Ship's Blog

I will try to blog though I am tired.  It’s almost 17:00 and I have been back from the daily tour for about an hour.  I’ve downloaded about 10 minutes worth of photos-almost 2 gig just from today.  Good that I bought that terabite of storage. 

There are no days at sea on this cruise, and there are no ports that we want to miss.  Consequently we are run ragged.  There is also Olivia entertainment, so we are generally up past our bedtime.  Mercifully, they did not have ship entertainment last night, and day before yesterday after seeing Helsinki I was able to sleep in the afternoon.  We sleep well at night, so maybe we will be alright.

I’m not sure I can remember it all without the photos to help.  I’ll do my best.  In Stockholm we did a bus tour of the city and got to go to the Vasa Museum.  Perhaps I blogged about that already.  Once on the ship, I went on a Wild Rib Boat Ride.  The boat had the rib running down it’s stem to stern so that it cut through the water.  Just as well as it had an 8 cylinder Yamaha pushing it along and would surely have flipped were it not for the rib.  It’s sides were inflatable.  We were given jump suits to keep us warm and dry.  I was a bit concerned about them fitting me.  Most of these things are made for men and haven’t the hip capacity that I require.  However, an XL fit just fine including length.  The strenuous part of this tour was mostly about holding on as we fairly flew around the islands that are the archipelago that is Stockholm.  It was great fun and I’m glad I did it.  We eventually reached a rocky beach and had to jump off the rib boat.  I went to my knees and had to have some assistance-perhaps more assistance that the boat driver anticipated, but we managed.  We then scrambled up a big rock and had Champaign and pringles.  Yum!  It was probably 6 pm and the sun was just a bit past mid heaven.  It looked lovely on the water.  Sorry, no photos possible. 

The next day we got up relatively early for the SkyView tour of Stockholm.  We were taken to a new sports arena housed in a huge globe.  On the side of this globe there are two small globed that climb to the top for a panoramic view of the city.  These little globes hold about 12 people each and pass each other going up and down. 

Back at the ship we attended Judy’s talk about upcoming trips which all sound delicious.  We did not win a 2-4-1 this time.  We had a lovely dinner with our friends Lori and Cheryl and went to see the 9pm show.  Thus far we had seen Karen Williams, Elvira Kurt, Seude, and Lisa Koch.  They all make us split our sides laughing and they can sing the most interesting songs as well.

Helsinki was basically deserted and closed when we arrived.  It was Midsommar and everyone was off to the countryside to celebrate with friends and family.  They wear some traditional clothes, many people were dressed all in white, and they sing silly songs and they drink schnapps and beer an sing even sillier songs until it gets almost dark (can you imagine how late that is??) and they make a bonfire and drink and sing till morning.  Mind you it is broad daylight at 3am.  We were told that there would be fireworks here in St Petersburg last night, and we wondered exactly when they would start.  In the winter they could easily start at 4pm.

So the afternoon after our Helsinki trip to the Sibelius sculpture and the Rock Church (where my camera battery gave up after I had walked several blocks from the bus to the church without my backpack which contained the backup battery) and drove around to the palace square where Hillary Clinton will come in a few days, we went back to the ship through the market and I ate lunch and took a long afternoon nap. 

Next day we wake up early at 6 and as we are having breakfast we find our berth at the pier.  Our room overlooks the beautiful Church of the Assumption.  Our tour guide remembers that in her childhood it was turned into an ice skating rink-inside.  Churches, as such, were not in vogue at the time.  There were a few left, and now there are more, though not as many as before the revolution.  At our visit today to the Church of the Spilled Blood we learned that it was used as cold storage for fruits and vegetables.  When you see the photos of this amazing church it will make you gasp to think it was a cold storage facility.

So, day one of St Petersburg tour we saw: Catherine’s Palace in Tsarskoe Selo which is now known as Pushkin.  It was named after Peter the Great’s second wife and built by his daughter, Elizabeth I.  It was used as the summer palace.  It is about 25kilometers outside of St Petersburg.  Very lovely.  Very opulent.  Lots of walking.  Back on the bus and we were off to the Hermitage.  The Hermitage was the winter palace and would stand on that alone as a tourist “must do”, but of course it now houses the most fantastic collection of art next to the Louvre and de Orsay.  We whizzed through, but really got to see quite a bit.  I can still hear our guide, Tanya, saying, “Nao laddys, we will live this rum and go to next rum.”  She is unbelievably excellent.  How does she know that I am about to have to take a step up or down and says to watch my step at that very moment? 

Our lunch began with salad.  It was probably chopped potatoes and carrots with a few peas and dill in a light sour cream.  When the waiter was asked what it was he told us, “salad”.  So, we ate salad followed by a mushroom soup and the main course was two crepes-one of meat and the other a cabbage onion mixture-served with a puddle of sour cream.  There was a lovely puff pastry with a bit of raspberry goo in the middle-perfect light ending.  There are three glasses and a small cup at our place settings.  We get champanski, vodka, bottled water and at the end of the meal we get coffee.  I drank the Champaign and tried the vodka and downed the water.  No coffee for me.  We did enjoy the company of lovely women who live in Carefree, a lesbian community in Ft Meyers.  I hope we get to see more of them both on the trip and after we get home.

As I now remember, the lunch came before the Hermitage, so we felt we had put in a day’s worth of seeing when the bus pulled into the Peter and Paul Fortress.  It was built by Peter the Great after he won the area from the Swedes in the late 1600’s.  He had the swamps drained and basically built this Venice of the North.  We went to the Peter and Paul Cathedral which is rather small as cathedrals go, but it contains the tombs of all of the Romanoffs, or it soon will when the charred remains of Maria and Alexy, children of Nicholas II and Alexandria come to rest here. 

It was the end of the school year for everybody yesterday, and families were out celebrating.  Teens and adults who were graduating planned an all night celebration.  Unfortunately, it rained last night, but there was still evidence of celebration this morning as we took to the tour bus again. 

I say, “we” in the sense of the ladies of Olivia.  Marcia decided that it would be more sensible to take the day off (of her legs) today.  She did some walking around the ship and applied bio-freeze and did the laundry.  Thank you Marcia!

I was back on board with the laddys of Olivia at 8:15 this morning.  We started with a nice canal ride and just as well as it was the best part of the day.  Indeed, we managed to get all of our activities in before the sprinkles started, and it is now raining in earnest.  Very lucky laddys of Olivia!

We were in town all day cruising the canals and seeing the Church of Spilt Blood.    Although the church was built as a church, and you can see that it was built to inform the illiterate with all the Bible stories depicted in fabulous mosaics, it became the site of the first martyred Romanoff with the assignation of Alexander by revolutionaries.  There is a shrine to him at the back of the church.  The outside is modeled St Basil’s in Moscow.

Speaking of Moscow, our friends Lori and Cheryl and our friends Beth Karbe and Lilly Rodriguez decided to take the excursion there today.  They had to leave at 5:30am to catch the fast train that took 3-4 hours to get to Moscow.  They will be home about 1:30am tomorrow.  I’m really glad I’ve already seen Moscow and wasn’t even tempted. 

So, just a note more before we leave for dinner.  Marcia is well rested and will probably be ready to go tomorrow.  The laundry is done so we have underwear and socks to confront whatever weather comes.  Tomorrow is a short day of 6 hours.  We go to the Peterhof Palace and St Isaac’s Cathedral and get back to the ship for lunch. 

KG