OUR 60-DAY JOURNEY TO EUROPE AND BACK: Part One

Most take short trips:

According to recent data, the average vacation trip away from home is around 5.5 days based on global leisure travel statistics, with most people staying for 4.5 nights in the United States specifically. 

Key points about average vacation length:

• Global average: 5.5 days 
• US average: 4.5 nights 

Statistica has a more complete summary, showing that people in South Africa go for 10.6 days and Brazil for 7.8 days.  Reddit indicates the sweet spot for a perfect vacation is between 18-21 days.

Thus, our 60-day journey is about ten times longer than most trips, and three-times that of a perfect vacation.

You can read 60 postings, beginning on October 9, to December 8.  Or this summary today of what will become the whole thing.

• We live in Honolulu, so flew to Seattle.
• Caught the Norwegian Encore (a ship that holds up to 4000 passengers) in Seattle, transited the Panama Canals and ended up 35 days later after departure in Southampton, UK.
• Flew to Amsterdam and boarded the Viking Tir on a 14-day Christmas River Cruise to Budapest.
• Stopped by Zurich for two days.
• Flight back took us from Zurich to San Francisco to Honolulu.

How was the trip?  Depends on who you ask.

• Seems like we did a lot.  The reality is that we mostly enjoyed doing nothing.
• According to my companion, fabulous
• But my version is almost bleak, and only because towards the final month I had trouble sleeping.
• No doubt that the cruises themselves were outstanding, with lots to do, eat and drink.
• If only I was able to have a good night rest, I too would have said fabulous.

• 
  A month into the trip, my posting was titled, WHY SLEEP IS THE KEY TO LIVING LONGER.  Even worse, if you don't sleep, you will die.  I worried about that.
• I had a clue to what was a problem, and it was high blood pressure.
• So I tried to lower my blood pressure with the two pills I take, and other precautions.
• However, the stress of not being able to sleep overrides everything else, and anxiety only worsens the effort.
• I think being on a ship makes it worse.  Just a light hum can distort the process of trying to sleep.
• I also think that as I age, my body cannot adjust well to the constant time change where you lose every so ofter an hour at night.  The time zone difference between Honolulu and Europe is 11 hours.
• I gained five pounds, but I know I can lose that over time.
• I'm now concerned about future trips.  Will traveling west make a difference?
• For now, I'm trying to recover from that 60-day vacation.

So how was the journey?

• The first time I visited Seattle was in 1962 when I graduated from Stanford University, and went to the Seattle World's Fair, my first.  
• Since then, I've been to every World Expo, which occurs in a five-year cycle.  
• Actually, I missed the Dubai version because they delayed it from 2020 to 2021 because of the COVID pandemic.  I finally got to Dubai in 2022.
• Our next trip is to Japan for the Osaka World Expo in the coming Spring.

• 
  The Norwegian Encore is a new and fine ship with outstanding staffing.
• A 35-day cruise is too long for me.  We were signed up to go around the world on a Princess cruise in 2021, which would have meant around 110 days, so I'm now glad they cancelled it because of COVID-19.
• We hardly took any tours, for we had a fine nightlife on the ship with dancing, karaoke and midnight snacks, so slept-in till noon.  Most tours began in the morning.  For me, that was fine, for I had already been on a cruise from the West Coast through the Panama Canal to Miami, and saw a good part of this itinerary.
• 
  The food was uniformly excellent, and we enjoyed those specialty restaurants.  
• Went six times, with the French restaurant the best.  Loved their escargot with endive salad.  
• Japanese teppanyaki was also a treat.
• There was a noodle station at lunch of oriental noodle bowls.  Outstanding.
• Could have had Caesar Salad and steak every day.  On those two separate cruises, probably did this combo almost 20 times.
• We bought the unlimited drinks package on the Norwegian, and drank too much.
• Enjoyed the music at the Social Club and did some dancing.  Maybe more intensively than ever in my life.
• Did a lot of karaoke singing in The Cavern Club, which was said to look like where the Beatles began in Liverpool.  After a while, we became good at this.  We also saw the group Beatles shows.  They were terrific.
• The internet worked well.  Even across the Atlantic Ocean.
• The Panama Canal Transit was the second time for me, and a good example of why a second time can also be experienceful.
• If only I slept better, life on board would have been great.
• While I suffered, got to thank my body for remaining healthy.
• There was an early period when I might have caught COVID, but never tested myself, and the symptoms were mild, with a cough and post-nasal drip problem that also hurt sleeping.
• Would I recommend this 35-day cruise?  Yes, if you can sleep well.
• 
  The Viking Tir was also fine, save for the sleep part, which was even worse on this ship.
• Viking has become #1 in various cruise categories, and I can see why.  They do everything well enough.  Not as top-line as Tauck, but worth the slightly lower cost.
• Like the Norwegian Encore, the staff was friendly and helpful.
• We did not purchase the drinks package, but wine and beer come free with lunch and dinner, so the extra cost would not have been worth it.  Plus, we thus did not drink all that much on this cruise, which was good for our health.
• We thought this was supposed to be a Christmas cruise, but it wasn't.  We did see a few of those markets, and if you've seen one, you've seen them all.  We rarely went out at night, mostly for inconvenience and cold, and that's when the lights come on, so we did miss a lot of that.
• I don't like cold weather, and this is what we faced in Europe.  It snowed on our taxi ride from our Amsterdam hotel to the Viking Tir.

Some photo highlights of our journey.  Everywhere, we were met by my Blue-Bar Pigeon.

Pike's Market, where we had lunch with friends who live in Seattle.

In Seattle, an absolute must see is Chihuly Museum, adjacent to the Space Needle.

I'll end here in Seattle, where the trip started.  Tomorrow, highlights from the Norwegian Encore.

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