After 37 hours of travel we have arrived in Melbourne and have started to settle in.

The global IT kerfuffle led to an extended stay in Boston and we spent some of our time at the beach jealously watching airplanes ascend into the sky.

We disembarked the ship and spent the day walking around Boston, including a stop at the Isbella Stewart Gardner museum.

We visited Acadia National Park for a couple of hours on a beautiful summer day. The park was fairly jammed with happy hikers.

Do you like mud? Have I got the place for you.

Lunch was the main highlight of this day, a really good lunch at Governor’s Pub & Eatery in Sydney Nova Scotia.

Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island is a nice little town with many restaurants and shops. We visited on a warm summer’s day.

St. John’s gave us a grand Sunday welcome as we entered “the narrows” on our way into the harbor.

A beautiful day called for a long walk along the shoreline in St. Anthony, a warm and welcoming town of roughly 2100.

Just a quiet day at sea

We had a mostly rainy day in port, but it was fun to explore this town full of small surprises. Greenland is truly unique.

In the morning we cruised past a few icebergs and in the evening we arrived at Nuuk and sailed through a nearby fjord.

We’re having a fairly quiet day on board, but there’s still something to do every hour. We’re picking a choosing our way through the day.

As we make our way to Greenland, I am enjoying the view out our window, even in the middle of the night.

Our second day in Reykjavik we took an easy tour of prominent architecture and art galleries downtown.

On the best of the Golden Circle tour we saw where an ancient Viking parliament formed in 930 AD at the fault line that divides Europe and North America, a beautiful waterfall (Gullfoss), and a geyser. The photo is of the blue bubble that forms at the base of the geyser just as it starts to blow. Photo credit: Mary Margaret Raley

Isafjordur is a small town of about 2,700 that offers hikes and other outdoor activities.

Akureyri is the unofficial capital of northern Iceland and a wonder of geological activity. We had a full day touring this unusual landscape.

Ahead of visiting the Article Circle, some cruise passengers opted to be inducted into the Order of the Blue Nose by jumping into a swimming pool full of ice and having their noses painted blue.

Our one port in picturesque Norway was Alesund, a little town of about 45, 000 people. There were 3 ships docked and together the passengers added about 10% to the population. It was a stress to the local infrastructure.