Visiting TCL for lunch.

 

It's been a while since I've seen TCL.  She prefers to see me as Mario, and I try to schedule "Mario Days" as rarely as possible.  So, I scheduled a Mario Day, in order for her to feel comfortable wen I visited.

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As I've mentioned in this blog, I prefer to spend as much time as possible as Marian.  But, having spent the past holiday and a long weekend as Marian, it was time for me to go out in the world as Mario for a change.  And this was the right call, not only because of TCL's preferences, but because TCL had me assist her in both the search for a lost TV remote control, and in corralling her cat so he could be pilled.

But first....

Parking near the chosen restaurant gets very crowded by 1:00 pm.  This meant that I'd have to get to TCL's place by 12:30 pm, to be able to park near the restaurant.  We were able to find a parking spot and get inside the restaurant by 1:00 pm, and settled down to a nice, filling lunch.  In addition to the Chicken Gorgonzola, I had soup, salad, and an appetizer of Eggplant Rollatine.  Everything we ate was yummy, neither of us having room for dessert.  While eating, my meal was interrupted by a call from my sleep doctor's office.  Now, I have my appointment for a consult, which will be followed by another sleep test, and hopefully another CPAP prescription.

When we drove back to TCL's place, it was "the hunt for the lost remote control."  We moved chairs, sofas, side tables, and storage containers in this search - and I couldn't help but work up an unneeded sweat.  Eventually, we found the remote control and it was time to rest for a while before pilling the cat.  This wasn't has hard as it sounds, as her cat was totally under her control while it was fed its medicine.

Soon afterward, I had to go home.  I was glad to get out of her place by 3:30 pm, as traffic was starting to back up in Rockland county on the bridge approach.  Although I had planned to do 2, 3 and maybe a 4th load of laundry, I stayed in my air conditioned apartment and relaxed all evening.

Getting a survey (ostensibly) about satisfaction with my new car.

 

The other day, I received an email from Subaru asking me to take a survey regarding satisfaction with my new car. Although most of the questions in the survey involved my reasons for buying my car and how satisfied I was with the new car, a good 10% of the questions involved my concerns about buying an electric car.  I have been saying for a long while that America's answer to global warming will be the conversion to electric vehicles.  But it won't happen until using an electric vehicle is as convenient as using a gas powered vehicle is for 99% of the public.  So, seeing these questions in a survey got me to thinking.

For a long while, I have been saying that America will NOT reach its goal of shifting to electric vehicles by 2035.  The infrastructure needed to charge these cars is not yet being built out, and there are no signs that this will happen soon.  Additionally, most electric cars are not built for long road trips, nor can they be charged fully as quickly as a gas vehicle can be refueled. Although many homes can be fitted with a home charger, most people living in apartment buildings do not have access to home chargers and must depend on the more inconvenient public charging networks. Virtually none of these charging stations have human attendants, many are vandalized, and they are often non functional due to problems with software or hardware.  There are way too many problems for a "one size fits all" solution being forced upon us by our state and federal governments.

I'm a person who'd gladly switch to electric vehicles if the conveniences of our current gas powered vehicles would exist for me.  If it meant doubling the time needed to being my car up to a 350+ mile usable driving range, I could accept it if I could go into a nearby 24x7 store to kill time.  But most charging stations I see are unattended, open to all weather (no protection from rain or snow), and more than 100 feet away from a quick mart.

As much as I believe that we will need to shift to electric vehicles, I don't believe that battery powered vehicles will be the solution for everyone.  But if batteries are part of the problem, then what could be an alternative solution?  Hydrogen.  If we develop a surplus of renewable energy, we can use that energy to generate Hydrogen from water, and then use it in motor vehicles as fuel for generating electricity for the vehicles' propulsion.  However, when hydrogen burns, it gives off a single byproduct: Dihydrogen Monoxide in gaseous form - Steam.  Steam contains no hydrocarbons, and does not contribute to global warming.

The technology to use Hydrogen as a fuel already exists.  It has been used in cars such as the Toyota Mirai. But there are virtually no hydrogen fueling stations in the USA.  Yes, there are risks in storing hydrogen.  Yet, we know how to manage those risks.  If we are to shift to non greenhouse gas emitting vehicles, then we need to consider hydrogen as a fuel for the rest of us. It could be distributed in a manner equivalent to that of gasoline, and refueling would be as convenient as now done for gas powered cars.  Conversion to a hydrogen fuel infrastructure could be done faster than upgrading the electric grid, and would be easier to accept for the driving public.

What do you think?

The sad and slow decline of a major American Mall.

 

Recently, I planned to meet a friend for dinner at 5:00 pm in Rockland County.  Only one problem: Bridge traffic across the Hudson River after 2:30 pm can be quite bad, given that there is usually a major slowdown on the NYS Thruway just after one crosses the river.  So I crossed the river around 3:30 pm, and had time to kill before meeting my friend.  Knowing that this mall had a bookstore in which I could sit down, have a cup of coffee and skim a book while passing time, I decided to drop in and see what it was like inside.

This mall has seen its better days.  I can still remember when J.C.Penney had two stores inside: one being their typical clothing store, and the other being a JCP branded furniture store.  Sadly, both are long gone, and the lower level of the clothing store has been replaced by a store called Mystery Bins.  By the time I got there, much of the stock had already been picked through, and there was nothing there worth looking at.  What made things worse for me is that the air conditioning wasn't working in the store (it was 90°+ outside, and fans didn't help keep the place cool enough to walk around) and one could see the "bones" of the Penney's store that once inhabited the space.

In addition to the "Mystery Bins" space, there was a 99¢ store in a space which held a more prestigious retailer.  But I was saddened by at least one large food outlet on the top floor having been shuttered, not having a successful tenant in years.  It would have been more depressing had I continued to walk around the mall, but I retreated to the chain bookstore to chill for 60 minutes.  And even there, one could see the signs of a retail store's slow death, as a quarter of the audio/video area was partitioned off as empty space.

Similar happenings have been going on at other malls in this region.  Lord and Taylor is dead and buried.  J.C.Penney is almost a memory, a fraction of its former size.  Sears and K-Mart are corpses waiting for last rites.  And the sad decline of in-person, big-box department stores has made many of these malls obsolete.  I'll miss them, as they became the Town Square for generations who no longer need this space.  I just wonder what will become the Town Square for future generations.

Travel Issues

 

One of the problems with being a non-op TG traveler is that one's legal ID conflicts with their gender presentation.  That has been true in my case in my flights to Hawaii, California and Chicago, as well as my cruises from Honolulu, Los Angeles, and New York. For the most part, this has not been a problem for me, as I make sure to never visit places in which a non conforming gender presentation could get one into trouble.  Yet, I have visited ports as Mario that I'd never visit as Marian due to cultural issues in these places.  So, I choose to be careful whenever I travel.

Recently, I took a cruise from Southampton, UK to Norway and Belgium and did not have any problems in transit.  The only places that seemed to care about my ID were the airports, as US and UK security need to insure the public that flying is as safe as can be.  However, that means that I have to double and triple check rules and regulations whenever I travel as Marian.

One of my dreams is to sail home on the Queen Mary 2 as Marian.  This will mean that I have to double and triple check all UK and US requirements for entry/reentry long before I schedule this trip.  If a woman can wear a dress, then why can't I?  If I were a cisgender female this would not be a problem at all.  But there are many traditional people who see bi-gendered people like me as an anathema.  They fear what we represent, and would rather destroy us to preserve their view of the world, than to tolerate us and leave some questions unanswered.

Sooner or later, I will likely make the effort to change my name to the familiar form of my name which can be used by both genders.  And then, I will likely get a new photo on all picture ID which has me wearing an androgynous hairpiece, so that presenting this ID in male or female modes will not cause people to bat an eyelash.  But the big problem would be when/if I undergo partial facial feminization surgery, so that I look male without a wig, and female while wearing one.  This way, I can much more easily traverse the divide between male and female when desired.

Until then, I'll have to play it ultra cautious, as I don't want to be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time....

A visit to an old friend

 

Now back from my cruise, I couldn't wait to again present as Marian.  So, the first thing I did was to go into my closet and pick out a dress to wear.  And with one or two minor exceptions, I've been doing that for the past week.  So, it was only natural for me to get myself made up to go with RQS and visit Pat.

But first....

RQS needed to buy a new refrigerator. This was a perfect excuse to go across the river to both see Pat and to buy her refrigerator.  But one thing had to be considered: Both RQS and I like to get moving late in the day, and we didn't know whether Pat would be up to seeing us.  (We should also have considered the weather, as the weatherman predicted heavy rain for late in the day, and it came as scheduled.)

Around 4:00 pm, we left the apartment, and it was off to Rockland county to buy the refrigerator.  After a quick search, RQS found a cheap ice box to replace the decade+ old one in her kitchen.  (Her landlord refuses to replace the old one that is about to die, and she doesn't want to antagonize him - she has a below market rate apartment and wants to keep it.)  Within 15 minutes of entering the store, she had purchased a refrigerator to be delivered next week.

Before I go on too long, I must note one of the more annoying things about Pat.  She is often a leech.  When on a previous visit, we suggested taking her out for pizza, and she wangled us into taking her "boyfriend" along.  She noted that she has found a few friends to take her out into the neighborhood to go to places such as Starbucks.  We knew that she'd try to wangle us into taking her out to dinner, so we decided to first go to dinner before going to see Pat.

After "Having it our way" (you can guess what and where we ate), we met pat at her care home, and we took her out to Starbucks - just not the one she's accustomed to going.  Instead of the one less than a mile away from home, I figured that we'd take a little drive and go to one 15 minutes away.  This was a mistake, as Pat got into her routine of being a perpetual victim, blaming others for her misfortunes.  She was deathly afraid of the results of the recent presidential debate, and we couldn't distract her from this topic no matter how much we tried.  And then, when we wanted to talk about our recent Norway cruise (where we were awestruck by the scenery), she got on her high horse by inferring that the only good tourism is to get to know the people as if one were being invited into their homes. She was on her self righteous horse, and there was no way she could see that other people have different (and correct to them) perspectives on the world.  Neither of us could wait until the rain broke a bit to take her home.  And that's what we did when the rain eased off.

On our way home, RQS and I ruminated about our visit.  We both were depressed following our visit, knowing that Pat's attitude is why we don't visit more often.  Being an erratic emotional blood sucker makes a visit with Pat a 50/50 bet.  When she's "up", the visit is enjoyable.  When she's "down", the visit is unbearable.  No wonder why RQS and I rarely see Pat - we don't want to risk ruining days that often....

Cleaning up is so hard to do - a quick post.

 

I couldn't help it when I thought of cleaning up a mess that I would think of a toilet.  Not just any toilet, but the most expensive one I could think of.  

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Toilets have little to do with the mess in my apartment, save that I'd like to install a new one that will match the decor of my bathroom.  When I decided to run a vacuum over my carpet, I can see how worn out the carpet is, and how much I will need to do to get ready to replace it.  And even that is the least of today's concerns.  I have to start making headway in cleaning out the mess here, so that I can finally get a cleaning lady to come in on a regular basis and keep the place looking "presentable".

Right now, I've taken a break from cleaning up to prepare for RQS's arrival for a long weekend to write this entry.  It's therapeutic for me. But I will soon renew my rush to get some of the mess out of the way, so that RQS will feel comfortable.

- - - - - - 

Unfortunately, our country is a big mess.  Those who would overturn democracy are preparing to be in charge, and I'm afraid of what will happen if they get what they want.  The playbook has been written, and there's little I can do other than to sound an alarm.  But I'm not going to think about over the next few days.  RQS is coming over, and we're going refrigerator shopping for her apartment.

I could have done much more today than to have dinner with Vicki

 

OK, I was home for most of the day and didn't do much.  Yet, I did start unpacking, I did make appointments to get together with friends, and I did get together with Vicki for dinner.  But, the apartment is still an unmitigated mess, and RQS will be coming up on Thursday.  There are simply not enough hours in the day, nor is there enough energy in me to straighten up my mess.

When RQS comes up here this weekend, one of the things we will be doing is to shop for a new refrigerator for her apartment.  (That reminds me - call up warranty service for my ice box.)  Her landlord is unwilling to replace it.  And being in a rent stabilized apartment, she is loath to trigger any ill feelings between her and the landlord.

- - - - - -

I'm finding that I didn't back up all my Norway photos to Google Photos.  This is a minor thing to take care of, as I have the photos both on my phone and on my PC.  Now, I have to transfer the videos from main storage in the old (broken) phone.  At least, RQS has a "full" set of photos from this trip.

- - - - - -

Around 4:30, I got showered and dressed to go see Vicki for dinner.  Compared to what she was a few years ago, she looks emaciated!  But I'm not going to tell her that, as she's at the right weight for her age.  She notices that I gained a couple of pounds while I was on the cruise.  At least, I knew that in advance.

As you can see, I'm all over the place today.  I'm simply getting back into my normal routine, and I am taking time to get used to a "normal" routine again.

Now that I'm back home, I'm catching up on things.

 

OK, it's been a while since I've been able to sleep in my own bed.  And it feels strange!  I guess that I'll have to make it into NYC with RQS and have her try out the Saatva mattress I liked so much.  Given that RQS has fallen in love with her mattress from Bob's Discount Furniture. I figure that I will have a hard choice to make sometime soon - do I want a bed with a fixed base, or one with an adjustable base?

While I was away, I received a letter from a lawyer in Los Angeles that I am one of the beneficiaries of my uncle's trust.  My brother is more upset at the terms of what hell get from it than I am.  I guess it's because my uncle considered a close friend in LA that he's known for years to be as much a family member as his blood family is.  Given that I have seen a list of the beneficiaries, I have a strong feeling that my uncle wanted to see most of his money go to causes that he cared about.

I'm glad that I did a load of laundry on the second to last day that we were on the ship.  I only have a couple of days of dirty laundry from the cruise to add to my laundry basket for another load I have to put in to my co-op's washers/dryers before the end of the week.  The rest of the laundry in my suitcases can be put back into my dresser drawers.

Bill paying is a pain in the neck, and I had a small stack to take care of.  One of these bills was a credit card charge related to a cruise I'll be taking next year.  (More details on that later.)  I'm lucky that I have overpaid my co-op maintenance charges enough to skip one payment and still have a hefty surplus in my account.  (The same went for my electric bill as well, but not to the same degree.)  At this point, I am in good shape financially, even with an unexpected expense.

Depending on where I stand with my accounts, I'm thinking of surprising RQS with an expensive gift that we both can enjoy.  (No, it's not a ring.)  If I do so, it'll be closer to year end that I spring this on her.  She's a good woman, and I want to show how much I appreciate her being in my life.

Just before I took my recent trip, I found out that my online pharmacy was unable to reach my doctor's office to renew my prescription.  So I called the office this morning, and reached a receptionist who may not have bothered to see that the prescription is called in.  I'll have to double check this tomorrow, as I'm running low on this medicine.  Thinking about doctors, my CPAP machine is near the end of its life.  Tomorrow, I have to call the sleep doctor to see whether I need another consult and another sleep test before I can get a new machine.  (I also want to buy a second machine, just for travel.  But I'll talk with the doctor about that first....)  It's hard to believe that I got this machine 9 years ago!

As I said in the title of this post - I'm catching up on things....

The more things change, the more they remain the same with NYC housing

 

NYC has always been a hard place in which to live.  But now things are getting worse.  Recently, New York (not sure if the city or state) has enacted a law prohibiting landlords from evicting tenants for any reason without going to the housing court first - even after a lease has ended.  This makes it much harder to get rid of bad tenants who cause problems in the building for other residents.  

I'm not aware of all the factors that are affecting the above tenant's protest.  But I now see references to cockroaches and other vermin in this person's protest signage.  Without the ability to get rid of a bad tenant, a landlord could see an apartment trashed without the ability to remove the tenant.  In the case of my co-op, it took a water line break for us to find that an apartment had been abandoned and that it had been trashed - literally.  (There was trash in every room of the apartment, and we had to pay a contractor to clean it out before we could even fix the plumbing in the place.)  Even if a landlord wants to keep an apartment in good repair, he can't afford to do so - laws regarding apartment rent increases prohibit the landlord from making those repairs and raising the rent to what the market will bear.  So, apartments are being kept empty instead of being repaired and rented out.

Currently, NYC has 3 classes of rental apartments: Rent Controlled, Rent Stabilized, and Free Market Rentals.  Rent Controlled apartments are the most troublesome for landlords, as many rents were established right after World War 2, and have not gone up enough to match the rate of inflation.  Leases for these apartments have been handed down from generation to generation, as family members retain the right to live in their apartments in perpetuity.  Rent Stabilized apartments are slightly different, as a rent control board allows landlords to raise rents to some board approved degree - only after inflation has taken its toll.  These apartments lose their stabilized prices when tenants vacate the place.  In theory, landlords can evict bad tenants in these apartments, but don't often do so.  And then there the Free Market Rentals. There were no rent controls whatsoever, until this law changed.

Now, NYC has even a bigger problem than before.  There are fewer incentives to be landlords, and we will see a speedier shift towards apartments being turned into condominiums, or new condominiums being built.  People like RQS would be in a bind, as they can't afford to buy their apartments (or others like them), nor could they afford to pay free market rates for the few apartments that are available.  Other cities don't have as bad a problem as New York, as they never made the mistake of preserving rent controls over several generations.  Yet, these problems might be a blessing to New York in disguise in the long term, as they tamp down the need for the city to keep upgrading its infrastructure for a growing population.  Could you imagine having to find enough water in the watersheds for double NYC's population?  What about the need for more mass transit options?  Sanitation?  I could go on and on with the problems we could have if real estate developers had their way.  But we need solutions today, and no one has any.  Too much success might be the one thing that kills New York City.  Hopefully, I won't be nearby when it dies....

Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/30/24 (Afterthoughts)

 

Having had a good bit of rest from the day before, I figure that it is time to collect my thoughts about my recent cruise.  It is truly a "once in a lifetime" cruise for, as the UN has declared the Norwegian Fjords to be a World Heritage Site and Norway is using this (for its own reasons) to eliminate conventionally powered ships from entering the fjords to reduce CO2 pollution.  Next year, it will be virtually impossible for us to go to Flam or Geiranger with the cruise lines of our choice because Norway is gradually banning cruise ships from their fjords, a process which will be complete by the end of the decade.

This was our first time traveling internationally by air.  For the most part, my worries were unfounded.  However, it was something well worth thinking about, as we would not be protected by US law while we were overseas and we might make mistakes that would be tolerated in the US, but not overseas.  If anything, the mistakes we could make are violations of custom, and not of law.  Most of these mistakes would identify us as uncouth foreigners and not as lawbreakers, such as when I raised my voice at the Tower Bridge.

London itself, proved to be a place that we need to explore when we have the time to do so.  To do this, we would need to visit in the early spring or in late autumn, so that we could ride the tube without needing to be cooled by non-existant air conditioning.  (We'd also have to corral my niece into being a tour guide for a few days for this.)  Like the fjords, we would need several large capacity memory cards for the photos we'd be taking on this trip.

I found that having a universal travel adapter to be an essential part of my travel kit.  I needed it for my CPAP machine in London, as well as for an extra electric socket on the ship.  (Thinking about my CPAP unit, it is time that I schedule an appointment with the sleep doctor, as my machine has reached end-of-life.)  Having extra USB-A to USB-C cables also helps, as most of my electronic gear uses the newer cabling standard.

The fjords are must-visit places, awe inspiring wonders that people should see at least once in their lifetimes.  If possible, the Flam railway is a must if you can get to Flam. (it will not be accessible in the future to most cruise ships.)  If in Alesund, one must take a cruise into the fjords, as we were gobsmacked there as much as we were on the Flam railway.

After Norway, we arrived at the port of Zeebrugge in Belgium.  It's about 45-60 minutes from Ghent, which I consider a place worth spending a long weekend, instead of a short day.  60 minutes touring the old town plus a 60 minute canal cruise is not enough.  As much as I wasn't impressed with the idea of stopping here, instead of stopping at another Norwegian port, I was glad that we came here.  Too bad that the port is so far away from Ghent, otherwise more people might have taken this excursion.

Finally, we had to return home.  If one can avoid returning to the USA in an airline that goes to JFK Terminal 4, do so.  If the weather is bad, this can be a taxing place for one's return home.  (Avoid Delta and Virgin Atlantic flights for this trip.)  I can't make any excuses for Terminal 4, nor should I try to do so.  The Port Authority of NY and NJ has no excuse for allowing any airline to subject passengers to this poor excuse for the international arrivals process for airlines using Terminal 4.  But then, JFK has been a mess from the time it was called Idlewild, and it will remain a mess long after I have passed from the scene.

Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/29/24 (Southampton, UK - Disembarkation and our return home)

 

This is the day we hated most:  Returning to the UK, then flying home to NYC.  The above photo was taken on our way to Southampton, and was the start of an all day trek back home via sea, land and air.

- - - - - -

I'm a notoriously bad sleeper, and I was up around 5 am to see the ship making its way into port.  If there's one thing I enjoy about returning home from a cruise out of NYC, it has to be seeing the Verrazano Narrows Bridge and Statue of Liberty at the break of dawn.  There is nothing like that coming into Southampton.  Instead, it is coming into a passenger terminal which is next door to a major shipping terminal.  There is not much to see on the way in or out of this place.

Once we were up for the day, we packed our remaining items and went down for our last breakfast on board the ship.  Both RQS and I had a filling meal, though not as much as we'd have eaten at the start of the cruise.  We were glad to be among the few people eating in the main dining room, as it was far from crowded.  I guess that most of the passengers (and dining room crew) were dealing with breakfast in the buffet.

We stayed in the dining room until just before our debarkation group was called, and then it was off the ship, through customs (no one checking who we were and where we were going), and then to the buses that would take us to Heathrow.  Due to traffic congestion, the driver took us on a roundabout back way to our terminal, and we were there before noon. 

Traveling in and out of Heathrow as an international passenger was a new procedure for both of us.  Unlike airports in the USA, the UK has no equivalent to the USA's trusted traveler system.  This means that everyone has to be prepared to take off all their jewelry, their belts, and (often) their shoes before going through security checkpoints.  Like the USA, all liquids must be in containers no more than 100 ml in size and fit into a 750 ml bag.  I only got snagged because of my shoes.  RQS got snagged due to a couple of items she forgot in her bag.  And this triggered a security search of her hand luggage.  Unlike the USA, UK's security people were polite about this issue, and went out of their way to make travelers like us know they were not trying to hassle us.

Once through security, the path to airport gates is through a shopping mall that makes what we have in the USA look like a quaint set of mom and pop stores.  If you want high end luxury items, they were for sale here.  If you wanted common consumer goods and souvenirs, they were for sale here too.  This is where I paid a premium to replace a USB-A to USB-C cable that fell apart earlier in the day.  We had 3 hours to kill, and 45 minutes of such were spent inside a sushi restaurant where we had a nice chat with a Brazilian waitress.  (Only in London or NYC!)  And then we waited around for our gate to be called.  Waited and waited and waited....  Eventually, our gate number was posted and we were off to wait to get on the plane.

We were given aisle seats in the back of the plane, and I knew that we had to be like gate lice to get advantageous storage space for our carry-on luggage in the cabin.  So we got ready to enter the boarding line as soon as our group number was called.  This proved the right thing to do, as RQS's bag would not properly fit in the shorter storage bin above the seats allotted to window-side seats.  (The economy class in this cabin was in a 2-4-2 seating layout.)  Luckily, RQS didn't have anyone next to her.  While I had a very nice and understanding gentleman to my side who tried to help me with several problems I was having with the Infotainment system on this airplane.

   

If I were running Virgin Atlantic, I'd have been embarrassed to fly passengers in this plane.  For example in the first picture above, one will easily see that the tray table is being held in place with some form of tape.  Why they didn't bother to fix the tray was a mystery to me, a mystery which could easily be explained by the Infotainment system available on the plane.  You'll note that there is no socket in which one could plug in a headset.  Yes, there is a USB-A port which I later used for charging.  But there is no headphone port in which I could connect a headset.  So, I asked a flight attendant for help.  And she didn't know where it was either.  Another attendant found it at the side of the armrest - right where many large passengers like me could never find it.  AARGH!   This is when I realized that the airline might have taken this old plane out of mothballs to service increased demand on their transatlantic routes.  (Kudos to the airline staff for trying to make this a pleasant trip for me.  Pitchforks for those in corporate management who would have passengers fly in this plane.)  For the most part, it was an uneventful flight to New York, save that it took 2 hours longer than the flight to London.  (Blame this on mother nature, and not the airline.)

Now, before I get too boring, I have to say that JFK airport (I prefer to call it by its old name, Idlewild) is a mess.  Like many airports, JFK is undergoing major renovations.  We knew that we'd have to take a free shuttle bus to the Uber/Lyft pick up lot at the outskirts of the airport.  What we didn't know is that we'd have to exit the plane and go down a narrow set of ramps onto the tarmac to take another bus to the customs/immigration section of Terminal 4 before we could pick up our luggage and journey home.  Even though this was a simple process, we were told that JFK is one of the few airports that does this half-assed process.  Other airports have planes "drive up" to the main terminal, then route passengers (using forms of barricades) to customs/immigration.  Eventually, we made it through the gauntlet (which wasn't bad, save for a slight misunderstanding I had due to lousy signage in the customs area) and out of the terminal.  

Getting from Terminal 4 to the pick up lot isn't bad.  However, the pea soup that was the air around the airport told us that a rain storm was coming.  We were very glad that the rain hadn't started yet, as we knew it was going to be a heavy downpour.  As we arrived at the pickup lot, I summoned a ride, and he was here 5 minutes later.  For a day that started at 5 am UK time (Midnight NYC time), we arrived at RQS's door at 9:45 pm, ready to pass out.  It felt good to get home before the storm hit....

Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/28/24 (Zeebrugge, Belgium)

Today is our last stop in mainland Europe, and our last shore excursion.  We have been choosing relatively low energy shore excursions, as neither of us have the energy for strenuous activities such as mountain hikes or long bike rides.  We'll leave those activities for the younger folk.  One of the nice things about a 14-day cruise is that it filters out many younger people.  On 7-day cruises, we find a lot of families with young children.  Although most of these children are well behaved, a small few are not.  Most of these families cannot afford to take 2 weeks off for a cruise of this length.  So, they choose shorter cruises which fit their vacation needs.  However, this means that a higher percentage of older people (mostly in our age range) are onboard, and we've encountered many people with mobility problems.  Too bad that these people are often unable to get off the ship and enjoy many of the excursions available to the rest of us.

Our excursion for today was the Ghent By Canal Cruise.  Luckily, it was scheduled for the afternoon, as we ended up getting moving later than usual in the morning.  This would be our last breakfast in the buffet, and we both had hearty meals before our excursion.  We would both feel that this would be a blessing, as we didn't have another meal until we got back from the excursion 5 1/2 hours later.

Once on the tour bus, we were taken to Ghent, where we boarded a canal boat for a 60 minute tour.  We got the history of this city, and (maybe) a smidgen of a sunburn.  The tour guide told us that there would be a "Wow!" moment, and she was right.  There was a castle built along the canal that took us by surprise, and this was the WOW! moment she told us about.  Sadly, the above pictures cannot do this city justice, as I should have been shooting with a proper DSLR camera with appropriate lenses.  It is a place where one should spend several days to get the true vibe of the area.

Unfortunately, we could only spend 60 minutes walking around the city.  So we didn't go far from the canal boat that took us to the tour bus that returned us to the ship.  Even so, we were the last people to board the ship.  Once onboard, we picked up our "free" photos from the photo center, then went for dinner.  Sadly, both of us left our phones in the cabin to charge, and we were not able to get pictures of the pilot boat coming to the ship to guide us into Southampton harbor.

Once back in the room, it was time to finish packing our large suitcases and put them out for porters to deliver them to the pier tomorrow morning.  Sadly, our cruise has come to an end, and now it's time to go back to reality.

Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/27/24 (Sea Day #5)

 

The last sea day of our cruise.  We have only one more full day after this for this cruise, and then we will be back in Southampton and on our way back to New York.  So, what did we do to start off this day? Laundry, of course!  After a week of cruising, we had enough dirty clothes to fill up the washing machine. Since neither of us wanted to fly back to NYC with a load of dirty laundry, we figured that it was time to kill some time and take care of this chore - just like several other people in the laundry room before us.

The Laundry room was crowded, and we experienced the same problem twice - both the washer and the dryer didn't register our first tokens being fed to the machines.  We had to call guest services to get help, and a gentleman came with extra tokens to be used in feeding the machines.  One wonders why they don't fix these machines in the first place.  But our place is not to wonder why.  Our place is to wash and dry.

After doing laundry, we went down to the shore excursions desk to get some of RQS's questions answered. And then, it was upstairs for burgers and fries.  Neither of us could finish what we ordered, as we've gotten tired of eating as much as we have been doing for the past two weeks.  So, it was back to our room, to rest until attending the Captain's Circle gathering for loyal Princess cruisers.

Around 5:00 pm, we started getting ready for the Captain's Circle gathering.  RQS looked nice in what she was wearing, while my jacket looked like it was hanging on a blob that looks like me when I'm in Mario mode.  It was nice to have a meet and greet with the staff, and I got a chance to chat with the fellow in charge of future cruise sales.  (Our booking was corrected.  Now to wait for this department on the mainland to call me back.)  Although it was a pleasant gathering with "free" drinks and canapes, we couldn't wait to go to dinner.

Tonight's dinner in the main dining room had surf and turf on the menu.  Since we already had too much to eat over the last few days, neither of us chose this option.  Instead, we both chose the Cornish game hen.  It was yummy.  But service was way too slow for our comfort, and we were about to leave just before our tea and coffee arrived.  Yet, we still ended up leaving without finishing our after dinner service, as both of us wanted to get comfortable again.

Norwegian Fjord Cruise Vacation - 06/26/24 (Olden, Norway)

 

This is the view from our balcony this morning.  It's hard to believe how close we are to this town, given the ports we've been to on this cruise.  Mind you, we are still docked at a typical pier.  But this port seems much smaller than the ports we've been to in the past.  

Our plan for the day would be to eat a leisurely breakfast, take a shore excursions, then go back to the ship for dinner.  This would be our last day in Norway, so if we wanted to buy souvenirs, this would be the last chance to do so.  But who wants to buy overpriced Chinese-made tchotchkes just to have something that says "Norway" on them?  So we skipped the souvenir shop again and decided to go straight to the tour bus that would take us on the "Easy Nordfjord" excursion.

The Easy Nordfjord shore excursions is best described as a half-day bus trip through some of the most picturesque sites reachable from Olden.  There are several photo stops, as well as a snack provided at mid day.  Since the description can not do this excursion justice, I'll include a few of my photos taken while on this trip:

None of these pictures do the trip along "Panorama Drive" justice.  One could easily get hypnotized by the scenic beauty along the road, as the views were captivating.  Sadly, we had to return to the ship before 3:30 pm, and we made it with 15 minutes to spare.

Once back on the ship, we received a message - our Alaska cruise has been booked.  One problem: It was booked with the wrong fare rate.  Instead of being booked with a Princess Premier fare that includes a better drink package, a better internet package, and a slightly better dining package, we got the Princess Plus fare.  So, I tried to call the Future Cruises desk - with no success.  No one on the ship knew who we were trying to reach, and continued to send us to the wrong department.  (So much for people who do not speak English as a native language.)  So, I walked down to the department, and the gentleman there apologized for his error and sent in a request to Princess's main office in California to fix the reservation.  Of course, we'll end up seeing him again before the end of the cruise, as we both want a better explanation of the concierge package we bought while on the ship....