My friends Rhonda and Andrea were also in Amsterdam and we were playing FB tag via free wi-fi, trying to coordinate. I had decided that if it worked, awesome, if not, all good. So I took a stroll for a couple of hours by myself, just seeing the city that I’ve been wanting to come back to for 21 years. How insane is that? My first international trip was to Mazatlan (2 week beach drop and flop drunk), and then my first backpacking trip to Europe, starting in Amsterdam, which I returned to 3 or 4 times in the same trip. The city just has this relaxing, fun charm. Little bit of something for everyone, from museum goers to strollers, photographers, architecture lovers, and those wonderful illicit coffee shops one can attend, should they choose. (What ... read more

Yesterday we went to Monaco, bought round trip tickets on the train for $10.60E each, and wanted to stop in Eze along the way. We discovered not ALL the trains stop so we went flying by Eze, saw it looked like a wonderful coastline and ended up in this fancy train station in Monaco. Got out and wandered along; noticed how clean it was, how hot it was and yes, how rich it was. Very obviously full of money; we saw what we thought was a 6* hotel and it turned out to be a Cardio Thoracic Clinic – good lord, people have money! You know it and you see it on TV but until you experience it, completely different. We wandered along a little lost, a little in awe and then found the Tourism Board ... read more

Day 1, Aug 25th Hi ho Hi ho it’s off on another adventure I go…. This was written back on Friday Aug 28th, however my lack of internet has kept me from posting until now. However, I shall send it out, and continue on with the journey while I sip wine and eat homemade guacamole from our balcony over looking the Cote d'Azur :-) I love flying. No really. (can you see the sarcasm dripping from the page yet?) In true Ned’s World fashion, I was randomly chosen at security for ‘additional screening’. Year to date I’m at 100% randomly chosen. Pretty cool huh!? It is all computer generated apparently, I think they lie, but cant prove it :-) Second leg has commenced; my flight from Edmonton to Amsterdam was uneventful, which is perfect in my ... read more

Up early as we wanted to skip Bucharest traffic (which I completely understood now!) had breakfast (they had fresh red peppers slices at breakfast so I grabbed a handful for snacking on the coach later!) and asked Hendrik about the possibility of my clothes. He immediate said no, as clients often leave clothes behind to ‘throw away’ so its company policy to either throw them out or if the staff want they can keep. I was flabbergasted (while understanding at the same time) as I knew mine were neatly folded and tucked away; hopefully NOT looking like garbage or unwanted. But he said he would phone the ship; but little to no chance they still existed. I was crushed; not only at the monetary value lost, but again all my fav long sleeved shirts/dress tops and ... read more

Today was our second day in Bulgaria and we were much further east then yesterday so I was interested to see the landscape differences. Our day trip started at 9am, so we had a bit more of a relaxing morning vs. the usual 8:30 (which isn’t bad either!) As I mentioned last night was the ‘farewell dinner’ despite that we are on the ship for one more evening, it ended up being a 3 hour dinner; truthfully those meals are getting a bit too long for me, but I know most people really enjoy that part of the cruise. I just get restless is all, after all I am a social recluse (as I call myself) and let's face it, half the time I would rather be blogging *wink*. We took a short trip from the ... read more