Blog

Strasbourg to Frankfurt

🎶 TODAY’S TUNE

Well we’re movin’ on up
(Movin’ on up)
To the Skirnir
(Come on, movin’ on up)
To the longship Skirnir in Frankfurt
Movin’ on up
(Movin’ on up)
To the Skirnir
(Come on, movin’ on up)
We finally get to ride
On the Main

📇 THE STORY

Today is a day with no special egg for breakfast. No time for extended visit. We are moving on up (to those of you who know the song of the day Kudos to you! or You are old!! 🤣) to the ship we were supposed to start on, the Skirnir. It is the sister ship of the Modi. Operation Ship Swap involves placing our luggage outside our rooms and vacating our ship to a very full (why were we on a ship that was packed and others were on a ship where they could stretch out on the back seat of the bus?) to ride 3 hours to Frankfurt with a comfort stop along the way. Comfort stop: read Thruway but with pay for bathrooms and really bad toilet paper. Jim did find landjäger and bought us a couple of pieces. We arrive at the Skirnir in time for lunch. Hug and kiss those Modi people who rode with us goodbye: Rosie, Carla, Georgi, Monica… They are taking the Skirnir people back 3 hours to the Modi-Bless their hearts! I don’t know where the Modi people are… they are like

“Macavity’s a mystery cat: He’s called the Hidden Paw
You may seek him in a basement, you may look up in the air…
But I tell you once, and once again, Macavity’s not there!”

When we arrive we are escorted straight to the dining room for lunch. We sit with those from our bus, the dining room feels full. See there are 2 areas to sit for breakfast, lunch, or dinner: the Acquavit Lounge/Terrace or the dining room. Everyone is in the dining room and God bless the crew of the Skirnir they are doing their best what with people coming and going and trying to get orders in and grumpy guests from the bus who are hangry! Of course, these are not OUR crew… they are the ones we must learn, the ones who gave up their guests for us.

Matthew announces our rooms are ready while we are still eating and our key cards are in the room. Jim tries to go to the front desk while I head towards the stairs to our room. He looks at me and I tell him the keys are in the room. Meanwhile a nice truck has pulled up outside. Looks like a food delivery truck..Nope! It is our luggage! Whoohoo. We go to our room, secure our keys and head out to catch the bus in to Frankfurt. Some of our luggage has been offloaded and luckily the bag with the Tums is easily identifiable. Then out the door and on a bus. Our tour guide is Greg. He moved to Germany with his wife, but he is from West by God Virginia. It is nice to hear a familiar twang and idioms and speech that reminds me of home. He is quite funny and he knows his history. Greg shows us the new Frankfurt and the old Frankfurt, the church, and all the sites in between. He even tells us about Handkäse mit Musik. We have already placed this delicacy on our list of foods to try. It is cheese and onions soaked in vinegar. Cheese first, music later🤣. Guess what!?! No it is not snowing, but it is raining. We duck undercover and order 2 Apfelweins and 1 Handkäse. I spy with my little eye, a penny machine! That was an experience in and of itself. I needed a 5 cent piece, so I go in and exchange my 10 cents for 2 5 cent pieces, go to the machine, start to put my money in and what happens (meanwhile Jim is eating all the cheese without me), the proprietor shows up to explain how to run the penny machine and I notice it is a 1 euro machine not a 2 euro machine.. He has to go and get me change, while I select the press I want. He finally comes back with my 2 1 euro pieces (I started to wonder if he really was the proprietor), places 1 euro in my hand while his other hand has inserted the other euro into the machine. I know what I am doing, but I guess he gets old people who are not penny machine aficionados. I finally get penny and make it back to Jim who has saved me a bite of cheese. He also saved me from eating all of my piece of bread! Isn’t he sweet? Bless his heart!

We decide with the few minutes we have left, we will traipse back to the Kleine Markthalle in Frankfurt. 1) free bathrooms – so far the only bathroom we have had to pay for was at the comfort station-, b) landjäger and crunchies. Can’t have too much landjäger and crunchies. Securing these we walk back to the meeting point and are directed to our bus. Which our bus has a new driver and is a new bus. None of our buses are branded Viking, but alles gut, we have Greg!

Back on board for grand procession of the officers, dinner, and cruising. Our new entertainment guy is Tony, from Budapest. He knows show tunes, he knows oldies, he lets me sing… not on the microphone or anything, but I am really liking him! I had read on one of the FaceBook pages, he was quite wonderful and I concur! Yay for Tony.

📸 THE PHOTOS

✨GAMBoL glimmer

Back in the room and Jim is playing a Bills podcast. I immediately drop like a fly. When the podcast is done Jim checks around where we are and notices in 10 minutes we should be passing by Aschaffenberg. Jim was stationed in Aschaffenberg. He leans out the window (but not too far, we have watched the safety briefing-and he was the safety officer) and grabs these pictures of the castle!

#HowFortunateWeAre #RetiredAndLovingIt #MakingOurOwnSunshine