Days 26 & 27 Amsterdam - Singapore. Days 28 -30 Singapore to Home. Oh what a trip home!

 Days 26/27 - flying Amsterdam to Singapore, Singapore to Christchurch 

We packed up & did a final check (or so we thought), then out of the Novotel Schiphol & caught the train to the airport.  We have been through some big airports in our time, but this one is huge & so confusing – to the point that 4 or 5 staff pointed us in different directions to find the lounge and only one of them was vaguely correct. As it turned out – I wish we had never found it… But 30 mins later we were in  the Privium Club Lounge West, which is the lounge that Singapore airlines use in Amsterdam. It was very dark & small - & I mean small, The check-in lady had said it was an invitation only lounge – I think that’s because it could only fit about 50 people tops in reality! Anyway we settled in for a quick breakfast. I was being good not having a cooked breakfast, so had cereal, strawberry yoghurt and some fresh cut fruit along with a smoothie drink Graeme saw - mango & lychee. It was sitting in a jug out on the counter & I sculled most of it before tasting it properly. It had a weird taste so I didn’t finish the last bit. Thought nothing of it… then we headed to the plane for the 13 hour flight to Singapore. 

I watched a couple of movies back to back, then about 4hrs in I started to have some weird stitch like pains in my stomach & racing heart, which deteriorated into full blown food poisoning 🤢. It was pretty bad, was very sick and kept passing out (even so, the nurse in me was trying not to think about having my head on a public toilet seat lol!) Just tried to get through it quietly. When the staff noticed something was up they asked if I was alright… they were very good, but not much they could do other than give me airsick bags & charcoal tablets, but I couldn’t keep anything down.

We ended up getting wheelchair assistance through the terminal, which I was very grateful for. It was so hot in Singapore 33°C at 6:30 am when we landed. We got a taxi to the hotel and Graeme spoke to them as there was no way I could wait until 3 pm for our room to be ready. We did lose our higher grade room for a very strange internal facing room, but I had to lie down and was very grateful for the room no matter how it came!

We spent the 36 hours we were in Singapore, in the room. Poor Graeme didn’t get to see anything – is lucky we have been here a few times before. I was not well still the next day when it was time to check out as our hotel was fully booked, so we decided to get a day room at the Changi Airport hotel which is the Crowne Plaza. Oh my god, it was so lovely after the room we had had before, so we spent the 5 hrs just getting ourselves right side up and making sure we had everything packed. We had ripped all our suitcases apart as discovered that my little bag with some medication, earplugs, (which we had needed in the first Singapore hotel room!) & eye patches were all missing. I think the bag got rolled into the duvet at the Novotel in Amsterdam. I clearly remember zipping the bag up on the bed & I’m usually so careful.

They say things happen in 3’s & this trip, Graeme had hurt cartilage in his knee at the beginning of the trip & had a week on painkillers for that, then he was gifted Covid on the cruise, and then I had food poisoningt!

It was an uneventful 9 hour flight home & I felt marginally better, but didn’t eat or drink. We landed in Christchurch & Pam & Gordon - who kindly looked after had our two puppy dogs Pip & Paddy for the month, came & picked us up with the dogs packed up already in the back! Great friends are wonderful to see at this point 😊. Then we drove the 3 1/2 hrs home to Twizel, with a stop in Ashburton to pick up groceries I had ordered before we left Amsterdam.

We were pretty shattered by the time we got home, as it had been an overnight flight with no sleep, but felt good to be back until we went to get into bed to find our freshly made bed had mouse poop on our pillows & between the sheets, thru my bedside dresser, then later discovered they had been in the pantry & all around our electrical goods – we had had an infestation while we were away. We have since heard that this can happen in the area on the turn of the hot into cold season, if the house is empty. They had even got into my quick-eze chewable tablets, ripped open the packets, eaten them & dragged the paper into the bed. Three days and over 20 loads of washing & drying later, all the linen on all our beds & clothes in the drawers have been changed, just in case. Those 5 little suckers have since gone to mousey heaven!

Also, the pigeons had come in to roost in the outside trusses of the roof in the month we were away, so there were piles of pigeon poop on the concrete that had to be scraped off into a bucket & hosed away before we could let the dogs outside. 

Oh, the other thing that had happened actually was that Laura our friend who have been kindly checking on our home when we were away, had gone round to turn the water pump & hot water cylinders back on, only to find water peeing out of one of the pipes – it had cracked. Thank God we didn’t come home to that as it would’ve completely flooded. Laura mopped up everything and got hold of us while we were still overseas & they got a plumber in to fix the cracked pipe -thank goodness for another great friend 😊. This is the reason we turn the water off when we go away, especially after having a pipe burst in Australia once & we woke to half the house flooded! 

So that’s the next 3 things – what a few days it’s been! All the joys of travel I guess🥹😏.

                                                Changi airport from the Crowne plaza hotel

                                            The Southern alps NZ

Pigeons had decided to come stay for a month!#!

We discovered mice like soft quickeze tablets

Someone was happy to see Dad💞

Days 23, 24 and 25. Copenhagen – at sea – disembarkation – Amsterdam.

 Day 23 Copenhagen

We had our usual in room breakfast this morning then got ready and we are docked in Denmark! Got off the ship in Copenhagen and were sussing out how to get into the shopping centre we went to in 2019 that Graeme would like to go back to. Walked around the corner and saw a friendly looking couple, she had a kiwi cap on so approached them to see if they had bus tickets for town. Turns out Mark and Nicki are from Adelaide, she just likes the kiwi cap! Ha ha.

They were also trying to get to the shopping centre so joined us and we worked it out, although luckily the bus driver stopped for the crowd as we were all in the wrong place - no signs! ($11 total for the bus and the same again for the train tickets) onto the train for Copenhagen Central.

“Maps.me” app has been so helpful again– you download any city map you want when you have internet anywhere in the world, then it works off-line and take you everywhere you want to go :-)

We spent a couple of hours walking around the shopping mall – there were a lot less shops and it was very very quiet at 10 am. We got a nice cold milkshake from McDonald’s, unfortunately Graeme’s exploded everywhere on him when he squeezed it a little hard and the lid popped off – there was chocolate everywhere all down his jeans and on the floor. Luckily there was a guy sitting next to us on the bench with his laptop, and he said there was a restroom just around the corner where we could get paper towels so I went round and luckily the cleaning lady was there and she gave me a whole bundle. Went to open them and they exploded everywhere on the floor – it was like laurel and hardy ha ha! Anyway, the paper towels allowed Graeme to clean up everything, and I got talking to the guy there. His name was Lars when he was in Scandinavia and Ian when he was in Scotland! He had lived in both countries for many years, and speaks about 5 languages. He works in software, so travels a lot internationally and was really interesting to talk to. I really notice the Scandinavians hold your eye gaze when they’re talking to you, very different to what I am used to with Graeme! 

Met up again with Mark and Nicki and we did a long walk around the district, Graeme took us past the meatpacker district he loved last time we stayed, and the ex-abattoir turned brewery, called Warpigs  – Although he didn’t stop for a beer as it was only just lunchtime, and he didn’t want to ruin the memory from last time he said. It was interesting as we walked back, got to chat along the way and Nicki was telling me about an inherited eye condition she has, and that she is going to get a guide dog in July – how exciting! She also gave me her meta glasses to try, they were so cool you just tap them, and then I asked Meta if the man standing in front of me was handsome when I looked at Graeme. ‘She’ said attraction was a subjective thing, but the man was well groomed, had a black t-shirt, glasses and a big smile ha ha! Nobody else could hear her talking, even though I could hear her clear as day. I was thinking these might be good for Graeme‘s deafness as well and well worth looking into. The glasses cost $500, which is super good, then I guess you would need to put your prescription in them as well. She said you get them from OPSM.

We went back to the ship via train and bus again, didn’t bother buying the bus ticket and return as they don’t check it, and it seems to just shuttle back and forth from the port. We decided to go lay upstairs by the pool as they had the roof open a little bit and it was a beautiful sunny day. Took our music and got some cocktails. I dozed off for a second, but woke myself up! Then we got another couple of cocktails! Oh dear, needed a sleep after that. Crashed for about 45 minutes, and then we met the Aussies for dinner as we had invited them to get together with us. We all get on really well. Mark was a detective in CIB for the police for many years and had lots of interesting stories. Nicki has also had interesting work and we all had lots of talk about, our shared travel experiences, our children and grandchildren, as we are very similar ages. We went to a show in the theatre after that before bed. Tomorrow is an at sea day.

Day 24 at sea

A leisurely day today, as we are cruising from Denmark back to Rotterdam, and this is our last day, so sadly had to pull everything out of the cupboards and repack our suitcases – hate hate hate this part! It is so depressing compared to the excitement of unpacking for two weeks and not having to live out of a suitcase ha ha.

Had the usual in room breakfast, then went up to the Crows Nest and got a chai latte and a coffee. They had the gameshow deal or no deal later in the theatre which was okay. Not many people went surprisingly. Mooched around, probably had a couple of cocktails – I’ve lost count! Then we lay down, cuddled up in zonked out for a little while – so nice to be able to do this. It’s a real luxury. 

Then we went down and met the Aussies for trivia, which wasn’t on at first, so we sat and talked and talked and had a few more drinks. Then they went off to the dining room and we had a specialty dining at the Tamarind restaurant. Well, it was impressive. It was a fusion of Asian cuisine – lots of flavours, and spices, I surprised myself with how spicy I could handle things! It was really lovely, and I also had a couple of cocktails that had very hot ginger in them that almost blew my mouth off, but I persevered ha ha.

We met the Aussies back in the BB kings bar for the 80s nostalgia trivia after dinner. We did pretty well with 34 correct and was good to do it in a team of 4 rather than just ourselves. Said our goodbyes to Mark and Nicki and will definitely keep in contact on FB. 

Went to the final show in the theatre – have to say Holland America are not great with their night entertainment, nothing like Royal Caribbean who are really good. They only have about three shows and they are repeated and moderately good – enjoyable but one we actually did walk out of because it was pretty bad and we aren’t fussy. Final pack up and then into bed as we have to be out of our rooms and off the ship by 9 am tomorrow.

Day 25- Rotterdam disembarkation

We were up at 7am this morning – have to go up to the lido restaurant, cafeteria for breakfast and our bags were out and taken away about 10 pm last night, so we just have our backpacks. Had a breakfast then I went back and grabbed some pastries for the cabin stewards like I have been doing most days, so that got a nice smile from them :-). 

We were off the ship and walked out over the bridge to the train station, now we know Wilheminaplein station as we came through on the way here. It was very quiet compared to Kings day, when we came over on the 26th April! Got the Metro to Rotterdam Centraal, and bought train tickets to Hoofddorp – A bit of a pain as you have to get the train all the way to the airport stop then get off- get on another metro and go back to the Hoofddorp station, as there is no direct way there. But it wasn’t too bad – we had to run for the first train though. They are doing maintenance and a lot of the trains weren’t running, but we got the fast one which only took 35 minutes from Rotterdam instead of 1 1/2 hours. It was packed though and a bit of a pain, trying to hold our suitcases to the side of the seats so that people could get past, but it was fine, just very crowded. 

Found our bearings and walked 10 minutes to the Novotel Schipol airport, which is very nice. We were there at 10:30 am and very luckily were given our room key straight away which was great as I was pretty hot and my neck was pretty sore by then. The room has lovely air conditioning – so nice after the ship having been a bit hot at nights at times, had to get engineering out to look at it one night. 

We then got back on a bus which took us around to a big shopping mall. Everything is so orderly and people are so calm here and lots of incredibly stunning 6 foot 3+ tall blonde Dutch woman. They look like models! There are also a lot of immigrants in this area, looked like middle, eastern, a lot of Muslim woman and many Indians, speaking Dutch! 

I bought some sandshoes in a pale colour as I will need them for work I will be starting in Twizel soon at the community care centre, We had the most yummy lunch sitting outside under the trees in the outside part of the shopping mall. A lovely large moretti beer and a focaccia bread – One had salmon and almost like a whip fraiche andthe other had ham and gorgonzola cheese. The bread was not like ours at home, it was almost like it had been sautéed lightly and the outside was light and crispy, but the inside was soft. They were so so delicious! Open sandwiches are very common in Europe.

We walked around a bit more, enjoying the people and the place, then caught the bus back – you just tap your credit card on and off to pay, although you do need a separate card each as you can’t tap one card twice – the same as the trains. Back to our room and then we had a bit of a break before going out for a nice walk around the block – we have been doing between 11,000–15,000 steps a day. Probably need to given it all the alcohol we have been drinking and food we’ve been eating ha ha!!🤣 

Went and sorted our bags out then down to the hotel restaurant for what we thought was going to be a light meal, as we didn’t want to eat in the restaurant proper so got a bar snack. Got a Hawaiian pizza, nachos and a small tasting platter. Turned out to be a lot of food, although the nachos were really just chips so did not finish everything! But also enjoyed a nice beer. Back up to room to make sure we have our backpacks correct for our flight tomorrow – we are leaving at 8 am and flying out at 11 am to Singapore. Graeme had a look and the temperature there is 32° – we have nothing for this weather as we have been in cold weather up until now! I think our flight is about 10 hours so with the time difference we will be arriving in Singapore at 10 am, so will need to try and get some sleep on the plane as we won’t be able to get into our hotel. Have done the Singapore arrival card online – Danni with her flight attendant job told me about the “MyICA” app where once you have loaded a profile you just have to do your specific arrival through that and you can do it as a group so only do it once- your details all stay loaded so you don’t have to put them back in each time you fly. Very handy! Checked in online as well and we are ready to go.

On the train - tempting to push- but not!

Days 20, 21, 22. Stavanger - Mandal Kristiansand - Oslo

Day 20 Stavanger 

This morning we were off with a ship transfer that we purchased, I think it was usd $35 pp, as it is about 20 minutes from where we are coming into port in Sandes, So it made it easy otherwise you had to wait and then buy train tickets once you got off the ship. Having said that any excursions with cruise ships, have really stupidly expensive in recent years.

The bus took us to the beautiful town of Stavanger – it has the old town with the white houses and then you walk around the edge of the port and there are vibrant coloured houses everywhere. It is a really pretty place and the O’Reillys from Hamilton have a link there as Brendan‘s wife is from here. So that’s two links now with friends in different places in Norway!

We just walked and walked today looking at all the beautiful architecture and colours, It was really crispy cold and fresh– later on a wind blew up that made you know you were alive ha ha.

We took photos, stopped in at the fishing museum which was a bit corny (an old pink laptop in one case and a big seagull taxidermied, with a net around it in another case for example?!) Not worth the $45, but had a few good period pieces in there that we enjoyed. We also noticed there are a lot of natty secondhand vintage stores there, so went into one big one and was interesting to look at the different styles of clothing here.

Stopped in and bought a beautiful Incredibly soft scarf as my throat was getting so sore – I was a bit concerned I could be getting Graeme’s covid, but feeling okay.

Back to the bus and around to the port again, onto the ship for some hot lunch. Having cocktails and fish and chips for lunch feels very decadent and always makes us feel overfilled for dinner, but hey it’s a oncer!

Mooched around until dinner – then thought we would try a shared english speaking table tonight– They put you straight onto tables for two otherwise, all are the cruise lines we have been on put you onto shared tables unless you ask – can’t remember if I had mentioned this! Was not like the great table we had the other day, this was painful! We had two older dutch ladies who hardly spoke english so not sure why they were at the english-speaking table! So they were quiet, then there was a diplomat – he was from the States but lives all over the world and was quite interesting, although like to talk about himself a lot. He was next to a lady who turned out not to be with him, she was a solo traveler from British Columbia and they quickly started coming to odds about things as she had very strong opinions – that all South Africans are neo-Nazis and other thoughts on Trump! Had to calm the waters and gave myself a headache being the upbeat conversation maker. That was pretty awkward and I can usually talk to anyone. Plus kept catching the diplomat looking at my boobs which was disconcerting haha! 

Off to relax in our room as we have an early start tomorrow when we get into Mandal, which is also quite a way out of town so we have an excursion and need to be ready to go at 7:30 am. It is actually just out of Kristensand which we did last week on this cruise, but the landing port got changed to Mandal as there are three ships in town – probably good as it means we aren’t repeating the same day as last week.

Day 21 - Mandal Kristiansand 

We had ordered our Continental breakfast to our room early so we could be fed, watered and ready to go in the theatre at 7:30 am. Booked on a Kristiansand past and present tour – usd$134 pp – but like yesterday’s transfer, both of these have been covered on our excursion credit which is great.

Onto the bus no problems – notice people are coughing a lot again this week, at least some of them have masks on though which is good. We had to get tenders to get off the ship today so having shore excursions booked through Holland America, you get off first.They squeeze up to 150 people into these tenders – doesn’t feel that comfortable to be honest as it’s very close quarters. Would rather not do a Titanic escape on them.

Only took about 15 mins of bobbing around and we were there at the port, got our guide and onto the coach for the trip. We had a really good guide actually as she didn’t constantly talk and overwhelm you with facts, but what she did tell you was really interesting.

She talked about how Norway was all about looks in previous times and showed us at different stops things like, when people would sit outside their houses in the sunlight (because for 6weeks of the year they didn’t have any), they would actually sit with their back to the road and face the house but would have a small mirror that was attached to the house at eye-level, so they could see what was going on behind them in the neighbourhood for gossip etc! 

We stopped at the small pretty town of Sogne, where we were able to pop into the little supermarket and grab some throat lozenges which is great as my throat keeps tickling. Back onto the coach and drove to the next stop– this was the open air museum. They have bought in houses from the 1700s to show how things were in both a city and in a farming house. There is also a replica miniature town, apparently people build the exact replica of their houses and bring it to the museum which shows the streets identically to real life. We didn’t have much time to look around the while museum, but was really interesting.

Back on the coach and the guide was telling us about the health system in Norway and how everything is almost free, maternity leave is 10 months at full salary, which can be extended out to 2 years at ?30% of your salary and men get10 weeks paternity leave as well. Parents get $100 per month per child until the child is 19 and a solo parent gets $200 per month. 

Schooling and university are all free as children are seen as the most important investment. For that they pay fairly high taxes, but the money is put back into the people.

Drove through Kristiansand, although it was a bit tricky as there are always a lot of roadworks and the driver had to back the bus out on one street and do a u-turn on another, so they were a bit rushed to get back to the port before their next pick up,  to do the same tour again.

We went back on the tender and had another hot lunch – don’t think we will be doing this tomorrow as we are both feeling it, even though we have cut back a lot on our food and drink, despite the package that allows you to drink a lot if you want– both alcoholic and non-alcoholic, our bodies are saying enough!

Had a laydown after a bit of a walk – then we go to the daily 5 pm Q&A session about the next days port, where you often pick up good tips.

There was 60s music trivia before dinner which we did ok at. The nerdy odd South African guy that runs it each night, had some real left fielders in the mix. Down to the restaurant and could hardly eat any of the dinner as so over full! We are going to miss lunch tomorrow we decided. 

It is staying light now till after 10 pm now so kind of weird when you lay in bed and it looks like the middle of the afternoon but they have really good blackout curtains here:-).

Day 22– Oslo

Woke at 5 am this morning – it was so light outside, I thought it must’ve been 7 am but alas No! At the moment, the light hours are long here but the guide yesterday said that for six weeks of the year it is also dark for 24 hours – that would be so depressing.

Got our continental breakfast to the room,  then ready to go out today as we docked in Oslo early. Very short queues to get off as usual – Holland America are very good at this. They use facial recognition on an iPad for when you get on and off the ship. Quite cool the way it recognises your face and then pops up with the i.d photo that was taken on embarkation day :-). 

We got out and walked over to the Opera house which is very similar to Sydney’s setup – looking out over the water. It is architecturally stunning with very clean lines, lines so clean I tripped on a step you could hardly see and almost went face first. My neck did not enjoy that! 

The Opera house also reminded me of Canberra at Parliament. It has a great height where you could look out over quite a bit of Oslo. We then walked over to the. train station just to have a look inside – everything here is like elsewhere in Norway, very clean. It’s so quiet here in the morning – the shops don’t open till 10 am but they were lots of people around, it’s just so quiet and calm. We went into a small supermarket inside as I needed to get a lipgloss and Graeme bought some shaving razor blades that are half the price of Australia and New Zealand. Interestingly, after you’ve scanned and paid for your items, you need to scan the receipt so that the barrier opens to let you out. Would be handy with so much theft back home. 

Wandered around town and then came across the army base which has the Akershus fortress behind it – this was built in the 1200s apparently. It also holds the resistance museum and Graeme was keen to go in and visit– Admission price was $45 for two. Wandered through that for awhile but I have to say it was not particularly well done and was very dark inside, so was hard to read the information – plus much of it was not in English even though English is the 2nd language there. Made it hard to follow and I think they could make it into something a lot more interactive and easier to follow, but still worth a look.

We wandered around the outside of the fortress afterwards and saw a flagpole with the Norwegian flag on it – there was an information board explaining about how the Germans took it over and put the German flag up in 1940 when they occupied Norway – there was a photo of it. The Norwegians are fiercely proud that they took it back when Germany surrendered and the Norwegian army Guards are still standing guarding it there today.

It’s been such a beautiful sunny still day today, we have been really lucky the last few days and it makes you realise the difference with our river cruise being practically wet the whole time vs the lovely weather we’ve been having here in Norway especially in the last week. 

We wandered slowly back to the ship and got changed then decided to take music and books up to the Lido deck swimming pool area. We have decided not to have any lunch today as we’ve been so overfull, but as Graeme is starting to feel a bit better, we got a mojito for me and a bahama mamma for Graeme! Well one led to two and the music got better and better – never actually got to read the book haha! I think I started to drop off at one point, but then woke up and got a coke zero and some other cocktails we can’t remember now, but they were good ha ha!

We went back to our cabin and took it easy for an hour before getting ready for dinner – it’s orange night tonight, the same as we had on the last cruise except this time it doesn’t actually start until 9:45 pm! Way too late for many, but most people were dressed in orange so I had my orange dress and beautiful bright orange earrings, and Graeme had his leather orange wristband on as well. We also went down to BB Kings lounge for the usual 5pm Q & A session for tomorrow - which is Copenhagen. They have moved our landing port again and we are now docking further away as there will be 3 big cruiser ships in port, so will work out the train line, as that takes you straight to Nyhavn. We’ve been there before so will remember once we get there!

Just about everyone was dressed and bright orange in the dining room – a lot of them are Dutch so it is well known about the Holland America orange party.

Graeme had a ribeye steak tonight and I had lobster again, enjoying it while we can with only a couple of days left – Boo, Graeme is just starting to relax! 

Back up to our room and watched one of the Star Trek movies on TV and then watched the most incredible sunset over the ocean :-).

        The Opera house on the left 

The Fortress is on beautiful grounds 

Resistance museum Oslo