Day 16
Last day of vacation...and today is our second full day of Berlin touring. This time a walking tour of the city. Up before the alarm, we set out to get a pastry and a Chai Latte. :) We arrived at the tour meeting place an hour early because yesterday there was a great little market there and they had a few things I wanted to look at again. Well, no market today * insert sad face here* but the people from the tour company sent us over across the street to check out a section of apartments where they put the Jews when they kicked them out of their homes and before they were sent to camps. They have the area fixed up really cute now with cafes and other things, and the apartments look cute. But cute if only one family lived there. They put up to 16 people in each tiny apartment. One bathroom of course. Even this didn't prepare them for what was going to happen next. For those that weren't hidden or snuck out of that area went to Auschwitz.
When it was time for our tour, we gathered up everyone and had well over 40 people, so they split the tour in two and we had Nigel as our guide. He was probably early 60s, British/Scottish (depending on which one was more convenient) and hilarious. Later in the day I pegged him as funny, but definitely narcissistic and liked to mention he was "famous" (he has been on the history channel before) and talk about all the people he has met or knows. He cracked us up at first, but he often got distracted with his own personal stories and for me his personality got a bit stale and his language a bit rough. So I was ready to be rid of Nigel, but was glad we had him because he was extremely informative and knew his stuff...no doubt.
We walked around the city and Nigel explained everything we were looking at as well as its history. Very cool stuff and I've learned so much on this trip. Lots of bullet holes in the buildings that remained after the war. 80% of Berlin was damaged beyond repair after they were bombed, so most of old Berlin is only now in old photographs. We stopped for a quick bite for lunch, but I woofed my muffin down so I could run back to the chocolate shop we passed by. It is pretty famous and had been there since 1800 something. That is more important than any lunch I could think of.
After lunch it got even more interesting as we headed for Checkpoint Charlie. We stood at the line where the wall had been and looked over to what was the American sector. I thought Nigel said he'd give us a few minutes to walk around by the actual Checkpoint Charlie station, but next thing I know we were moving on. Guy said Nigel said we were running behind and needed to go. He liked to say we were running behind because we asked a lot of great questions. Our group really didn't ask that many, so the only thing running us behind was him running his lips. ;) So Guy said we'd go back after the tour. So on we went and saw a small section of the wall that actually still remains. Germany is still doing a lot to erect monuments and other things to memorialize the events of the war. One very cool but sad thing was if you looked on the ground in front of the buildings there were sometimes little bronze squares with names on them. These were the names and dates of Jewish people who were dragged from that particular building and sent elsewhere. Some have where they died on them.
Another newer memorial was of a man who we learned of the day before who was one of the "Special" prisoners at the concentration camp we visited. He had planted a bomb with a timer that was to go off at the time Hitler was to give a speech. It was in a pillar by where he'd be standing. He had been working for weeks to chisel out a place for the bomb, then got the materials and assembled the bomb himself. He missed Hitler by 13 minutes. The bomb went off, but Hitler (or Big H as Nigel called him) had just left the building. It was so powerful it killed a half dozen people and injured several dozen. There is a beautiful artistic piece erected in his honor.
As we neared the end of the tour, the eeriest thing we did was stand directly over the spot where Hitler and his wife, of only a few hours, killed themselves. 36 feet below where we stood was his bunker. They have since filled the bunker in and a parking lot is there now, but some of the structure was left in tact below us, where Hitler had ended his life. As we walked down a bit further, there was a huge memorial to all the Jews that died in the holocaust. It covered a huge area and was simplistic yet overwhelming. The artist wanted people to sit on the monuments and interact with the art by walking around all the paths. Millions of dollars were donated for this piece. It hasn't been there very long and a few winters ago were especially brutal on the concrete and it is starting to crack. I hope they can maintain it.
Our last stop on the tour was Brandenburg Gate which was built by Fredrick the Great and had trees lining the streets as you came through it. Hitler took all the trees out and put pillars with eagles and swastikas lining the streets instead. Nigel had a picture of that time. Today, trees are back. I had a horrible photo op of the gate because this city is soccer crazy right now and they had erected a big stage or tv or something on the other side making a good photo opportunity of this fabulous area impossible.
Guy and I bid farewell to Nigel and headed back for Checkpoint Charlie. It is now 4:00 and we started our tour at 10:30, so needless to say, we were tired. We started to catch a cab, but instead we walked back. The area was packed with people of course, but I took lots of pictures and we hit some of the souvenir shops around the area. I also took a picture of the McDonalds across from the Checkpoint because we had seen it on the food channel as having something they served that was German. We went in to see what it was but didn't see anything too unusual on the menu.
After this we headed our tired bodies back to the hotel to freshen up for dinner and find a place to eat. One thing we did know was we were too tired to walk anywhere and we just wanted to take a cab to a restaurant, eat, and come back. So we looked up some restaurants and chose one we found on Trip Advisor. So we went down to the concierge and asked him about it, telling him we wanted some authentic German food. Guy wanted Wiener Schnitzel and there is a place right by our hotel he was eyeballing, but it looked a bit touristy along a strip of shops and restaurants, so I suggested we find one online. Well, the concierge had never heard of the restaurant we had found, but suggested another one about 5 minutes walk from the one recommended by Trip Advisor. So we hopped a cab to the one we found online and went inside and then walked right back out. It was a bit too hippie-fied for Guy *insert visual of Makanda here* and so we walked to the restaurant recommended by the concierge. We were kinda lost and asked directions from a young couple singing and playing guitar on the steps of a museum. I approached them and said "hello" which they responded in English. So I said "I'm sorta lost". The guy said "Aren't we all" in that sorta dreamy hippie I'm just a tad bit high voice. But SCORE, he knew exactly where the restaurant was. It was called the Twelve Disciples...heavenly, huh? So we walked right to it and was seated and given menus. It was a pizzeria!! Did we not tell the concierge we wanted authentic German food? Well, I told Guy since it was our last night and they didn't know who we were, lets just walk out. So we did. We ended up walking all the way back to the hotel and eating at the little place around the corner after all and Guy got his Weiner Schnitzel. I had a sausage with curry sauce, but I promise you, it tasted like a chili dog. :) We of course had another piece of apple strudel to end our evening and drug our sore muscles back to the hotel to shower and take some Ibuprofen.
A 5:30am alarm has been set and tomorrow morning we will bid farewell to Berlin. There were a couple of museums we didn't get to and several other sites that would be interesting to see. So we think we'll probably see Berlin again in the future.
We are both truly appreciate of God's blessings and being able to take such a fascinating trip. Tomorrow night I will also be appreciative of my own bed and pillow! :)
xoxoxoxox - B
Friday, June 15, 2012
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Day 13, 14, and 15
Day 13
At sea, no sun, read books, ate Tiny Sandwiches.
Day 14
Woke up already docked in Amsterdam. After breakfast, we said goodbye to the Constellation and headed for the train station. We hopped a train for a short 20 minute ride, then caught another train to Berlin. We settled in as this ride would be over 6 hours. Relatively uneventful except for two suspicious dudes that I was keeping an eye on. When the ticket guy came into our train car, these guys got up and left. It was obvious they didn't have any tickets and were trying to elude the ticket taker. Guy thought he heard them speaking in Russian. So anyway, this one guy kept getting up and down and going to the bathroom (for a very long time) then go to his bag and dig around and then back to his seat. Not five minutes later he was back his bag. This went on for about 2 hours. I watch too many movies, because I had him planting bombs and stuff on the train. One time after a very long bathroom break, he sat a bit closer to us. He started scratching his head and flakes of dandruff the size of Kansas were flying off. I noticed the skin on the back of his hands were peeling as well. I'm obviously repulsed. So he and his younger friend (maybe his son) happened to doze off and guess who nabbed him....the ticket lady (she was a rough mama, too). So she talks to the son and then flaky dude. Flaky dude opens his wallet and says credit card but they say a few words and she walks away. So I said to Guy "how can they let them stay?" and Guy says they are going to toss them off at the next stop. Sure enough, at the next stop 3 train employees (one that is obviously the bouncer) escorts them to the door. After they were gone I could relax a bit and we watched a movie and dozed a bit. I felt bad for the pretty young blonde who sat in the seat where flaky dude shed 16% of his body.
After we got to Berlin and settled into our hoted (Westin Grand Berlin - very nice) we walked around the corner to an outside cafe that served Italian food. I had one of my favorites, gnocchi sorrentino, and Guy had a pizza. We were tired and felt kinda gross from the train day, so we opted for a quick meal and the chance to actually sit and surf the internet without the "clock" ticking like on the boat. Germany was playing soccer on TV and there was a party in the Garden area where our balcony opens up to. The TV downstairs was about 3 seconds behind the one in our room. We could predict the celebrating. :) The pillows on the bed are fabulous and in hopes of a good night's sleep, we were having a tough time getting the room cool. Guy overheard that until they have outside temps over 18 degrees C, they maybe don't turn the air on. We'd keep the balcony doors open all night, but the pigeons are not shy.
Day 15 Berlin
Good morning Berlin. 7:30 wake up call was not necessary as we were already awake. We got ready and headed out to meet our tour because we weren't 100% for sure where to go. We passed a bakery and popped in for some danishes and water, which we ate on the way. We found the train station pretty easily (not the one we came in on) and found our meeting spot. We had time to spare so I walked around the market that was just opening up. They had everything from underwear to crepes. Will explore more tomorrow when we go back to meet for our walking tour.
Our group for the English speaking tour of Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp was about 22. We wished we had the nice ear pieces and remotes we had on our other tours as we struggled to hear Pen (our tour guide - short for Penelope) but we managed ok. We hopped our train to the town of Oranienburg where the camp lies between it and the next town. In the time of the camp, it was in a wooded area, but was not secret as the main road between the two towns went directly by it. Pen says of course people knew it was a prison, but if they really knew what was going on inside is not known. Today houses have sprung up all around the camp, but was not the case when it was occupied.
As we entered the camp, it was overwhelmingly huge. The buildings are mostly gone and markers on the ground show the layout of where things stood. Some buildings were recreated with original materials, but some places, like the pathology/mortuary, walls, and guard towers still stand. There was a map of the layout of the camp which Pen showed us what all was there at that time. The prisoners were only in a small part as the rest of the camp had SS officer training, a factory, barracks for the SS officers among other things. She says it was never reported that anyone ever escaped the camp. Too many obstacles between them and freedom. This prison camp was not the first concentration camp, but was the first architecturally designed camp. The architect was later fired because they wanted a camp that the prisoner area was expandable and after it was built, they were basically stuck with what they had. Why they couldn't see that in the plans I have no idea.
As we walked around the camp, Pen explained what all the areas were. Only toward the last few years of the war were Jews put in this camp, but it was holding political prisoners, homosexuals, disabled Germans, etc. Later came Jews, but they built them a separate area. In the buildings that were supposed to hold 150 prisoners, toward the end were holding 400 men, often 3 to a tiny bed. I won't go into the details of everything, but I just have to say that in the mornings they gave them 30 minutes to get outside for roll call. So 400 men had to share only 8 toilets. If they were not out in time they were punished. They also had to drag the dead out so the count would not be short. At this place they used the prisoners as workers, logging trees and for other things like testing shoes they were designing for German soldiers. Pen said they gave them shoes that were often to small and were forced to run and walk in them all day long (up to 40 kilometers a day). This on starvation rations.
I think one of the saddest stories was one she told of them at roll call. They did this twice a day, morning and night. One night for some reason they wanted to punish them as a group and made them stand at attention all night. This was in February where the temperatures are often below zero. All they had on were their cotton "pajamas". Many died that night. In the morning they made them go to work as usual. The stories....my heart was breaking.
This camp was regularly visited by the Red Cross and the Media to report back on how the prisoners were being treated. So they had things set up to make it not look so bad. For instance, there were several buildings used as hospitals. They kept one for "show" that looked like the prisoners had good care. The other three buildings they had were full of prisoners they were experimenting on (in all kinds of horrid ways)
Since this was not a death camp, but a concentration camp, they didn't have a gas chamber until near the end of the war. It was small and was an add-on. Most of the prisoners they wanted to exterminate were shot or trucked out. Around the camp, memorial stones were set on places that were mass graves, often just ashes as they did have a way to cremate the bodies there.
They also had an area where "Special" high-profile prisoners were kept. One of them being Stalin's oldest son who had be captured. They tried to trade him for a German official the Russians had, but apparently Stalin was ashamed of his son because he allowed himself to be captured (he was supposed to have committed suicide first). So Stalin refused to trade, he said he had lots of other sons. His son died there a few weeks later.
The camp was liberated by the Russians, but the majority of the prisoners were ordered out on a death march as the Allies approached. Many died before they saw freedom. Most of the ones they found were the prisoners in those experimental hospitals who were apparently forgotten as they were in a hurry to get out. Next to the hospital was the building where pathology was done. They were supposed to have given each prisoner a death certificate and autopsy upon their deaths (to cover their booties and to have something to show the Red Cross). They had several guys in there that were not doctors and they taught them where to make the cuts, for an appearance of an autopsy, and gave them a long list of reasons for death and they could just pick one.
Next to the mortuary was a brothel. This is a little known fact about concentration camps. These were for the prisoners. In this camp, they were expected to work. As the years passed and the prisoners got weaker and weaker, the production went down. As a reward they gave them points that they could use for more food, luxuries and of course the brothel. These women were young prisoners as well who were promised release after 6 months of prostitution. This of course was a lie. Even well known camps like Auschwitz had one. This is a new topic for holocaust scholars as more and more information is discovered on these brothels.
We had less than 4 hours in this camp. To see it all would have taken days. Guy thought is was sad that such a place was such a busy tourist attraction. True, but we agreed that it is important not to forget these events and in a way pay respects to those who suffered so greatly. It is almost too much to comprehend how many people died in places like this. We've all heard the stories, but to see it in person makes it more real.
On our train ride back we had a bit of a delay. There was a medical emergency in a train ahead of us and we couldn't go anywhere just yet. We sat for awhile but Pen gathered us all up and says when this happens (basically someone had a heart attack on the train ahead of us and they had to wait for the paramedics to work on them) it takes at least 20 minutes or longer. So we headed out of the train station and walked to the town where we caught a trolly that took us to the next train station. We then hopped that train to head home from another direction. Pen walked around to each person to see where their final destination would be and helped each of us find our way back home. We opted to get off early and walk back (ok, maybe it had something to do with the market I saw outside) but it was a nice walk back to the hotel.
Earlier we had asked Pen about a good authentic German restaurant we could go to and she wrote down a few names for us. I Googled them back in the room and we chose the one with the best reviews. We cleaned up, then hopped a cab to the restaurant. It was packed. We sat at a table with to open seats, but already had 3 people sitting at it. Not only did they put us with other people, but they said they had a reservation for our seats at 8pm and we had to be gone by then. Lucky for us we are fast eaters and we were done in plenty of time before the other guests arrived. This is even ordering dessert. Our food was indeed fabulous and looked to be pretty authentic. I had smoked porkchops with potatoes and sauerkraut. Guy had perch and mashed potatoes. Mine was better I think. We finished off this perfect meal with an amazing apple strudel and vanilla ice cream.
After dinner we decided to walk back. It was a beautiful evening and to walk off some of that food was a good idea. We quickly found a familiar street and window shopped all the way back to the hotel (which ended up easily being walking distance). Time to shower and get some rest for tomorrow, which will be a 4 hour walking tour and maybe boat tour after that. The weather was overcast today and pretty chilly. But tomorrow promises to be sunny and warmer. We shall see!
Notes of the day...construction going on everywhere and the price of taking a cab is very reasonable.
xoxoxoxox
Monday, June 11, 2012
Day 11 / 12
Day 11 At sea
Well yesterday was a blissful day at sea. Slept in a bit, got some sun on our faces and had a couple of nice meals. AND we got to move our clocks back another hour. There were plenty of activities on the ship, but we just wanted to rest and read a bit (basically do nothing) It was fabulous. They were keeping the kids busy, too, because I had 5 young boys (8-12ish) who approached me while I was waiting for my cheeseburger and asked if I'd help them in their scavenger hunt. So of course I said yes. They were looking for celebrity look-alikes and because I had a black hat and black leather coat on, they thought I was the closest to Kim Kardashian they'd find. They were probably right, knowing the age of the passengers on this ship. So they took my picture with their phone and ran off. Shortly after that, the clouds started to roll in (just about 4pm) so we headed back to the room, showered, jumped into bed and watched the movie Man on a Ledge that I had rented to my ipad. It was fun and was a good movie. My hands and feet were sweaty the entire time because I don't do heights well. I think Guy's were sweating, too! :) After dinner we crashed because we had an early call in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Day 12 Copenhagen, Denmark
Our 7:30 alarm woke us up just in time to watch us pull into Copenhagen. Chilly and overcast, so about par for this trip. After breakfast (the usual - me, waffles and Guy, Eggs Benedict) we headed for town. We decided to do the shuttle into town because they said it would be a 20 minute or so walk into town (which was about right because we walked back to the ship). They said last night that Copenhagen was the 10th most expensive city in the world. We believe it now! As we hit town and I saw the pedestrian shopping area, I thought to myself - "score", but sadly, it was all too expensive. A couple from our ship asked if we'd like them to take our picture in front of one of the oldest jewelry stores (it's like a bazillion years old). Guy told me I could pick out anything in the window and he'd buy it for me. (They were still closed so the window was empty). Later when we came by it again, the jewels were out, but the offer had expired. There was a little diamond studded train that went around the jewelry. I took some video. :) Off to the side were little train cars filled with rubies, emeralds, etc., now THAT is my kind of train set!
Have I mentioned the bikes yet? Not quite as many as Amsterdam I don't think, but I'm amazed at how many bikes there were. I'll add a few bike pics in today...and speaking of pics...again not a great weather/photo day. But hey, they don't all have to be postcard worthy...it just is a great way to document the trip (or so I've come to this conclusion on this trip). We decided to trek over to the Tivoli, which is one of, if not THE first amusement park. This is supposedly where Walt Disney got his inspiration. We didn't go in due to time and we are neither one ride riders, but snuck a few shots from outside the gates. It looked beautiful inside.
So we ventured around the town a bit more, walking around a castle and exploring. I was a bit disturbed how these beautiful old buildings have signage all over them. I'll post a pic so you can see. Yes McDonalds, Burger King and Kentucky Fried all have a spot here. We saw a Mercedes UPS truck, the most adorable street cafes and vendors, and some not so adorable price tags on pretty much everything we saw. We decided to stop for a drink and see what we thought the clouds were going to do. Some clouds looked innocent, some were grey and threatened of rain and then a peek here and there of blue sky. We stopped for a snack, then got a danish at a pastry shop (had to, right? The Danes created the Danish!). So since the sky wasn't cooperating, we figured we would go ahead and take our boat ride around the city and take our chances on getting rained on.
The young guide was funny and spoke everything is his local lingo and then in perfect english. He was enjoying his job just a bit too much. :) Besides a few sprinkles, the weather held out and we got our hour long tour in. Some of it looked familiar from a House Hunters International tv program I like to watch. Some of the apartments along the canal were close to 1,000,000 dollars...and didn't look all that special. The little port we took the boat out of was the oldest port in Copenhagen. A couple hundred years ago it was quite the docking spot for cheap beer and even cheaper women (again, the guide was enjoying his job just a bit too much). The harbor area would really be the only quaint area we saw. This is very much a big city and surprisingly the one with the most trash on the streets. We came in knowing it was an expensive place to live and heard how the quality of life for the residence was exceptionally good. So I think it being the dirtiest was a bit surprising. (Helsinki was clean as a whistle).
After the boat ride, we decided to walk back to the ship because between downtown and the ship was a museum dedicated to the Resistance from WWII. So map in hand we set out for the museum. Today is Monday...care to guess what day it is closed? So instead we walked around a fortress and the small marina before taking one last look at the shops (in town Guy bought a Tshirt an I bought a pair of flip flops...our two big purchases of the day). But I wasn't going to pay $50 for a $10 scarf, so we hopped on the ship and headed for the Tiny Sandwiches. I capitalize Tiny Sandwiches because this is Guy's favorite part of the day and I must pay it proper respect. At 3:30 every day, a eatery on the ship sets out these tiny little sandwiches. They do look cute, but he is enamored with them. The days at sea, when we are just relaxing, he starts asking what time it is about 2:45 and then about every 10 minutes after that until 3:30. So it is the joke of the trip...Guy and Tiny Sandwiches. :)
Tonight is formal night, so we'll dude up for the dining room again. The selections look pretty good and I'm sure it will be tasty as usual. Tomorrow is a day at sea and one last chance to relax before we end our fabulous cruise. It may not be a cruise we would do again, but don't take it that it wasn't wonderful, because it certainly was...quarantine and all. But new things are still out there to be explored. I think we'd do the Rhine river cruise again (Basil, Switzerland to Amsterdam), but that would be several years in the future and one of the few cruises we'd repeat). Too many places to go! But if you ever thought about doing this cruise, it would be a for sure yes! At first glance, it may look like there are too many days at sea, but trust me, you need them to recuperate. And if you do take it, remember the best shopping is in Helsinki and Tallinn. :)
So I probably won't blog tomorrow as there won't be much going on besides Guy waiting for Tiny Sandwiches (fingers crossed for sun), but will pick up again after we train to Berlin on Wednesday. We asked to disembark off the ship early (7:45) giving us plenty of time to walk to the train station, but we got a note saying we could leave the ship at 7. I hope that doesn't mean we HAVE to leave right then...we'll be sitting in the train station for some time if that is the case. Better early than late I suppose.
xoxoxoxo
Well yesterday was a blissful day at sea. Slept in a bit, got some sun on our faces and had a couple of nice meals. AND we got to move our clocks back another hour. There were plenty of activities on the ship, but we just wanted to rest and read a bit (basically do nothing) It was fabulous. They were keeping the kids busy, too, because I had 5 young boys (8-12ish) who approached me while I was waiting for my cheeseburger and asked if I'd help them in their scavenger hunt. So of course I said yes. They were looking for celebrity look-alikes and because I had a black hat and black leather coat on, they thought I was the closest to Kim Kardashian they'd find. They were probably right, knowing the age of the passengers on this ship. So they took my picture with their phone and ran off. Shortly after that, the clouds started to roll in (just about 4pm) so we headed back to the room, showered, jumped into bed and watched the movie Man on a Ledge that I had rented to my ipad. It was fun and was a good movie. My hands and feet were sweaty the entire time because I don't do heights well. I think Guy's were sweating, too! :) After dinner we crashed because we had an early call in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Day 12 Copenhagen, Denmark
Our 7:30 alarm woke us up just in time to watch us pull into Copenhagen. Chilly and overcast, so about par for this trip. After breakfast (the usual - me, waffles and Guy, Eggs Benedict) we headed for town. We decided to do the shuttle into town because they said it would be a 20 minute or so walk into town (which was about right because we walked back to the ship). They said last night that Copenhagen was the 10th most expensive city in the world. We believe it now! As we hit town and I saw the pedestrian shopping area, I thought to myself - "score", but sadly, it was all too expensive. A couple from our ship asked if we'd like them to take our picture in front of one of the oldest jewelry stores (it's like a bazillion years old). Guy told me I could pick out anything in the window and he'd buy it for me. (They were still closed so the window was empty). Later when we came by it again, the jewels were out, but the offer had expired. There was a little diamond studded train that went around the jewelry. I took some video. :) Off to the side were little train cars filled with rubies, emeralds, etc., now THAT is my kind of train set!
Have I mentioned the bikes yet? Not quite as many as Amsterdam I don't think, but I'm amazed at how many bikes there were. I'll add a few bike pics in today...and speaking of pics...again not a great weather/photo day. But hey, they don't all have to be postcard worthy...it just is a great way to document the trip (or so I've come to this conclusion on this trip). We decided to trek over to the Tivoli, which is one of, if not THE first amusement park. This is supposedly where Walt Disney got his inspiration. We didn't go in due to time and we are neither one ride riders, but snuck a few shots from outside the gates. It looked beautiful inside.
So we ventured around the town a bit more, walking around a castle and exploring. I was a bit disturbed how these beautiful old buildings have signage all over them. I'll post a pic so you can see. Yes McDonalds, Burger King and Kentucky Fried all have a spot here. We saw a Mercedes UPS truck, the most adorable street cafes and vendors, and some not so adorable price tags on pretty much everything we saw. We decided to stop for a drink and see what we thought the clouds were going to do. Some clouds looked innocent, some were grey and threatened of rain and then a peek here and there of blue sky. We stopped for a snack, then got a danish at a pastry shop (had to, right? The Danes created the Danish!). So since the sky wasn't cooperating, we figured we would go ahead and take our boat ride around the city and take our chances on getting rained on.
The young guide was funny and spoke everything is his local lingo and then in perfect english. He was enjoying his job just a bit too much. :) Besides a few sprinkles, the weather held out and we got our hour long tour in. Some of it looked familiar from a House Hunters International tv program I like to watch. Some of the apartments along the canal were close to 1,000,000 dollars...and didn't look all that special. The little port we took the boat out of was the oldest port in Copenhagen. A couple hundred years ago it was quite the docking spot for cheap beer and even cheaper women (again, the guide was enjoying his job just a bit too much). The harbor area would really be the only quaint area we saw. This is very much a big city and surprisingly the one with the most trash on the streets. We came in knowing it was an expensive place to live and heard how the quality of life for the residence was exceptionally good. So I think it being the dirtiest was a bit surprising. (Helsinki was clean as a whistle).
After the boat ride, we decided to walk back to the ship because between downtown and the ship was a museum dedicated to the Resistance from WWII. So map in hand we set out for the museum. Today is Monday...care to guess what day it is closed? So instead we walked around a fortress and the small marina before taking one last look at the shops (in town Guy bought a Tshirt an I bought a pair of flip flops...our two big purchases of the day). But I wasn't going to pay $50 for a $10 scarf, so we hopped on the ship and headed for the Tiny Sandwiches. I capitalize Tiny Sandwiches because this is Guy's favorite part of the day and I must pay it proper respect. At 3:30 every day, a eatery on the ship sets out these tiny little sandwiches. They do look cute, but he is enamored with them. The days at sea, when we are just relaxing, he starts asking what time it is about 2:45 and then about every 10 minutes after that until 3:30. So it is the joke of the trip...Guy and Tiny Sandwiches. :)
Tonight is formal night, so we'll dude up for the dining room again. The selections look pretty good and I'm sure it will be tasty as usual. Tomorrow is a day at sea and one last chance to relax before we end our fabulous cruise. It may not be a cruise we would do again, but don't take it that it wasn't wonderful, because it certainly was...quarantine and all. But new things are still out there to be explored. I think we'd do the Rhine river cruise again (Basil, Switzerland to Amsterdam), but that would be several years in the future and one of the few cruises we'd repeat). Too many places to go! But if you ever thought about doing this cruise, it would be a for sure yes! At first glance, it may look like there are too many days at sea, but trust me, you need them to recuperate. And if you do take it, remember the best shopping is in Helsinki and Tallinn. :)
So I probably won't blog tomorrow as there won't be much going on besides Guy waiting for Tiny Sandwiches (fingers crossed for sun), but will pick up again after we train to Berlin on Wednesday. We asked to disembark off the ship early (7:45) giving us plenty of time to walk to the train station, but we got a note saying we could leave the ship at 7. I hope that doesn't mean we HAVE to leave right then...we'll be sitting in the train station for some time if that is the case. Better early than late I suppose.
xoxoxoxo
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Day 10
Day 10 Tallinn, Estonia
Guess what? Free wifi at the Tallinn port. :) Sitting here trying to figure out why you all can't see the pictures. I have added the link to each days pics at the bottom of each blog, so go back and scroll to the bottom to see the pics. But I just figured out I hadn't made the pictures available to the public. Sorry about that. You should see them all now, espcially if you click on "My Album" I think. :) Just have a few minutes, but will blog later about Tallinn, as there is too much to say at this moment. Will post more later tonight. :)
Day 10
Today we were in Tallinn, Estonia. I had no idea what to expect, but like Helsinki, was wonderfully surprised. When we woke up we were just docking. I went out on the balcony and saw the adorable medieval town. Then I looked to the left and saw the "new" Tallinn. Glass sky scrapers! What a strange sight. I took a picture and will add it to today so you can see the contrast between old and new. Beautiful and not so beautiful.
We had a leisure breakfast (the usual for me - waffles) and headed to the room to get ready. It was raining some, so I sported my hat and we grabbed our umbrellas. We caught the bus into town and headed for "Old Town". When we started to get close, we saw all these flower shops, one after the other. At first I thought they were all one owner, but each one appeared to be separate. They all had the same stuff! I can't imagine any of them making any money. So as we passed all the beautiful flowers and entered the entrance of the old part of town, we were welcomed by a big old stone wall with a turret on one side. It looked like a fortress. Once you walked in, there ahead was a McDonalds. Not that I don't occasionally splurge calories on that fabulous double cheeseburger and love every minute, I just don't want to see the golden arches in a medieval town. Kinda ruined it for me, ya know?
So as we walked around the town we hit all the highlights; the church, castle wall (kinda), and the town square had the most fabulous market. (Tallinn and Helsinki tie for the best shopping). Prices were pretty good for a tourist trap. The fun thing about this market is most of it was handmade goodies, but the people were dressed in costumes of some kind, which we are guessing were cultural/medieval clothes. Some looked sorta like swedish type clothes, but most looked like peasants. So that was cute. I bought a few goodies and we laughed at a couple of the stands because they were wooden torture devices, like in medieval times The chains with the ball on the end with spikes, giant axes, cross bows, etc., all made out of wood. Then there was another stand that had what appeared to be smoked wild game. Just sitting out in the open...I think the prey here is actually the person who ate it. Anyhoo, it had chickens right next to what I guess to be quail, but they looked like little tiny chickens. They also had something behind it that at first I thought was a squirrel, but was more the size of a cat. THAT freaked me out. I wanted to ask what it was, but we moved on to the next spot since the guy was selling someone some bacon or something.
Did I mention we passed by the museum of medieval torture instruments? We saw the craftsman selling them in the market, but apparently they had some real ones on display. We decided to go ahead and pass on that this time, but if we come back, we'll be sure to stop in an take a look-see. One place we did stop in at was a restaurant that had no electricity. Dave from Warnemunde had told us about it. He said to be sure and stop in because everything was lit by candlelight and of course they were all in costume and were famous for their cinnamon beer. It did smell cinnamon-ish when we peeked inside. It was really cool. One of the best parts of this town were the fabulous shop signs. They were really creative and hung beside the doors. I took several shots of course, just to remind me later of how fun they were.
Speaking of shots, today was not a good picture day. It was rainy, overcast and often crowded. I did get a few shots, and like every rainy day we've had so far, the sun usually peeks out enough to warm you up here and there (today we had to shed some clothes). I got a few shots with the sun out, but being the dork that I am, I inadvertently hit a wrong setting on my camera about half way through the day and was over exposing everything by 1.5 stops. Photoshop can fix it, but still....duh. So over half of today's shots are bad to look at for now.
After walking up and down most of the streets of this town we decided to get a snack and hunted for a bakery. We found a couple and bought some chocolate crumb cakes and sipped some Aqua Panna water (Guy's fav). We had the option of tasting some canned EEL, but like the museum I mentioned earlier, we chose to pass this time. Even tho we only had a few hours in this town, we knocked it out in a couple of hours and headed back for the boat. Having over an hour before the ship pulled out, I came back to the cabin to grab my ipad and bolted for the free wifi at the port! It was fast, too, compared to what I've been dealing with on the boat. I had a nice conversation with a lady from New York on what a rip off the internet on the ship is. You only have a few hot-spots around the boat and you pay for x amount of minutes. So when there is horrible internet that is coming and going, your countdown of precious paid minutes are quickly ticking by regardless of the service. The lady said she was on a ship that had wifi on the entire boat and you still paid by the minute, but it as really fast and more consistent. We agreed that if WE ran the ship, we'd charge one price and you could use as much as you wanted. Am I ranting? Sorry. But the funny/interesting part of the story is that the outside of the port had people sitting on the curb all around the wifi spot. About half passengers and half were ship employees. A ship employee (assuming from India or the surrounding area) plopped down next to me and asked which wifi to pick as several options came up. I showed him the one I was using and finally it worked for him. The first place he logged into was Facebook. I guess that is how they all stay connected to home and friends. Crazy, huh? Facebook...
Back on the ship we had lunch and came back to the room to rest/blog/nap (me/me/Guy). It is about 6pm now and I think we get to put our clocks back again tonight. But tomorrow is a day at sea and I can't tell you how many people I've overheard saying they were exhausted and thrilled to be doing nothing for a day. Two days of touring in St. Petersburg just about whooped everyone, young and old. (ok, it's a cruise ship...so mostly old). Really the weather hasn't been horrible. It has been pretty chilly with mostly overcast/off and on drizzle type stuff, but certainly bearable. Right now I'm looking out the window and we are socked in with fog. Since it is daylight most of the time, it hasn't been hard for the captain to see other boats. Right now, I hope the radar is working!!
Well, tomorrow being a day at sea...and probably nothing to report except how far along I am in my book and what I ate, I will probably take a blog break until Monday after seeing Copenhagen, Denmark. After Copenhagen, we have another day at sea then back to Amsterdam. So three days left on the ship, but only one more port. After the cruise we are going to train down to Berlin for a few days. Hopefully the Westin will have better Internet and Berlin will have some sun. :)
xoxox
Guess what? Free wifi at the Tallinn port. :) Sitting here trying to figure out why you all can't see the pictures. I have added the link to each days pics at the bottom of each blog, so go back and scroll to the bottom to see the pics. But I just figured out I hadn't made the pictures available to the public. Sorry about that. You should see them all now, espcially if you click on "My Album" I think. :) Just have a few minutes, but will blog later about Tallinn, as there is too much to say at this moment. Will post more later tonight. :)
Day 10
Today we were in Tallinn, Estonia. I had no idea what to expect, but like Helsinki, was wonderfully surprised. When we woke up we were just docking. I went out on the balcony and saw the adorable medieval town. Then I looked to the left and saw the "new" Tallinn. Glass sky scrapers! What a strange sight. I took a picture and will add it to today so you can see the contrast between old and new. Beautiful and not so beautiful.
We had a leisure breakfast (the usual for me - waffles) and headed to the room to get ready. It was raining some, so I sported my hat and we grabbed our umbrellas. We caught the bus into town and headed for "Old Town". When we started to get close, we saw all these flower shops, one after the other. At first I thought they were all one owner, but each one appeared to be separate. They all had the same stuff! I can't imagine any of them making any money. So as we passed all the beautiful flowers and entered the entrance of the old part of town, we were welcomed by a big old stone wall with a turret on one side. It looked like a fortress. Once you walked in, there ahead was a McDonalds. Not that I don't occasionally splurge calories on that fabulous double cheeseburger and love every minute, I just don't want to see the golden arches in a medieval town. Kinda ruined it for me, ya know?
So as we walked around the town we hit all the highlights; the church, castle wall (kinda), and the town square had the most fabulous market. (Tallinn and Helsinki tie for the best shopping). Prices were pretty good for a tourist trap. The fun thing about this market is most of it was handmade goodies, but the people were dressed in costumes of some kind, which we are guessing were cultural/medieval clothes. Some looked sorta like swedish type clothes, but most looked like peasants. So that was cute. I bought a few goodies and we laughed at a couple of the stands because they were wooden torture devices, like in medieval times The chains with the ball on the end with spikes, giant axes, cross bows, etc., all made out of wood. Then there was another stand that had what appeared to be smoked wild game. Just sitting out in the open...I think the prey here is actually the person who ate it. Anyhoo, it had chickens right next to what I guess to be quail, but they looked like little tiny chickens. They also had something behind it that at first I thought was a squirrel, but was more the size of a cat. THAT freaked me out. I wanted to ask what it was, but we moved on to the next spot since the guy was selling someone some bacon or something.
Did I mention we passed by the museum of medieval torture instruments? We saw the craftsman selling them in the market, but apparently they had some real ones on display. We decided to go ahead and pass on that this time, but if we come back, we'll be sure to stop in an take a look-see. One place we did stop in at was a restaurant that had no electricity. Dave from Warnemunde had told us about it. He said to be sure and stop in because everything was lit by candlelight and of course they were all in costume and were famous for their cinnamon beer. It did smell cinnamon-ish when we peeked inside. It was really cool. One of the best parts of this town were the fabulous shop signs. They were really creative and hung beside the doors. I took several shots of course, just to remind me later of how fun they were.
Speaking of shots, today was not a good picture day. It was rainy, overcast and often crowded. I did get a few shots, and like every rainy day we've had so far, the sun usually peeks out enough to warm you up here and there (today we had to shed some clothes). I got a few shots with the sun out, but being the dork that I am, I inadvertently hit a wrong setting on my camera about half way through the day and was over exposing everything by 1.5 stops. Photoshop can fix it, but still....duh. So over half of today's shots are bad to look at for now.
After walking up and down most of the streets of this town we decided to get a snack and hunted for a bakery. We found a couple and bought some chocolate crumb cakes and sipped some Aqua Panna water (Guy's fav). We had the option of tasting some canned EEL, but like the museum I mentioned earlier, we chose to pass this time. Even tho we only had a few hours in this town, we knocked it out in a couple of hours and headed back for the boat. Having over an hour before the ship pulled out, I came back to the cabin to grab my ipad and bolted for the free wifi at the port! It was fast, too, compared to what I've been dealing with on the boat. I had a nice conversation with a lady from New York on what a rip off the internet on the ship is. You only have a few hot-spots around the boat and you pay for x amount of minutes. So when there is horrible internet that is coming and going, your countdown of precious paid minutes are quickly ticking by regardless of the service. The lady said she was on a ship that had wifi on the entire boat and you still paid by the minute, but it as really fast and more consistent. We agreed that if WE ran the ship, we'd charge one price and you could use as much as you wanted. Am I ranting? Sorry. But the funny/interesting part of the story is that the outside of the port had people sitting on the curb all around the wifi spot. About half passengers and half were ship employees. A ship employee (assuming from India or the surrounding area) plopped down next to me and asked which wifi to pick as several options came up. I showed him the one I was using and finally it worked for him. The first place he logged into was Facebook. I guess that is how they all stay connected to home and friends. Crazy, huh? Facebook...
Back on the ship we had lunch and came back to the room to rest/blog/nap (me/me/Guy). It is about 6pm now and I think we get to put our clocks back again tonight. But tomorrow is a day at sea and I can't tell you how many people I've overheard saying they were exhausted and thrilled to be doing nothing for a day. Two days of touring in St. Petersburg just about whooped everyone, young and old. (ok, it's a cruise ship...so mostly old). Really the weather hasn't been horrible. It has been pretty chilly with mostly overcast/off and on drizzle type stuff, but certainly bearable. Right now I'm looking out the window and we are socked in with fog. Since it is daylight most of the time, it hasn't been hard for the captain to see other boats. Right now, I hope the radar is working!!
Well, tomorrow being a day at sea...and probably nothing to report except how far along I am in my book and what I ate, I will probably take a blog break until Monday after seeing Copenhagen, Denmark. After Copenhagen, we have another day at sea then back to Amsterdam. So three days left on the ship, but only one more port. After the cruise we are going to train down to Berlin for a few days. Hopefully the Westin will have better Internet and Berlin will have some sun. :)
xoxox
Friday, June 8, 2012
Day 9
Day 9 St. Petersburg (day 2)
Another early wake-up as we needed to meet Elanna at 7:45. She is so good at getting us to the front of lines, taking us to places where she knows there will be less people at certain times, as well as having a vast knowledge of St. Petersburg history and art history. Our same group from yesterday met up even before Elanna arrived, so as soon as the bus pulled up, we were ready to go. Our first stop was to go to the tour company and pay for the tour. This is the catch, she said we would be stopping first to pay for the trip and then we'd have one hour to shop. Well, shopping consisted of shopping around the tour company's gift shop. You know how they always make you exit the museum through the gift shop? You get the idea. So that kinda stunk, but our day was so packed with sight-seeing, really you had no option but to get all your goodies there (or at the port shops). Not that the selection wasn't good, it was, but still...prices were certainly not cheaper than the port shops.
After shopping, we headed for the Hermitage museum. The building itself was a sight to behold, let alone all the artwork inside. I'm forgetting now who the Hermitage was built for...but I am thinking Peter the Great built if for Elizabeth, but she died before it was completed. Catherine (the big spender daughter from yesterday) didn't like staying there because it was too big and lonely, hence the name Hermitage. (my history may be off there). But what I do know for sure is that Elanna said if you spent only a few minutes looking at every piece of art in the museum, it would take you 15 years to see it all. (we were there two hours). She took us to see works by the biggies... Picasso, Kandinsky, Monet, Rembrandt, etc., and knew details about their lives, how and what they painted with and why. We all had our headsets on, so we could easily hear what she was saying from quite a distance away from her. At the Hermitage there are ladies sitting in a chair in each room to keep an eye out on the people. Years ago there was a guy who threw acid on a painting and started cutting it with a knife. (he is probably still in a damp dark Russian prison) It took them 20 years to restore the painting. Now all the pieces are under glass. Anyway, several of these older ladies (guards) were sleeping. Can you imagine sitting in warm room all day long with nothing to do but make sure no weirdos try to touch the paintings? Well we got such a kick out of it I tried to get a picture of a few of them sleeping, but when my camera focuses it beeps. That snapped them out of it immediately. I asked Elanna if they were volunteers, but she said most were retired ladies and got paid some for doing it. But they also got a free lunch in the cafeteria and other social type benefits. Once a month the Hermitage has free entry for everyone. Yesterday was that day. So today it wasn't very crowded because any locals would have been there yesterday. She commented several times how lucky we were. I got several shots with no one in them.
Next we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. We had no menu, they brought us all the same thing. First was a cucumber, red pepper and tomato salad, then came the cabbage soup, the entree of chicken and mystery stuff, then finally locally made ice cream. I took a few shots of the food so I could show you the mystery stuff, which was my favorite part. I asked Elanna what it was and she said it as a local grain (we compared to barley - kinda) and was very good for you. She said when it is ready to be harvested, it turns brown and then you boil it. It was dry and fluffy like rice only more dry. I liked it. She said it is often eaten for breakfast instead of something like oatmeal. The other portion of the main entree was some kind of chicken in a creamy sauce. I picked around most of the chicken *insert flashback from yesterday's lunch here*, but scooped the sauce up with the mystery stuff. That was good (and probably safe).
After lunch we went church hopping. First the Church of the Blood. It looked very "Moscow-ish" and I didn't have a lens wide enough to take in the entire thing. :( But inside, everything that looked like a painting was actually a mosaic. It was just breath taking...wow. I took lots and lots of pics from inside and outside. They do have an active church there now, which they didn't for nearly 80 years of course when it was Communist. Churches were used for storage, museums and other misc. things, and were obviously not well taken care of. Plus during the war lots of things were damaged, destroyed or stolen. St.Petersburg has just had an unimaginable amount of reconstruction done in the past 20 years.
Next was Saint Isaac Cathedral. The only pics I have of the outside of it were from the bus (which you may have seen in yesterday's shots) because you would have to be way across the street for any kind of full shot and we couldn't leave the group. The top of this church is the one with the big gold "onions" on top. Ok, that is probably not a good way to describe it, but I think you know what I mean. Inside this church was beautiful. In the center of the church, way up in the tallest "onion" was a big sliver dove. It looked tiny, but in reality it had a wingspan of 9 feet. I have some pictures. But the paintings in this church were amazing. There were 4 versions of this church throughout the years and the third church was pretty good size, but had some architectural problems. So when designing a 4th version, they opened it up as a contest (sort of) and the final plan, which stands today, was designed by a Frenchman. They only have special services in this church (Easter, Christmas, etc.) and there are no pews. Elanna said in Russian Orthodox churches you stand for the entire service which could go as long as 2 hours on a special occasion. Each church we have visited has had some kind of gift shop. This one had a good one and the prices were great! Guy didn't know you could actually buy a shot glass in a church, but apparently you can. I did pick up a few items, but no shot glass (ha ha).
After leaving this church we stopped for a photo-op of our next stop from across the river, and of the two kinda ugly lighthouses. At this stop we saw the police with machine guns - FINALLY!! But Elanna said Putin was in town and going to be doing something tonight that required the city to have security everywhere. I went over to take a quick picture of them. Elanna said it was ok to do that, just don't make it obvious. We hopped back in the bus and made a tinkle stop that happened to have shopping. It was about the same stuff as the tour company's gift shop, but we managed to find a few more things. It's not a good idea to compare the prices of the exact stuff you just bought somewhere else...it can become quite unpleasant. :) When everyone was finished, we headed for our last stop which was the St. Peter and Paul Fortress. Built in 1703, this was the spot Peter the Great chose to build his new city (today's St. Petersburg). It is the burial place of all the Russian Czars - being all the generations of Peter the Great's family, all the way down to the last Romanov (sp?) family that as murdered, even the children, to end the rule of this family. (When Lenin took over and Communism began). Again, I need to now watch the movie Anastasia, which legend has it may have not died during the massacre. Anyhoo, there are tombs all inside the church, but the actual bodies are buried deep under the basement.
Back on the bus we headed back for the ship. Everyone is exhausted and ready for a good meal. ;) We got inside the port when Guy realized we never got any Rubles, so I ran back out and Elanna gave me some. The ship doesn't exchange rubles, because most Russian shops take everything, (Credit cards, US dollars and Euros). So she was kind enough to give me some bills and coins. On the ship we got a quick snack and headed for the room. We couldn't decide if to go to dinner or have dinner brought to us. They will bring up room service from the main dining room - anything on the menu. But chose to go down for dinner. I had a coconut chicken and Guy had scampi. Tonight just gets a B rating. :) We weren't that hungry anyway.
Tomorrow is an early day but we get to set our clocks back one hour tonight! Woot! We are in Estonia from only 7am to 3pm. So if we want to see it, we gotta get up early again. But really only a half day and the next day we are at sea all day, so that will be plenty of time to relax then. We don't have a guided tour planned. We are just going to take a bus into the city and walk around a bit. That is what we did in Helsinki and it was kinda nice. We are about to have tour burnout after these past two days.
Horrible Internet tonight. Will work on pictures tomorrow at maybe an Internet cafe.... xoxoxox
Another early wake-up as we needed to meet Elanna at 7:45. She is so good at getting us to the front of lines, taking us to places where she knows there will be less people at certain times, as well as having a vast knowledge of St. Petersburg history and art history. Our same group from yesterday met up even before Elanna arrived, so as soon as the bus pulled up, we were ready to go. Our first stop was to go to the tour company and pay for the tour. This is the catch, she said we would be stopping first to pay for the trip and then we'd have one hour to shop. Well, shopping consisted of shopping around the tour company's gift shop. You know how they always make you exit the museum through the gift shop? You get the idea. So that kinda stunk, but our day was so packed with sight-seeing, really you had no option but to get all your goodies there (or at the port shops). Not that the selection wasn't good, it was, but still...prices were certainly not cheaper than the port shops.
After shopping, we headed for the Hermitage museum. The building itself was a sight to behold, let alone all the artwork inside. I'm forgetting now who the Hermitage was built for...but I am thinking Peter the Great built if for Elizabeth, but she died before it was completed. Catherine (the big spender daughter from yesterday) didn't like staying there because it was too big and lonely, hence the name Hermitage. (my history may be off there). But what I do know for sure is that Elanna said if you spent only a few minutes looking at every piece of art in the museum, it would take you 15 years to see it all. (we were there two hours). She took us to see works by the biggies... Picasso, Kandinsky, Monet, Rembrandt, etc., and knew details about their lives, how and what they painted with and why. We all had our headsets on, so we could easily hear what she was saying from quite a distance away from her. At the Hermitage there are ladies sitting in a chair in each room to keep an eye out on the people. Years ago there was a guy who threw acid on a painting and started cutting it with a knife. (he is probably still in a damp dark Russian prison) It took them 20 years to restore the painting. Now all the pieces are under glass. Anyway, several of these older ladies (guards) were sleeping. Can you imagine sitting in warm room all day long with nothing to do but make sure no weirdos try to touch the paintings? Well we got such a kick out of it I tried to get a picture of a few of them sleeping, but when my camera focuses it beeps. That snapped them out of it immediately. I asked Elanna if they were volunteers, but she said most were retired ladies and got paid some for doing it. But they also got a free lunch in the cafeteria and other social type benefits. Once a month the Hermitage has free entry for everyone. Yesterday was that day. So today it wasn't very crowded because any locals would have been there yesterday. She commented several times how lucky we were. I got several shots with no one in them.
Next we stopped for lunch at a local restaurant. We had no menu, they brought us all the same thing. First was a cucumber, red pepper and tomato salad, then came the cabbage soup, the entree of chicken and mystery stuff, then finally locally made ice cream. I took a few shots of the food so I could show you the mystery stuff, which was my favorite part. I asked Elanna what it was and she said it as a local grain (we compared to barley - kinda) and was very good for you. She said when it is ready to be harvested, it turns brown and then you boil it. It was dry and fluffy like rice only more dry. I liked it. She said it is often eaten for breakfast instead of something like oatmeal. The other portion of the main entree was some kind of chicken in a creamy sauce. I picked around most of the chicken *insert flashback from yesterday's lunch here*, but scooped the sauce up with the mystery stuff. That was good (and probably safe).
After lunch we went church hopping. First the Church of the Blood. It looked very "Moscow-ish" and I didn't have a lens wide enough to take in the entire thing. :( But inside, everything that looked like a painting was actually a mosaic. It was just breath taking...wow. I took lots and lots of pics from inside and outside. They do have an active church there now, which they didn't for nearly 80 years of course when it was Communist. Churches were used for storage, museums and other misc. things, and were obviously not well taken care of. Plus during the war lots of things were damaged, destroyed or stolen. St.Petersburg has just had an unimaginable amount of reconstruction done in the past 20 years.
Next was Saint Isaac Cathedral. The only pics I have of the outside of it were from the bus (which you may have seen in yesterday's shots) because you would have to be way across the street for any kind of full shot and we couldn't leave the group. The top of this church is the one with the big gold "onions" on top. Ok, that is probably not a good way to describe it, but I think you know what I mean. Inside this church was beautiful. In the center of the church, way up in the tallest "onion" was a big sliver dove. It looked tiny, but in reality it had a wingspan of 9 feet. I have some pictures. But the paintings in this church were amazing. There were 4 versions of this church throughout the years and the third church was pretty good size, but had some architectural problems. So when designing a 4th version, they opened it up as a contest (sort of) and the final plan, which stands today, was designed by a Frenchman. They only have special services in this church (Easter, Christmas, etc.) and there are no pews. Elanna said in Russian Orthodox churches you stand for the entire service which could go as long as 2 hours on a special occasion. Each church we have visited has had some kind of gift shop. This one had a good one and the prices were great! Guy didn't know you could actually buy a shot glass in a church, but apparently you can. I did pick up a few items, but no shot glass (ha ha).
After leaving this church we stopped for a photo-op of our next stop from across the river, and of the two kinda ugly lighthouses. At this stop we saw the police with machine guns - FINALLY!! But Elanna said Putin was in town and going to be doing something tonight that required the city to have security everywhere. I went over to take a quick picture of them. Elanna said it was ok to do that, just don't make it obvious. We hopped back in the bus and made a tinkle stop that happened to have shopping. It was about the same stuff as the tour company's gift shop, but we managed to find a few more things. It's not a good idea to compare the prices of the exact stuff you just bought somewhere else...it can become quite unpleasant. :) When everyone was finished, we headed for our last stop which was the St. Peter and Paul Fortress. Built in 1703, this was the spot Peter the Great chose to build his new city (today's St. Petersburg). It is the burial place of all the Russian Czars - being all the generations of Peter the Great's family, all the way down to the last Romanov (sp?) family that as murdered, even the children, to end the rule of this family. (When Lenin took over and Communism began). Again, I need to now watch the movie Anastasia, which legend has it may have not died during the massacre. Anyhoo, there are tombs all inside the church, but the actual bodies are buried deep under the basement.
Back on the bus we headed back for the ship. Everyone is exhausted and ready for a good meal. ;) We got inside the port when Guy realized we never got any Rubles, so I ran back out and Elanna gave me some. The ship doesn't exchange rubles, because most Russian shops take everything, (Credit cards, US dollars and Euros). So she was kind enough to give me some bills and coins. On the ship we got a quick snack and headed for the room. We couldn't decide if to go to dinner or have dinner brought to us. They will bring up room service from the main dining room - anything on the menu. But chose to go down for dinner. I had a coconut chicken and Guy had scampi. Tonight just gets a B rating. :) We weren't that hungry anyway.
Tomorrow is an early day but we get to set our clocks back one hour tonight! Woot! We are in Estonia from only 7am to 3pm. So if we want to see it, we gotta get up early again. But really only a half day and the next day we are at sea all day, so that will be plenty of time to relax then. We don't have a guided tour planned. We are just going to take a bus into the city and walk around a bit. That is what we did in Helsinki and it was kinda nice. We are about to have tour burnout after these past two days.
Horrible Internet tonight. Will work on pictures tomorrow at maybe an Internet cafe.... xoxoxox
Thursday, June 7, 2012
Day 8
Day 8 St. Petersburg Russia
We both finally had a good night of sleeping. Mine had to be medically induced, but so be it. (I heart Xanax) Early wake up at 5:30am to get ready for our busy day in St. Petersburg, Russia. We had some paperwork to fill out (immigration papers) and had it in-hand for the process to enter Russia. The night before Guy went down to exchange some dollars for rubles (sp?) but they didn't recommend we cash any in. They take Euros as well, and we had some already. They also had machines around the city where you just put US dollars in and it exchanged it for you. They didn't recommend putting in large bills in case the machine gave you the wrong exchange.
We headed for the immigration line and of course picked the one where some Asian folks didn't have their paperwork filled out correctly and it took us forever to get thru the line. I guess I was expecting mean dudes with machine guns and scary faces, but I can tell you the Rome airport has much scarier police! The scariest it got was the grouchy immigration officer girls who look like they'd be a real downer at a party. As we walked through we immediately found our tour group (Alla) and there were about 15 of us in our group. One couple had two small boys, which were not always on their best behavior, but it ended up being fine. Our tour guide's name was Elanna and our bus driver was Vladamir. We laughed at his name to ourselves (very Russian) and he kinda reminded me of my Grandpa George. This is the beginning of our VERY busy day.
At first we drove around the city in our little bus and Elanna explained the highlights to us. Our first stop was a trip down into the subway. Sounds strange, but the Russians are very proud of their subway. We took an escalator approximately 15 stories down under the ground to find an exceptionally clean station with beautiful mosaics on the walls. The station we were at had a sport/olympic theme, so the mosaics were of mostly sporting events. The great thing about this tour so far is Elanna says "here it is, take some pictures, and let's go!" We had a lot to cover and it was just enough time to see it and move on. Our next stop was a boat ride around the canals of the city. It has over 500 bridges (more than Venice I think they said) and I sat up top outside to get photos and Guy went downstairs because it was quite chilly. He was only down there about one minute then came up because he said it was smokey and stinky, so we froze together. At first around the city it wasn't bad, but when we went out into the Neva river the wind was cutting through us. We went across the river to check out Russia's first diesel fueled warship built for the first World War. The morning was really overcast, no rain, but you could feel the cool damp air and occasionally see your breath. We put our hats and gloves on and were both glad to see us heading back to the canals of the city. The bridges were so low that if you were standing up you would be knocked out and twice people had to be yelled at who weren't paying attention. The photo ops were just so-so because of the yucky morning and it was just so big it was hard to take it all in with a camera.
After the boat ride we toured Yusupov's Place famous for where they attempted to kill Rasputin. We saw the room where they poisoned him (which didn't work) and where he got shot the first time (which didn't kill him). They had the photo of him dead, so I assume they eventually got the dude to kill over. I had heard of Rasputin, but not in such detail. Interesting story. Guy says he'll rent the movie for me when we get home. The bad guy in the first Die Hard movie plays Rasputin. Ok, this place was crazy particular. You had to check your backpacks and long coats. Our tour guide slipped us past the check point but later a lady came up to me and Guy at different times and told us to swing our backpacks to the front of us. I also had to pay $5 to take pictures. I chose to pay because I didn't want to check my camera. No biggie. By the time we left this palace, it was so packed with people I was starting to have a hard time breathing. Obviously they don't have any kind of fire code there.
From the palace we hopped the bus to the hydrofoil which was about a 30 minute ride to Peterhof. This is where Peter the Great built his summer palace. But before I go any further, I must explain our "sack lunch" on the hydrofoil. It was a "pancake" with chicken in the middle. The package it was in was still hot, so that is good, and my first few nibbles of the pancake were ok, but then I bit into the chicken breast in the middle. There was a weird crunch and I looked at it. It was a weird pink/red color in the middle and I immediately spit what was in my mouth into the packet it was in. As I was gagging mine back into the packet, Guy had gone as far as putting a few teeth marks into his, but after seeing me, he neatly closed his up and we looked to see what else was in the bag. An apple (no chance I'm eating an unwashed apple), a pear juice box, and a candy bar. So lunch for us consisted of a candybar and Guy said the juice was good. I chose to be thirsty. The bad thing is, we were told we could not take any food into Russia, so we unloaded our candy and granola bars from the back packs. Well, let me tell you, no one looked in our backpacks and tomorrow we'll be taking granola bars. They can take them from us if they are checking tomorrow.
Ok, now back to Peterhof. I've got to be honest, Peter I, II, and III got me all mixed up, let alone all the Elizabeths and Catherines and how they killed off their own kids and husbands, but I'll do my best here. Peter the Great, who obviously was Westernized and killed a bunch of people, had built the city of St. Petersburg. All the palaces, fountains and gardens were beautiful, but when he died, his daughter, Elizabeth, knew how to spend the cash and built more fountains and lined just about everything in gold. BTW, all 150 fountains on the property were engineered to work on just gravity from an underground stream, no pumps. This place was worth the visit to St. Petersburg alone. I haven't seen anything quite so extravagant. The stories tho, of how the Nazis came in and destroyed everything, were heartbreaking. It has taken well over 25 million to try to restore the Palace. The Nazis just tore things up out of meanness, used the fountain statues as target practice and looted everything as they left. When they knew they Nazis were coming, which sounded like it was a bit of a surprise, they took most of the statues down and buried them under the ground. They found all but 4. The same with some of the paintings, etc, but lots were destroyed or stolen. Our tour guide's grandmother lived through this war. I took lots of pictures but they won't even begin to touch the beauty of this area. Words just can't explain it. And the sun popped out *bonus*!!
From the Peterhof, we took the bus to the Tsars Village (Tsarskoe Selo) where we went thru Catherine's Palace. This would have been Peter the Great's, daugther's daughter-in-law. Got it? The cool story here was Catherine (not her real name to make things more confusing) married Elizabeth's (the big spender) son Peter III. So Catherine was a "married in" from Germany, but was the brains of the family. When Peter III met her, he was married already, but sent wife #1 off to be a nun so he could marry Catherine. Apparently he had a pea sized brain and all he wanted to do was sit around and play video games (ok, not really, but similar to that only in the 1800s). Catherine eventually had some boyfriends and was a great politician, and ended up sending Peter III to prison where he was killed. She reigned for about 20 some odd years. She wasn't even royal blood! Cool. The claim to fame in this Palace was Catherine's Amber room. Ceiling to floor was lined with mosaics of pieces of Amber. Of course the Nazis stole the room when they left and it was never recovered. However, they reconstructed the room again out of real Amber and that was the only place we were not allowed to take pictures. It was stunning.
Like this wasn't enough for one day, we took the one hour bus ride back to the ship via the city so Elanna could point out more important sights. Apparently when we get home I have to rent Dr. Shavago (sp?) and Annastasia (sp?). But tomorrow is a walking tour of the city, most of our time being spent at the Hermitage museum. (Makenzie, I wish you were here to shoot out some art history facts to me!) She says we get to shop as well, but I think we are only allotted an hour for that. An hour? What the heck?
Back to the ship and we obviously went to get a small snack to hold us until we could get ready for dinner. The menu in the main dining room looked just so-so, so we chose to go to the specialty restaurant the Tuscan Grille. It was our best meal so far. I wish I had my camera, because the presentation of everything was killer. But I had eggplant cannelloni filled with goat cheese as a starter, caprese salad, and wild mushroom ravioli in a parmesan and truffle oil sauce. Guy had calamari, caprese salad, and filet with baked mac and cheese that was to die for. (Die for, not like DIE OF ... thinking of my chicken pancake). I had to type all this tonight because to think of it all tomorrow on top of everything else would really have my Peters and Catherines totally confused! :)
Internet was really slow this morning when I tried to upload pics from yesterday, so I'll choose a few to put up from today. And wow, what a day. Please forgive typos and other bad grammar. These blogs are at the end of long days and typed on a tiny ipad keyboard. xoxoxoxox
We both finally had a good night of sleeping. Mine had to be medically induced, but so be it. (I heart Xanax) Early wake up at 5:30am to get ready for our busy day in St. Petersburg, Russia. We had some paperwork to fill out (immigration papers) and had it in-hand for the process to enter Russia. The night before Guy went down to exchange some dollars for rubles (sp?) but they didn't recommend we cash any in. They take Euros as well, and we had some already. They also had machines around the city where you just put US dollars in and it exchanged it for you. They didn't recommend putting in large bills in case the machine gave you the wrong exchange.
We headed for the immigration line and of course picked the one where some Asian folks didn't have their paperwork filled out correctly and it took us forever to get thru the line. I guess I was expecting mean dudes with machine guns and scary faces, but I can tell you the Rome airport has much scarier police! The scariest it got was the grouchy immigration officer girls who look like they'd be a real downer at a party. As we walked through we immediately found our tour group (Alla) and there were about 15 of us in our group. One couple had two small boys, which were not always on their best behavior, but it ended up being fine. Our tour guide's name was Elanna and our bus driver was Vladamir. We laughed at his name to ourselves (very Russian) and he kinda reminded me of my Grandpa George. This is the beginning of our VERY busy day.
At first we drove around the city in our little bus and Elanna explained the highlights to us. Our first stop was a trip down into the subway. Sounds strange, but the Russians are very proud of their subway. We took an escalator approximately 15 stories down under the ground to find an exceptionally clean station with beautiful mosaics on the walls. The station we were at had a sport/olympic theme, so the mosaics were of mostly sporting events. The great thing about this tour so far is Elanna says "here it is, take some pictures, and let's go!" We had a lot to cover and it was just enough time to see it and move on. Our next stop was a boat ride around the canals of the city. It has over 500 bridges (more than Venice I think they said) and I sat up top outside to get photos and Guy went downstairs because it was quite chilly. He was only down there about one minute then came up because he said it was smokey and stinky, so we froze together. At first around the city it wasn't bad, but when we went out into the Neva river the wind was cutting through us. We went across the river to check out Russia's first diesel fueled warship built for the first World War. The morning was really overcast, no rain, but you could feel the cool damp air and occasionally see your breath. We put our hats and gloves on and were both glad to see us heading back to the canals of the city. The bridges were so low that if you were standing up you would be knocked out and twice people had to be yelled at who weren't paying attention. The photo ops were just so-so because of the yucky morning and it was just so big it was hard to take it all in with a camera.
After the boat ride we toured Yusupov's Place famous for where they attempted to kill Rasputin. We saw the room where they poisoned him (which didn't work) and where he got shot the first time (which didn't kill him). They had the photo of him dead, so I assume they eventually got the dude to kill over. I had heard of Rasputin, but not in such detail. Interesting story. Guy says he'll rent the movie for me when we get home. The bad guy in the first Die Hard movie plays Rasputin. Ok, this place was crazy particular. You had to check your backpacks and long coats. Our tour guide slipped us past the check point but later a lady came up to me and Guy at different times and told us to swing our backpacks to the front of us. I also had to pay $5 to take pictures. I chose to pay because I didn't want to check my camera. No biggie. By the time we left this palace, it was so packed with people I was starting to have a hard time breathing. Obviously they don't have any kind of fire code there.
From the palace we hopped the bus to the hydrofoil which was about a 30 minute ride to Peterhof. This is where Peter the Great built his summer palace. But before I go any further, I must explain our "sack lunch" on the hydrofoil. It was a "pancake" with chicken in the middle. The package it was in was still hot, so that is good, and my first few nibbles of the pancake were ok, but then I bit into the chicken breast in the middle. There was a weird crunch and I looked at it. It was a weird pink/red color in the middle and I immediately spit what was in my mouth into the packet it was in. As I was gagging mine back into the packet, Guy had gone as far as putting a few teeth marks into his, but after seeing me, he neatly closed his up and we looked to see what else was in the bag. An apple (no chance I'm eating an unwashed apple), a pear juice box, and a candy bar. So lunch for us consisted of a candybar and Guy said the juice was good. I chose to be thirsty. The bad thing is, we were told we could not take any food into Russia, so we unloaded our candy and granola bars from the back packs. Well, let me tell you, no one looked in our backpacks and tomorrow we'll be taking granola bars. They can take them from us if they are checking tomorrow.
Ok, now back to Peterhof. I've got to be honest, Peter I, II, and III got me all mixed up, let alone all the Elizabeths and Catherines and how they killed off their own kids and husbands, but I'll do my best here. Peter the Great, who obviously was Westernized and killed a bunch of people, had built the city of St. Petersburg. All the palaces, fountains and gardens were beautiful, but when he died, his daughter, Elizabeth, knew how to spend the cash and built more fountains and lined just about everything in gold. BTW, all 150 fountains on the property were engineered to work on just gravity from an underground stream, no pumps. This place was worth the visit to St. Petersburg alone. I haven't seen anything quite so extravagant. The stories tho, of how the Nazis came in and destroyed everything, were heartbreaking. It has taken well over 25 million to try to restore the Palace. The Nazis just tore things up out of meanness, used the fountain statues as target practice and looted everything as they left. When they knew they Nazis were coming, which sounded like it was a bit of a surprise, they took most of the statues down and buried them under the ground. They found all but 4. The same with some of the paintings, etc, but lots were destroyed or stolen. Our tour guide's grandmother lived through this war. I took lots of pictures but they won't even begin to touch the beauty of this area. Words just can't explain it. And the sun popped out *bonus*!!
From the Peterhof, we took the bus to the Tsars Village (Tsarskoe Selo) where we went thru Catherine's Palace. This would have been Peter the Great's, daugther's daughter-in-law. Got it? The cool story here was Catherine (not her real name to make things more confusing) married Elizabeth's (the big spender) son Peter III. So Catherine was a "married in" from Germany, but was the brains of the family. When Peter III met her, he was married already, but sent wife #1 off to be a nun so he could marry Catherine. Apparently he had a pea sized brain and all he wanted to do was sit around and play video games (ok, not really, but similar to that only in the 1800s). Catherine eventually had some boyfriends and was a great politician, and ended up sending Peter III to prison where he was killed. She reigned for about 20 some odd years. She wasn't even royal blood! Cool. The claim to fame in this Palace was Catherine's Amber room. Ceiling to floor was lined with mosaics of pieces of Amber. Of course the Nazis stole the room when they left and it was never recovered. However, they reconstructed the room again out of real Amber and that was the only place we were not allowed to take pictures. It was stunning.
Like this wasn't enough for one day, we took the one hour bus ride back to the ship via the city so Elanna could point out more important sights. Apparently when we get home I have to rent Dr. Shavago (sp?) and Annastasia (sp?). But tomorrow is a walking tour of the city, most of our time being spent at the Hermitage museum. (Makenzie, I wish you were here to shoot out some art history facts to me!) She says we get to shop as well, but I think we are only allotted an hour for that. An hour? What the heck?
Back to the ship and we obviously went to get a small snack to hold us until we could get ready for dinner. The menu in the main dining room looked just so-so, so we chose to go to the specialty restaurant the Tuscan Grille. It was our best meal so far. I wish I had my camera, because the presentation of everything was killer. But I had eggplant cannelloni filled with goat cheese as a starter, caprese salad, and wild mushroom ravioli in a parmesan and truffle oil sauce. Guy had calamari, caprese salad, and filet with baked mac and cheese that was to die for. (Die for, not like DIE OF ... thinking of my chicken pancake). I had to type all this tonight because to think of it all tomorrow on top of everything else would really have my Peters and Catherines totally confused! :)
Internet was really slow this morning when I tried to upload pics from yesterday, so I'll choose a few to put up from today. And wow, what a day. Please forgive typos and other bad grammar. These blogs are at the end of long days and typed on a tiny ipad keyboard. xoxoxoxox
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Day 7
Day 7 Helsinki Finland
Last night we had to set our clocks ahead one hour because Helsinki would be in the next time zone. That means we are now 8 hours ahead of home. Tonight we will set our clocks ahead another hour, since St. Petersburg is again in the next time zone, being 9 hours from home (math genius). Today, we couldn't disembark until 10am and had no tour plans, so we set the alarm for 8:45, but shut it off and slept a bit more. We did some better last night as far as sleeping. I had to read for awhile to fall asleep, but when I finally did...it was an all-nighter. Guy let me sleep in a bit more and he went on a hunt for breakfast, returning with breakfast crepes and an Italian crepe (Nutella and bananas) which we split. With full bellies we headed for town. Dave had told us that Helsinki wasn't going to be anything amazing, so with our lower expectations in check, we headed for the bus.
Entering into town, we were dumped at a bus stop and with our map we planned our strategy. Not really much to see; the Presidential Palace, a pretty garden area and some churches being top on the list. Once we got headed in the right direction we began to explore the city. It is actually quite clean and lovely. In a way, it is the same old same old, as far as buildings and church architecture from the surrounding cities we've seen so far. But still very very pretty. Also pretty are the fair skinned, blue eyed blondes and one lady we passed on the street must have been a model. Everyone pretty much speaks perfect English and is really friendly. One lady (yes blonde, but with long dreads) saw us staring at the map and stopped to ask if we needed help, which as a matter of fact we did! So that is always a bonus...when people are nice. :)
So lets get to the good part of the day...the MARKET! At first I thought it was just a fish market and little tiny attached restaurants (more like a small version of the tents in front of T street at the fair). Then the further in we got, the good stuff started to appear. Local artisians and their works. Ugh...my weakness. My first stop was a blacksmith who had a great big black cat on his table. We talked for a bit and he explained he was from Egypt and was in the military during the first Gulf War and had feared he would be pulled into the second war. Finland was the only country that "would take him" so he came there to live and fell in love, so he stayed. He explained business is bad and Finland is in a recession, so he has a harder time because Finland is not real fond of foreigners coming to live there and possibly taking their jobs, so a friend suggested he come to the markets and sell to tourists. He had been featured in a magazine (which he showed me a copy of) and his work was beautiful. I wished him well and moved on. My next stop was a poor looking fellow who did beautiful bronze work. More on the side of mythical characters and creatures, but I was drawn to one piece that was just a really unique design. This was my first purchase. I took a picture of him holding the necklace. He was a bit shy but his English was perfect. He told me he sketches all his ideas before beginning, then begins his metalworking. He was cool. Then I came across a young girl who studied photography for 4 years, now she creates jewelry with her photography. We talked for a long time. Her dad was from New York and her mother was from Germany, so she ended up in Finland creating art. She said her mother attends a university in Finland and studies glass work. She says she certainly isn't rich, but her life is good and she is self supporting by her work. She said the winters are hard. People are very grouchy and the long dark days are depressing. She works alone, so she says she doesn't have to interact with a lot of people, but when the first spring flowers come up, she said the people completely change and are smiling and happy again. From her I bought a pair of earrings. Definitely a minimalistic piece, but is from a photograph in a park in Finland, close to the Russian border. On the back of the earrings is written the exact location. She gave me her Facebook page and email so we can chat in the future.
I picked up a few other trinkets in the market and didn't mind the rain coming down, but I had been gone for some time and went to find Guy. Our meeting place was this huge monument in the middle of the market. He called it the monument of the waiting husbands. ROTFL. Together we picked out a few trinkets and headed out for more sight seeing. The rain was just heavy sprinkles, really, but we decided to get a snack and something warm to drink while the rain passed. We went into a building called the Stockman and it was this crazy huge department store/grocery store/bakery/coffee house/sushi bar/everything you'd ever want and more kind of place. We got a fresh item from the bakery, a water, and a hot chocolate and grabbed a bar stool along the window that overlooked the street. We warmed up and put a little something in our stomachs. There wasn't really a lot left to see, except just exploring around a bit more. This town reminds me of someplace I've been before...I just can't put my finger on it. Maybe Innsbruck, Austria minus the mountains due to the ornate squarish buildings and streets lined with trolly wires overhead - everywhere. Anyhoo, it was really much more enjoyable than I was expecting. With nothing really left to see and a few minutes to spare, we spun back by the market for one more item and headed for the bus.
I started to panic because IF I had forgotten to set my watch forward, we were potentially going to miss the ship! I knew I had set it forward the night before, but was still relieved when we saw about 60 people at the designated bus pick-up spot. Whew. Of course, if you miss the ship, you have to find your own transportation to the next stop to get back on. Bad thing is if we had missed this one, the next stop is St. Petersburg and my guess is they weren't going to let us in, because we have no visa and the only way you can enter the country is with a visa or with someone with a visa (like our tour guides tomorrow). So that would have not been good. Speaking of tomorrow in St. Petersburg, Charles and some of his group (who we went to the Vasa museum with) are going off with a tour company (not recommended by Dave and the ship people) that is going to fly them to Moscow and then they are going to train back to the ship about midnight. To me, that is a bit c-r-a-z-y, but that group likes to live a bit on the edge. No thanks. But I'm sure they'll have some stories to tell.
Back on the ship we grabbed a quick snack and set up top outside until it got a bit too chilly. We came down one level to the bar with the big panoramic view so I could type today's notes and Guy is finishing up one of his books. But before we came down, we counted 8 big ships (including us) leaving Helsinki. As we've said before, cruising isn't necessarily for everyone, and is a horrible/impossible way to really see a country, but knowing that we would probably never fly to Finland for an extended vacation, it was a great way to get just a small taste of what the area and people are like. Probably not on our list of places to come again, but feel really blessed to have been able to see a small part of it. Plus I have an email address of a fabulous young photographer/artist I look forward to talking to again. So to me...today was a great success.
Tonight will be dinner in the main dining room. For me I'll be having veal cordon-bleu and Guy is eyeballing the Tilapia fixed mediterranean style. It's nice when your only concern about dinner is what to wear. xoxoxoxox
P.S. We just got back in from dinner. It is 10pm (my watch says 11pm because I'm ready for tomorrow. I took a picture. The sun hasn't set yet. Check it out.
Last night we had to set our clocks ahead one hour because Helsinki would be in the next time zone. That means we are now 8 hours ahead of home. Tonight we will set our clocks ahead another hour, since St. Petersburg is again in the next time zone, being 9 hours from home (math genius). Today, we couldn't disembark until 10am and had no tour plans, so we set the alarm for 8:45, but shut it off and slept a bit more. We did some better last night as far as sleeping. I had to read for awhile to fall asleep, but when I finally did...it was an all-nighter. Guy let me sleep in a bit more and he went on a hunt for breakfast, returning with breakfast crepes and an Italian crepe (Nutella and bananas) which we split. With full bellies we headed for town. Dave had told us that Helsinki wasn't going to be anything amazing, so with our lower expectations in check, we headed for the bus.
Entering into town, we were dumped at a bus stop and with our map we planned our strategy. Not really much to see; the Presidential Palace, a pretty garden area and some churches being top on the list. Once we got headed in the right direction we began to explore the city. It is actually quite clean and lovely. In a way, it is the same old same old, as far as buildings and church architecture from the surrounding cities we've seen so far. But still very very pretty. Also pretty are the fair skinned, blue eyed blondes and one lady we passed on the street must have been a model. Everyone pretty much speaks perfect English and is really friendly. One lady (yes blonde, but with long dreads) saw us staring at the map and stopped to ask if we needed help, which as a matter of fact we did! So that is always a bonus...when people are nice. :)
So lets get to the good part of the day...the MARKET! At first I thought it was just a fish market and little tiny attached restaurants (more like a small version of the tents in front of T street at the fair). Then the further in we got, the good stuff started to appear. Local artisians and their works. Ugh...my weakness. My first stop was a blacksmith who had a great big black cat on his table. We talked for a bit and he explained he was from Egypt and was in the military during the first Gulf War and had feared he would be pulled into the second war. Finland was the only country that "would take him" so he came there to live and fell in love, so he stayed. He explained business is bad and Finland is in a recession, so he has a harder time because Finland is not real fond of foreigners coming to live there and possibly taking their jobs, so a friend suggested he come to the markets and sell to tourists. He had been featured in a magazine (which he showed me a copy of) and his work was beautiful. I wished him well and moved on. My next stop was a poor looking fellow who did beautiful bronze work. More on the side of mythical characters and creatures, but I was drawn to one piece that was just a really unique design. This was my first purchase. I took a picture of him holding the necklace. He was a bit shy but his English was perfect. He told me he sketches all his ideas before beginning, then begins his metalworking. He was cool. Then I came across a young girl who studied photography for 4 years, now she creates jewelry with her photography. We talked for a long time. Her dad was from New York and her mother was from Germany, so she ended up in Finland creating art. She said her mother attends a university in Finland and studies glass work. She says she certainly isn't rich, but her life is good and she is self supporting by her work. She said the winters are hard. People are very grouchy and the long dark days are depressing. She works alone, so she says she doesn't have to interact with a lot of people, but when the first spring flowers come up, she said the people completely change and are smiling and happy again. From her I bought a pair of earrings. Definitely a minimalistic piece, but is from a photograph in a park in Finland, close to the Russian border. On the back of the earrings is written the exact location. She gave me her Facebook page and email so we can chat in the future.
I picked up a few other trinkets in the market and didn't mind the rain coming down, but I had been gone for some time and went to find Guy. Our meeting place was this huge monument in the middle of the market. He called it the monument of the waiting husbands. ROTFL. Together we picked out a few trinkets and headed out for more sight seeing. The rain was just heavy sprinkles, really, but we decided to get a snack and something warm to drink while the rain passed. We went into a building called the Stockman and it was this crazy huge department store/grocery store/bakery/coffee house/sushi bar/everything you'd ever want and more kind of place. We got a fresh item from the bakery, a water, and a hot chocolate and grabbed a bar stool along the window that overlooked the street. We warmed up and put a little something in our stomachs. There wasn't really a lot left to see, except just exploring around a bit more. This town reminds me of someplace I've been before...I just can't put my finger on it. Maybe Innsbruck, Austria minus the mountains due to the ornate squarish buildings and streets lined with trolly wires overhead - everywhere. Anyhoo, it was really much more enjoyable than I was expecting. With nothing really left to see and a few minutes to spare, we spun back by the market for one more item and headed for the bus.
I started to panic because IF I had forgotten to set my watch forward, we were potentially going to miss the ship! I knew I had set it forward the night before, but was still relieved when we saw about 60 people at the designated bus pick-up spot. Whew. Of course, if you miss the ship, you have to find your own transportation to the next stop to get back on. Bad thing is if we had missed this one, the next stop is St. Petersburg and my guess is they weren't going to let us in, because we have no visa and the only way you can enter the country is with a visa or with someone with a visa (like our tour guides tomorrow). So that would have not been good. Speaking of tomorrow in St. Petersburg, Charles and some of his group (who we went to the Vasa museum with) are going off with a tour company (not recommended by Dave and the ship people) that is going to fly them to Moscow and then they are going to train back to the ship about midnight. To me, that is a bit c-r-a-z-y, but that group likes to live a bit on the edge. No thanks. But I'm sure they'll have some stories to tell.
Back on the ship we grabbed a quick snack and set up top outside until it got a bit too chilly. We came down one level to the bar with the big panoramic view so I could type today's notes and Guy is finishing up one of his books. But before we came down, we counted 8 big ships (including us) leaving Helsinki. As we've said before, cruising isn't necessarily for everyone, and is a horrible/impossible way to really see a country, but knowing that we would probably never fly to Finland for an extended vacation, it was a great way to get just a small taste of what the area and people are like. Probably not on our list of places to come again, but feel really blessed to have been able to see a small part of it. Plus I have an email address of a fabulous young photographer/artist I look forward to talking to again. So to me...today was a great success.
Tonight will be dinner in the main dining room. For me I'll be having veal cordon-bleu and Guy is eyeballing the Tilapia fixed mediterranean style. It's nice when your only concern about dinner is what to wear. xoxoxoxox
P.S. We just got back in from dinner. It is 10pm (my watch says 11pm because I'm ready for tomorrow. I took a picture. The sun hasn't set yet. Check it out.
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
Day 6
Day 6
Sleep? Where did you go my friend? :) Last night after dinner we were going to watch a movie, but figured we wouldn't make it all the way through, so we thought we'd try to go to bed early (10ish). Probably an hour went by and I drifted off, but Guy fought it for some time, and finally tried reading for a bit to get sleepy (Betty...he doesn't want to give your Kindle back). I woke up and it was daylight! I had my alarm set for 4:30am because I didn't want to miss the spectacular views of the archipelago, a smattering of 24,000 tiny Islands. Supposedly breathtaking as the sun comes up. So in a panic I thought I had missed it, but the clock said 3:45. When I looked out I saw nothing and went back to bed, but afraid I'd miss it, so I looked out again. Then it started...the first tiny island out of hundreds I'd see. The morning was overcast so the spectacular sunrise views were not going be an option today, but the clouds were beautiful and I caught glimpse of a faint rainbow and woke Guy up to look at the giant moon hovering over the water. That was worth getting up early for.
Some of the islands were so tiny they consisted of some rocks and one tiny bush, but others were larger and had homes on them (sometimes just one home tho). The islands started out as tiny flat protrusions out of the water, but by the time we got to Stockholm they sprouted into much more. I hesitate to call them mountains, but they are pretty good size compared to their early morning beginnings. We passed a small grouping of houses that looked like it could almost be a small fishing village, but I'm sure these home owners aren't working that hard. As we snaked our way through the island filled waters, the views remained consistently the same, so I headed back to bed a little after 5 just to rest a bit. I knew I had a long day ahead, so I grabbed at least an hour. I set the alarm for 7 and I was up again to get ready for breakfast. At this point we were really closing in on Stockholm (the archipelago was supposed to take at least 3 hours to navigate through). Now the "islands" have turned into much longer and taller stretches of beautiful scenery. We are really close, and have been at other times, to the land, so I assumed we were that close to land on the other side of the boat as well. I was tempted early to go up top and see everything instead of the one sided story from my balcony, but it was pretty chilly and channel 7 on the TV shows a camera on the front of the ship, so I just looked at the full view from the Tele and saw the "real" thing from my room. Plus I knew we would be going out the way we came in, so there would be a chance to see the entire thing again (I'm looking at it now as I type...from the upstairs lounge that has a panoramic view - plus a jazz band is playing *bonus!!*) Stockholm is compared to Venice for all the waterways surrounding it, but it isn't Venice. ;)
After a bite to eat, we waited in the coffee lounge for Charles from Boston and his group. They were in our "Dave" group in Germany and last night at dinner we bumped into them. He said they have 7 and if you had 9 people you could do a private tour of the Vasa Museum. So we said we'd be happy to be 8 and 9 because we were going there first anyway. Here starts our welcome to Sweden...a good screwing over by the cab driver. Of course money here is the Krone and 70 of them makes about $10 US dollars. Those of you who know my math skills, let's just say I'm better off not buying anything here. I have no idea what I'm spending. haha. What was posted as the customary fee for a taxi from the boat to the museum should have been about 200 Krone, the cabbie stuck us for almost 900. This was about $120 US for the 5 of us. We argued for quite some time, then our other group came over and they were charged $70 US. Still taken advantage of, but we finally got our guy down to $100 US. Still, not good. In the museum we asked the worker what it should have cost and he said around 200. He said it is sad, but this happens all the time. It is not illegal to own a private taxi and charge whatever you want. Being Sweden newbies, we had no idea as these guys were in the taxi line outside the ship mixed in amongst the real taxis. Of course we could have taken other means (bus, water taxi) to the museum, but we wanted to get there asap, as Dave recommended. It is the hottest tourist spot in Stockholm, so getting there early was a must. When we paid to get in, you could have a private tour if you had 10! We were obviously just a 9. So we paid for 10 to get the private tour but somehow we got shoved in a group of about 40. Not really the morning we had planned from the night before, but I can tell you that when we walked out of the museum at noon, there was a line so unbelievably long to get in the museum that we actually became "ok" with the morning cabbie rip-off.
Ok, the Vasa museum...what an amazing sight. Not really a fan of the "Viking" era, I was still amazed at this ship. A bit of history... *insert yawn here* . The Vasa was a ship built in Stockholm in the 1600s on its way across the Baltic to pick a fight with Poland. It was one of the longest most ornate ships in the fleet. When they set her loose on her maiden voyage, she went about a mile, turned over and went down like a rock. Everyone escaped except for about 25 people (you will see some bones and facial reconstructions in the photos from today). Ok, so maybe our morning wasn't quite as bad...compared. So for several hundred years, people knew it was down there, but basically they forgot about it. In the 1950's some dude located it and got the government to agree to pull-er up. After getting it out of the water, they scooted it into a drydock where they enclosed it, thus becoming the museum. This didn't happen overnight, however, as the cleaning, uncovering, and piecing back together took years. It is now 98% intact, all original except for the areas in a lighter wood so we can see what wasn't original. I was fascinated by it. All that work, that disappeared under the water after about 20 minutes. The pictures won't do it justice, but I'll put some up today anyway.
After the Vasa, we separated from our friends and took a boat to Old Town where we walked along the tiny cobblestone streets, took some pictures of the guard in front of the Royal Palace (much like in London), found a bakery for a snack and looked briefly for some goodies to buy. An ink pen was about it. Thumbs down on the shopping so far. As of now, my suitcase will still close. More of a photo day than a shopping day, but all in all, it was really good. We had to be back on the ship at 3:45, so really we couldn't enjoy the town like we could have, because we were always watching the clock, but I think we covered a pretty good area in the time we had, and the Vasa was the goal for the day, which we didn't rush through at all.
We took a water taxi back to the boat. It was called the Hop On Hop Off because you could buy one ticket for the day and take it whenever you wanted. The bad thing was you had to follow its route. We had over an hour to get back to the ship, and we were actually thinking about walking back to it, but it began to rain and I didn't really want to walk that far, so we Hopped On. We got about a 40 minute view around the area until it stopped at our boat. It was raining pretty good, but it was the HUGE puddle we had to step in to get back to the ship that made me start to get a bit cranky!! Guy had one foot completely submerged, where I just got half a shoe full. We squished back to the boat and was glad to be back. We grabbed a quick snack and Guy headed for the cabin for a nap...which I'm not sure is a good idea since our sleep is all messed up, but it gave me a chance to blog about today. There is full sun right now and I'm going to go grab my camera and head to the top. I'll make a note on the pics as to the latter views.
Tonight is formal night. Out come the sparkles and my legs are fake bronzed and ready to go. From the menu it looks as if I'll be having escargot, tomato soup and sirloin Oscar. :) Last night our food was good as well. Caprese salad, shrimp cocktail and filet for Guy. I had mushroom polenta, broccoli soup and fresh mozzarella filled meatballs. I enjoy seeing the ladies all dressed up, so that will be fun tonight. Gotta run and take some pics. It is a beautiful evening. Will send more pics when we have free internet. Just picking a few each day. Tomorrow Helsinki! xoxoxoxox
P.S. Dad, in Warnermunde, it was white asparagus and STRAWBERRY season. I'll add a picture of their strawberry stands for you to see. Figured you'd get a kick out of it. :)
P.S.S. Cara...thanks for the use of your ipad SD card reader. I still have it and keeping it safe!
Sleep? Where did you go my friend? :) Last night after dinner we were going to watch a movie, but figured we wouldn't make it all the way through, so we thought we'd try to go to bed early (10ish). Probably an hour went by and I drifted off, but Guy fought it for some time, and finally tried reading for a bit to get sleepy (Betty...he doesn't want to give your Kindle back). I woke up and it was daylight! I had my alarm set for 4:30am because I didn't want to miss the spectacular views of the archipelago, a smattering of 24,000 tiny Islands. Supposedly breathtaking as the sun comes up. So in a panic I thought I had missed it, but the clock said 3:45. When I looked out I saw nothing and went back to bed, but afraid I'd miss it, so I looked out again. Then it started...the first tiny island out of hundreds I'd see. The morning was overcast so the spectacular sunrise views were not going be an option today, but the clouds were beautiful and I caught glimpse of a faint rainbow and woke Guy up to look at the giant moon hovering over the water. That was worth getting up early for.
Some of the islands were so tiny they consisted of some rocks and one tiny bush, but others were larger and had homes on them (sometimes just one home tho). The islands started out as tiny flat protrusions out of the water, but by the time we got to Stockholm they sprouted into much more. I hesitate to call them mountains, but they are pretty good size compared to their early morning beginnings. We passed a small grouping of houses that looked like it could almost be a small fishing village, but I'm sure these home owners aren't working that hard. As we snaked our way through the island filled waters, the views remained consistently the same, so I headed back to bed a little after 5 just to rest a bit. I knew I had a long day ahead, so I grabbed at least an hour. I set the alarm for 7 and I was up again to get ready for breakfast. At this point we were really closing in on Stockholm (the archipelago was supposed to take at least 3 hours to navigate through). Now the "islands" have turned into much longer and taller stretches of beautiful scenery. We are really close, and have been at other times, to the land, so I assumed we were that close to land on the other side of the boat as well. I was tempted early to go up top and see everything instead of the one sided story from my balcony, but it was pretty chilly and channel 7 on the TV shows a camera on the front of the ship, so I just looked at the full view from the Tele and saw the "real" thing from my room. Plus I knew we would be going out the way we came in, so there would be a chance to see the entire thing again (I'm looking at it now as I type...from the upstairs lounge that has a panoramic view - plus a jazz band is playing *bonus!!*) Stockholm is compared to Venice for all the waterways surrounding it, but it isn't Venice. ;)
After a bite to eat, we waited in the coffee lounge for Charles from Boston and his group. They were in our "Dave" group in Germany and last night at dinner we bumped into them. He said they have 7 and if you had 9 people you could do a private tour of the Vasa Museum. So we said we'd be happy to be 8 and 9 because we were going there first anyway. Here starts our welcome to Sweden...a good screwing over by the cab driver. Of course money here is the Krone and 70 of them makes about $10 US dollars. Those of you who know my math skills, let's just say I'm better off not buying anything here. I have no idea what I'm spending. haha. What was posted as the customary fee for a taxi from the boat to the museum should have been about 200 Krone, the cabbie stuck us for almost 900. This was about $120 US for the 5 of us. We argued for quite some time, then our other group came over and they were charged $70 US. Still taken advantage of, but we finally got our guy down to $100 US. Still, not good. In the museum we asked the worker what it should have cost and he said around 200. He said it is sad, but this happens all the time. It is not illegal to own a private taxi and charge whatever you want. Being Sweden newbies, we had no idea as these guys were in the taxi line outside the ship mixed in amongst the real taxis. Of course we could have taken other means (bus, water taxi) to the museum, but we wanted to get there asap, as Dave recommended. It is the hottest tourist spot in Stockholm, so getting there early was a must. When we paid to get in, you could have a private tour if you had 10! We were obviously just a 9. So we paid for 10 to get the private tour but somehow we got shoved in a group of about 40. Not really the morning we had planned from the night before, but I can tell you that when we walked out of the museum at noon, there was a line so unbelievably long to get in the museum that we actually became "ok" with the morning cabbie rip-off.
Ok, the Vasa museum...what an amazing sight. Not really a fan of the "Viking" era, I was still amazed at this ship. A bit of history... *insert yawn here* . The Vasa was a ship built in Stockholm in the 1600s on its way across the Baltic to pick a fight with Poland. It was one of the longest most ornate ships in the fleet. When they set her loose on her maiden voyage, she went about a mile, turned over and went down like a rock. Everyone escaped except for about 25 people (you will see some bones and facial reconstructions in the photos from today). Ok, so maybe our morning wasn't quite as bad...compared. So for several hundred years, people knew it was down there, but basically they forgot about it. In the 1950's some dude located it and got the government to agree to pull-er up. After getting it out of the water, they scooted it into a drydock where they enclosed it, thus becoming the museum. This didn't happen overnight, however, as the cleaning, uncovering, and piecing back together took years. It is now 98% intact, all original except for the areas in a lighter wood so we can see what wasn't original. I was fascinated by it. All that work, that disappeared under the water after about 20 minutes. The pictures won't do it justice, but I'll put some up today anyway.
After the Vasa, we separated from our friends and took a boat to Old Town where we walked along the tiny cobblestone streets, took some pictures of the guard in front of the Royal Palace (much like in London), found a bakery for a snack and looked briefly for some goodies to buy. An ink pen was about it. Thumbs down on the shopping so far. As of now, my suitcase will still close. More of a photo day than a shopping day, but all in all, it was really good. We had to be back on the ship at 3:45, so really we couldn't enjoy the town like we could have, because we were always watching the clock, but I think we covered a pretty good area in the time we had, and the Vasa was the goal for the day, which we didn't rush through at all.
We took a water taxi back to the boat. It was called the Hop On Hop Off because you could buy one ticket for the day and take it whenever you wanted. The bad thing was you had to follow its route. We had over an hour to get back to the ship, and we were actually thinking about walking back to it, but it began to rain and I didn't really want to walk that far, so we Hopped On. We got about a 40 minute view around the area until it stopped at our boat. It was raining pretty good, but it was the HUGE puddle we had to step in to get back to the ship that made me start to get a bit cranky!! Guy had one foot completely submerged, where I just got half a shoe full. We squished back to the boat and was glad to be back. We grabbed a quick snack and Guy headed for the cabin for a nap...which I'm not sure is a good idea since our sleep is all messed up, but it gave me a chance to blog about today. There is full sun right now and I'm going to go grab my camera and head to the top. I'll make a note on the pics as to the latter views.
Tonight is formal night. Out come the sparkles and my legs are fake bronzed and ready to go. From the menu it looks as if I'll be having escargot, tomato soup and sirloin Oscar. :) Last night our food was good as well. Caprese salad, shrimp cocktail and filet for Guy. I had mushroom polenta, broccoli soup and fresh mozzarella filled meatballs. I enjoy seeing the ladies all dressed up, so that will be fun tonight. Gotta run and take some pics. It is a beautiful evening. Will send more pics when we have free internet. Just picking a few each day. Tomorrow Helsinki! xoxoxoxox
P.S. Dad, in Warnermunde, it was white asparagus and STRAWBERRY season. I'll add a picture of their strawberry stands for you to see. Figured you'd get a kick out of it. :)
P.S.S. Cara...thanks for the use of your ipad SD card reader. I still have it and keeping it safe!
Monday, June 4, 2012
Day 4 and 5
Day 4, 5
Well, there is so much to say. ;) First of all, after our big evening of "adventure", we slept the next day until 3pm. Big mistake because guess what, at midnight the following day we are still wide awake. We tossed and turned all night and got some good rest from about 3-7 but we were up early for our day tour of Warenmunde and another close town called Wismar, both sounding like they start with a V. The phone rang at 8am and it was the doctor's office which officially released Guy from the confinement of our room, which he has lovingly named 9 1/2 steps. (That is because the room is so small he can only take 9 1/2 steps from the front door to the sliding door). So he was already dressed and ready to go for when the call came. He bolted out the door so fast he looked like Edward from Twilight.
We had a nice breakfast, but because most people were heading out early for tours, it was packed. We packed our bag for the day and headed out when the ship doors opened. There waiting for us was Dave. Guy had found "Friends of Dave" on Trip Advisor. He had over a hundred great reports on what a wonderful tour guide he was. He only takes 15 people and we preferred that over being stuck in a tour group of 50 or more. Dave did make a mistake due to email issues and we actually had 22 people, but it was fine. He rented a bus for us instead of taking the trains and that was nice. We rode about 40 minutes to Wismar where we spent the biggest part of the day. It was OK. Guy had a better time than me because Dave can talk history like nobody's business and Guy was soaking it all up. Occasionally my mind drifted off thinking of more important things, like chocolate chip cookies or something like that. It was Sunday, so no shops were open *insert sad face here*. Dave was quite the story teller and always had something funny to say. We all had earpieces connected to his microphone, so he didn't have to talk very loud and we could hear him. That is what was so funny was because he'd whisper comments about people and we all got it loud and clear in our ears, but no one else heard. Many comments were priceless. When we stopped for lunch it was in a beer brewery that had been there 500 years. Of course Guy can't drink, and not being a drinker myself we had coke and water. Guy is allergic to alcohol, but I definitely would have tried something just because they had being doing this for half of a millennium, but after guy's episode, my stomach has been creepy (I'm calling it "bystander syndrome") and chose the coke lite. I have a photo of the brewery and our lunch on my Picasa page with a link yesterday that hopefully works. For some reason I can't get the pictures to link up with the blog and at 50 cents per minute of Internet on the ship, I don't have the luxury of figuring it out.
After lunch we explored Wismar more and we had about 45 minutes of free time. Guy needed a bottle of water, so we spent our time in the local Subway. Yes, not a little outside cafe, but the Subway. Dave said that was a guaranteed place of bottled water that was still water, not fizzy. So as you are all saying "you hung out where?" just know it was named a bit fancier than Subway's in the US, it was called SUBcafe. So there...is that better? :) But I have to say I had one of the best Chai latte's ever. We just needed a chance to warm up, too. We didn't want to sit outside as it was cloudy and only mid 50s. We took gloves and were glad we did. We were never terribly uncomfortable, but our noses were pink.
So as we headed back to the bus and we heard some whispers from Dave about the local "skin heads" and one particular "neo-nazi" (he was creepy) and we laughed and got on the bus. On the way back to Warnemunde, Dave kindly told us what to see at all our next stops. Then when we got to Warnemunde he was quite the local celebrity. He is an American, who has been living there for many years. He initially had a different job there, but saw the need for a local tour guide. He is well traveled and has an endless supply of local and historical knowledge, so he is perfect for this. He hoped his first year he could do 10 tours and did over 70. He only advertises through word of mouth, online like Trip Advisor and a Cruise chat site. Isn't that crazy ... a testament of how the Internet connects everyone around the world in just seconds. Now, in just three years, he gives tours 5 days a week May - September. We calculated what he made per tour and think he is doing pretty well. Anyway, Warnemunde is the cool fishing village that I have pictures of. Very quaint, reminding us a little of Mystic, CT, and like most German towns, has its own particular stories from the war. This little village has a long white sandy beach which they say is unusual for Germany and is a big tourist destination year round. Not to mention a couple of cruise ships dumping thousands of people off at it weekly.
As the day came to a close, we bid farewell to our 20 new friends and they all stopped in a local pub for a farewell drink. We preferred to explore a bit on our own and I took a few more pictures. Back on the ship it is nearly 7:30pm and I didn't feel like getting gussied up for dinner, so we opted for the specialty restaurant that is a Bistro. We had soup, sandwiches and Italian crepes for dessert. The crepes are on our list of "do again" before the cruise is over. Wow....fabulous. So as we sat at the table, we could hardly keep our eyes open, so back to the room for showers and bed. We fell asleep immediately, but then we were awake again about 2am. We are definitely screwed up with our sleeping. So I finally got up and looked through all the pictures I had taken that day and read some of a book that Amanda Hickman had suggested. :) Guy was up about 10:30 and went to get us breakfast (I just couldn't get up yet). We ate and snoozed again til noon. I know...bad idea, especially since tomorrow morning we cruise into Stockholm and Dave says DO NOT miss cruising into the port, or the two hours + before docking, because it is supposed to be more beautiful than the city. That will take place about 4:30 am, but we are going to confirm this with Guest Services tonight. This won't help the sleeping situation, but I'm not going to miss it. Dave says to go up top of the ship, but I can tell you it better be good from our balcony because I think I'll be way too cold up top. If not...I will venture up with blankets in tow.
Today is a day at sea, so we are currently up top sunning. Yes! We were shocked at how good the sun feels. Guy is in his swim trunks and is soaking it up. It can't be more than mid 60s...and is about 2:30 in the afternoon. The sun doesn't go down until after 10, so nice long days of light is really cool. But I feel sorry for these people who have winters of only a few hours of daylight. Not sure I want that tradeoff. Dinner tonight will probably be our first night in the main dining area. That should be fun and we probably won't go to the theater tonight because of our early morning tomorrow, which is too bad, because the night shows are usually pretty good. But all is good, Guy is doing great, so I'll say cheers for now, or as they say in Germany, "Prost"! xoxoxoxoxox
Well, there is so much to say. ;) First of all, after our big evening of "adventure", we slept the next day until 3pm. Big mistake because guess what, at midnight the following day we are still wide awake. We tossed and turned all night and got some good rest from about 3-7 but we were up early for our day tour of Warenmunde and another close town called Wismar, both sounding like they start with a V. The phone rang at 8am and it was the doctor's office which officially released Guy from the confinement of our room, which he has lovingly named 9 1/2 steps. (That is because the room is so small he can only take 9 1/2 steps from the front door to the sliding door). So he was already dressed and ready to go for when the call came. He bolted out the door so fast he looked like Edward from Twilight.
We had a nice breakfast, but because most people were heading out early for tours, it was packed. We packed our bag for the day and headed out when the ship doors opened. There waiting for us was Dave. Guy had found "Friends of Dave" on Trip Advisor. He had over a hundred great reports on what a wonderful tour guide he was. He only takes 15 people and we preferred that over being stuck in a tour group of 50 or more. Dave did make a mistake due to email issues and we actually had 22 people, but it was fine. He rented a bus for us instead of taking the trains and that was nice. We rode about 40 minutes to Wismar where we spent the biggest part of the day. It was OK. Guy had a better time than me because Dave can talk history like nobody's business and Guy was soaking it all up. Occasionally my mind drifted off thinking of more important things, like chocolate chip cookies or something like that. It was Sunday, so no shops were open *insert sad face here*. Dave was quite the story teller and always had something funny to say. We all had earpieces connected to his microphone, so he didn't have to talk very loud and we could hear him. That is what was so funny was because he'd whisper comments about people and we all got it loud and clear in our ears, but no one else heard. Many comments were priceless. When we stopped for lunch it was in a beer brewery that had been there 500 years. Of course Guy can't drink, and not being a drinker myself we had coke and water. Guy is allergic to alcohol, but I definitely would have tried something just because they had being doing this for half of a millennium, but after guy's episode, my stomach has been creepy (I'm calling it "bystander syndrome") and chose the coke lite. I have a photo of the brewery and our lunch on my Picasa page with a link yesterday that hopefully works. For some reason I can't get the pictures to link up with the blog and at 50 cents per minute of Internet on the ship, I don't have the luxury of figuring it out.
After lunch we explored Wismar more and we had about 45 minutes of free time. Guy needed a bottle of water, so we spent our time in the local Subway. Yes, not a little outside cafe, but the Subway. Dave said that was a guaranteed place of bottled water that was still water, not fizzy. So as you are all saying "you hung out where?" just know it was named a bit fancier than Subway's in the US, it was called SUBcafe. So there...is that better? :) But I have to say I had one of the best Chai latte's ever. We just needed a chance to warm up, too. We didn't want to sit outside as it was cloudy and only mid 50s. We took gloves and were glad we did. We were never terribly uncomfortable, but our noses were pink.
So as we headed back to the bus and we heard some whispers from Dave about the local "skin heads" and one particular "neo-nazi" (he was creepy) and we laughed and got on the bus. On the way back to Warnemunde, Dave kindly told us what to see at all our next stops. Then when we got to Warnemunde he was quite the local celebrity. He is an American, who has been living there for many years. He initially had a different job there, but saw the need for a local tour guide. He is well traveled and has an endless supply of local and historical knowledge, so he is perfect for this. He hoped his first year he could do 10 tours and did over 70. He only advertises through word of mouth, online like Trip Advisor and a Cruise chat site. Isn't that crazy ... a testament of how the Internet connects everyone around the world in just seconds. Now, in just three years, he gives tours 5 days a week May - September. We calculated what he made per tour and think he is doing pretty well. Anyway, Warnemunde is the cool fishing village that I have pictures of. Very quaint, reminding us a little of Mystic, CT, and like most German towns, has its own particular stories from the war. This little village has a long white sandy beach which they say is unusual for Germany and is a big tourist destination year round. Not to mention a couple of cruise ships dumping thousands of people off at it weekly.
As the day came to a close, we bid farewell to our 20 new friends and they all stopped in a local pub for a farewell drink. We preferred to explore a bit on our own and I took a few more pictures. Back on the ship it is nearly 7:30pm and I didn't feel like getting gussied up for dinner, so we opted for the specialty restaurant that is a Bistro. We had soup, sandwiches and Italian crepes for dessert. The crepes are on our list of "do again" before the cruise is over. Wow....fabulous. So as we sat at the table, we could hardly keep our eyes open, so back to the room for showers and bed. We fell asleep immediately, but then we were awake again about 2am. We are definitely screwed up with our sleeping. So I finally got up and looked through all the pictures I had taken that day and read some of a book that Amanda Hickman had suggested. :) Guy was up about 10:30 and went to get us breakfast (I just couldn't get up yet). We ate and snoozed again til noon. I know...bad idea, especially since tomorrow morning we cruise into Stockholm and Dave says DO NOT miss cruising into the port, or the two hours + before docking, because it is supposed to be more beautiful than the city. That will take place about 4:30 am, but we are going to confirm this with Guest Services tonight. This won't help the sleeping situation, but I'm not going to miss it. Dave says to go up top of the ship, but I can tell you it better be good from our balcony because I think I'll be way too cold up top. If not...I will venture up with blankets in tow.
Today is a day at sea, so we are currently up top sunning. Yes! We were shocked at how good the sun feels. Guy is in his swim trunks and is soaking it up. It can't be more than mid 60s...and is about 2:30 in the afternoon. The sun doesn't go down until after 10, so nice long days of light is really cool. But I feel sorry for these people who have winters of only a few hours of daylight. Not sure I want that tradeoff. Dinner tonight will probably be our first night in the main dining area. That should be fun and we probably won't go to the theater tonight because of our early morning tomorrow, which is too bad, because the night shows are usually pretty good. But all is good, Guy is doing great, so I'll say cheers for now, or as they say in Germany, "Prost"! xoxoxoxoxox
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Day 4
Too much to type today. At sea tomorrow, so will send full report of our day. Uploading pics. Let me know if you can see them. You may need to go all my pictures. :)
Guy is well...will send full report tomorrow. xoxoxoxox
Guy is well...will send full report tomorrow. xoxoxoxox
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Day 3 Quarantine
Day 3 Quarantine
Our day 3 started about 1am with Guy having food poisoning. For those of you that have ever personally experienced this or had to sit outside the door of someone experiencing it, I don't need to explain further and you understand me praying feverishly. Let me just say I've never felt more sorry for anyone before and felt so helpless. But after about an hour and a half of me off and on the phone with the nurse, she offered to come to the room with an injection. But because her English was just so so and Guy being allergic to Compazine (anti nausea) we feared he may get something that could make an already horrible situation even worse. Finally about 2:30 the bathroom door flies open and Guy says "call the doctor". They send a wheelchair for him and off we go to the infirmary. The doctor as from Hungary and had worked on this cruise ship for 13 days. He was nice, especially for being awakened at nearly 3am to treat a sick dude from the US. But he had no fever, BP was good, but nearly dehydrated so he offered an IV drip, but Guy opted for something similar to Pedialite (sp?) and something to stop all the bodily functions...if you know what I mean. He was literally shaking, but said he was feeling better. Back to the room we went, but that was after we were lectured on the fact that Guy was to be "isolated" a.k.a Quarantined for 24 hours. He can not leave the room for 24 hours AND as a "reward" for him complying, he gets free water and free Pay Perview movies. Oh yes, the dr. visit and meds were "free" as well. Back at the room he was feeling better and was able to lay down. I didnt dare mention the rocking of the boat would be tough on someone nauseated. Within 30 minutes or so he finally fell asleep. Me however, not so sleepy, but after again sending up a few "thank you" prayers, also being thankful that tomorrow is a day at sea with nothing going on, and counting some sheep, I fell asleep as well.
10am we were awakened by Guest Services checking to see what Guy wanted for breakfast. He had to eat what they offered, which was basically dry toast. He ate one piece and drank a bit of his "free" water and went back to bed for another short nap. I had them bring me french toast and fruit which I ate but to be honest, after last night my appetite wasnt that great either. We both fell asleep and was again awakened at 3pm by Guest Services seeing what he wanted for lunch and was concerned that he wasn't eating. We think they were just making sure he was in the room. I explained we were awake most of the night and combine that with jetlag, we were just resting. They sent him a steamed chicken breast, a plain baked potato and some dry toast. Looked disgusting, but he ate the potato and toast. I got dressed and went upstairs for a slice of pizza and a cookie. Still not that hungry.
From our balcony it felt too chilly, but as I explored around the ship it actually was quite wonderful in the sun. I ate outside and enjoyed the fresh air. Lots of people out and about, eating, sleeping, playing cards. There are musicians around the ship and everyone seems to be having a good time. Not nearly as much fun as the excitement in room 8053 last night.. ha ha. But since Guy is feeling super today and resting quite nicely, I headed out with my ipad for a little blog time. We bought an Internet package last night and as the guy from the ship was walking me through the process he told me just before I hit the "submit" button that Internet on the ship was like dialup or worse and sometimes none at all. I looked at Guy and he shrugged his shoulders and I hit the button. So we shall see. Since tonight will be nothing more than steamed chicken and free Pay Perview in the cabin, I will not report further today...but all is well and tomorrow will be a better day. Fingers crossed they release him to exit the cabin as we have already pre-paid for a tour tomorrow in Germany with "Friends of Dave" we found on Trip Advisor. He sounds like a hoot, so we hope we can go, but all will be well either way. Update... Guy spoke with the nurse and if all is well in the morning he will be released at 8am and we dont meet up with Dave until 9:30! Woot! Also, tonight is formal night, so as I try to work this wonderful Internet, I will enjoy looking at all the ladies in sparkles and let out a sigh of relief that no one has to see my pale legs tonight (no time to fake bronze) and will save my sparkling dress for next formal night. xoxoxoxox
Our day 3 started about 1am with Guy having food poisoning. For those of you that have ever personally experienced this or had to sit outside the door of someone experiencing it, I don't need to explain further and you understand me praying feverishly. Let me just say I've never felt more sorry for anyone before and felt so helpless. But after about an hour and a half of me off and on the phone with the nurse, she offered to come to the room with an injection. But because her English was just so so and Guy being allergic to Compazine (anti nausea) we feared he may get something that could make an already horrible situation even worse. Finally about 2:30 the bathroom door flies open and Guy says "call the doctor". They send a wheelchair for him and off we go to the infirmary. The doctor as from Hungary and had worked on this cruise ship for 13 days. He was nice, especially for being awakened at nearly 3am to treat a sick dude from the US. But he had no fever, BP was good, but nearly dehydrated so he offered an IV drip, but Guy opted for something similar to Pedialite (sp?) and something to stop all the bodily functions...if you know what I mean. He was literally shaking, but said he was feeling better. Back to the room we went, but that was after we were lectured on the fact that Guy was to be "isolated" a.k.a Quarantined for 24 hours. He can not leave the room for 24 hours AND as a "reward" for him complying, he gets free water and free Pay Perview movies. Oh yes, the dr. visit and meds were "free" as well. Back at the room he was feeling better and was able to lay down. I didnt dare mention the rocking of the boat would be tough on someone nauseated. Within 30 minutes or so he finally fell asleep. Me however, not so sleepy, but after again sending up a few "thank you" prayers, also being thankful that tomorrow is a day at sea with nothing going on, and counting some sheep, I fell asleep as well.
10am we were awakened by Guest Services checking to see what Guy wanted for breakfast. He had to eat what they offered, which was basically dry toast. He ate one piece and drank a bit of his "free" water and went back to bed for another short nap. I had them bring me french toast and fruit which I ate but to be honest, after last night my appetite wasnt that great either. We both fell asleep and was again awakened at 3pm by Guest Services seeing what he wanted for lunch and was concerned that he wasn't eating. We think they were just making sure he was in the room. I explained we were awake most of the night and combine that with jetlag, we were just resting. They sent him a steamed chicken breast, a plain baked potato and some dry toast. Looked disgusting, but he ate the potato and toast. I got dressed and went upstairs for a slice of pizza and a cookie. Still not that hungry.
From our balcony it felt too chilly, but as I explored around the ship it actually was quite wonderful in the sun. I ate outside and enjoyed the fresh air. Lots of people out and about, eating, sleeping, playing cards. There are musicians around the ship and everyone seems to be having a good time. Not nearly as much fun as the excitement in room 8053 last night.. ha ha. But since Guy is feeling super today and resting quite nicely, I headed out with my ipad for a little blog time. We bought an Internet package last night and as the guy from the ship was walking me through the process he told me just before I hit the "submit" button that Internet on the ship was like dialup or worse and sometimes none at all. I looked at Guy and he shrugged his shoulders and I hit the button. So we shall see. Since tonight will be nothing more than steamed chicken and free Pay Perview in the cabin, I will not report further today...but all is well and tomorrow will be a better day. Fingers crossed they release him to exit the cabin as we have already pre-paid for a tour tomorrow in Germany with "Friends of Dave" we found on Trip Advisor. He sounds like a hoot, so we hope we can go, but all will be well either way. Update... Guy spoke with the nurse and if all is well in the morning he will be released at 8am and we dont meet up with Dave until 9:30! Woot! Also, tonight is formal night, so as I try to work this wonderful Internet, I will enjoy looking at all the ladies in sparkles and let out a sigh of relief that no one has to see my pale legs tonight (no time to fake bronze) and will save my sparkling dress for next formal night. xoxoxoxox
Day 2
Day 2
Day two and day one sort of blend together, but the plane ride from Chicago to Amsterdam was uneventful (the kind we like). Getting in to Amsterdam we catch the train to the ship which was handy and only about a 15 minute ride. The train stop was so close to the ship we just walked. We had a bit of info to fill out when we got there and sat for about 30 minutes before they called boarding of groups 1-4 which was us. So we boarded and since it was too early to get into the rooms, as it is only about 11:30am, we got ourselves a snack and found a couple of lounge chairs and snuggled next to our backpacks, drifting off into a jet-lagged slumber. A couple of blissful hours went by and we decided our room was more than ready, so we headed toward the room. I took a couple of pictures before we got our stuff everywhere and I disinfected every inch we would be touching with lysol wipes I brought (yes, that includes inside drawers and hangers). My germ-o-phobe friends understand this. After I was unpacked and suitcases slid neatly under the bed, we started getting ready for supper. We decided to eat at a specialty restaurant tonight since they were offering a first night discount. So we get all showered and dressed up. Guy goes around to explore the ship while I was getting ready and came back with a full report. This ship (the Constellation) is the exact same layout as the Celebrity ship we were on out of San Juan (the Summit). That is good because I already know my way around, but the bad thing is there are no surprises or fun discoveries.
Dinner was in the restaurant called Cruise Liner. Very fancy and everything as presented beautifully. I had scallop Wellington as my appetizer and Guy had the risotto (he was best dish) and for dinner I had petit fillets and Guy had lobster which was prepared at the table. Our complaint was this process took one hour and 45 minutes. We figured it was nearly an hour between our salads and the entree. We were so tired we didnt stick around for the fancy dessert that was included, most flaming and prepared at the table. But we had had enough and were completely worn out by this dinner process. We wont be doing that again.
Off to bed exhausted 9:30pm...oh yes...the sun had not set yet. We pulled the curtains but the light room made no difference, we were asleep within 15 minutes. Oh yes! A special thanks to our cousin Maureen who had a lovely surprise waiting for us in our cabin. Lucky people have travel agents for relatives. :)
Day two and day one sort of blend together, but the plane ride from Chicago to Amsterdam was uneventful (the kind we like). Getting in to Amsterdam we catch the train to the ship which was handy and only about a 15 minute ride. The train stop was so close to the ship we just walked. We had a bit of info to fill out when we got there and sat for about 30 minutes before they called boarding of groups 1-4 which was us. So we boarded and since it was too early to get into the rooms, as it is only about 11:30am, we got ourselves a snack and found a couple of lounge chairs and snuggled next to our backpacks, drifting off into a jet-lagged slumber. A couple of blissful hours went by and we decided our room was more than ready, so we headed toward the room. I took a couple of pictures before we got our stuff everywhere and I disinfected every inch we would be touching with lysol wipes I brought (yes, that includes inside drawers and hangers). My germ-o-phobe friends understand this. After I was unpacked and suitcases slid neatly under the bed, we started getting ready for supper. We decided to eat at a specialty restaurant tonight since they were offering a first night discount. So we get all showered and dressed up. Guy goes around to explore the ship while I was getting ready and came back with a full report. This ship (the Constellation) is the exact same layout as the Celebrity ship we were on out of San Juan (the Summit). That is good because I already know my way around, but the bad thing is there are no surprises or fun discoveries.
Dinner was in the restaurant called Cruise Liner. Very fancy and everything as presented beautifully. I had scallop Wellington as my appetizer and Guy had the risotto (he was best dish) and for dinner I had petit fillets and Guy had lobster which was prepared at the table. Our complaint was this process took one hour and 45 minutes. We figured it was nearly an hour between our salads and the entree. We were so tired we didnt stick around for the fancy dessert that was included, most flaming and prepared at the table. But we had had enough and were completely worn out by this dinner process. We wont be doing that again.
Off to bed exhausted 9:30pm...oh yes...the sun had not set yet. We pulled the curtains but the light room made no difference, we were asleep within 15 minutes. Oh yes! A special thanks to our cousin Maureen who had a lovely surprise waiting for us in our cabin. Lucky people have travel agents for relatives. :)
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Travel Day
Well, thing have gone smoothly. :) A bit of weather in STL caused a slight delay and in Chicago, when we exited the plane in the rain, we could also see our breath! At least we are dressed for warm. We had a lovely lunch at an Italian restaurant, so our bellies have at least one good meal before getting on the long flight. Chicago is also dreary and rainy, but certainly not stormy - thank you God. So somehow, Guy had United passes for the United Club, so we are sitting in comfort while we wait. Free goodies! Fruit, cheeses, cookies, cappucino, etc. I am sure we will get us a few snacks for the road. I am thinking right now of that commercial where the guy tells his work buddy he knows a quiet place in the airport with a 3-prong plug...then his buddy whips out the club passes. Ha Ha. That is us now. I will snap a shot of the fancy cheese and report back in next time I have Internet. Sadly, Im not sure when that will be. Still working on adding picures. Wondering if Blogger is not iPad friendly. Seems like Im doing it correctly, but we will see. xoxoxoxo
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Preparation
Often the best part of a vacation is the anticipation and preparation. Guy has made all the preparations (tours, dining, train tickets, etc.) and left me with basically just the anticipation. However, he also left me with the packing and ironing...this being my least favorite part of the trip. My mother-in-law told me a long time ago to go ahead and iron everything first, then when you unpack, the suitcase wrinkles will fall out. I found this to be true! So ironing I have done. I think we have overpacked, but being gone for 16 days (and not wanting to handwash too much on the trip) has left us with two very full suitcases. I didnt have to unzip the EXPANDO feature yet, but on the way home, this will be inevitable.
The BIG question is, where do I put all my purchases? Hmmm...this will be the question... Looking forward to tomorrow... flights (one small-one big), Xanax (one small-one big), and eager anticipation of a great vacation. I'm not sure about internet and the slideshow widget (remembering from the New Zealand trip) sometimes doesn't recognize uploaded images until the next day. So pictures may lag behind the postings. xoxoxo
The BIG question is, where do I put all my purchases? Hmmm...this will be the question... Looking forward to tomorrow... flights (one small-one big), Xanax (one small-one big), and eager anticipation of a great vacation. I'm not sure about internet and the slideshow widget (remembering from the New Zealand trip) sometimes doesn't recognize uploaded images until the next day. So pictures may lag behind the postings. xoxoxo
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