the dust settled the crew had won all four words.

---