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Peter Deilmann Cruises

m/s Deutschland

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Reviewed by: Steve Langley
Date of Trip: July 16, 2002
# previous cruises: 8
Itinerary: Norwegian Fjords

The following is more a personal journal than an organized review. It originally took the form of several posts, sent back whenever access was available. I've now combined all the posts, juggling where necessary, and added some additional verbiage--some substantive, some stuck in just to provide photographic captions.

Also included are direct links to a lot of photographs. Looking at them all will obviously be much easier with broadband access. You can click on each link (or whichever links you wish) as you go, but should then close the display of that photo, since the next link will open in a new window. Or you can bring up each gallery, links to which are in the daily headings, and click along sequentially within them.

7/12/02--Prolegomena

A cruise ship that struck my fancy was the M/S Deutschland, belonging to a German line named for its owner, Peter Deilmann. This ship was built in 1998, with a capacity of 22,496 grt for 513 passengers and 280 crew. What makes it unusual is its consciously "retro" design. To quote the brochure: "This vessel re-introduces the elaborate crystal chandelier, the imperial ballroom, loom chairs in a palm filled winter garden, fine antiques and original works of art. The décor of our 'Grand Hotel' evokes the splendor of the Edwardian period and the Roaring Twenties through the use of brass, marble, tiffany ceilings, and resplendent upholstery in the lounges. Beautifully appointed staterooms, an elegant Roman Spa, wide promenades and lots of teak complete the setting." This unusual decorating choice appealed to me. Although catering mainly to a German clientele, the staff is supposedly at least bilingual in English, and a conscious attempt is being made to attract Anglophone passengers through flight discounts, English-speaking tour guides, etc. Since I stutter reasonably fluently in German as well, I would not be concerned about any linguistic difficulties.

Rather than spend time typing a room-by-room description of the ship, there is a good one written by someone else at http://www.ruderhaus.de/reviews/sr-deil-deu.htm, which includes links to appropriate photos as well. Less objective but more tempting reviews are here and here. They played a large role in making me want to sail on her.

Starting on July 16, the ship was doing a 16-night cruise up the Norwegian coast. This is a pretty standard itinerary for several ships, but what made the Deutschland's route unusual was that it would continue north beyond Norway, spending three days meandering around the island of Spitsbergen, and visiting the edge of the polar ice cap. This area is home to walruses, polar bears, and other Arctic fauna. Having the delusion that I'm a bear, I couldn't resist such an opportunity to visit some of my relatives on their home grounds rather than in a zoo.

Not many US TAs seem to handle Deilmann, and I couldn't find any offering discounts. After talking to some other American passengers during the cruise, I realized that I should have looked harder. So it goes. The brochure quote from Deilmann's American office for the cheapest single cabin (yes, Virginia, some ships do have single cabins) was $5320, plus $299 for air from West Coast. Since it was a European line, though, I started to wonder how much it would cost Europeans in Euros, so checked their home site in Germany, which showed the cruise-only fare as €4264 ($4218 now, but more like $3900 when I started researching all this a year ago). There was roughly a 30% single premium over the per person price of an analogous double. I figured I could manage my own air and other arrangements for far less than the $1800 difference, so decided to book with a European TA.

Somewhere in my wanderings on the web, I had come across a travel agency in London, which seemed to specialize in booking oddball lines (freighters, adventure itineraries, etc.), including Deilmann. I shot off some email inquiries to them, they were quite responsive, so I sent them a deposit. Oddly, credit cards are far less commonly used over there than they are here, and I had to pay by check (with 2% premium) instead. Sending a check to a TA in another country naturally made me a little apprehensive, but it seemed like a pretty established business, so I decided to chance it. Naturally their responsiveness to inquiries became somewhat less brisk after they had some of my money. Eventually I growled at them enough that they provided the email address of someone at Deilmann's UK office, who was a great deal more helpful (although, as it turned out, not entirely accurate). The cruise documents, sent by regular airmail, didn't arrive until nine days before my departure, which is cutting things a bit close for my taste. Would I deal with this agency, or indeed any foreign agency, again? The bear is unsure.

The cruise was to start and end in Kiel, Germany. Kiel has a commuter airport, but the closest "real" airport is in Hamburg. I got a San Francisco-Hamburg round trip (connecting in Amsterdam) on KLM/Northwest from priceline.com for a $900 bid (that turned into $979.12 after taxes and fees) last December. I monitored such sites as hotwire, expedia, and orbitz both before and after getting this ticket, and never saw a lower fare being offered. Naturally one is inclined to wonder, "Could I have gotten it for a bid of $850 or even $800 instead," but that way lieth madness. Through additional diligent online research, I found and made hotel reservations for a pre-cruise night in Kiel and a post-cruise night near the Hamburg airport. The Hamburg airport website also provided a link to a shuttle bus service between there and Kiel (roughly ninety minutes), so I would know exactly where to go once I landed. All of this--cruise, flight, hotels, transfers--ended up costing me $4945, a $674 savings over booking the all-inclusive arrangement from Deilmann's US office (which didn't include decompression nights before and after). Was all the time I had to spend researching and arranging this, not to mention the aggravation experienced waiting for tardy replies from the TA, worth $674? Again, the bear is unsure. In my younger days, doing this kind of thing was fun. Now it's more of a chore, and I'm more willing to pay more in order to be pampered. Still, it was nice to know that I could still do it.

Pretty much all my pre-cruise errands and purchases have now been completed (including buying a tuxedo, since renting two or three times a year for multi-week cruises is not cost-effective). There is little left to do now besides the actual packing, and then just waiting for a limo Sunday afternoon to take me to the San Francisco airport.

7/13--Ode to Packing

My opinion of the packing process may be summed up as follows: Next time I'm going on a nudist cruise. I had bought an assortment of vacuum bags--the kind out of which you press all the air, so that the contents (clothes in this case) take up less room and are less likely to wrinkle. Supposedly. But correct packing of them required that the articles of clothing be neatly folded, shirts all buttoned, jackets turned inside out and folded lengthwise in thirds, etc. Even underwear was supposed to be folded, but luckily, since I had bought a whole new set in honor of the trip, this had already been done at the factory. Nevertheless a very tedious process. And what does one do with all the space one has saved? Think of more things to pack, of course. Just like additional new freeway lanes fill up almost immediately.

At least it's pretty easy to remember what basic clothes need to be packed. The killer is all the little odds-and-ends. The tuxedo socks. The German-English dictionary. All the appropriate voltage adapters and plugs. And what about the stuff you can only pack at the last minute, because you need to use it immediately before? For an increasingly forgetful anal-retentive bear, life isn't all salmon and berries.

Eventually, though, those innumerable piles of stuff have disappeared. Everything on the to-do list has been crossed off. All that remains are a few suitcases. An incredible feeling of contentment and fulfillment comes over the traveler, for it is at this point that the vacation may be said to truly begin. Savor this moment for a while, because your possessions will never be this neatly organized again for the remainder of the journey.

7/14--Bears 1, Airport Security 0

The limo ride to SFO was uneventful. There was no line at check-in and only a short one at security. The Security Drone opened my main carry-on, scrutinized suspicious looking items like a glasses case, and then, alas, discovered my stash of sixty-five insulin syringes, enough for the entire trip, for which I naturally was carrying a prescription, as per the published rules available online. But nooooo. According to the SD, you're only allowed to carry the number of syringes you need for the duration of the flight. The rest were supposed to be taken back to the airline counter and turned in for the crew to keep during the flight and return to me at its conclusion. I told SD I had never heard of any such numerical limitation, that I had read all the relevant FAA and TSA regulations (for example a TSA document that states, "There is no limitation on the number of empty syringes that you will be allowed to carry through the security checkpoint; however you must have insulin with you in order to carry empty syringes through the checkpoint."), and that I had no intention of relinquishing possession of medical supplies critical to my health. So she went and got her supervisor, who came out with some stapled pages that, according to her, were regulations mandating such a limit. I asked to see the regulations and she refused, citing "security reasons." So I'm to be subjected to an unpublicized regulation that I'm not allowed to see, reminiscent of the "super-secret double probation" in Animal House? I don't think so.

Back to the airline counter I tromp, and talk to some sort of Customer Service Supervisor. He scrutinizes his version of the super-secret rules, can find no such numerical limitation, and says he'll go back with me to Security. He and the Security Supervisor retreat into an office and have some sort of multi-minute conference. Finally he comes out, gives me the thumbs-up sign, and goes away. The Security Supervisor says to me something along the lines of, "Well, there is a limit, but we're going to let you through anyway." Huh??? If there really is such a rule, on what basis can exceptions be made? Or is she just trying to save face, unwilling to admit that she was trying to impose some arbitrary personal interpretation on me and that I called her bluff? How can there be a rule about which people need to know but about which they're not told in advance? Who knows? Who cares? At this point I just wanted it over. One must wonder how many real terrorists might have sailed through while two or three security people were preoccupied with me. I plan to pursue this issue further once I return home. Those who know me will be both astounded and delighted to know that, despite being firm, I did not become confrontational or temperamental.

Somewhere between my triumphant passage through security and my boarding the airplane, I realized my hat was no longer on my head. This was a new hat, being worn for the first time. It is also the second hat I've lost in an airport. There is apparently some sort of potent attraction between airports and hats that cannot be withstood.

7/14-15--The Flight

What good can one say about a 9'45" flight in economy class from SFO to Amsterdam? A few things: 1) It was supposed to be a 10'30" flight. 2) I still fit in a single seat and don't even need a seat-belt extension. 3) I was on the aisle, only four rows from a bathroom. On the other hand: 1) KLM's "seat pocket in front of you" had less capacity than any I've ever encountered, making it impossible to store my usual collection of reading materials. This didn't matter too much, however, because 2) my reading light didn't work. For a while I watched the movie instead. This was 'Monsters, Inc.'. I couldn't find my headphones, so amused myself instead trying to puzzle out the Dutch subtitles. It was certainly very colorful, and must be very popular with people in altered states of consciousness. But what's with all the doors? Eventually I was permitted to sit in one of the staff jump seats for a few hours, and did some reading there.

One way to know when you're definitely overweight: When you can't bring your tray-table all the way down.

There was what I thought was a nice leisurely 90-minute connection in Amsterdam before the flight to Hamburg on a Fokker 70 (for which I won't even try to recommend a pronunciation). The seat-assignment algorithm was very strange on this plane, though. It had two seats on one side of the aisle, and three on the other. Most of the two-seat groups were filled, many of the three-seat groups contained only one person. Go figure.

I landed in Hamburg; my luggage didn't. In fact there were about ten people who had connected to this flight (from different flights) in Amsterdam whose luggage didn't make it. The cruiser's ultimate fear had been realized. The Luggage Lady urged me to continue on to my hotel in Kiel (50 miles away) and said my bags would most likely be on the next flight and would be sent up that evening. With visions of spending sixteen days in the same clothing, I morosely boarded the shuttle bus to the port-city of Kiel.

7/15-16--Kiel

Through an online hotel-finder I had located and made a reservation at a relatively inexpensive hotel ($57) near where the shuttle bus would leave me. So I quickly popped into a taxi (it being easy to pop quickly into a taxi when one is devoid of luggage) and asked the driver to take me there. He had never heard of it, which is never a promising indication of a hotel's quality. Consultation with several other drivers finally revealed its location, and the four-block expedition was quickly concluded.

The "hotel" turned out to be more of a "pension," roughly thirty rooms above a café. My room was on the third floor, there were no telephones in the rooms, and there was no elevator, which provided another reason to be grateful for having no luggage. Fortunately it was one of the minority of rooms that had in-room toilet and shower, but the bear's mood was still sinking. In an unknown city, devoid of such post-flight luxuries as a change of clothing and a fangbrush, facing the possibility of boarding a very formal ship without a tuxedo.

But at least I had packed all my medicines in my carryon. After unzipping the compartment containing them, however, I was vouchsafed another transcendental traveler's insight: Do not transport medicines in bottles with non-childproof caps. Seven bottles had opened up, creating a kaleidoscopically colorful mosaic of loose pills at the bottom of the compartment. Each pill-type fortunately differed from the others in terms of color and/or size, so a half-hour orgy of sorting returned them all to their proper bottles, which were then enclosed in individual plastic bags in hopes of avoiding a repetition of such chaos.

The first bright spot of the trip turned out to be the husband-and-wife owners of the hotel. They called Hamburg several times to find out whether my bags had arrived, as promised, on the next flight. Whoops, that flight had been cancelled for "technical reasons." But for sure my bags would arrive on the first flight tomorrow morning, otherwise known as embarkation day. This vacation was just becoming more and more relaxing. A very unrestful night followed, concluding with the owner knocking on my door around 7:50 a.m. to tell me that the bags had arrived in Hamburg, were already on a truck, and would arrive at the hotel around 10:30. Tentative jubilation. In fact the bags did arrive, as promised, but the experience reinforced the validity of two cardinal rules of cruising: 1) always get insurance and 2) always arrive a day early.

I finally felt composed enough to go out and wander around Kiel a little. It's a pretty modern city, with no quaint old section as a result of World War II bombing raids (due to its having been an important naval center). Since I needed a new hat, I got some Euros from an ATM. One slightly disconcerting feature of ATMs here is that they don't provide receipts. A shopping project always provides a nice pretext for wandering around and interacting with several locals, asking them in this case where men's hats are sold. Eventually I acquired a jaunty Italian straw number. This is the first time in years that I've spent much time in a place whose prices are pretty comparable to American ones rather than being outlandishly cheap, as in SE Asia. A large Coke was $2.15 and even the shortest taxi-ride ended up costing at least $4.00. Not like Bangkok, where a one-hour foot massage costs $8.00.

7/16--Embarkation

Bet you didn't think we'd ever reach this point, did you?

I taxied to the cruise terminal about one hour before boarding was to begin, gave my newly liberated bags to the porters, and sat down to wait. Free champagne and orange juice were provided. This being a German ship, embarkation began precisely at the stated time of 3:00 p.m., accompanied by a seven-piece brass oompah band. The procedure was quite simple: we formed a line at the head of the gangplank, turned in our tickets at one desk, traded our passports for an ID-card at the next desk, and walked on board. A stewardess conducted me to my cabin, opening the door to a space distressingly reminiscent of a Silversea walk-in closet. I exaggerate. Slightly. This was a genuine single, though, of the lowest grade, and expansiveness was not an included attribute. As with pictures of burgers in fast food ads, the room didn't entirely resemble the one shown in the brochure. The bed was a foldout, although this was a blessing under the circumstances. There was one stool, but no chairs, and a couch. It was efficiently designed, though, with adequate storage space (once you finished maneuvering around while transferring stuff from the bulky suitcases to the storage spaces). As advertised, and as the pictures will show, it was decorated very nostalgically, with quasi-Impressionist paintings on the walls, golden fixtures, and an imitation wood-burl covering many of the surfaces. Nice clunky metal keys for door, safe, and a couple of drawers. High marks for appearance, if not reality. The television is not viewable from the bed, but it is opposite a diagonally angled mirror that, through a periscope effect, makes the picture visible from the bed. Coincidence? I don't think so. When the bed is pulled down, it extends a few inches into the space in front of three drawers, making them impossible to open without partially relifting the bed. Siting the drawers a few inches farther to the left would have avoided this. Strange design oversight. The bathroom was serviceable, although the shower curtain and I became more intimately acquainted than is my custom on a first date. The sink faucets are marked with the French words for "hot" and "cold", which provides a slightly incongruous touch. The closet was more like an armoire, with an interesting hanger arrangement, the bars going from front to back rather than side to side. I guess this was another space-saving technique, reducing the required depth of the thing, but it makes looking for clothes and removing them rather more of a challenge. Instead of one of those signs you hang on the outside doorknob, there was an enclosure over the mail-slot with captions on a disk for "Do not disturb," "Please make up the room," "Back on board," and "On Land."

The water was glassy smooth as we got under way, with no ship movement at all. Although we're pretty far north, it was not cold at all. I can't call it warm, but the air was somehow mild and soft. I sat out on deck enjoying this for a while, the first really peaceful moments of the trip thus far. Then went to the buffet for a little dinner. Not much of a selection, and not all that attractive. Hopeful this was just a first-day anomaly. It didn't get dark until about 9:30, so relaxed in a deck chair again until about 10:30, not even needing a jacket.

Somewhat surprisingly for a luxury ship (and contrary to the information Deilmann's London office had given me), there was only one power outlet in the cabin; but the constitutionally pessimistic bear had brought along extension cords, power strip, plug adapters, voltage converters, etc. Unfortunately, while hooking everything up, I forgot that my power strip was not dual voltage; so when I switched it on there was a loud pop, a display of sparks, and several lights as well as the TV went off. This all happened around 11:30 p.m., but I needed power for my CPAP machine in order to sleep, so had to insist that Reception rouse an electrician to repair everything.

Woke around 3:30 a.m., noticing from the bridge-camera channel on my TV that the sky was already turning pink. So went up to the observation lounge and alternately napped and watched the sunrise until rolls and coffee appeared at 6:30. There will be progressively fewer hours of darkness as we get farther north, and eventually there will be none at all.

7/17--At Sea (in more ways than one)

Had breakfast in the main dining room with a delightful Australian couple. Somewhat strange arrangement--there's a buffet section for some items, but other items have to be ordered. Don't understand rationale for this at all. If you want a buffet, there's the Lido. Plan to ask maître d' for clarification. After breakfast there was a meeting of all English-speakers to go over safety procedures. There are thirty-two of us, mainly older British and Australian couples, though I also met a widower from Los Angeles who seems quite pleasant company.

Finally started exploring the ship after the safety drill. The nostalgic decorating scheme is very consistent throughout. Plan to take various illustrative pictures. Searched diligently for some neon, but could not find any. There are busts of various German cultural figures throughout the hallways and public areas, though. Sometimes the juxtapositions are rather funny. For example, right outside the ultra-fancy alternative restaurant is a bust of Arthur Schopenhauer, who was the most pessimistic of all German philosophers, which is synonymous with being the most pessimistic of all philosophers. On the other side of the doorway, though, are four sweetly bucolic Meissen figurines of shepherdesses. Anyone for cognitive dissonance?

As promised, the crew is bilingual (at least), although naturally with varying levels of fluency. I'm using some German occasionally just to try to revive my speaking knowledge of it, but it's really unnecessary. The service staff isn't as gushily friendly as American passengers seem to like. They have more of a courtly formality, which I find a refreshing change. But I am going to mess with their minds occasionally. For example, since drinks aren't included in the price, I'm planning on drinking a lot of ice water (which I like anyway). I asked for it at breakfast, it took about five minutes for a glass to appear, and about ten seconds for me to drain it. Another five minutes had to elapse when I asked for an additional glass. So at lunch I asked the waitress to bring out a whole pitcher of the stuff so she wouldn't have to make extra trips. She planned on leaving the pitcher at a service station, but I asked her to leave it on the table instead. You could see the panic in her eyes. This was simply not the usual procedure. But I insisted, and she surrendered to the masterful bear. Each bottle of mineral water ordered at bar or restaurant costs around $1.80, and we're talking about 33cl bottles (1/3 of a liter) here. Same price and size for soft drinks. Standard cocktails are $4-5, 33cl glasses of beer are $2.40. I obviously can afford such prices or I wouldn't be on here in the first place, but I just hate the concept of having to buy and sign for every liquid, disliking Crystal for the same reason. Am missing Silversea already, where one feels more like a guest than a customer (once one forgets about how much the initial fare was). In another confusing display of inconsistency, though, large bottles of water (both still and sparkling) are provided in your cabin at no cost. The sparkling one is San Pellegrino, my favorite, less metallic tasting than Perrier. Typically one bottle of each is stocked at a time, but I've asked Silvia, my stewardess, (a fairly bubbly Bulgarian) to leave a few at a time to save herself extra supply runs.

Had lunch with my Australian friends at a large table with a German couple and their son. The wife was quite fluent in English, so we all conversed in a weird mixture of the two languages. I guess this linguistic mishmash is going to be typical for the whole trip, which is probably fortunate since it means my social contacts won't be confined to Anglophones. It's really shameful how poor we are at learning foreign languages. Most Europeans seem to be at least trilingual as a matter of course. We're lucky to speak the language that seems to be taking over the world.

I started to write this after lunch, but total jet-lag (or maybe the emotional cost of all the initial snafus) finally caught up with me shortly thereafter, and I went to sleep around 3:30 p.m. for about ten hours, thereby missing the Captain's cocktail party and first formal dinner. Since my formal clothes had not gotten back from the cleaners anyway (despite my having turned them in for pressing as soon as I boarded), this was perhaps a blessing in disguise. I've spent the last few hours writing this and watching the sky lighten and the Norwegian coast get closer on the bridge cam. We land in Bergen in a couple of hours. I'll spend the morning hunting up an Internet café from which to send this. In the afternoon I'm going on a city tour. And in the evening will be dinner at the alternative restaurant.

I apologize for the disjointedness and stylistic inconsistencies of the above. Since my laptop was in my missing luggage, I didn't have the opportunity to write a little at a time, and now am trying to cover too many days at once. As with my spoken German, I'm sacrificing grammar and elegance to the conveyance of meaning. Hope it's enjoyable anyway.

7/18--Bergen

Bergen is Norway's second city, with a population of around 200,000, at the end of a fairly long fjord (2-1/2 hours in from the sea). It looks like a pretty mellow place except when the occasional cruise ship visits. Or, as is the case today, when the occasional six cruise ships visit simultaneously. Tied up at various docks, besides us, were Costa Romantica, Aurora, Sundream, Brilliance of the Seas (on its maiden voyage), and Queen Elizabeth II. This meant up to 8600 passengers and 4000 crew wandering around the place simultaneously.

A 20-minute walk got me to the center of town, where I obtained some Norwegian currency from an ATM (Norway doesn't use Euros, but their ATMs do give receipts) and asked a teller for the location of the nearest Internet outlet, which turned out to be about two blocks away in a seven-story mall. (In both Europe and Asia, shopping centers tend to be more vertical than horizontal, there being less vacant land available, particularly in a city narrowly hemmed in between sea and mountains as is the case with Bergen.) So I plopped down there, looked for a slot into which to insert my diskette containing my current beargram, and found no such slot. This place didn't permit introduction of "alien" input due to fears of possible viruses. Nor did the person running the venue know where I might find another one that would. She did recommend that I ask at a nearby cellular phone shop, and the guy there directed me to another one about four blocks away, uphill. So away trudged the aging bear and eventually accomplished his mission successfully, noticing along the way that unexpected showers must be frequent here.

Bergen works as a city should. There are some wide plazas and pedestrian malls with public sculptures, street performers, benches where average citizens are just hanging out chatting with friends, etc. Hardly any litter (quite a contrast for someone used to San Francisco). The local Chinese restaurant presumably serves sweet-and-sour codfish. Streets with old (or old-looking) wooden gabled houses. An outdoor market at the edge of the harbor selling fresh flowers and fish (some of the fish looking distinctly unhappy to be there), where I had a proper ursine lunch of a salmon sandwich and a basket of raspberries. And then there were the cruise passengers, flowing in and out of the various shops in great waves and jamming the street that led from the piers to the center. Apparently Bergen gets about 135,000 of us per summer season, which must be a nice economic addition.

Norway isn't very cheap either. Alcohol is heavily taxed (half-liter of Guinness in a bar costs $7.50). My salmon sandwich was $6.50, and a 1.5 liter bottle of Coke was $4.75.

Apparently I overwalked, because on the way back to the ship I had to stop and rest frequently, with my legs feeling heavy and weak simultaneously. After a light lunch (speaking German almost exclusively) it was time to assemble for an organized tour of the city and the home of the composer Edvard Grieg on a lake outside of town. Unfortunately I tripped at the head of the gangplank, fell full-length, and had difficulty getting back up because of the continuing weakness of my legs. This panicked the tour manager, understandably I guess, and she virtually insisted I not go on the tour, even though I figured I'd be fine if I just stayed seated on the bus the whole time. So I crept back to my cabin to lick my wounds for the remainder of the afternoon and evening. My calves cramped up severely, and crawling became my preferred means of locomotion around the cabin. I missed yet another dinner (featuring fried chicken stuffed with truffles) and a piano concert of classical music. And so to bed, long before sunset, which was at 11:12 p.m.

7/19--Back at Sea

I awoke around sunrise (4:18 a.m.), with legs still generally achy but not disablingly so. Puttered around and eventually went up to my preferred perch in the Observation Lounge. The sky was lightly overcast, but the water still very smooth. Supposedly we had a few periods of heavy seas last night, including Force 7 winds, but I felt nothing in my aft cabin.

What I call the Observation Lounge (because it's forward on the highest deck) is technically called the Lido Terrace. Its color scheme is predominantly white and gold, with lots of comfy chairs made of wicker or rattan (not sure of the proper technical term), statues and busts of various worthies, cabinets filled with games, a white piano, etched glass designs in the doors, etc. It is used for such activities as early continental breakfasts (pastries, marvelously varied rolls, warmed warm croissants, juices, an excessive choice of sweeteners) and tea-hour, but also was just a nice place to hang out, particularly in the cooler climes above the Arctic Circle.

Some Germans are extremely hardy, or else extremely masochistic. Each morning around 7:00 a.m. I see several of them in the pool-area. But they're not there to reserve deck chairs (of which there is an overabundance): they're actually swimming. And they don't even have fur.

Another interesting German custom seems to be having champagne with breakfast. Since it's offered free as part of the buffet, I indulged today as well. Maybe I'll mix champagne with my morning orange juice in future. Some members of the staff are starting to address me by name. Don't know whether they're doing the same for many people or whether I stand out as the fat American who is prone to falling down.

Today looks pretty easily paced. At 11:00 a.m. at the pool bar is an apparently German institution known as the "morning pint" (Frühschoppen). Free beer and mulled wine, with musical entertainment by the Chris Luca Orchestra. After lunch will find me at a lecture on the first part of our itinerary. The English version of these lectures is typically offered the day after the German version. The subsequent "gala fashion show" at which Karl Neumann "presents his collection of silk, cashmere, leather and fur" does not strike my fancy. Whether or not I'll feel inclined to attend a pre-dinner reading in German of the poems of Joachim Ringelnatz remains to be seen (yeah, right), with a subsequent recital of melodies from various operettas sounding more promising.

The consistency with which the 1920s look is applied is really impressive. It's no great challenge with something like a hallway, but a goodly amount of thought must have gone into the design of the signs for the public bathrooms.

After dinner that evening: The "morning pint" turned out to be a pretty jolly affair. Trays of free beer and mulled wine were passed around constantly, with a new glass or mug being pretty much automatically given you when your previous one was empty. The Chris Luca Orchestra was the oompah brass band that had been playing as we embarked. According to my German friends, however, at most one member of the band is actually German. Their guess was that the other members were Spanish. An unadvertised part of the affair was a little buffet, for those who couldn't survive between breakfast and lunch without additional sustenance. Salads, open-faced sandwiches, wursts, rolls, soup. The captain (who looks surprisingly young) was even in attendance. For some reason I do not remember how many beers I had. Toward the end of the hour, after sufficient lubrication, some people were even dancing a little in lines and circles.

As I'm typing this at 10:47 p.m. an announcement was made that we had just crossed the Arctic Circle. If ice conditions farther north are favorable, we'll get all the way up to at least 80 degrees of north latitude.

After lunch and the lecture, I lay out on a deck chair on one of the aft fantails. There were about thirty people around me, nearly all wearing jackets and hats, with most wrapped in blankets as well. I could not understand this, because to me the temperature was still mild and I was perfectly comfortable in a short-sleeved shirt. Must be my protective layer of blubber. The people were reading, napping, or just looking at the sea. Only occasional snatches of conversation. So a great sense of peacefulness prevailed over all. I permitted myself to enjoy this for about thirty minutes before going back inside. Too much contentment causes one to lose one's edge.

I then napped for about two hours, finally managing to rouse myself and make it to dinner in the dining room for the first time. For some unknown reason, nearly all the Anglophones had switched to first sitting, but my widower friend, Bill, is still dining late, so we shared a table. Had steak tartare topped with Sevruga caviar, some sort of Indonesian potato dumpling, piña colada sorbet, saddle of venison, and cheesecake a la mode. It was all fairly tasty, although the presentation is rather pedestrian. Very small portions. I was surprised when the waitress asked us to make our dessert choices at the beginning of the meal. Her explanation was along the lines of "it's easier for us when you order everything at once." The notion that the server's preferences are supposed to take precedence over those of the passengers struck me as fairly bizarre, but, being in mellow-bear mode, I obeyed.

Tomorrow we tour the Lofoten Islands, about fifty miles off the coast, where a traditional way of life supposedly still prevails (at least for the older people who still live there and have not yet moved away like nearly all of the younger ones.) This will require a tender landing, but it looks like it is organized a great deal better than the norm. There is a set time for the smaller English-speaking tour to tender, three set times for the larger German tour (divided by decks and cabin numbers), and a later starting time for everybody else. I wonder whether there will be any active attempts to enforce this schedule or whether enforcement is considered superfluous because it is expected everyone will obey without question.

A cute surprise awaited me back at my cabin. Like the stewardess on my last Silversea cruise, Silvia has apparently decided to get involved with my two guardian bears, and I arrived to find them nestled together on top of my pillow. I now have moved them on top of sconces at opposite ends of the room, and will be curious to find out where they'll end up next. Silvia was to put them in a different configuration every night for the remainder of the cruise.

It is now 11:10 p.m. With only two minutes left before sunset, the sky is turning pink. Since my tender leaves at 8:05 a.m. tomorrow, Snugglebear now goeth night-night.

It is now midafternoon on 7/22 and we are at anchor in the town of Honningsvåg, gateway to North Cape, the northernmost point in Europe. Actually another point slightly to the west of North Cape has turned out to jut a bit farther to the north, but, since the tourist infrastructure has already been constructed at North Cape and since the other point just dribbles down into the sea rather than being a dramatic cliff, that fact receives minimal emphasis in the tourist literature. It has been overcast all day with occasional rain flurries, so I am typing this at a sheltered table on the pool deck. There was a North Cape tour offered this morning in which I did not indulge, because I had sailed around it in the early 70s on one of my three-month Eurailpass Continental orgies, and it's not really all that interesting except in symbolic terms. Similarly, I drove to North Dakota once, just to verify its existence, but I feel no compelling urge to return there. But enough of this real-time babbling; it's time to get chronological again.

7/20--Lofoten Islands

There are seven main islands, of which five are interconnected by bridges and one mile-long underwater tunnel. Its primary claim to fame is that Arctic codfish spawn nearby from January through April due to the oceanic warmth provided by the Gulf Stream, so a lot of fishing went on. Everybody apparently just sort of hung out the rest of the year, or returned to homes elsewhere. Fishing activity has declined to about 10% of previous levels, replaced by 220,000 tourists per year, both foreign and Norwegian (who come to camp here). For obscure geological reasons, the islands are somewhat bowl-shaped, with three-billion year old jagged granite mountains on the outside, sheltering green flowery valleys and lakes within. The mountains are really very dramatic, apparently due to glaciation, with all sorts of toothy pinnacles and towers, reminding me of the Tetons or the Sierra Crest, albeit several thousand feet lower. There are also a number white sand beaches on the islands, although, with a latitude like Alaska's or Siberia's, the water tends to be a bit nippy for swimming.

This was our first tender port, and we tendered in on the ship's lifeboats in groups of 150. The seats in them were very narrow, with minimal legroom. A cursory glance around the interior revealed no toilet facilities either. If they ever had to be used for real, everyone would be devoutly praying for a very quick rescue.

It was an apparently unusually beautiful morning for the area--a few fluffy clouds but otherwise a clear, luminous blue sky. Still not very cold. On to the bus (also devoid of a toilet in back (aging males notice these things)) and away we go on the tourist circuit.

First stop is the traditional fishing village of Nusfjord. This is one of those UNESCO World Heritage sites that is supposed to be left intact for its historical value. It struck me, however, that there were far too many non-traditional souvenir stands and expensive restaurants (whale steak for $28) in the village for it to look truly historical. Pretty flowerboxes, though.

[Real-time interruption: Being out on deck, I was thinking I'd probably miss the 3:30 tea-hour. But lo and behold a little rolling cart just came by with coffee, tea, and assorted pastries. So the bear will not starve between lunch and dinner.]

The next stop, Flakstad church, was more interesting. It was built in 1780, over a previous 15th century driftwood church. Its external appearance is a bit strange, with an onion-shaped cupola, making one think one had suddenly been transported to Russia. It turns out that the wood came from Russia (there being no trees on the islands) in exchange for codfish. Very pretty interior with 18th century altarpiece and pulpit. Interestingly, there was a model of a boat hanging from the ceiling, apparently as a sort of good-luck charm in the hope that the church's atmosphere would help keep the real fishing boats safe from harm. Perhaps a bit of sympathetic magic from the area's pre-Christian past. This turned out to be a very common feature in all the churches we visited, even the cathedral in Trondheim.

We then went to another village to watch an "artistic blacksmith" create metal cormorants. I'm not entirely sure why.

The process of driving around the two islands we visited was really more enjoyable to me than the stops we made. I do like looking at mountain vistas, and there was a wide assortment of them, with intense green at lower levels. Plus fields of wildflowers, mainly a lupine-like purple one.

There were two other cruise ships in the harbor as well, of neither of which I had ever heard- Ocean Majesty and Albatros [sic]. Ocean Majesty was originally built in Spain in 1966 and is now serving a predominantly British clientele under the ownership of Majestic International Cruises. Albatros has quite a rather interesting history. It's one of the oldest ships still cruising, having been christened as Cunard's Sylvania in 1957, then going through Sitmar and Princess, and now under long-term charter to Germany's Phoenix Reisen.

I don't have any notes for that afternoon, so I couldn't have done very much. I lay out on a deck chair for a while, managing to get tangled up in it and perform another bearflop while trying to arise. Had tea with the Australian couple. Managed to avoid an afternoon nap, so actually ate dinner with Bill, falling into the arms of Morpheus shortly thereafter. This would be an appropriate point to pay tribute to Mark Twain, who said, "Every time I feel the urge to exercise, I lie down until it goes away."

7/21--Tromsø

Our daily cruise-program handout normally showed times for sunrise and sunset, but today's showed only a time for sunrise (1:36 a.m.). No more sunsets for the next several days.

Norway is said to have three capitals. Oslo is the political capital, Bremen the cultural capital, and Tromsø the capital of the Arctic regions. It started as a center for the fur-trade, and now has a population of around 60,000. They had supposedly been having a beautiful summer, with today one of the few gray days. Our guide for the city tour had an interesting background. She was a young Dutch woman who for some reason felt very attracted to the North. So she studied Norwegian for a year at a Dutch university, and then transferred to the university here. Judging by the tone and tenor of her commentary, she just really likes the region.

First stop was the "Arctic Cathedral," built in 1965 with a design of overlapping white slabs, presumably to be reminiscent of ice. Lots of glass, including the largest stained-glass window in Northern Europe. The building is angled to be illuminated by the Midnight Sun in summer. In winter it is lit brightly from within to act as a local antidote to the months of Arctic night. The inside decoration was very spare and clean, with pews made of light-colored wood. I liked it a lot.

Then on to the local museum, which turned out to have a fascinating exhibit concerning the local indigenous people. I always thought they were called Lapps, as in Lapland, but that term turns out to be considered derogatory, and they call themselves Sami. Much of their recent history parallels what was done with Native Americans in the US and aborigines in Australia. From about 1850 until 1950 there was an effort to "Norwegianize" them. The children were sent to schools in which only the Norwegian language was used. The usual drill. Eventually it was realized that this was a dumb idea, and the last few decades have seen a revival of Sami cultural pride, permission to use the Sami language in official matters, etc. The written language looks a lot like Hungarian or Finnish. Roman letters are used, but it looks like they've been assembled at random into words. You just can't see any cognates. Very disorienting.

We drove past various "northernmost" things--botanical garden, Catholic cathedral, Lutheran cathedral, university. Also up a funicular to the top of a peak for what would have been beautiful views of the city and surrounding areas if it hadn't been foggy and drizzling. There was at least a snack bar on top, yet another branch of the Captive Audience World Network, where I had a $3.50 cup of espresso. Another interesting feature of the town is its network of tunnels, some of which intersect each other in underground roundabouts.

The afternoon was devoted to another installment of the unending saga of Bear Searches for Internet Access. The first café I walked to had a coin-operated terminal for web surfing (14 cents per minute), but no diskette access. I was then directed to a second café that would not be opening until 3:00 p.m., leaving me with two hours to kill. So I decided to eat lunch in town. While wandering by all the pretty, multi-colored, gabled wooden buildings, I found very little choice except at the two extremes of fancy restaurants with $30 plates and snack bars with hot dogs made of unspecified ingredients. Salvation came in the form of a Burger King. I neglected to inquire whether it was the world's northernmost Burger King, but it did serve recognizable items, which make for a nice change of pace occasionally. On the way out I failed to notice that the floor was being mopped, so performed another full-length bearflop for the delectation of all and sundry, prompting the manager to put out an ex post facto orange warning cone.

The second café proved no more floppy-friendly than the first. But someone there was kind enough to tell me that the big hotels had Internet terminals as well. So, after tromping all around town, with a sore back from the fall now added to the previous arthritic ankle, I went to try two hotels that were right across the street from our ship. At the first hotel I was initially told that the terminal was for guests only, but I must have looked so pitiful or bedraggled that they let me on anyway. I was able to paste Part III of my chronicles from the diskette to one site only, the other two sites would not display completely, for reasons I don't understand. So off I limped to the other hotel, going through the same routine of initial refusal and subsequent relenting, and managing to post to a second site. Attempts to access the third site brought up an error message that, being in Norwegian, I could not decipher. The site was probably on some security no-no list, and I couldn't hack around it. So, all in all, a painful and frustrating afternoon.

[Another editorial aside. It's now 5:00 p.m., temperature I'm guessing in high 40s or low 50s, and several crazy Germans splashing around in the outdoor pool.]

Matters improved in the evening. I had made a reservation for Bill and me at the fancy alternative restaurant, and found it vastly superior to the main dining room. The presentation of each course (we had six of them over three and one half hours) was really attractive in addition to tasting quite good. My selections were as follows: 1) Carpaccio from salmon and turbot, with ruccola [arugula] pesto, 2) Cream soup from sweet pears with radishes, 3) Wild hare loin filet on blueberry sauce, with a potato bag, 4) Mango with grenadine sorbet, 5) Fried codfish (fresh from Lofoten yesterday) on spinach, beets, and carrots, sautéed tomatoes and wild rice (Bill had Veal steak on a light pepper cream sauce with young leek, beetroots and small baked potato dumplings), and 6) White chocolate parfait with orange salad (Bill had Baked plums with redwine ice cream).

[Continuing to write, slightly more in real-time, throughout 7/23.]

You all may be curious why I haven't provided any discussion of the nature and quality of the onboard entertainment. Simple reason--I haven't attended any of it. At home I'm pretty nocturnal, preferring to sleep late and stay up late. But on cruises my circadian rhythm seems to reverse. I wake up pretty early and after second-sitting dinner am feeling quite wiped out. There are a few second- or third-rate classical artists on board, but I prefer to nap only during performances by first-rate virtuosi such as I can see in the San Francisco area. One of the bars features a pianist, the other a trio, but bears rarely hang out in bars. Here's a picture of one of the singers in performance, taken by my German friends.

7/22--Honningsvåg

Some recent cruise review commented that breakfasts were pretty boring because the same foods were served every day by every cruise line. One way to avoid this would be to try cruising on a line that does not cater primarily to Americans. Star Cruises in Asia, England's P&O, maybe Costa as well, would probably exhibit cultural differences. And the Deutschland certainly does. At the buffet there is a wider selection of juices, including passion fruit and black currant; champagne; a rotating selection of about eight cheeses, several of which are new to me; fish--some smoked varieties and herring sitting in such strange concoctions as curry-sauce; sliced wursts and salami; multiple varieties of rolls and breads topped with different nuts and seeds; two kinds of honey and about eight jellies and jams. Plus the usual scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, sausage, and omelette station. The selection of fillings at the omelette station didn't include mushrooms, but when I brought this to the attention of the head steward, he promised they would be provided as of tomorrow (which I guess pretty much obligates me to have mushroom omelettes from now on). A few minutes later, as I was eating my mushroomless omelette, he also brought me over a plate of specially prepared sautéed mushrooms--a nice example of going the extra mile in terms of service.

I had an interesting conversation with my stewardess this morning. It turns out that Silvia knows five languages--Russian, English, German, and Italian in addition to her native Bulgarian. The fact that this combination comes from three totally different linguistic families impresses one even more and puts most American college students to shame. I'm slipping back and forth between English and German more and more easily, now including exchanging casual remarks with other passengers (in elevators, etc.) who may not even realize I'm not German. I'm not mentioning this in order to brag, since I'm basically a very modest and humble bear, but rather just because of how surprised and delighted I am myself at how quickly my spoken fluency revived.

This village is quite pretty in appearance. I suspect that the multitude of colors used to paint the houses is an attempted antidote to the darkness and boredom of the multi-month winter night. As mentioned somewhere above, way above, I didn't go on the North Cape tour, instead just wandering around town on my usual Internet Access Hunt. For once I captured my prey on the first try, at a place called the Park Café, which is across the street from what is perhaps the world's northernmost park (across from which is no doubt the world's northernmost children's ride). Nearly all of the other people sitting in the café were quite elderly, with about half using wheelchairs or walkers. At first I thought I had wandered into a meeting of the town's Mainframe Computer Programmers' Club, but it turned out the café, although public, was located in a block of apartments for senior citizens. Thanks to the negative correlation between age and interest in computers, I had no competition for access to the single PC. I then replenished my Diet Coke supply, this time at a supermarket rather than at a convenience store, as in Bergen. The price difference was quite surprising. In Bergen, the 1.5 liter bottle was 33 kroner (7 kroner equal roughly $1). Here in Honningsvåg at another branch of the same chain it was only 30 kroner, (despite being much more remote). At the supermarket here, on the other hand, it was only 16 kroner. Explanation supposedly is that the convenience stores are open for many more hours than the larger markets. Norway has various complicated "blue laws" regulating when commercial activity may occur, so perhaps this is plausible.

A funny occurrence today at lunch: I had a different drinks-waitress, who refused to leave me a pitcher of ice water on the table. I absolutely could not persuade her otherwise, perhaps because she outweighed me. Much of the afternoon was spent writing the first part of this. Some crew members apparently spent the afternoon fishing, and their catch of mackerel and cod was prominently displayed outside the main dining room. I got up to the Lido Deck (no doubt via the elevator with its attractively inlaid doors) just before dinner in order to take some undisturbed photos of the buffet restaurant (with more etched glass doors), including its trays of cold fish and meat appetizers as well as the cheese selection (which was largely different every day). After dinner, around 10:30, I wandered around on deck some more. Crazy Germans were still using the pool. There was a marvelous diversity of clouds. Low on much of the horizon were threatening dark gray and black ones, but higher up were fluffy white ones as well as patches of blue. The sun was just at the top of the dark band, looking like a white ball as it shined through. Apparently I didn't have my camera with me at the time.

7/23--Approaching Spitsbergen

Another interesting service hiccough at breakfast this morning: I got to the buffet rather late, and remarked to the Omelette Guy that he was out of several ingredients (fines herbes and bacon, as I recall). He answered along the lines of "Yep, you're right, they're all gone." I mentioned this to Mario, the head steward, and he replied that naturally they could be replenished, and he was quite surprised that OG hadn't offered to do so. OG then got admonished. Three observations: 1) The ingredients should have been replenished when they were empty, without requiring a passenger to remark on it first. 2) After the passenger drew OG's attention to it, the latter darn well should have gotten refills. 3) The guy in charge resolved the issue quickly and smoothly once it was brought to his attention, but it should never have had to be raised with him in the first place. This whole incident and associated analysis may seem very trivial and petty, but, in the rarefied niche of luxury cruising, market differentiation is achieved on the basis of the handling of such small matters. Here's another only seemingly trivial difference: paper towels in the public bathrooms rather than Silversea's individual terrycloth squares

At 11:30 this morning was held a ceremony in honor of crossing the Arctic Circle, even though we actually did so a couple of days ago. About twenty-five people had signed up to take part in it, which was going to be held next to the pool. Thinking-outside-the-box-bear went up one more flight to the empty Sports Deck in order to be able to photograph everything from above. Within about ten minutes an additional thirty copycats had joined me up there. Neptune and his queen came out, accompanied by various courtiers in outlandish costumes and green hair. The captain made a flowery speech, asking Neptune's permission to enter his polar realm. Each participant had a bit of hair symbolically snipped with a giant pair of scissors, took a drink from a bottle of something (aquavit?) encased in a block of ice, and then was "baptized," baptism comprising having several ladlesful of ice water (including ice cubes) poured over one's head, back of neck, and back (temperature was around 42 at the time), and then being given a fishy name (e.g., Old Sea-Cow or Stubborn Stonefish). The ceremony culminated with kneeling before Neptune and his queen on their thrones and kissing a large fish at the queen's feet. It was all ponderously silly. The sociologist in me wondered whether cruise lines catering to different nationalities have different ceremonies or whether this was a universally established routine.

After lunch there was a 90-minute lecture with slides by Andreas Umbreit, who runs a Spitsbergen travel agency and is quite knowledgeable about all aspects of the region. It covered the geology and topography of the Svalbard Archipelago as well as the varieties of plant and animal life to be found there. (Tomorrow will be another lecture on the human history of the area.) A lot of interesting stuff on the behavior of glaciers here, the various adaptations made by plants and animals to survive in the harsh climate, etc. Since it was dark in the theater where the lecture was held, I couldn't take notes, so can't give details here. I did manage to write down that, thanks to being at the very end of the warm(ish) Gulf Stream, there are forty-eight species of flowers native to the islands, and even one dwarf bush and a couple of "trees." They're trees only in a highly technical botanical sense, but really just grow along the rocks.

Around 4:00 p.m. we started sailing up Hornsund (Horn Sound), the first (southernmost, for a change) fjord on the main island. (Technically Spitsbergen is only the name of the main island and Svalbard is the name of the entire archipelago (group of islands).) So we saw our first glacier, first pointy peaks, etc. Spitsbergen literally means something along the lines of "pointy peaks," the name given by the 16th century explorer Barents (he of Sea fame), who sailed along the western coast. In fact, the majority of the pointy peaks occur only along the western coast. Many more of the mountains in other parts of the archipelago apparently look more like plateaus or mesas, Monument Valley with glaciers. The sound was uncharacteristically ice-free, so we were able to sail all the way up to its head. The sight of glaciers seemingly inspired some people to take another dip in the pool.

So we're all on the upper decks madly photographing away while being served mulled wine. Eventually I got bored and returned to my cabin for a while. Needless to say, while I was back in the bowels of the ship, an announcement was made that a polar bear had been sighted at the shoreline. I frantically huffed and puffed up five flights of stairs (the shipboard elevators, of which there are only three, are deplorably slow) back to Lido deck, there to frantically scan the shoreline looking for my cousin. The clarity of the air up here makes things appear deceptively closer than they really are, and the seemingly nearby shoreline was really about a kilometer away. Someone finally angled my head properly to see a tiny moving speck, more gray than white, just before it slipped into the water. So technically I have now seen a polar bear in the wild, but I still hope to see one or more of them identifiable as such. Since bear sightings in Hornsund are quite rare, I'm rationalizing that seeing one there increases the likelihood of seeing more in locations where they're normally seen.

Tonight was the second formal dinner (albeit the first for me). This was the first time I wore my new tuxedo somewhere besides a fitting room, and getting it all assembled and put on required about a twenty-minute wrestling match with assorted buttons, studs, cufflinks, new shoelaces, etc. Eventually the bear triumphed, but he nearly ended up ordering room service instead. Courses included a lobster cream soup (which tasted like a lobster had merely been waved over the soup pot) and trusty old Beef Wellington, cooked rather more thoroughly than I like it. Like all the meals, everything was pretty good, but nothing made me go Wow. I'm noticing as well that the same garnishes, mainly root vegetables, are showing up over and over again. There seems to be little effort to match the garnishes to whatever unique character the main component of the dish might have. And, given all the leeks I'm being served, I might as well be vacationing in Wales.

7/24--Trinityhaven and Magdalenefiord

I'm really going to have to try to stay up later. I keep the TV turned on and tuned to the bridge camera while I sleep (in order to illuminate the way to the bathroom), and the weather seemed to clear up a great deal after midnight, with a golden glow being the predominant color of the remaining clouds throughout the rest of the "night".

A PBS (Polar Bear Sighting) was announced around 7:30 a.m., so I dashed up to Lido Deck to join the crowd marveling at three small dots-one mother-dot and two cub-dots, to be more precise. Someone was then kind enough to lend me a pair of powerful binoculars, which enabled me to see that they were really . . . medium-sized dots. For all I know these are cardboard figures put out by the Spitsbergen Tourist Board whenever cruise ships are in the area, and then returned to a warehouse at night. I wonder if there's enough time to request a flyby by one of those intelligence satellites that are capable of taking minutely detailed photos. That should settle the question.

I then took a brief circle tour of the harbor on one of the tenders. It took us closer to the 225m high snout of the glacier, with its fascinating variety of abstract shapes, passing a (seemingly genuine) seal lolling on a lonely ice chunk and some masochistic birds basking in the frigid waters. We then cruised closer to where the dots had been previously sighted, but apparently they had already been taken back to the warehouse for refurbishment. Fortunately my German friends went on a later iteration of the tour, at which time the bears actually were out and about--not one, not two, but all three members of the Dot family.

A second shuttle boat then took us to a small spit of land, on which a whaling station was once located. We were "carded" before leaving and returning to the ship, which struck me as a tad overzealous given the remoteness of our location. On the beach the crew had set up the "northernmost bar in the world," complete with buffet and tables. A case can be made for this arrangement exceeding in decadence the tradition of dispensing caviar and champagne from surfboards in the Caribbean. I felt it geographically appropriate to have a glass of aquavit in addition to a couple of wursts and a roll, ignoring my liver plaintively asking why it was being drowned in alcohol before noon (my pancreas having long before thrown in the towel). Despite this invasion of the wurst-eaters, one could find a great sense of solitude here. Worthy of note as well is the awesome clarity of the water. An anomalous feature of this area were land-based icebergs. Andreas and his associate established a guarded perimeter, beyond which we were not supposed to venture, in order to keep us separated from the ostensible polar bears. As it turned out, the duration of the beach visit had to be cut short become some bears were reportedly seen swimming across the bay toward us. Yeah, right.

Shortly before returning to the ship from the beach, I was treated to the sight of another cruise ship, Fred Olsen's Black Watch, steaming into "our" inlet. So much for the notion of unique itineraries and majestic isolation. I fear the only places one can go anymore without fear of encountering others are so unpleasant that one would not want to go there in the first place.

Lunch was pleasant--mushroom salad, freshly made spaghetti, and ice cream. When I remarked upon the absence of garlic in the fixings for the spaghetti, the cook voluntarily went and got me some. Either they're learning or else I stumbled upon one guy who understands proper service.

The main restaurant must be virtually empty at breakfast and lunch, because the Lido was jammed, with table-sharing the norm. It is interesting to note that the stereotype of Germans as being very pushy on cruises doesn't seem to be valid, at least on this trip. I had had my elbows specially sharpened as part of my trip preparations, but lines for tenders and in the buffet are quite orderly, people waiting for elevators let the exiting people off first, etc. There are even apologies and gentle joking as people squeeze past each other going to and from the Lido tables.

After lunch, as I was taking a turn on deck, there was another PBS, of the same three-dot family. This time the ship was closer to shore, so with binoculars I could actually see the dots moving. Accordingly I must withdraw my accusation about them being cardboard cutouts, although they still might actually be white rats for all I can tell. Probably the reason I was able to see them was that I wasn't carrying my camera at the time.

Had a massage of my aching hindquarters this afternoon. Doubtful that it accomplished anything substantive, but it sure did feel good. Masseuse commented that my calves were extraordinarily tight. While she kneaded my muscles we talked about Thailand, where she had spent two months backpacking last year and where I had visited around sixteen times before discovering the joys of cruising. Massage cost only $41 (plus tip) for fifty minutes, probably because massages in German culture are considered more therapeutic than a decadent luxury. Little do they know. Nor were there any product pitches. Made an appointment for a session of reflexology on my hind paws in a couple of days.

Dinner again in the Vierjahreszeiten (Four Seasons) alternative restaurant. Tonight's tasty treats were: 1) Marinated fjord salmon with mustard-dill honey sauce, and a small potato pancake, 2) Cream of potato soup, with celery straw, 3) Filet of John Dory fish in a potato crust, on lobster sauce, 4) Kiwi with rosé wine sherbet, 5) Pheasant breast stuffed with raisin-brioche, on champagne cabbage, glazed grapes, bacon croutons and nut potatoes, and 6) Raspberry-curd tureen [terrine?], in a marzipan coat. I fear something may be being lost in the translation. It is also clear that these guys have never heard of William of Ockham ("entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily") or Mies van der Rohe ("less is more"). Three additional cultural observations: 1) It is a German custom to whip a cream soup a bit just before serving in order to impart a frothy top to it, maybe to make it seem lighter. 2) When a staff-member is performing a service motion that requires only one hand, refilling a wine glass, for example, he puts the other one behind him, with the top of the hand pressed into the small of the back, making the whole motion fluidly balletic. 3) The main courses are brought to the table with a silver cover. Enough servers gather around to lift all the covers at that table simultaneously with a flourish. Kind of cute, but needed a trumpet fanfare to become totally over-the-top.

We are now steaming north from Spitsbergen, toward the edge of the Arctic ice pack, for no particular reason I can fathom other than perhaps to permit the passengers to tell their friends they had been to the edge of the Arctic ice pack. Not that I'd do something like that. This makes the locator-map on the television look distinctly strange--the circle marking our ship is now in a totally gray area at the top of the map, with no labels, no ocean coloration, no nothing around it, as if we've ventured off all known sea lanes into totally unexplored waters.

Tomorrow we are heading for Ny-Ålesund, a former coal-mining town now used for various research stations. Its touristic claim to fame is that it has the northernmost post office in the world. I am hoping it also has the northernmost public access Internet terminal, so that I can send off this latest collection of profundities.

Precisely at the scheduled time of 11:00 p.m. we arrived at the ice-border, a few minutes beyond eighty degrees of north latitude. Gray sky, black-gray water, blue and white ice, nothing else (although conspiracy theorists might claim that some of the chunks of ice were in reality cunningly camouflaged polar bears). For aficionados of desolate emptiness, it doesn't get much better than this.

7/25--Møllerhaven and Ny-Ålesund

Back below eighty degrees, but still pretty much in the boonies. We aren't even within range of any communication satellites. No downloaded news summaries, English or German, no television reception, not even CNN, which, given recent economic events, may very well be a blessing in disguise. I never even learned about the Lindh plea-bargain until after I got home.

Before today's shore excursion, I documented a few other parts of the ship. There was the reception desk, watched over by a bust of J.S. Bach, with various enticing crooks and nannies nearby. The main staircase had stills from old German movies at each landing.

There's at least one self-service laundry and ironing room. It was on my deck, so I don't know whether there were others on other decks. There's no cost for the washers and dryers, and the soap is dispensed automatically into the washers, which are digital and included a display of how much time remained in their process. This was quite handy for letting you know when to come back and for letting others know when a washer would free up. Deilmann's London office erroneously told me that such facilities weren't available, so I brought much more clothing than I really needed.

On the lowest passenger deck is an indoor, fresh water thalassotherapy pool, overlooked by a classical mural, with bamboo chairs and statuary nearby. Like several other ships of European lines, this one has permanent dialysis facilities on board, thus permitting people requiring dialysis to go on any cruise. This is unlike the American norm of companies bringing dialysis units aboard ships only for specifically designated cruises.

As to Møllerhaven--more mountains, more glaciers, more non-bears. Its main claim to fame is a little orange hut, used for occasional shelter by passing sailors or whoever else may require it. It didn't look very bearproof, but since there aren't really any bears here, that's not too much of an impediment. Passing ships put plaques on the hut's inside walls, the oldest one I noticed being from 1927. The crew set up another snack bar ashore, this time including fried Leberkäse (liver-cheese), one of my all-time favorite unhealthy foods. It did not reach the sublime heights of the version served at the world-renowned kiosk in Munich's main railroad station, but it probably has no peers at locations in the middle of nowhere. One female crewmember was attired in a furry white costume, with an animal head. I guess she was supposed to look like a polar bear, but the head really looked more like that of a polar dog. She was in dire need of growling lessons as well. I nevertheless had my picture taken with her. My German friends managed to find a patch of flowers somewhere in the area..

Ny-Ålesund unfortunately did not have the world's northernmost public access Internet terminal. It did have, though, besides the post office, the world's northernmost telephone booth and, very fortuitously, the world's northernmost public toilet. Its real claim to fame is as the jump-off point for various Arctic explorations by Roald Amundsen, the first person to reach the South Pole and a figure of great admiration in Norway. Tourists are allowed in only a few buildings (souvenir store, PO, museum), the various research centers being off-limits. We also were required to stay on the gravel roads, with no cutting across the scant greenery, which is a sanctuary for various species of protected birds. One exceedingly stupid bird, perhaps color-blind, had established its nest right on a road shoulder, so an orange warning cone had been placed next to it. It chirped irritatedly at everyone walking by. Assuming intelligence is important to its species, its progeny should die out pretty quickly. There was a charming group of barnacle geese pecking at the ground on one green patch, with the goslings keeping close to their parents. At first I thought they were small wingéd polar bears, but no such luck. We stay here for six hours, although no one has been able to provide me a cogent reason for doing so. Perhaps some passengers want to write and send a huge number of postcards from here. All in all, it does not get added to my list of the world's garden spots, northernmost or otherwise, although my German friends did manage to find more varieties of flowers. I think this one is called the Arctic poppy. The bear may be getting a wee bit grumpy.

For once I watched the process involved in sailing away from a pier. The bridge has outdoor wings, with auxiliary control stations, right below the Lido Deck, so I overlooked from only a few yards away the captain and one of his officers directing the departure maneuvers. It all seemed very casual. The captain would be desultorily chatting with the other officer or gazing over the side, and then occasionally turn around and give a little flick to the speed control or call a directional change in to the helmsman. Meanwhile this fairly huge ship was moving. The people's actions just seemed disproportionate to the resultant effects. I also watched the captain push and hold a button that made the ship's horn sound from above us. We've all heard ships' horns blow, but how often do we see the human action that actually activates it? Another new experience to add to my never-ending collection thereof.

7/26--Tempelfiord and Longyearbyen

Tempelfiord was just a photo op, sailing up the sound to the head of a very wide glacier, stopping there for a while, and then sailing back out. I got a fun picture of a bored teenager gazing intently at his handheld video game, blissfully oblivious to the scenery all around him.

Have figured out one reason why the elevators are slow: Germans never seem to push the door-close button. They just wait for the door to close in its own sweet time. Definitely not type-A bear behavior. The fact that there are only three passenger elevators (only one of which goes to all decks) obviously doesn't help either.

Longyearbyen is the widest spot in the road in all of Spitsbergen--administrative center, airport with twelve scheduled flights a week, headquarters for tour companies, pizza/hamburger restaurant, colorfully painted houses, pedestrians yammering on cell phones--a veritable mini-mall. There was an Internet terminal, as well as a stuffed polar bear, at the Radisson/SAS hotel. Unfortunately a Lindblad cruise had just gotten back to town, so there was a line at the terminal. My turn arrived after about a thirty-minute wait. I rejoiced at the sight of a diskette slot and slipped in the diskette containing these seven days of reports, only to be greeted with an error-message. My profound knowledge of Norwegian computer terminology enabled me to determine that, as far as this PC was concerned, my diskette was empty and unformatted. Snugglebear goeth grump-grump. Actually this is known to happen sometimes, due to slight alignment variations in the heads of different diskette drives. Since other PCs along the way had successfully read my diskette, I am inclined to regard the alignment of the one at the hotel as anomalous. Not that it makes any difference in the end result. Makes me regret my previous procrastination at not having written more before being able to send something from Honningsvåg on 7/22. Judging by the amount of feedback and responses my previous transmissions have received, though, it doesn't seem as if people are waiting for new ones with the same eagerness as people in the 19th century waited for monthly installments of Dickens' novels.

A couple of arresting images in the town: One young guy resting on his bicycle, eating an ice cream cone, with a rifle slung casually over his shoulder (SOP for people venturing out of town). More flowers. A "Caution, Polar Bears" sign. The Norwegian phrase under it means "Valid for all of Svalbard," which I guess is a money-saving way to avoid having to erect similar signs all over the archipelago. A 1.5-liter bottle of Norwegian cola, with "American Taste" cost only $1.40. The cashier at the market gives you plastic bags along with your purchases, but you have to do the bagging yourself. The checkout counter has a movable partition so that the customer bagging and the one behind him having his purchases rung up do not interfere with each other. The cash register can convert totals into other currencies. I hope someone besides me finds these little national differences interesting. We then said farewell to Spitsbergen and turned southward toward relatively warmer climes.

7/27--Back at Sea

We started south from Spitsbergen last night for the 900+ mile run to Trondheim. Today and tomorrow will therefore be at-sea days. The weather finally became "interesting" last night. For the first time I could actually sense movement in my cabin. The bridge camera showed whitecaps in the sea, also for the first time. This morning things remained both bouncy and windy, so the restaurants were not as crowded for breakfast as heretofore, and Silvia was looking distinctly green around the gills. But one really can't complain after eleven straight days of virtually glassy water. Things are supposed to calm down again later today anyway. I hope to devote both today and tomorrow to doing as little as possible.

For an essentially slothful person, doing even less than usual is not as easy as it sounds. But I have been working hard at it. I did manage, though, to document a few more parts of the ship. The cinema is designed to look like a miniature version of the old movie palaces, including plush velvet seats, a podium for lectures, more inlay work, and even a secluded alcove. Right outside it is a figure that is typical of the simulated era, but jarringly anachronistic now. A large mural overlooks the Reception Desk. The Lili Marleen Lounge is the more refined of the ship's two drinking venues. Very comfortable couches (with an artistic reminder of the German fetish for Westerns) and chairs. Some might even find them too comfortable. It is right next to the Berlin Restaurant, so is good for a pre-dinner cocktail. Peter Deilmann must have a thing for Dietrich's Lili Marleen character, because he gave his oceangoing sailing ship the same name. Just remember that not everything on this ship that looks like wood really is wood.

This afternoon was a fancier tea-hour than usual, held in the Kaisersaal (Emperor's Ballroom). It's the ship's main theater, with a predominantly burgundy and white color scheme. No aisles of seats, just clusters of chairs around tables, like at a nightclub (remember those?). Very few columns, painted mural on ceiling, balcony gallery. Canonical carved chocolate whatever. I'm hopeful that all the delicacies were sanctioned by the German Diabetes Association. (Actually the lunch and dinner menus did list desserts especially formulated for diabetics, but I have no idea how they tasted.)

Dinner was again in the Vierjahreszeiten alternative restaurant, probably the best meal I've had on the cruise (which, given that I had neglected to bring my camera along with me, could have been expected), comprising: 1) Fried quail on raspberry-walnut vinaigrette and selected leaf salads, 2) Cream of leek with snails, 3) Deep sea shrimps and scallops, in a Wan Tan basket with horseradish purée, 4) Planter's Punch sherbet, 5) Filets of veal, beef and pork on two kinds of sauces, with fresh mushrooms and "Benediktine" potatoes, and 6) Honey mousse with candied walnuts and chocolate sauce, all accompanied by a very nice green-band Schloß Johannisberg Spätlese Riesling. The shrimps were marvelously plump, and three small tenderloins added up to a decent amount of meat. There had been a number of cancellations due to the effects of the weather, so I had time to chat a bit with my waitress between courses. Her name was Astrid, and she's Austrian, despite the Swedish name. Austrians are probably my favorite Germans. There's an Austrian waiter up in the Lido who also takes excellent care of me, even when I'm not sitting at his station. The weather started to get interesting again during dinner, and Astrid suddenly disappeared shortly after serving me dessert.

After dinner I attended a brief (forty minute) recital of operatic chestnuts by our resident bass-baritone. Arias by the usual suspects--Wagner, Mozart, and Verdi, plus Gershwin. I found it quite restful. Then to a sheltered aft area to watch the trip's final non-sunset. It was mostly cloudy, fairly bouncy, quite windy, but the sun was playing a fun game of hide-and-seek among the clouds low on the northern horizon, so I got some pretty good photos of yellow and orange glowing effects while wedging myself between the railing and a statue for stability. I've found it impossible to decide which sunset/cloud photo(s) to which to link here, so I'll provide just one to whet your appetite, and stick all the others in a photo gallery of their own for selective browsing. To bed just before 2:00 a.m. Even doing nothing gets fairly tiring.

7/28--Still at Sea

Another excitingly bouncy night, with the weather remaining pretty unsettled all day. Actually, though, we've been extraordinarily fortunate with regard to the weather. Severe rains hit northern Germany right after we departed, with flooding and fatalities. And we could have had all these clouds and fog and unstable seas while we were viewing the sights in Spitsbergen rather than on subsequent at-sea days devoid of scenic interest. I've been fortunate as well with regard to seasickness. Just as on my transatlantic last fall, I've felt totally fine after one very brief obeisance before the Great White Bowl when the bad weather started.

After breakfast I engaged in a digital photo exchange with my German friends (he's a retired IBMer). He has a vastly more powerful camera than I, including a many-x zoom, so was able to get some marvelous close-ups of things that I could only approximate. Then lunch, then napping all afternoon (not because I felt ill, just lazy). Then dinner, then typing this. In a few minutes is our first sunset in several days, at 11:29 p.m., with sunrise to follow at 4:17 a.m. So we're back in the normal world (almost; I'm still waiting for CNN to show up again on its designated channel). Tomorrow we visit Trondheim, with the world's northernmost Gothic cathedral and (hope springing eternal) perhaps an Internet terminal with a working diskette reader.

7/29--Trondheim

One shudders to think how long Norway would be if its coastline were ever straightened. We sailed from Trondheim, at the head of a fjord, nearly four hours ago and still have not quite regained the open sea. I'm typing away out on deck again, watching the fjord slip by and waiting for the sun to set sometime after 10:00 p.m.

Like Bergen, Trondheim is one of Norway's former capitals, and still lays claim to being the religious capital by virtue of being the location of a most imposing Gothic cathedral. One associates cathedrals with countries like France, Spain, Italy, England, and Germany. But Norway? It was built over the tomb of St. Olav, the 11th century Norwegian king who first brought Christianity to the country and one of the only four saints that Norway has managed to produce. A very nice east façade with several rows of carved figures of notable personages, Biblical worthies, etc. Coincidentally today was St. Olav's Day, the anniversary of his death in 1030, so there's a weeklong festival in town with concerts, special services, and a Medieval Fair (think Renaissance Faire with a variety of less-developed knickknacks being sold by people in somewhat plainer costumes). Kind of fun. The Fair was being held in the courtyard of the Archbishop's Palace, which has the claim to fame of being the oldest secular stone building in Scandinavia. By serendipitous timing we were in the cathedral square when they started ringing bells to summon people to a service. I'm not talking just one bell here, I'm talking a bunch of them, pealing out for several minutes at a time. Definitely impossible to ignore throughout a wide area. It gave one a sense of how much of medieval life would be organized and regulated by such ringing.

Also on the city tour was one of those open-air museums of buildings from previous eras. Most Norwegian buildings were constructed of wood until fairly recently, and they burned down with great regularity. All or most of many cities had to be rebuilt twice a century on average, and the desirability of constructing buildings of stone and of widening the traditionally narrow streets didn't seem to occur to anyone until early in the 20th century. So it's only in museums of this sort that one can see examples of many former types of buildings, including stave churches. This museum had a square of older buildings, including a pharmacy, which now contained a small ski museum, showing the development of skis in Norway over the centuries. Earlier skis seem to have been decorated a great deal more fancifully than contemporary varieties. There was also a recreated general store, with office. An 18th century farm complex included a banqueting hall, a feature of richer farms used for celebrating holidays, festivals, and weddings, with a rather impressive painted ceiling.

The city has an interesting method of raising revenue and of reducing traffic in the central core: There is a $2 toll to drive into downtown. Residents are billed monthly based on readings from the FastPass device in their cars. Some of the money is apparently used to maintain attractive floral displays.

Following the tour I set off on my usual Internet access hunt. Won't bore you with the details this time. Usual farrago of obsolete information, closed locations, inadequate facilities, etc. Fourth try was the charm, in the local Comfort Inn, finally enabling me to send off my reports on the previous nine days. All the tromping around wrecked one of my ankles again, so I indulged in a taxi back to the ship ($6.50 at flag-drop) and licked my wounds in my cabin all afternoon.

Tonight's dinner was Scandinavian-themed, so I got to try Danish beer soup (an unfortunate misuse of the beverage, in my view) and loin of Rudolph (or maybe it was Prancer) flavored with lemon grass along with some pleasantly sweet white asparagus. Alexander, the Austrian waiter in the Lido, continues to take marvelous care of me. A while ago, as I was typing out on deck, he brought me a double espresso (my postprandial drink of choice) without being asked, and he just (10:30 p.m.) ran out to tell me to look behind me and notice a couple of surfaced submarines on the opposite side of the fjord.

The sun has now (10:40 p.m.) set, although there are still some lovely residual pink, red, orange, and yellow clouds in the western sky. Again, here's a single appetite whetter, with the rest of the shots in their own gallery. But it's also becoming a bit nippy, even for a bear, so it is time for me to take the laptop back inside and down to steerage deck.

7/30--Ålesund

Yet another of Norway's capitals-this one the fish-exporting capital. Architecturally very interesting, though. A 1904 fire gutted the major part of the city, 800+ buildings gone in one night. It was decided to rebuild everything (in stone this time) with a fair degree of architectural uniformity in the Arts and Crafts or Jugendstil or Art Nouveau (depending on the nationality of the architect) style. But many different architects were involved, thereby resulting in a fascinating combination of variety within overarching uniformity. One feature of this architecture is that the doors of corner buildings are sited on the corner. Why? Purely to confound customary expectations, in revolt against the oppressive symmetry of such earlier schools of architecture as Classicism and Beaux Arts. The paradox, of course, is that when you have street after street of buildings, all trying to be different in the same basic way, the whole place ends up feeling like a movie set or like a Disneyland Main Street uncontrollably expanding. As usual, one is never very far from water.

Every Norwegian city seems to have a hill overlooking it, so our tour went up there for some pictures and a quick drink at another branch of the Captive Audience Café ($3.70 for 33 cl. bottle of Sprite). Then to yet another open-air museum to look at such expected items as a church with a talismanic boat hanging from the ceiling, old houses with grass roofs, and awesomely reflective water, Something new this time was a verdantly pleasant cemetery. For a change we had a marvelously jaded and cynical guide who kept us (or at least me) diverted with distinctly non-Chamber of Commerce comments and observations.

My after-lunch Internet search first took me to the library, where the terminals were all running under Linux (for security reasons). First time I've ever used it and, since I use a lot of Windows-unique keyboard shortcuts (sure sign of a person who used a mouseless "dumb" terminal for many years), I didn't like it all that much. Naturally they wouldn't input diskettes there, but the town's only Internet café would. So this day's search was rather easier than usual. The route from the library to the café went along the pedestrians-only street, which gave me ample leisure to take multiple pictures of various fancifully designed buildings, plus one troll.

Back at the ship, it was time to document some more public areas. The Old Fritz Bar was the rowdier of the two, with lots of faux wood and etched glass, where I spent a fair amount of time with my German friends. It featured a pianist who promoted singalongs, sometimes in the bar, sometimes at another piano in a sheltered area just outside it, which was watched over by a bust of "Old Fritz" himself, Frederick the Great of Prussia. This area was popular with the officers as well, including the captain (third from left). I then photographed the alternative restaurant, whose two-person tables are almost too small too accommodate all the components of a formal setting. Then to a nice curvy sofa, with evocative mural and painting. I almost forgot to take some pictures of the Adlon Lounge, aka the library, with its clubby décor, fake fireplace, and exorbitantly priced email-only PC. Finally to the main Restaurant Berlin, with fancier settings than usual tonight in preparation for the final formal dinner.

7/30--Continued

Due to tonight's formality, I had to wrench myself into my tuxedo again. It fits pretty well, but I've never been very manually coordinated, and the addition of peripheral neuropathy in my hands turns the process of inserting studs and cufflinks into an epic battle, accompanied by a multitude of piteous growls and imprecations. This being a German ship, however, improperly dressed people are thrown overboard, so the carnage was unavoidable.

My menu choices for the "Farewell-Gala" dinner were: 1) Tureen (could they possibly have meant "terrine"?) of truffled goose liver with red wine pear, chervil-Crème fraîche, 2) Creamy white wine soup with small pike-perch dumplings, 3) Spiny lobster tail "à la provençal", green asparagus on lemon fruit risotto, 4) Black currant sherbet with "Peter Deilmann Cuvée", 5) Fillet of veal with assorted spices, whole roasted, broccoli, romanesco, carrots and potato mousseline in puff pastry, and 6) Ice Cream Gâteau--Grand Dreamboat Parade of our cooks and stewards. (I have precisely quoted the English version of the menu; they obviously need a better translation service.) Lobster has not been offered very often on this cruise, so I ordered a second plate of it. It wasn't all that great--dry and somewhat tough--but just-OK lobster is like just-OK sex: vastly preferable to the total absence thereof. Black currant is a new taste for me; I had a glass of its juice last week as well. It tastes like a more deeply purple and velvety cranberry. Something else I noticed during the dinner was that the servers, after opening a bottle of wine, would give the cork a quick sniff to determine whether the bottle had gone bad. I don't remember seeing this done even at better restaurants in the U.S. They then also put the cork on a small plate and brought it to the table. Few, if any, of the available wines being all that rare or exquisite, this struck me as excessive. Since I was eating again in the alternative restaurant, the "Grand Dreamboat Parade" was on a smaller scale than it presumably was in the main dining room, so it wasn't quite as aesthetically jarring as usual, and the cake definitely looked better than the traditional Baked Alaska. For some reason, I usually neglect to photograph many of my favorite staffpersons, but I did snap a picture of Karen, my waitress tonight. A good example of the ship's "more is more" philosophy was the apparatus surrounding my cup of double espresso, placed on one doily-covered plate atop a second doily-covered plate.

Here's an interesting etiquette question: If you order the type of pre-dinner drink at the table that comes with swizzle stick and/or straw (Campari and soda in my case), how does formal tradition recommend disposal of these superfluous items (assuming tradition ever deigned to recognize the existence of such silly things in the first place)? I had been putting them on my bread plate, but decided to ask Mario what I should have been doing. He said that the server should bring along a small plate for the purpose (yet another plate to add to the clutter of a formally set table), but that most Germans simply left them in the glass. They are apparently better at avoiding accidentally sticking them up their nostrils than I. Those who have watched me eat under normal circumstances must by now be laughing uncontrollably at my being concerned at all with such niceties.

I finished eating my pralines and truffles at about 9:30 p.m. The "Galley Grand Buffet" was scheduled to begin at 11:30 p.m. I didn't go. The notion of having a late-night buffet after a two-seating dinner is nuts. Does any line besides Silversea do their grand buffet as a brunch? Anyway, I think I had finally become irretrievably tired of German food. There's no way around it, it's fundamentally heavy, and displays of mass quantities of it get overwhelming after a while. To adapt Gertrude Stein's renowned remark, there's too much there there. I was reminded of this the following morning (7/31) as well, when the "morning pint" buffet included a suckling pig and a gigantic tub of white wursts that looked like a colony of bloated albino worms that had spent their lives in a lightless cave.

7/31--Last Day at Sea

Bears always get decidedly grumpy and irritable on the final full day of a vacation. It's the ursine technique for starting to separate oneself emotionally from the trip and to get into the proper frame of mind for resuming everyday life. It's better than getting all blubbery and teary, which, given the rate at which my various physical systems are failing, might be a more rational reaction to wondering whether I'll even be able and available to take the next cruise that I've already booked.

After the mid-morning worm-wursts and lunch, the afternoon was largely devoted to packing in as leisurely a manner as possible. The post-cruise packing process is much easier than the pre-cruise one, merely comprising throwing whatever in your cabin isn't nailed down into suitcases; but I still did it only in bits and pieces, periodically interrupting it by wandering the ship growling at people. After dinner (marvelous fresh fjord-caught Norwegian salmon) I spent some final time with my German friends, to whom I guess I should give names by now--Siegfried and Uta. Eventually to bed after several valedictory beers.

8/1--Disembarkation and Hamburg

Somewhat surprisingly for a ship of this caliber, service seemed to deteriorate somewhat at the final breakfast. They ran out of rolls and scrambled eggs for the masses and there were also no fines herbes for my customary morning mushroom/onion/bacon/fines herbes omelette. Bringing my ice-water took an inordinately long time as well. Alexander being transferred to the luggage detail probably contributed to this problem. Somehow I survived the experience.

The disembarkation was very well organized and non-chaotic. A timetable had been published the previous evening for the various transfer options, and everyone seemed to adhere to them. There was no hovering around the exit, clogging of staircases, etc. Of course a 500-pax ship can carry this off a lot better than a 2500-pax one. A final unusual and nice touch was the presence of the captain and staff captain at the head of the gangplank to bid everyone Auf Wiedersehen personally.

Although I had already purchased a round-trip ticket for the airport-shuttle between Kiel and Hamburg, I opted to use the ship's transfer service instead for an additional €25. It was more direct and automated. Most importantly, for middle-aged bears, the ship's buses came equipped with toilets. The drive back on the Autobahn was quite pleasant, almost entirely through still-green farmland, with periodic scenic tableaux of cows (or maybe they were unusually placid, cud-chewing polar bears). It took a while before I noticed the total absence of roadside billboards, quite a difference from American highways. The bus dropped us at the airport, whence I took a taxi to the nearby hotel I had booked. For once a hotel advertised as being near an airport really was, being literally across the street (actually across a freeway) from the airport. Later that day I even walked back to the airport terminal in about fifteen minutes in order to use its Internet Café.

At first I thought my trip was going to end as it began, i.e., unpleasantly. Northern Germany was having a heat wave, including humidity. Since high temperatures in the area are very rare, my hotel did not have air conditioning, so my room felt like a sauna. They brought in some sort of a fan for me, which merely transformed the room into a breezy sauna. It was actually pleasanter outside, where I sat and read for a few hours. Then we had a thunderstorm, with very heavy rain. I thought I was back in Asia during monsoon season. Plus there was no electrical outlet near the head of the bed for my CPAP machine. Verily I say unto you, my brethren, always bring at least 15' of extension cord.

I started chatting with the desk clerk, though, and matters started to improve. Since I had a very early flight (6:50 a.m.), I thought I'd have to arrange a taxi and miss the hotel-provided breakfast. But the clerk said they'd set up breakfast early and would also shuttle me back across the freeway to the airport. While we were talking, another American wandered in and joined our conversation. He was a civilian employee of the Army Corps of Engineers, in Germany to observe a test of some sort of new military equipment. So we decided to have dinner together later. We asked the clerk for a restaurant recommendation, and he told us that a Hungarian friend of his had recently opened a small restaurant nearby with his wife. He also said he'd have us shuttled there and back. This is known in computer jargon as a no-brainer. The restaurant was a fairly small local hangout, and the owners were delighted to have tourists referred by Edgar (the desk clerk) eat there. Since the chef was Hungarian I ordered goulash. I knew it was the genuine article when it arrived, because the sauce was more red than brown, which implied the appropriate presence of mass quantities of paprika. And this wasn't your sissified paprika, either. This was the real stuff, with real heat. Definitely tangy. Jim had a huge slab of Wienerschnitzel. We each ended up drinking 1.5 liters of Pilsner, gradually finding topics of common interest to talk about, and the evening turned into a pretty pleasant time.

8/2--Departure and Arrival

Arrived at the airport needlessly early around 4:45 a.m. No lines, cursory security (maybe because this was an intra-European flight). I had a four-hour layover in Amsterdam. Originally I thought this was horribly long, but, given the luggage problem I had at the beginning, I was consoled by the increased likelihood of there being enough time for my luggage and me to end up on the same flight. I spent some time at the Internet Café, wandered around, had periodic cokes and coffees, and somehow the time (which turned into a five-hour layover) passed. There was an additional security checkpoint right at our gate, somewhat more thorough than in Hamburg, but nowhere near as elaborate as at US airports. For example, I didn't see any devices to check for explosives residue. Given the Richard Reid case, that surprised me. After takeoff the pilot even provided a substantive explanation for our delay: we were supposed to be flying on a plane that was coming from Detroit, but it had suffered a collision with a fuel truck, so a substitute aircraft had to be acquired for us.

There seemed to be an unusually large number of children on the flight. How nice. In fact, I shared my trio of seats with two brothers, roughly thirteen and ten. Since they were mainly well-behaved, I let them live. In fact, they turned out to be somewhat interesting. They were traveling by themselves on a particularly extreme example of the Divorced Parents Circuit. They were now living near Monterey, but their father lived in Johannesburg, South Africa. The younger one was pretty slight and agile, so had developed interesting ways of getting out of his seat without disturbing whoever was between him and the aisle. One method was to crawl under legs; the other was to step from armrest to armrest. They would periodically curl up on each other, head on lap, to nap. Sometimes the one would be stroking or tousling the other's hair. They had presumably learned to be more reliant on each other than most siblings. Kind of sweet, really. The bear was touched.

I could actually lower my tray table all the way, too. Could I have lost weight on the cruise? Even though I ate most meals at the buffet, I didn't really gorge on anything except morning bacon. My main course at lunch was freshly made pasta and at dinner was frequently fish. (We're studiously ignoring the alternative restaurant menus here.) Given that I could also store more magazines in the seat pocket, though, I'm more inclined toward the belief that the configuration of the plane was slightly different. Actually I did lose about five pounds, probably due to all the walking. It's too bad I can't carry over that regimen to my everyday routine.

The trip ended on an appropriately low note when I arrived home to find my neighborhood in the midst of a power outage. It was daylight, though, and the power came back about an hour later, much earlier than initially predicted. The next day I discovered my Miata's battery to be dead. Such an assortment of contretemps had the useful purpose of definitively signifying the end of another installment in the Wanderings of the Snugglebear.

Concluding Unscientific Postscript

Here will be assorted random remarks and observations that somehow never made it into previous installments as well as a summary evaluation. Coherent organization has become a faint memory, and I may even repeat things.

As mentioned before, my single cabin was pretty small. Now that I've found a conversion table I can tell you that 12 square meters is 124 square feet, so that's roughly 12x10, including the bathroom. It teaches one to put things away after use rather than just throwing them somewhere, and encourages one to spend more time in public areas. I guess I got used to the cramped conditions, but so do prisoners and zoo-animals. Another positive aspect was that it made nocturnal expeditions to the bathroom shorter. The majority of the double cabins were 139 and 154 square feet.

Given the popularity of the Lido at all three meals, there were far too few tables, especially two-tops. Parties of one and two frequently had to share four-tops, whether they wished to or not.

The average level of politeness and courtesy among the passengers was very high. People passing each other (including staff and crew) in hallways always greeted each other. This might seem to be a tediously empty ritual after a while, but it exercises a subtly civilizing influence on all and sundry. There were also a lot of "excuse me's" getting on and off elevators, with no one trying to enter before others had exited.

The ship was at or near its capacity of 520, with only 32 Anglophones. Separate port-lectures were given in English. Some, but not all, of the tours offered English-speaking buses. In fact the package of English-speaking tours could be purchased in advance at a significant discount (all four of them for $77). Announcements over the loudspeaker were always in both German and English, although the English versions of more detailed announcements were usually somewhat condensed. This is probably inevitable if the speaker is not thoroughly bilingual.

Water pressure and temperature in my shower were nearly always constant, with very hot water showing up quite quickly in both shower and sink.

If the ship had a casino, I never noticed it. There were the usual boutiques. 4x6 photos were $5 each. That's reasonable, isn't it? Not sure because I don't usually buy photos.

The entertainers included a classical pianist, a classical violin duo, three or four singers (pop and classical), a dancing duo, and a group of dancers. The ship's pastor presented several lectures on intellectual subjects in German. There were also German readings of poetry and other dramatic literature. As mentioned above, I made it to only one performance of anything, so can't say anything about the general quality of this element of the cruise. Sorry.

There was no x-raying of carryons at embarkation or ports, no doubt also due to not catering to a predominantly American clientele.

My evaluation of the food is wildly mixed. Breakfasts were fine: all the items both Europeans and Americans would expect (except no hash browns), although I didn't see uniquely British items like grilled tomatoes or baked beans. Dinners frequently featured fresh fish--salmon, mackerel, cod--purchased or caught by the crew in the areas we were traversing. Fresh pastas in the Lido at lunch were also a favorite. A few of the dishes at the Four Seasons alternative restaurant (and the main Berlin restaurant before I stopped going there) were really good, but most of them sounded better than they turned out to be. Those people old enough to remember when written menus were provided in economy class on international flights will know what I mean. There were a few interesting meats, such as gemsbok, venison, ostrich, and reindeer. A serving of caviar, on the other hand, was only available as an extra-cost option ($73-$105, depending on grade, but at least the offerings included Beluga). There were terrines and patés including foie gras, but no dishes featuring substantive chunks of that ambrosial organ. Since I stopped eating in the Berlin fairly early in the cruise, I don't know whether I could have made special requests for such things. By no stretch of the imagination was the food bad or even just OK. It was very good, but Silversea may have irretrievably spoiled me.

As noted above, there were a few instances of lackadaisical service, but most of the personnel with whom I regularly interacted were quite good. Silvia, my stewardess, was infinitely obliging. I would never have to ask her to do something more than once, and I always had plenty of bottled water. Plus I'm putty in the hands of anyone who gets involved with my bears. I had several different servers in the Four Seasons, all very attentive and happy to chat when not busy. Alexander in the Lido was a gem. He was the only server up there with the sense to keep a pitcher of ice water nearby for me. All the other servers kept bringing individual refills from the pantry--more work for them and more delay for me. The iced tea provided turned out to be pre-sweetened, which I don't like, so Alexander volunteered to make me fresh batches from tea bags. He'd look out for me even when I wasn't in his area. I guess some servers and passengers just "click." Or maybe I looked unusually pitiful and helpless. It couldn't have been my perky personality.

Despite the length of this tome, I've probably left out information on various traditional cruise-review subjects, so feel free to ask questions.

This report has been vetted by Microsoft Word's spell-checker. It mistakenly flagged a lot of words that Webster and the OED recognize, but it turns out that I actually did misspell one word, having always thought that "lackadaisical" was "lackadasical". The grammar-checker complained about a number of supposedly overly long sentences, but apparently Bill Gates has never heard of dependent clauses.

People who can afford the higher-end mainstream lines, do not absolutely require a private balcony, and want a more cosmopolitan cruising experience should definitely try the Deutschland. The unique scheme of interior decoration alone is almost a sufficient reason for doing so. Given the high proportion of German passengers who speak excellent English (and are willing to do so), social isolation won't be an issue. You might even see a polar bear.