On Sunday evening our taxi let us out at the Liverpool Street Station and we slowly made our way inside and found our train and got situated. The train ride was uneventful and I enjoyed seeing the rural scenery. Because it was Sunday and they were working on the tracks, a big double decker charter-type bus met us a few stops early and took us to the ferry in Harwich. The ride seemed kind of crazy--the bus was so big and the little roads to the coast were very narrow. We scraped a lot of trees on the way there.
This was our first view of the ship as we approached on the bus.
Harwich is the port in NE England that the Pilgrims left from for Holland in 1608. That was pretty exciting to be sailing from the same port as my ancestors!
Here is a poster that was in the ferry terminal.
The ferry was really more like a cruise ship. It was a lot of fun. We boarded about 8 pm. this is the view from the bus that took us from the terminal onto the ship.
Cars to the left, busses to the right.
The big semi trucks entered the ship from another end. After we got settled into our room on the 11th floor I watched some of the big trucks getting situated on their deck.
They looked like they were having fun spinning around and getting into just the right spot.
Here are Emily and I checking out our room.
It was pretty nice! We wish that we had an outside room with a huge round window--Jim got one, but he didn't even want us to know where he was!
We explored a bit. There was a restaurant, a cafe, a movie theater, and various lounges. Everything was very expensive so I skipped dinner. There was even an outdoor basketball court!
The ship left dock at about 11 pm. I stayed up on deck watching it clear the harbor and marveled at all of the huge cargo ships being unloaded by huge automated cranes in the middle of the night.
Six-thirty came too early and we had to get off. Here is a view of the ship in the morning as we were leaving it.
I have my own room here that is quite large that has a little kitchenette and a bathroom. It was dirty, but I was pleased to find all hard surfaces and no carpet so I cleaned for much of Monday after arriving. I washed walls, kitchen cabinets, and the floor. The whole bathroom is one of those solid plastics units so I washed that down as well. I went to the grocery store and bought food to cook with. I'm tired of eating out and spending way too much money. That really was my only option in London as we were on the go so much. I cooked a pot of lentil stew last night but didn't eat any yet as we had our opening dinner. I'll have to post about that on my blog! I was too tired to take pictures, which was a shame.
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