Passau-the perfect Bavarian town

 Passau only has about 50k residents and about 10k of those are students, so the town is full of youthful activity. It's just the perfect size and the way the ship was docked we could just cross a street and walk uphill and up steps following an alley to the center of town. Everyone in our group is feeling a little tour fatigue, no one wanted more words so we eschewed the viking walking tour and did our own thing. Slept in, then wandered around, ending up at St. Stephen's Cathedral for a free concert on their enormous organ with 17,974 pipes. 

Ev's hope was they would play something remotely familiar like Tocata en Fugue and not Hymn # 37 from the book. I basically heard Hymn 37-42 but Ev and Joy were into it. I tried to get a pic of Joybliss with her eyes closed and a smile on her lips but was thwarted.

 Ev, trying to catch Joy's attention so they could waggle their eyebrows at each other over what they were hearing.

The frontice piece at the altar. I never knew stoning looked like this. I thought stonings were done "death by a thousand cuts" style, with stones, not boulders.

What can I say about these Opa feet and these Opa shoes except how much I love them.

Just look at the perfection of this little town. I could spend some time here easily.

Back on the boat, the vikings were preparing a German fest for us. Ev had his mouth set for a hot dog so he split to dash back before the restaurant closed. When we made it, no Ev. Not in the room, not on the top deck, not in the lounge-nowhere.

Wellll, he boarded a boat, ordered and ate a hot dog and he asked his waiter to please tell Carlitos (our chef) it was one of his top 5 hot dog experiences. The waiter told him, "we don't have a chef Carlitos, you're on the wrong boat"😁

Our Balinese waiters, Lalu and Dwi in lederhosen. I just don't think they were made for hairy legged men. Dwi is the sweetest soul, and embodies everything we loved about Bali. He actually knew our divemaster from when we were there 15 years ago.

A special meal that started with the German variation on "platter".

Precious Lovey from Croatia, she has kept us informed, on time, hydrated and in line with absolute good spirits, high tolerance and an iron will. She is so impressive to watch in action.

At 24, she says confidently, "not one of you will miss your plane on my watch"

This is Sana, fueled by caffeine and nicotine and working circles around everyone else in the lounge. She is everywhere at once.

Since we didn't leave the boat with the rest of the passengers this morning, we got to see another boat mystery unfold. What happens to all the kitchen waste? It goes into these blue containers (that are clean as a whistle on the outside) and they are off loaded to be composted. The vikings dressed in blue are the brawn on the boat, they do all the heavy lifting to make the boat go. Everyone has a big job, but these guys have the especially physical jobs. They were swinging these containers up on the dock to be driven away.

Viking laundry is exceptional. Holy smokes, it comes back in 24 hours pressed and nicely folded. It was a perk for getting a room with an attached living area. What a treat!