Heather is now back working full time as nurse in the clinic again so you can all stop the comments about her cooking in the galley - actually she never did any cooking.
Heather has also been spending time teaching mime to a number of the ships company but last Sunday she actually got to perform when a local Danish church that we are closely partnering with joined us for a special Sunday service
Last weekend was Heather's birthday and we had an amazing time.
Our friend Colin flew out from Edinburgh on the Thursday night to visit and it was exciting for him to see the ship for the first time since March and see all the progress.
On Friday evening we went to the cinema and saw the new James Bond film and the last sequence is in Russia and it's snowing. When the film ended and they opened the side doors, it was snowing outside. The town square looked beautiful covered in a white blanket.
We were joined by Pauline who is also from our church and went to a cafe on the corner of the square where we sat for hours enjoying watching the snow fall and chatting. We waited until after 12 to sing happy birthday to Heather then headed out to the square. We met a group from the ship out for a walk and had a great big snowball fight in the town square. For a number of these people from places like South America and South Africa, this was their first time in snow.
On Saturday, we went to Tivoli in Copenhagen, the world famous funpark in the city centre. Each year they convert the park to a Christmas wonderland and we got to go when the snow was lying on the ground and the sun was shining. I can only describe it as magical. For those that love Christmas as much as us, this was a great experience. We were joined by a few ship friends and some Danish friends.
We had a great day and into the night, enjoying all the rides and all the sights sounds and smells of Tivoli Christmas, which we got into free thanks to some Danish friends. We had expected to leave after eating our evening meal but ended up staying until after 10pm. This was mainly due to having so much fun on the rides and managing to get Colin and Pauline on rides they had never done before, like the Demon roller coaster and the great big drop.
On Sunday evening and Monday evening it snowed again so we were able to enjoy a few more snowball fights before the snow disappeared on Wednesday. On Monday we were able to send a couple of people with a van to cut down Christmas trees for the ship. It would have been great to go and cut down your own tree in the snow but we were just too busy to go.
The reason that the rest of this week was so busy was because we have been getting ready to open the ship for 3 weekends for our Christmas around the world programme. This is the first time we are really fully using our visitor deck with the book fair and the cafe fully operational.
We had an official opening on Thursday which we invited ambassadors, civic leaders, business people and church representatives to. It was the first Official Opening ever held on Logos Hope.
It was unique in many ways but the most unusual is the fact that we had a real goat which is part of our live nativity.
We also have created 12 different country / continent / cultural stands showing what Christmas means in our different places. This has really got the community very excited and involved, particularly because we ran a competition for the best stand.
Lots more to come about this weekend's opening very soon.
