Life on Board Ship

We woke up to a beautiful clear morning today. Char insists that when she looked off in the distance she saw Sarah Palin's house.

I opted out of the optional tour to the Peterhof Palace this morning, though Walt and Char went (confusing Marina all to heck, since she now wasn't sure who was married to whom! I knew I was missing something beautiful, but when I saw the photos of the expanse of grounds and all those stairs, I decided not to go. Walt said that not only were there all those stairs, but inside you weren't allowed to touch the walls and there were no handrails. No. I was much better off staying on the ship.

Not that I had an unproductive day. I did laundry, which is all hanging in our tiny bathroom. I took some air on the deck, I read a lot, and I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's, today's DVD offering. So given (a) that I did nothing all morning and (b) I have no internet connection, I thought I'd use the first half of this entry to acquaint you with the Viking Kirov. It is a lovely ship with one restaurant, a coffee station, two bars, a library and an internet station. There are both stairs and elevator, which is nice.

Our stateroom is small.

There are two problems with it. One is that pole in the middle, which I stub my toe on at least once a day. The other is that there is so little room between the chair and the beds, when I am sitting in the chair, that Walt has to climb over me several times a day. In the photo on the left, the door to the hall is on the left, the closet is in the middle, and the bathroom is behind that tiny door on the right. It looks like this:

The shower is on the right and you kind of "wear it" once you step inside, it's that small. The ship also warns you against drinking the water. They say it's safe for brushing your teeth, but they give you two giant bottles of water each day.

(I love the label!)

In the afternoon, we took a boat cruise around some of the canals and numerous bridges. The city was founded in 1703 by Peter the Great as his "window to the west." Canals were dug to drain the marshy south bank and in 1712 Peter made this place his capital. Architects and artisans came from all over Europe and the result is, according to the information we received, "a city that remains one of Europe's most beautiful." It apparently has more canals and bridges than Amsterdam and refers to itself as "the Venice of the North."

The tour was interesting and I never dreamed that this place had so many palaces. It seems that every large building you see (usually now a bank or a government office) was once the palace of Prince so-and-so or Czar so-and-so or Princess so-and-so. The frontage road that extends out from the Hermitage is just one former palace after another. It kind of trivializes palaces and royalty!

But we were back to the ship in time for our departure from St. Petersburg at 7 p.m. sharp. Several of us stood on the deck and watched as we sailed under the Bolshoi Ovuchovskii bridge.

Then we went to the welcoming cocktail party, where everybody got champagne and an hors d'oeuvre...

...and a chance to meet all the crew and share a toast with the captain. We got our "daily briefing," about the plans for tomorrow (a day of rest), and then we went down one deck to the Neva Restaurant for a magnificent welcome dinner. It was so good, it deserves a special presentation so here it is...

Starting top right that's an amazing salmon carpaccio topped by a tiny quail (I guess) egg, followed by a Nordic potato soup, then a warm appetizer of veal stew with an incredibly light bready-thing topped with pistachios, then a hunk of veal with an oniony-stuffingy kind of thing that was amazing, and finally a baked apple in caramel sauce topped with a currant syrup. Not a single complaint from me except that it was waaay too much food.

After dinner, we walked out onto the deck and we could hear children playing on the banks of the river. All along we had seen people at every possible place either picnicking or (mostly) fishing, or walking their dogs (I miss our dogs!). Very pastoral, very tranquil. As I write this, it is nearly 11 p.m. and we have been stopped for nearly an hour, waiting for a drawbridge to open up because the river is very high due to yesterday's torrential rains, and there is danger of scraping the boat on the underside of the bridge. But by the time I wake up, in several hours, we should be on our way again...and who knows when I will have the opportunity to post this...

I do have one complaint about Viking tonight. When I booked this trip, I was told that they like to make a big deal out of things like birthdays and anniversaries. I mentioned that we would be celebrating our 45th anniversary on the cruise and she asked for the date, said she would make a note of it, and that we would get champagne on our anniversary.

We didn't.

But with all the food and wine we've had today, we didn't need it. Still, a little celebration acknowledging 45 years would have been nice.

Not in (Too Much) Trouble

Well, despite my two international incidents with respect to photos at McDonald's, I decided to risk it again and snapped a quick shot of this shop in St. Petersburg:

I felt fairly safe, since I was in a bus at the time and was able to make a quick getaway.

This does not mean, however, that I have not been in trouble. Today we toured the Catherine Palace and by the end of our tour, I had really hit the wall and simply could not keep up the pace. I watched the group get farther and farther away from us, our tour guide always telling us to hurry up. Throughout our time with her, so far, she has never moved too far without counting heads to make sure we were all there, but as she turned and turned and turned and I could hear her say "Group 25, come up to me. I'm here at the right," I couldn't see her and didn't know where she had turned right or left. (We have these neat little earpieces where we can be far from her, but still hear her when she talks. I don't know how in the world you do tours like this without them. It is literally wall to all people in many rooms, guides speaking all sorts of different languages.)

There were many groups following their leaders that passed Walt and me by, and we just totally lost Marina. Walt ran on ahead to find her so I didn't have to backtrack, especially since I had very few "steps" left in me. When we finally caught up with the group, they were all on the bus, and the motor was running. She came up and apologized to me for not waiting for me, but when we got on the bus, she told everybody that this was why she had asked us not to stop anywhere to shop because we were on such a tight schedule. When I protested that I hadn't stopped anywhere, but that I just simply couldn't keep up with her pace, she quietly said, under her breath, that she knew that but she was using it as a lesson for the group.

When we traveled through France and Italy with Energizer Bunny Ian last year, he was so good and understanding about my inability to keep up his pace. I knew I frustrated the hell out of him, but the group was with me in support and sometimes even applauded when I finally caught up. When I apologized to people for slowing them down, they always said they didn't mind and told me what a good job I was doing. I had the feeling today that the group thought I had been off lollygagging or shopping or something. Made me feel like shit.

We had a city tour of St. Petersburg after lunch today and I opted out of it, but sent Walt on by himself. I just didn't have it in me to deal with that issue again. I am probably the better for it. I had a lovely 2 hour nap.

But the tour of the Catherine Palace was great. I ended up buying a small booklet about the Romanoff family, just so I could keep straight who was who. Now see, Peter I (Peter the Great) sent his wife to a nunnery so he could marry the washer woman, who became Catherine I. Catherine I built the Catherine Palace in Pushkin as her little place to go when she wanted to get out of the bad weather in St. Petersburg.

(be it ever so humble, there's no place like home)

But Catherine I was not Catherine the Great. Catherine the Great was, in fact, German, and married into the family to Peter III, who was not so great, but apparently such a jerk that nobody minded when she killed him, took over as leader of Russia and became "great" for all she did. I think. The pamphlet says that her husband, Peter III ruled for 186 days before he was killed. Catherine ruled for 34 years. I'm sure there is a message in there! There were other Catherines and Peters and an Elizabeth and Alexei or two thrown in there too. We Americans, who come from a country with elected officials, have difficultly keeping all these royal lines straight.

However, one thing about Catherine, whether washerwoman Catherine or Great Catherine, who lived there after her, these babes liked gold!

Room after room after room after room was all decorated in gold gilt paint. And the inlaid floors are so beloved that the caretakers of the palace make you put on shoe coverings before you can walk on them.

It is opulence in the extreme and my favorite room was one where cameras were not allowed: The Amber Room. Tons of amber line all the walls in amazing mosaics. [Read the link--the back story is fascinating, and the picture is better than the one I just took of the postcard we bought.]

I loved the room for its beauty, but even more when I was tapped on the shoulder by Lynn Terry, Marta's sister's mother-in-law. We had been playing tag with Lynn and Dan ever since we got here, since they are on the sister ship of the Kirov, the Surkov, which is moored right next to us. As it turned out, the Surkov group was supposed to visit the palace yesterday, but because there was a big celebration for the 300th anniversary of Pushkin's birth, their tour had to be rescheduled. I had been looking at all the Surkov groups we passed in the palace to see if I could see them...and they found us first.

By the time we were halfway through the tour, I was very glad we had come as early as we did. The line outside had stretched a long way--and it had started raining. Pouring, in fact.

We ran into Lynn and Dan again at the end of our tour and made arrangements to meet for lunch. I invited them to join us on the Kirov, which they did. We enjoyed comparing notes and probably spent more time talking to each other over lunch than we have in total ever since we met them, since we are often at gatherings together, but rarely talking to each other, so it was nice to begin to get to know each other.

By the time we left the palace, the rain had come and gone, so we did some walking on the grounds.

We walked down to a Pavilion, where we were surprised by a quartet of gentlemen, there to sing for us (and sell us their CDs). I just love musical stuff like that and of course we bought a CD, which will eventually (I hope) be the background for a slide show about this trip.

I must admit that while the palace was gorgeous and there were many, many things to take your breath away, the things that most impressed me were some black and white photos on the wall in the basement, showing the palace following the German occupation and the work of dedicated volunteers who restored it to its original brilliance. One man devoted his entire life to restoring The Amber Room after the German army moved out. I wonder if anybody in the U.S. would care that much about, say, the Oval Office...

After dinner there was what was billed as a "cossack show," in a tent on the side of the pier here. All we had to do was show up at the tent, cameras in hand and check our names off on the list where we had signed up before. As with Swan Lake last night, I just love this stuff! When we arrived at the tent, it was closed, and suddenly all these beat up old cars came roaring into the parking lot, a bunch of young adults got out and ran into the tent with suitcases. They they started letting us in and the show began. What great fun.

At intermission, the crew of the ship served us all vodka shots..

(you can tell how much Walt and Mike are enjoying it!)

At some point during the show it started storming outside. I mean thunder and wind rattling the lights which were hung directly over our heads (I took a video of the wind!), and then what sounded like torrential rain. It kept up to the end of the show and I wondered how I was going to get back and keep the cameras dry. Fortunately I had a camera bag, but no coat, no umbrella, no poncho--because there had been no threat of rain when we left the ship. Fortunately, it wasn't raining as hard as it had been by the time we left. Oh, I managed to get good and wet, but the camera stayed dry, fortunately.

Tomorrow is our 45th anniversary. We are celebrating by having Walt go off on a tour alone to the Peterhof Palace and me staying here doing laundry because I am not up for another opulent palace, no matter how beautiful it is. In the afternoon, we will have a 2 hour canal boat ride, which will be nice.

Busman's Holiday

We have just returned from seeing Swan Lake and had absolutely the best time! We may be the only people in the theatre who found the evening funny, but...it was hilarious.

We all dressed up and piled into our respective buses (we are on Bus 25, with tour guide Marina, our tour guide for the rest of our time in Russia). Char, exhausted from our tour of the Hermitage earlier in the day, decided to stay behind.

Marina guided the bus through the center of St. Petersburg to the Alexandrinsky Theatre for a performance by the Yacobson Russian State Academic Ballet theatre. Marina said she would meet us outside after the show and we all filed in through this tiny doorway. The theatre was full. We tried to guesstimate how many the thing held, and guess roughly 1,000-1,500. There were almost no ushers. Just a thousand tourists wandering around with tickets all in Russian (in cyrillic script, of course), signs in Russian, and no clue where to go. Marina finally showed up to help and we discovered that we were probably in the best box in the theatre. The "royal box," next to ours, was huge and apparently privately owned, because there was a guard with a big handlebar moustache outside and even though most of the people in the box left at the first intermission, ain't nobody gonna get in that box no how. But where we sat was absolutely perfect. Six of us in our own private box. There are five floors of boxes and all were full.

But the first thing I noticed is that everybody down in the orchestra section had a digital camera and they were all standing around snapping pictures of each other. (And, despite orders to the contrary and alert theatre staff with laser pointers picking out offenders throughout the evening, many continued to snap photos throughout the show. Very bad form! Not only is it annoying to people around you, but flashes can actually be dangerous to the performers, who might happen to catch a flash in his/her eye and momentarily lose focus, which you dan't want when someone is about to leap into the air and into someone's arms...or about to catch someone leaping into the air!)

The show started and first you noticed the orchestra, who were in "civvies." Nobody had dressed for a performance. The percussionist was wearing a t-shirt, several musicians were in white or light colored shirts with no ties. The conductor looked like he had just come from rehearsal. The trumpeter was not very good. Didn't hit any bad notes, but just sloppy. The whole orchestra filed out at the end of Act 2, while the cast were taking their bows.

(notice this is not a performance shot...and I also didn't use flash
(circled section is the orchestra leaving during the bows)

I asked Marina afterwards the name of the company, since it had the feel of a very good school recital. She said that the Yacobsen company was one of the best in Russia and had played all over the world. Well, Honey...this wasn't the A team, by a long shot! Actually, I just checked Google (my connection is VERY slow tonight and I haven't a clue when this will be posted) and learned that they are a very famous ballet SCHOOL who have won international competitions and who are famous for organizing the International Ballet School festival. I feel better--this is what it felt like--a very good school recital.

This isn't to say they weren't good. They were. Some quite good. The jester was outstanding. Sigfried and Odette were excellent, especially Odette. Odile went up on point a couple of times and her ankles wobbled just a bit. Not good. The corps de ballet, especially in Act 1, was sloppy. Looked beautiful, but lacked that crisp precision you associate with Russian ballet. They improved in the second act and the four girls who do the quartet that I love were great.

Production values were quite good, and I loved the costumes, which seemed authentic Russian folk costumes.

I had to laugh because this is obviously a show put on so tourists can see Russians dance ballet, but the Kirov or the Bolshoi it ain't. But it just tickled me greatly because the whole "scene" was just so much fun...and all those folks from the midwest who have never been to a ballet before felt they got their money's worth. (And even though I'm on vacation, I have just "reviewed" it after all!!!)

But now let's back up a tad to the morning, a day I had faced with combined excitement and dread. We all left the boat around 10 a.m., picking up box lunches from the staff as we left.

We were to tour The Hermitage, which I knew was an enormous museum, and, still smarting from my "Ian experiences" of last year, I didn't know if I had the stamina for it. As it turned out, I did. Oh, I huffed and puffed and I sat down a lot (I discovered that the air conditioners are just the right height for sitting, briefly, and they blow cold air on your legs too!) and I used my napkin from Nice a LOT. I was glad when it was finally over, but I even stuck with it to the Impressionists, which some folks opted out of because they had hit the wall.

What a magnificent, opulent building--and what an art collection. Marina told us that in our 3 hours there we had seen about 8% of the collection. Words can't even begin to describe it, but here is a tiny taste:

I'm currently reading a book called "Madonnas of Leningrad," which tells how volunteers managed to remove all of the paintings from the Hermitage before the Siege of Leningrad and see them safely transported out into the country. The book discusses madonnas specifically and there are certainly a lot of them, but I was surprised to see how many look sad or angry.

(the one on the far right actually looks like the mother of Damien, the devil-baby!)

So I was really happy to come across this one, where mother and baby both seem to be enjoying each other.

There were also some incredible tables inlayed with mosaics done in incredibly fine pieces of glass.

Some of our group examining one of the tables

I liked this one because I could recognize Florence

The whole thing was just mind-blowing with each room bigger and better than the last. And I finally "understood" (sort of) the movie The Russian Ark, which I thought I hated. Now I want to see it again! Especially when I recognized places like this.

I almost hit the wall before we got to the Impressionists and I saw the stairs I'd have to climb, but we found an elevator and I'm glad I stuck with it because otherwise I would never have seen this Van Gogh of people at the stadium at Arles. I've been to the stadium at Arles! I know exactly where that is!

It was 2 before we got back to the bus and I think we all attacked our lunch boxes and ate while we drove the 20 minutes back to the ship. I came back here, lay down on the bed and was asleep in seconds. Walt went and stood in line to get us on the wait list for the Bolshoi in Moscow and then we joined Mike and Char for dinner up in the Neva Restaurant, one floor up.

It's been a great day! And tomorrow we tour the palace of Catherine the Great in the morning, have a city tour in the afternoon, and see a folk show in the evening. I can't wait!

Thursday Thirteen

Authors I’ve read almost the complete works of

1. John Steinbeck
2. Patricia Cornwell
3. Michael Connelly
4. Tess Gerritsen
5. David Gerrold
6. Dick Francis
7. John Grisham
8. Ken Follett
9. Bill Bryson
10. Pat Conroy
11. Walter Farley
12. Dorothy Lyons
13. James Patterson

3 Countries in 3 days

When we got off the plane in St. Petersburg tonight at 10:30 p.m. I realized we had been in three different countries in as many days (4, if you count the U.S.!) At the end of the evening tonight, we decided that though we are sad to have missed the chance to take the train across Finland, we sure made the most of our last day in Helsinki--and had a ball!

The first order of business was to find the monument to Jean Sibelius, Finland's most famous composer (I think). This meant taking public transportation (with which we had become quite comfortable) out to a little park where it is located. It's kind of a cool setting

The cool thing is that over to the left, just out of sight in this picture, there is a trio of a French horn, trombone, and trumpet playing snippets of Sibelius' music. We stayed long enough to hear Finlandia before we left. To the right--sort of--of the big monument there is this:

Now, I don't know about YOU, but what I see is Sibelius' head being pooped out the back end of a flying pig! (I did not share that feeling with any Finnish people I met!)

From Sibelius, we decided to go to the Farmers' Market. I have been wanting some of those great cherries we saw the other day and thought we might get some fruit and sit in the park. We did buy fruit (cherries and strawberries)...

...but instead of going to the park, Mike and Char decided to order at a crepe place there on the plaza. Great idea. Char and I each had raspberry crepes, while Walt and Mike each had chicken/mango crepes. All were fabulous.

Then we were so close, we had to go and check out the Uspensky Cathedral, perhaps the most famous (or at least most recognizable) building in Helsinki. When I saw how high up the hill it was and that it was accessible by stairs, I sent the others on their way and decided to wait at the bottom.

But then I thought--when will I ever have this opportunity again? and I knew what Jeri would say if she were there. So I checked out the stairs...and they really weren't bad. I started climbing and before I knew it, I was at the top.

It was beautiful. Having visited the Lutheran Cathedral 2 days ago, I have to say that when it comes to gaudy splendor in churches, the Catholics (especially the Orthodox Catholics!) have it all over the Lutherans!

Then we caught another bus back to a few blocks from the hotel. We have mastered Helsinki public transportation.

The flight to St. Petersburg was uneventful and the drive in from the airport was notable mostly (for me) because the very first sign I saw in Russia was...for KFC. I have lots of other thoughts about arriving I was going to wax eloquent about, but it's pushing 1 a.m. and I'm fading fast!

We got set up in our room on the Kirov (pix later) and were happy to receive a message from Marta's sister's in-laws, who are on the Surkov which is practically touching our ship. We hope to get together with them, perhaps tomorrow, sandwiched in between a tour of The Hermitage and a performance of Swan Lake at night.

They had a late supper for all 40 of us on the bus and we had fabulous beef stroganoff (somehow MUCH better than the microwaved stuff we had on the ferry last night), spaetzel, and a bunch of other stuff, ending with a sinful chocolate mousse (or, I think Char would prefer to think of it as "moose."

(Oh yeah--the wine comes with the dinner, at
no extra charge)

Internet connection is VERY VERY slow, so I probably am not going to be doing much more than posting a journal entry each night (assuming that goes ok--I'll find out in a few minutes). But we are very excited to be here and eager to start our Russian adventures.

I took this photo at exactly midnight, from the "Sun deck" of the Kirov.

We are truly in the Land of the Midnight Sun, and lovin' those White Nights!

To All My Estonian Friends

Many years ago, when this journal was in its infancy and I cared about things like stats, I discovered that someone from Estonia had been reading at least some entries. I wrote an entry then called "To All My Estonian Friends."

Well, as of today, I can say "ich bin ein Estonian!" I done seen Tallin, I've met Estonians, I've walked the damn cobblestones of Old Tallinn that everyone thinks are quaint, but which makes my feet and hip scream for a flat surface, and I have returned to Helsinki. A really nice day. I'm so glad Mike had this idea before we came here.

We got an early start to get to the ferry dock for our 9 a.m. ferry. On the way we passed through one of the parks that we had been to on our walking tour and were amused to discover that someone had adorned one of the statues with a vuvuzela, that annoying South African plastic horn that has been driving people crazy during the World Cup.

We had some time to sit in the station and looked all the signs, trying to decide what this means!

Walt and Mike picked up some Estonian money, called kroons, but some call them "eeks" because that's the code for the money. They will be switching to Euros in 2011, which should make life easier for everyone. I liked this bill, which has the picture of Lydia Koidula, a poet, on it. Nice that the money (a) honors a woman, and (b) she's in the arts.

100 Kroons equals about $10, so while the price of everything in Estonia seems very high, you have to remember that what the exchange rate is. This was the bill from our lunch, for example:

The hour and a half ferry ride from Helsinki to Tallinn was very pleasant. The ferry is efficient and the seats are comfortable. Walt took the opportunity to get in a nap.

We arrived in Tallinn, the birthplace of Skype, sometime before 11 a.m. and had a long walk to town. It appears that Tallinn is much busier than Helsinki, at least from what we have seen of Helsinki, which appears very laid back. I also knew this was my kind of place when I read this on a brochure:

WiFi is ubiquitous in Tallinn, available in virtually every hotel, cafe, restaurant, petrol station, park, museum, and public toilet....In Estonia, internet access is actually recognized as a basic human right. Internet access and black bread.

My kind of people!

We walked through Old Town Tallinn. It's difficult to figure out whereTallinn ends and Disneyland-Estonia begins. The place is crammed full of tourists, and it seems all the locals are working. The houses are quaint, the streets narrow, the streets cobbled. The main town square has figures dressed as Russian babushka dolls or other kinds of local color. Many girls wear traditional Estonian garb, as they hand out flyers asking you to eat at their restaurant.

I was very happy that Walt wore his Berklee College hat, which is red and which can be seen off in a distance (where I usually saw it, because I can't keep up with the others). I (almost) never lost him.

We were hustled by an Italian guy to check his restaurant, which looked like it would be good (how can you pass up a place called "Fellini"?), so we chose that for lunch. It was good. We sat there in the town square drinking our beer, eating our ravioli, and watching the world swirl around us.

As with Helsinki, there are no restrictions on smoking, and I'm not used to so much cigarette smoke. There was a guy who stopped RIGHT in front of where we were sitting, because there was an ash tray on the other side of the planter box. He lit up a cigarette and smoked it to the end, blowing smoke in our direction the whole time.

We finally left Old Town and bought tickets for a tour bus that showed us most of Tallinn and would drop us off close to the ferry, so we didn't have to walk so far. It was a fascinating tour. As with Finland, Estonia is a small country whose history is marked by which marauding army conquered them when and what changes they made to the cities. I found it interesting that one section of the tour pointed with pride to the houses which were the first individual houses people could own after the Russian occupation and how happy they had been with not having to live in the drab Russian concrete block buildings.

We were also shocked to learn that the old feudal system was in place in Estonia until the beginning of the 19th century! It did not achieve its independence until 1991, after the collapse of the USSR.

We had a long walk back to the ferry--but shorter than it could have been--and a long wait (2 hrs) before the ferry left. We were a little disappointed that we bought nothing in Tallinn except lunch. No Tallinn magnet for my fridge, no Estonia t-shirt for Brianna. Food, so far, seems to be our only expense. This is what comes of my leaving all of my cards at home!!

We had a dinner on the ferry, beef stroganoff for Walt, Mike and me and a tomato/mozarella sandwich for Char.

Char said the highlight of the day for her was eating in an Italian restaurant in Estonia with a waitress who said "bon apetit" and Walt's favorite thing was that he could tell the folks in his office he'd had microwaved Estonian beef stroganoff on the ferry. I was pleased that I had seen a man sitting at an outdoor cafe smoking a hookah pipe

Having discovered that the T3, the trolly we are very familiar with, runs right by the ferry dock, we took the trolly back to the hotel instead of walking, so my feet and legs were happier.

Mike and Char came up to use my computer to check their e-mail. Mike did his first and then went downstairs to their room while Char checked hers. Apparently both Walt and I fell asleep while she was working, so I have no idea how long she stayed. We are nothing if not gracious hosts!

We haven't firmed up plans for tomorrow yet. We leave for the airport at 5 p.m., so have the day to kill. We are thinking of going in search of Jean Sibelius.