St. Petersburg

We are now 11 hrs off from Seattle time. But like Seattle, it is raining.

Lost in Estonia

The nice weather continued today in Tallinn, Estonia. We took a full-day tour in Tallinn and shared out bus with 6 French passengers. They did not speak English, and the tour guide did not speak French (but she spoke almost every other language). Two got lost and the rest of the tour was filled with comments about “our French” lagging behind, etc.

Tallinn has 2 districts. The Old Town has a large number of gothic-style cathedrals and buildings. To the left and right are two of the most famous and picturesque churches in upper Old Town.


Upper Old Town overlooks the rest of the city and has gorgeous views.


The streets and alleys leading to the main square were lined with small cafes.


Other alleys had street vendors who had set up shops offering, pictures, souvenirs and amber.

Many of the streets were narrow and barely had room for cars to pass through.






To the right is the sailing regatta venue for the 1980 Summer Olympics. At the time, the USSR was occupying Estonia and built this and 4 other buildings for the event.


Tomorrow, we say goodbye to the Norwegian Dream (4 days early) and begin the next leg of our journey in St. Petersburg, Russia. We have already have had to get special visas, sponsors (you have to be invited to the country to get a visa) in order to stay in St. Petersburg.

There have been quite a number of hoops to jump through with the cruise line as well in order for us to disembark in Russia. Even for the passengers who just want to set foot in Russia, they have to be on an organized tour through the cruise line, have their passport as well as a copy in hand and be escorted by their tour guide everywhere. If a cruise ship passenger has not booked an excursion, they will not be able to leave the ship.

Welcome to Sunny Helsinki!

Today was spent in Helsinki, Finland.

It was sunny & in the mid 70’s. Apparently, this is unusually nice weather for Helsinki.

When the weather is nice, people bring their rugs down by the shore, wash them & hang them out to dry in the sun for days. No one steals them while they are drying. There are 13 official locations to do this throughout the city.


There are two official languages in Finland: Finnish & Swedish. Both languages are listed on all street signs, store windows, etc. When the students are in school, they learn at least 3 languages. Most learn 4. Finish is a language of endings. Every word is created by adding endings to existing words. The streets and names get very long (and they also seem to be fond of double-A’s in the middle of words). The street name to the left is one of the shortest we found.

Like Seattle and the Mariners, the Fins have great fondness for their most prominent war hero. He was in charge for the last four wars the Fins were in. He won the first, and lost the following three. He is 1 and 3 and they give him a statue. Maybe we should start taking up a collection for the Mariners.

There are several distinctive buildings in Helsinki; including the President’s Residence (left) and the City Hall (right).






Helsinki has several open-air markets. This one was filled with touristy goods, but there was also a traditional flea market and a produce market.

Helsinki was to host the Olympics in the 40’s, but the war delayed that for several years, so this stadium remained unused for quite some time.



This piece of art is a tribute to the composer Sibelius. The art has a whole park built around it. It is massive, and actually quite cool.

17th Anniversary in Sweden

Not only was today our 17th wedding anniversary, but it was also our day in Stockholm, Sweden. The weather held out for us for at least one more day. It was sunny and warm enough for Joel to wear shorts (which means it was over 55 F).

So Stockholm is located in the heart of an archipelago. The city itself is spread out over 14 islands – one of which is only big enough for the one building that is built on it. There are more than 24,000 islands that make up the archipelago. Stockholm is also the capital of Sweden.

As the capital, and the largest city in Sweden, Stockholm is not representative of the rest of Sweden – which is much more provincial. We actually anchored off of Nynaeshamn, and tendered into port. Once there, we could either hop a bus, or a train to Stockholm. After about a 45 min. ride, we were in the heart of the city.

Stockholm is full of wonderful architecture with a very European feel. The current residence of the Royal Family is a smaller copy of Versailles. The new parliament building is a work of art. It is also the home of the Nobel Prize ceremonies.

Sweden also has its own version of the Titanic. It was a 1628 ship which sank in the very first leg of its maiden voyage. Unlike the Titanic, it was sunk by a gust of wind. I am not kidding about this. It was blown over. It was called the Vasa and was rediscovered in 1956. They raised the ship and built a museum around it. It is pretty amazing that the ship survived mostly intact.

We are looking forward to a 4:01 AM sunrise tomorrow – well, at least looking forward to sleeping through it. Also, the clocks moved forward one more time. That puts us 10 hrs forward of Seattle.

Oh… and if we hadn’t posted a pic of the ship, yet…

Prom Night

Another day at sea left us with weather that continues to be pretty phenomenal. Another gorgeous day. Another gorgeous sunset. We really have nothing to complain about.

Anyway... tonight was "Prom Night." Our limo was a bit late, and Joel forgot a corsage, but other than that the night was quite nice.

We started out getting all dressed up for dinner and pictures. For those of you that know Joel's family, all fancy evenings have to have a "dry run." So after getting all gussied up, we had our room attendant take a picture of us out on the balcony of our room.


We then went up to dinner (Lobster!) and then got some formal pictures from the staff photographers. We will see how those turned out later in the cruise. After the photos, we took in a "broadway" show at the ship's theater.

For good measure, Lori decided to take some more shots of us to post to the blog. Of course, she didn't trust me with the camera.



And how do you wrap up "Prom Night" and the eve of your 17th anniversary? The picture below says it all.

News flash...

Lori: $257, Joel: $7

Lori had a run of luck at our second Bingo sitting of the trip. She won the blackout outright; and split another game with two other people.

Joel? He played Texas Hold'em for almost two hours and walked away from the table up $7.




Lori is way out in front!

Berlin - Under Construction with No Air Conditioning

We spent Thursday in Berlin, Germany.

Our ship docked just outside of the town of Rostock, which is located in former East Germany. We boarded a train and headed for Berlin (a 3-hour ride). The train cars were old & each had separate passenger compartments (with glass doors & wood walls enclosing each compartment) that could fit 6 people sitting. The seats could be converted into beds. We shared our compartment with a couple from Manchester, England. We tried to explain baseball to
them & they tried to explain rounders and cricket to us (I still don't quite understand cricket).

During our train ride, one of the workers/hosts sat down & chatted with us. She grew up in Rostock & was old enough to remember what it was like to live there before the reunification of Germany & told us a bit about the differences, etc. between then & now.

One thing that she did say was that the people of Germany (east & west) are just now starting to not feel like they have to apologize for their heritage due to WWII.



Left: Once we arrived in Berlin, we met our tour guide & went across the street to see the Berlin Wall. There are few portions of the wall left standing. I believe that this was the longest stretch of it.

Right: In areas where the Berlin Wall used to be, there are markers on the ground in brick, brass & stone.

Our tour guide grew up in West Berlin, which was surrounded by East Berlin & the wall from 1961-1989. During that time, if her family wanted to leave West Berlin & travel to other parts of West Germany, they would need to apply for special visas & either fly out of West Berlin or travel directly through the East German checkpoints (and get thoroughly searched & pay a certain amount of $ for each day they would spend there). Fortunately, things have changed!


Amazingly enough, Berlin is still rebuilding from all of the bombings from WWII. There was construction areas everywhere & many bombed-out buildings were still standing. Because of this, there is a mix of very old and very new buildings all over the city.



Left - The remains of a church that was bombed during WWII with some newer construction to the left.

Right: The former Nazi headquarters. The architecture was extremely different from all of the other German buildings.

Above: Checkpoint Charlie - During the Cold War, this was one way out of the American sector to the Soviet sector of Berlin. It is now a tourist trap.

Right: The Brandenburg Gate

Left: The inside of an actual spy tunnel. Both Russia & the USA have admitted to building & using these tunnels to spy on each other during the Cold War.

Right: Lori's car dressed up as a taxi. In both Denmark & Germany, these have been used as taxis.

Left: World Cup fever was still everywhere in Berlin. This is a picture of a television tower where the round part had been painted as a soccer ball.