Planning Ahead

Written 4 April 2024

This year's spring trip starts with a Viking cruise, on just one river this time—the Elbe from Prague to Berlin. And, yes, I know that neither Prague nor Berlin is actually on the Elbe, but Viking makes it work. We fly into Prague two days early, to allow time to visit the Mucha Museum, but we'll be under Viking auspices from the time of our arrival, so Viking reps will pick us up at the airport, and we'll be at the cruise hotel. After our two day "pre-extension" and the two days in Prague that are part of the cruise, we'll be bused to the Elbe to board the Viking Beyla, a small ship even by Viking standards, carrying just 98 passengers on just two decks (smaller even than the ships on the Douro).

At the other end, we'll be bused from the ship to Berlin, where Viking will show us around for two days. Then, on the morning when Viking turns us loose, we'll be met at the hotel by German colleagues (who are also friends) who will then drive us around for another week, doing yet more touristy things, before they drop us at the Berlin airport for the trip home.

David and his colleagues have been putting in many, many hours choosing, scheduling, and reserving what we'll see, do, and eat during our time with them, so I don't have the usual raft of restaurant reservations and museum tickets to line up. That will come soon enough, when we get around to arranging the French leg of this year's fall trip.

Here's the map of the first leg of our trip, 8–18 May on Viking Beyla and a couple of hotels.

Written 29 April 2024

Before this trip, I really needed to replace my aging and rickety Sony Cybershot camera, but—much to my annoyance—nobody seems to make that kind of compact digital camera anymore. You can spend four figures for cameras designed for "content creators," with advanced video capabilities and sound, or you can spend ca. $50 for what is essentially a toy. In the end, I just bought a "refurbished" used camera of exactly the same model I've been using (for just about what I spent on the old one when it was new). The old one has been very serviceable, I know its quirks and how to change settings quickly, and I already own the extended memory card and extra battery, so I don't have to spend a bunch more on accessories. It even comes with an external charger, which the old one didn't have.

Here it is, taking a selfie with its predecessor. (On the latter, note the black enamel flaking off the shutter door; out of sight are the Scotch tape holding part of the body together and several other areas of bare metal.)

As you can see, a few things are different: a couple of the buttons on the back have changed color; where the old one said "16.2 megapixels" (at the lower right), the new one just has a big "G"; the old one had up to 8x digital zoom, whereas the new one has 10x; the numbers around the edges of the lens are a little different; the whole body is a little squarer and less rounded at the corners; the zoom lever seems to work more smoothly; and the miniUSB socket is on the bottom rather than the side. So much for supposedly being exactly the same model. Strangely, it's slower than the old one; I have to wait a second or two longer after taking a shot before I can take the next—I may have it set on too high a resolution; I haven't figured out how to change that yet.

But it takes pictures and is (hallelujah!) free of that annoying black squiggle that marred the old camera's telephoto shots. (Check it out in the telephotoed shot of the Eiffel tower at https://www.bio.fsu.edu/~thistle/blog23/23-10-04.html—the last photo before the food pictures at the bottom of the page. It looks like a column of smoke just grazing the tip of the tower.)

A final difference between this one and the old camera is that this one's internal battery—the one meant to remember the time and date settings while you change batteries—is dead and cannot be recharged. Therefore, every time I change the battery (most days that include photography heavy activities, like museums), it forgets its time, date, location, etc. I could live with that—on vacation (the only time when I take so many photos that I have to change batteries), I download all the photos every night and can then simply change the date on the downloaded folder to the correct one. What's annoying is that, once the new battery is in, you can't take another photo until you go through the date-time-location setting procedure, and that (even if you just accept all the defaults) takes a minimum of 25 clicks, not all on the same button!

Written 29 April 2024

Another new acquisition for this trip is this handy, aluminum, light-as-a-feather, one-liter camping tea kettle (the handle folds down for packing), which I intend to use on the cruise as a tea pot. When you order coffee in a Viking dining room, whether decaf or regular, a large insulated carafe is brought to the table from which you can pour a steaming cup and later help yourself to seconds or thirds.

When you order hot tea with milk, here's what happens. The waiter disappears into the kitchen and emerges with hot water in a little pot—made of uninsulated stainless steel, the better to lose heat rapidly. Maybe the water was boiling when he poured it into the pot, or maybe it was just boiled earlier and was sitting on a warming pad. He puts it on the table, then goes in search of the tea caddy, brings it back to the table and waits while you rummage through the choices for just plain tea, hidden among the chai, herbal, "sleepy time," etc. Even if you're lucky, the best you can hope for is Lipton yellow label, or maybe Twinings English breakfast. By this time, the water in the pot is at least 30 degrees off the boil, but you put the bag in it anyway, hoping for the best, and remind the waiter that you wanted milk to put in it, which he goes off to find. When the tea has steeped, you pour all of it into your cup (the pot holds only one cup). Later, if you want a second cup, you spend some time flagging down a waiter, then repeat the whole process. Annoying.

But the self-service machines at the 24-hour coffee-and-cakes station emit bubbling, spitting hot water, so on arrival, I will pull a cup off the shelf and test to see how many doses of such boiling water are needed to fill it. Each morning I want tea, I will first go to the coffee station, bearing my little kettle, a hand towel from my cabin, and a bag of PG Tips or Yorkshire Gold tea (brought with me from home). I'll put the bag in the kettle and fill it with enough doses of boiling water to make two or three cups of tea (a PG Tips bag will easily make three cups, and I hope Yorkshire Gold will prove to as well). I will then wrap the kettle in the hand towel to help it stay warm and take it with me to the dining room. By the time I've filled my plate at the buffet and poured myself a small glass of milk, the tea will have steeped, and I can remove the bag to a saucer and enjoy properly made tea with my breakfast.