We sail overnight and have a very nice time spending the evening with Danij, Adrian, Milen, and Laszko. Our Bartenders/Cocktail waiters. As with many cruise ships the various departments hire within certain regions. The Bar/Restaurant Service staff are all from the former Yugoslavian/Soviet block of Serbia, Croatia, Bulgaria, and Slovania. The ship crew are Polish/Checklosavakian, and the kitchen staff is from the Philippines. They know Joan by name and always bring her a Tanguary Tonic with lime. The nice thing is we seem to be some of the very patrons hangining out and we spend a great deal of time talking with them about river cruising, missing home, and what their own countries are like.
Everynight we watch another episode of Downton Abbey season 4. And will finish the season with room to spare. I tried blogging while Joan was watching and was immediately hooked back into the story line and would sit on the end of the bed typing nothing while staring at the big screen inches from my face
In the morning we are in Antwerp. Only we aren't where we are supposed to be in Antwerp. We are supposed to be in a protected cove inside the old city through a series of bridges and canals. Only we are in the industrial port at a container facility on the main port. Our itenerary indicates we join a tour for a walk into Antwerp and a tour of the old church and town square.
Busses arrive as we wait to hear whats happening. Not something to make me smile. It seems it has gotten windy, very windy. When we arrived at 3 am the captain tried 3 times to get us through the raised bridge narrow canal and failed due to the wind. So he opted to dock out in the industrial shipping port. The problem now was getting all the busses to find us such that they could take us to the old town and hopefully back to the ship, which may or may not have to move.
And so the bus ballet begins trying to figure out how to leave the industrial port. Eventually a
Port Authority shows up and opens a new exit gate so we can leave. We head into old town Antwerp and are met by our guide for a tour of the old town and the church which has a fine collection of Rubens that had been painted for this very church.
On the way, there was a police baracade for a fire truck who were trying to stabilize an old chimney that had become loose in the intense wind.
Everyone was engaged in the crisis of the moment. As we passed by, the firemen toppled the old bricks to the pavement below.
The the wind caught a woman with a false leg from our tour and knocked her to the ground.
The town square was an interesting place to explore with shops and statues and Government buildings of import but it was bitterly cold and fiercly windy so we all made our way back to the buses and relative warmth and security..
A lot of credit goes the ships Program Director Junte (Utah). She and her staff had to quickly make arrangements for whatever adversity struck, sell it to the crowd, and round up a bunch of old people which must be like chasing a class of preschoolers around. Count, double count, triple count to be sure no patron got left behind. Amazing effort.
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