day 8 riding the metro

I am at the moment, sitting in our stateroom with a towel wrapped around me and blow drying my hair. It is ten thirty in the morning. We haven’t ridden the met yet.. I have a miserable frigging kidney infection. It actually started a couple days before we left. I wasn’t sure what it was except all I knew was my right flank back hurts like stinking hell if I move the wrong way. I thought I had pulled a muscle but as time has passed other symptoms are showing up and I have had this before. Thank God for ibuprofen although I don’t think they help my poor kidney! Ah well, enough complaining. At least it isn’t raining…yet. Apparently they only have 60 sunny days here! We are up on the 60th parallel which Bill tells me is about the same as WhiteHorse. So, off to get dressed and go the way of the Russians. Yippeedoodle…can’t bloody wait!!!

I am back, and we had an absolute blast. It was sunny, the busload of peeps we were with were a hoot and did some fun stuff. We made friends with a couple from Nanaimo. He lived in Port Albernie for fifty years! She reminds me of a crazier (if thats possible) version of my Auntie Iris. We went through a dept. store, a veg. market, rode the metro and went to a vodka (all you could drink) tasting party. The bus was decidedly louder and laughier after that!!! To go on the metro we had to ride an escalator 290 feet below the surface. It took 4 minutes to get down to the platform.

We are now sitting up in the Lido, again. We just ate dinner and watched the ship leave the dock, heading for Helsinki, Finland. The sun is shining and everyone is still in a gay and happy mood. We had deliciously cooked duck, sirloin steakette, a mound of perfectly cooked mixed vegetables and an assortment of salads for dinner. Bill is now eating icecream and sugarless tiramisu and I am eating cantaloupe. When cantaloupe is good, it is the most magical fruit there is.

Now we are in our room and it is bright bright sunshine out. This would be great but it is ten at night…so its creepy. The people next door are on their deck and they are smoking and fighting. I don’t know which is worse!! She is mad at him for washing his clothes by hand. She wanted him to give them to the steward to get washed. She thinks that the stateroom cleaners will think they are low class peasants if they see clothes hanging all over the place. He said he wasn’t going to fork out forty dollars to have his shorts and shirts cleaned. Meanwhile they are both drinking gimlets and smoking horrible french galouses (sp)? Ah well, such is life on a cruise ship. Such important crap! TTYL