peteandpete
Member
Part two: Unfortunately, the second part of the trip turned into a bit of a tale of woe. The infection pretty much sent me to the cabin for most of the trip back. Two highlights were walking into Kirkenes (the point at which the ship turned around for the return to Bergen) and visiting a memorial to Soviet soldiers from WW II. Parked beside the memorial was a blue and yellow van with anti-Putin and pro-Ukraine messages on it. We also visited a small but packed WW II museum at another port that even had Nazi Christmas decorations (disturbing to say the least). I felt pretty crummy for most of the way back. One of the coolest things on the way back was Norway's celebration of Constitution Day. I hope we can do that here soon. Kate did her best to force food and fluids on me but I just wasn't up to it which was too bad because the food was great. Sadly, the worst was yet to come as I fell leaving the bus that took us from the ship to our Bergen hotel. I am not sure what happened. I may have been weak and dehydrated. Yours truly landed hard and bruised my ribs. It was quite painful. When we returned to JFK, American Airlines had changed our flight AGAIN. At this point I had succumbed to needing to be wheel chaired around the airport. They were going to force us to spend the night in DC before we could get to GSP. At this point I pulled the cancer card and told her to look me in the eye and tell me that American was really going to do that to me. This resulted in an outside the box solution for a taxi ride to LaGuardia and a flight to GSP that evening. I plan on requesting reimbursement for the cab ride. My primary care Doc did us a solid and got me in for x-rays the next morning....no broken bones thankfully. I still had some tramadol from the knee replacement so that has really helped with the pain. A time was had by all. Grateful for those who helped us through the bad part and for a wonderful travel partner.
