Hello all,
SOOO, we arrived Stockholm and boarded our bus for our
full day tour of Stockholm and Sigtuna (a small town on one of the nearby
islands).
After about ten minutes on the bus we reach a scenic view
point and we all get off the bus to take photos, then about 15 minutes later we
board the bus again for the 45 minute drive to Sigtuna. After about 20 minutes
into the drive, the tour guide (Eliza) realizes that we left someone at the
scenic view point.
Now, here is where it gets really screwed up. The husband
AND daughter (approx 45 yrs old) of the woman we left behind are on the
bus! SO, I'm wondering why the hell they
let the bus pull away knowing that their wife/mother wasn't on the bus. What
were they thinking?!? Mind boggling!!
SO, the tour guide makes an announcement that we have to
turn around to go back to get her!! At
this point we don't even know if she will still be there - She didn't have a
cell phone and neither did her husband or daughter. We get back to the view
point and she is there. She gets on the bus and not one word, no apology to the
people on the bus who just wasted 45 precious minutes - which meant we had 45
minutes less for shopping!! We were so
pissed!!
THEN, we get to Sigtuna and while on our tour of the
village, we lose all three of them this time!!
We happened to spot them walking past the turn off, the tour guide goes
running off the grab them and then, I could not help myself but I took the
opportunity to give the rest of the group a lesson on Logistics 101 &
Following Directions (Kiera, I know your smiling).
Finally, with the intact group we start to walk back to
the bus. I could tell the tour guide was upset so I try to comfort her by
sharing my background and my story of when I lost our Chief General Counsel in
DC and he had to run after the bus (I can hear Kiera and Kamal laughing - I
will share that story at another time, but I can assure you it was all his
fault). So now I'm acting as the "assistant" tour guide, taking
headcount, remembering people's outfits to keep track of them, which ones are
in the bathroom, who can't walk well
etc..
Anyway, "we" finally got things under control
and salvaged the rest of the day. We
toured the old town, shopped briefly and went to the Vasa Museum. I can't quiet
understand why the Swedish are so proud of a ship that cost them a fortune to
build in the 1600s and sank before it
even got out of the harbor! I will ask
Ulrika. At least the Titanic made it Transatlantic just shy of the USA and was
valiantly taken out by an iceberg.
Weather was gorgeous - 70 and sunny. Stockholm is
beautiful! Lots of beautiful buildings and waterways. I'd like to go back and
spend more time there, we really needed two full days.
We got back to the ship and ran for food as we decided to
shop instead of eat with the short time we had on our own.
After dinner we went to the pub for martini's and had a
debate about the US welfare system - let's just say we agreeded to disagree and
I had to have a second martini.
Ok, that's enough for now. More tomorrow from
Finland......
Jen
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