Travel Warrior Taking a Ride

I hate the word cruising…… it has all the connotations you expect,  non stop eating, dressing up for dinner, bragging about the NUBMER of cruises you have taken not the unusual experiences.

I like to think of this as water transportation…… I can visit 7 countries in 1/5 the time by train or plane and not have to worry about the travel connections or dragging a suitcase behind me.

  So I keep a low profile and try to blend into the crowd of two by twos……

Yesterday there was a lunch for all the solo travelers……..what a shock………………
1.  we are all OLD
2.  mostly female
3.  talk too much
4.  not very interested in each other

Perhaps this is why we all solo travel.  I had hoped to ask that question to this group but never got beyond hello and listening to each of them speak…..

Things I do Like:
multiple computer classes offered at no cost
few children on board
kindness of the crew (so far)
excellent food, a BIG surprise after the bland selection offered by larger ships

Some Challenges
washing the deck at 5 am and splashing the windows of my room ……
getting up at 5 am
waiting until 9 pm to eat dinner so the other diners do not sit there with such pity for me on their faces
having the waiter yell at the top of his voice ‘you are alone’   while I reply  ‘yes, and glad about it’
8 formal nights
wearing the same thing every 3 days,   truly depressing


The adventure has just begun and it shall be great!

Where is Ben? the cookie man

I told the counter man I had traveled 8,000 miles for a cookie.

There was a blank stare............

Was it my accent?

Was it the fact I did not say kilomoters?

Was it because he thought I was just another crazy?   

Ben's cookies.

I always visit Convent gardens and 2 years ago after a long absence I returned.    There was a VERY large crowd/line at one shop.  A shop so small only 2 patrons could enter, belly up to the counter and try to select 

what treasure they would buy or how many.

Across from a cupcake store is Ben's Cookies.

they were too busy to talk, they are always busy but you can find their info on line, just like everything else.

The fresh, warm out of the oven cookies are large and larger.   You select and then they are weighed to obtain the cost.

Try to buy just one!  Just try it.  

I may become a cookie expert just to find out if there is a better cookie anywhere.

so far my favorite is white chocolate chip.....and yours?

from their web site:

• We Bake Cookies!

We have been making cookies since 1983 and selling them through our stores since 1984.
Our original store in Oxford’s Covered Market is still baking cookies every day. Ben’s was founded by Helge Rubinstein, author of The Chocolate Book and many other publications and an ardent chocoholic! Our cookies are sold by weight and can be bought individually or packaged in bags, boxes and tins, each bearing the logo created for us by Quentin Blake, the well known artist and first ever children’s laureate.
Ben’s Cookies currently has ten stores and will open a few more soon, so please visit us here again for more news.

Travel Warrier 3 1/2

there is no surprise if I tell you it rained today…..what do you expect in London.
and once you are wet there is nothing to stop you from pressing on.   You can not sit in a hotel or B&B all day just because it is raining.

Instead of choosing a museum to hide out in I went to join a walking tour in the ‘City’.     As usual plans change and mostly with a nice surprise.
As I made the inevitable wrong turn I was too late for the tour but stumbled on St. Paul’s cathedral.   I don’t write about the wonderful sites, monuments and churches you can visit all over the world.  There are other better sources for this information, companies with the resources to spend months gathering information.    But my topic this week was where a shy solo traveler might eat lunch or dinner.    I try to find one hot meal a day but when you find it difficult to go into a ‘sit down restaurant’ your choices are limited.
Cakes are as good as they look