As I write this on Thursday, we have been at sea since Saturday evening. Both time and internet time are at a premium on the cruise, so I’m writing this on a sea day. We flew into Boston on Friday with the intention of doing a private car tour of Boston on Saturday morning before boarding the ship. A day or so before, the tour company canceled our Boston tour because of a car being in the shop (!). This is the sabbatical of the cancellation. We are on this cruise because our pilgrimage to Italy was canceled by the tour company (sigh). We also had one of our scheduled shore excursions canceled (after we had boarded the bus) due to bus mechanical problems, but were able to take an alternate tour that was fun. I’m taking the approach that all these cancellations are because we were not meant to do that thing at that time for some reason. Nothing to be gained by being upset.
Our cruise began in Boston and ends in Montreal. So far, we have been to Bar Harbor, Maine, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Sydney, Nova Scotia and Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island (famous for Anne of Green Gables). Each of those places has been somewhat different, and we have enjoyed them all. We have never been farther northeast than Massachusetts, so it’s a new experience for us, and a visit to places we will probably never see again. Other than Halifax, which is a larger seaport, the stops have been quaint and idyllic places where the pace of life is slower than what we are used to. It’s interesting to imagine what life would be like there, but being on a cruise ship timetable does not really lead to experiencing the slower pace of things. Still, we have chosen excursions and time in port so that we were not under any particular time crunch. The weather has been warm, but I still cannot help but think of the bitter cold that is in place here for up to six months of the year, and marvel at the fact that people choose to live here. The sea water even freezes in some of the bays. It’s great in the summer, though! As much as the heat in Texas can be bothersome, I’m thankful that we don’t experience the bone chilling cold that is a fact of life in these parts.
It’s pretty chilly cruising the St. Lawrence Seaway right now, so we are not spending any time at the pool. This is a small cruise ship, and we are not finding much to do on our “day off”. It’s a good time for reading, writing and reflection. We are in Quebec city tomorrow and land in Montreal on Saturday morning. Both of those will be quite different experiences from what we have seen on the first part of the cruise. The Quebec old city is very European in feel (been there once before), and Montreal has an old city with a similar flavor. So, we are looking forward to seeing both of those. We return home Saturday evening, and will be happy to experience being in a bedroom that’s probably three times the size of our cruise cabin!