Some cities are vivid and scenic. The parts of Belfast that we saw weren’t.

The ship unloaded at two pm, so we weren’t ashore too long. We did find a chocolate store though, and tripled our supply of Thorton’s dark chocolate bars.

A futuristic high speed ferry drives by our room.

Look for the hat.

Armored excavator.

Chunks of the city streets were closed by six pm.

These “Spoings” were positioned in front of a cathedral.

At the docks, a Mini parked by wind turbines housings.

A huge crane in the docks that built the Titanic.

We were thinking about renting a car in Kirkwall. There’s much less traffic, and a much slower pace in the Orkney Islands. But sadly, I’d left my driver’s license home in the US.

So we walked a mile into town and saw Saint Magnus’s Cathedral to the sounds of Handel’s organ music. We then climbed through a ruined castle built by an evil earl.

Laurabeth stands in the kitchen fireplace.

As with all pictures from the trip, these are a mix of mine and Laurabeth’s.

We rested this morning, then took a 30 minute bus ride to Inverness from our dock at Invergorden.

People snowboarded down from a scaffolding covered with snow. Pounding music played, as an announcer called out the names of each person as they took their turn down the slope. Just as on the mountain side, some skiers and snowboarders did well, some did not.

A crowd had gathered to watch.

We had a great time tromping through downtown.

LB wants the world to know she took the castle picture.

We’re off to Europe for a few days!

We arrived as zombies in Amsterdam after an overnight flight. Our hotel let us check in very early - ten am. We were thankful and slept.

(The Victoria Hotel was wonderful. Amazingly friendly people, and in sight of the central train and bus station. You should stay there.)

I was up at sixish this morning to watch the ship come into Edinburgh through the Forth. But I couldn’t get on deck - fire doors were closed and crewmen dressing in firefighting suits told me the deck was closed. I finally found out what was going on.

The winds were extreme. It was overcast and drizzling.

The helicopter came within twelve feet above the ship.

It didn’t just make one pickup, but lifted at least two more people out on slings.

After figuring out how to get onto a bus to Edinburgh from the village of Queensferry (with help from the locals), and figuring out how to get pounds, after the first bus driver told us he didn’t take euros, and the banks were closed for Saturday (again, with helpful directions from the locals), we exited the bus into a parade.

All had flags.

We stomped with the music as band after band went by.

Some bands were serious.

We were standing on a two foot wide median, with traffic behind us, and marching people inches ahead of us.

Some were colorful.

Some had lots of kids.

Many people posed and told us to take their picture.

We had a blast!