Day 24: Rotterdam: final port!

Maybe today they'll be able to restock the 4 red wines that we liked and they ran out of on day 5! They would be a nice treat for our last dinner. UPDATE: No restock of 86'ed wines.

Rotterdam is known as the gateway port to Europe and the port part is truly huge! We had a lovely morning walk, about 10,000 steps and returned in time for lunch and 2:30 departure.  We'll arrive back in Southampton at 7am, get a cruise provided airport shuttle to Heathrow and fly to San Fran... arriving same day,  Thursday, at 7:30pm. Zach is graciously meeting us for the ride home. 

Some very interesting architecture and sculpture as most of the city was rebuilt after WW2's bombing devastation. UPDATE: just saw that World Magazine highlighted this statue by Ossop Zadkine, called The Destroyed City, created to reflect the devastation after WW2. It was breathtaking! 
The famous Market with a horseshoe shape and beautiful wall and ceiling murals. 
The outside glass facade captures beautiful reflections.
This extremely wide bridge has walking and biking lanes on each side, relegating cars to one small lane each. 
Maybe our last wife with ship picture...
Peggy wanted a memory photo of the look alike golden gate bridge that's in the background.  Can you see it? 
I used the magic eraser and editing features of google photos and arrived at this.  Pretty amazing capability. 

Here are 3 photos taken just for some dear friends. 
This was for Dave Lassiter to be envious of this guy's selfie stick... he was walking around so casually! 
We saw this guy twice and realized from the back pack that he's employed by google maps with his 360 degree rotating hat camera.  With all the walking Zach does, this could be a second career. 
And how could we forget Elva and her people...

Our last evening aboard the Ascent and we enjoyed the sunset bar for pre dinner cocktails.  The amount of shipping traffic into the port of Rotterdam was staggering. 
And this was nothing compared to a few miles off the coast.. it was rush hour! 
The tip of the Netherlands into the Atlantic. 

The last sunset old fashioned...

Our dinner team was spectacular! Peggy's strategy was to pick the table we liked then have them seat us there each night... not on the water(too much action for me) but just next to the window at the second table in. That way you get to know the staff and enjoy relationships even more than food.. and we ended up loving these folks... each appreciated their Bibles, their tips and our time together! 

Anselem and Mijaya... so fun! 
Annie, our sommelier, was so challenged with the ship running out of 4 of our favorites. She managed to continue to bless us nonetheless! 
Beth was our Maitre d' and was able to reserve our table every night... with a huge smile! 

We praise the Lord for His grace on this trip and are thankful for: logistics, health, safety, weather, conversations, creative beauty, Gospel sharing, time together, new experiences, spiritual encouragement, Norwegian Fjords, the Arctic Circle and meeting new friends to name a few. We have the joy and He gets all the glory! What a great Father! Until the next trip, may God richly bless you in Jesus! 




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