Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Monday, July 21, 2008
Back in USA
We are safely back in the USA - sitting at Newark airport waiting for our flight home. We really want to go back to Stockholm - we were really impressed with that city. But now it's time to get back to reality. It's been an amazing trip and journey and we had a great time.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Stockholm
Today we spent going around the city. We visited the Vassa museum which is of a wooden battleship that sank 10 minutes after being launched. Because of the location and type of water it was well preserved and they were able to raise it a few years ago in tact. I couldn't really take a good picture of it, but found one on the web. Picture of the Vassahttp://www.stanford.edu/~roumpos/album04/011.htm
We visited the condo of Anders (the friend of Jon's who has been kind enough to take us around the city). It's a very nice flat. We then went to visit the city hall, along with the main shopping areas. In general we have been so impressed with the city and how clean it is.
Ray and I are probably going to take this evening alone to have dinner here at the Rival and just relax. I definitely want to come back to Stockholm for a longer visit. It seems the city and surrounding area have much to offer and 1 1/2 days just isn't enough to really be able to take in all that we would like to.
The pictures are of city hall and the view of the lake outside of city hall.
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Funny Signs
OK, this was hysterical. In a park near where we started the boat tour is an outdoor exhibit of signs that are quite funny. Apparently it started with a contest to send in pictures of absurd signs - signs that really don't seem to make any sense.
Stockholm- LOVE IT
Oh my gosh - Stockholm is amazing. First off, I mentioned that we're staying at hotel owned by a former member of (Benny - the one with the beard) and has a movie theatre. Ray was hoping to catch the European premiere here - well, he had the right idea, but unfortunately it was the wrong week. Turns out the European premiere was right here - Meryl Streep, Pierce Bronsen and the ENITRE ABBA group was here on site for the event. Pretty cool. We did an amazing boat tour today - saw lots of new development side by side with beautiful old buildings. The city is wonderfully clean, everyone is friendly, and almost everyone is fluent in English.
Although Jim wasn't crazy about the outdoor bathroom - actually just a urinal behind a half-door. If you look in the top pic, you can see just the top of his head ;-)
Stockholm
We had a very relaxing evening our last night on the boat. We went to see comic Shan Carr, who had been taking pictures all week and had some very funny pictures and stories - including her flight to Moscow (on an airplane that was a converted fright aircraft). We got to change the clocks another hour again last night, so we slept in - had a relaxing morning and got to our hotel in Stockholm. I think I mentioned this, but the hotel is owned by Benny from the group ABBA. It's brand new, ultra modern, and very cool. Jon (one of the guys we are travelling with) had a friend here who is going to take us on a city tour. Weather is in the 60s and really nice.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Helsinki
First off, the “special guest star” (there always is one on the Atlantis Cruises) for the final big show was Chita Rivera. She started in the original Broadway versions of West Side Story (playing the role of Anita who sang “I like to be in America”) and in Chicago as Velma who sang “All That Jazz.”
It was a very good show. We also went to see one of our favorite cabaret singers, Matt Yee, do a second show – which was called “Slow Dance” – very different from the musical sing-a-long earlier in the week, but also very fun. He acknowledged all the couples by the number of years they were together and then had them do a slow dance which was very fun.
We did the Design and Architecture tour in Helsinki today. There are a series of islands around Helsinki and we went to a site where three architects built homes on a common compound. Herman Gesellius, Aramas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen. Saarinen then moved to the US and he and his son Eero were famous architects in the US. Eero designed the Saint Louis Arch, Dulles airport in Washington DC, the Irwin Miller home in Columbus, IN and a very famous church in Columbus, IN as well (the name escapes me right now). Eero also designed the Richard King Mellon Hall of Science at Duquesne University which housed the chemistry, biology, physics, & pharmacy departments where Ray spent a significant amount of time in the 70’s. We also went a Design museum which was very fascinating. Jim’s favorite exhibit was of a man dressed like God (white robes, white beard), in a Laundromat standing in front of a row of front loading washing machines. Each machine has the name of one of the oceans or seas on it and he’s talking about creation and how to preserve life in the oceans and seas. They have significant concerns about the Baltic Sea because apparently Saint Petersburg, Russia does not treat their sewage before it is put out to sea. And it smelled like it – the afternoon before we left, the air outside the ship smelled like raw sewerage. Engineers from Finland are trying to help the City of Saint Petersburg with that problem. The display was kind of a science experiment with a biblical twist, with the Baltic Sea being presented as a dryer (rather than a washer) showing the problems they are having with sustaining life in the sea. Jim thought it was really cool.
We did a bus tour around Helsinki and saw the Sibelius Monument which was dedicated to Jean Sibelius (who wrote the orchestral work “Finlandia”). Tonight is our last night on board the ship. We’ll get off the ship around 11am tomorrow and make our way to the Hotel in Stockholm, owned by Benny Usvaleus or something like that. He was the guy with the beard in the musical group ABBA. Ray is hoping for a special showing of the movie Mamma Mia hosted by Benny. We’ll have Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday there and will be staying in the same hotel with most of our friends that we’ve been travelling with – so we’ll probably do some sightseeing together.
It was a very good show. We also went to see one of our favorite cabaret singers, Matt Yee, do a second show – which was called “Slow Dance” – very different from the musical sing-a-long earlier in the week, but also very fun. He acknowledged all the couples by the number of years they were together and then had them do a slow dance which was very fun.
We did the Design and Architecture tour in Helsinki today. There are a series of islands around Helsinki and we went to a site where three architects built homes on a common compound. Herman Gesellius, Aramas Lindgren and Eliel Saarinen. Saarinen then moved to the US and he and his son Eero were famous architects in the US. Eero designed the Saint Louis Arch, Dulles airport in Washington DC, the Irwin Miller home in Columbus, IN and a very famous church in Columbus, IN as well (the name escapes me right now). Eero also designed the Richard King Mellon Hall of Science at Duquesne University which housed the chemistry, biology, physics, & pharmacy departments where Ray spent a significant amount of time in the 70’s. We also went a Design museum which was very fascinating. Jim’s favorite exhibit was of a man dressed like God (white robes, white beard), in a Laundromat standing in front of a row of front loading washing machines. Each machine has the name of one of the oceans or seas on it and he’s talking about creation and how to preserve life in the oceans and seas. They have significant concerns about the Baltic Sea because apparently Saint Petersburg, Russia does not treat their sewage before it is put out to sea. And it smelled like it – the afternoon before we left, the air outside the ship smelled like raw sewerage. Engineers from Finland are trying to help the City of Saint Petersburg with that problem. The display was kind of a science experiment with a biblical twist, with the Baltic Sea being presented as a dryer (rather than a washer) showing the problems they are having with sustaining life in the sea. Jim thought it was really cool.
We did a bus tour around Helsinki and saw the Sibelius Monument which was dedicated to Jean Sibelius (who wrote the orchestral work “Finlandia”). Tonight is our last night on board the ship. We’ll get off the ship around 11am tomorrow and make our way to the Hotel in Stockholm, owned by Benny Usvaleus or something like that. He was the guy with the beard in the musical group ABBA. Ray is hoping for a special showing of the movie Mamma Mia hosted by Benny. We’ll have Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday there and will be staying in the same hotel with most of our friends that we’ve been travelling with – so we’ll probably do some sightseeing together.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
St. Petersburg, Russia
Greetings from Saint Petersburg Russia. First off, we were warned over and over again about Russian immigration and how difficult it was going to be to get through customs if you didn’t do a tour through the cruise line. Not true – completely not true. Going through Russian immigration was a breeze. To be fair, we were booked with a tour company, but it was fast and easy and we’re both quite proud of having a Russian border entry stamp in our passports.
The tour was an all day tour which was exhausting. Traffic is a nightmare. Russians drive on the right hand side of the road…most of the time….unless they don’t feel like it. There was one point where we were coming back to the ship and we had people in cars going the opposite direction on both sides of the bus.
We saw Pushkin, the summer palace of the Tsars, which was looted and damaged significantly by the Nazis. They’re still in the process of restoring it and re-creating the furniture and artwork, but most of it is a replica of the original which was lost. Then we went to the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, where the Romanoff tsars are buried, and then went to see the Hermitage, which is the Russian equivalent of the Louve. It was once a winter home for the Catherine the Great but is now a major art museum – it was started with works of art that Catherine collected. It’s supposed to take 2 weeks to see. The tour guide did it in two hours. It was like aerobics on art. (Steph – I (Jim) thought of you the whole time – there’s a business concept here – it just needs the right beat behind it). What struck me most was the way the character of the rooms changed with the art. I don’t know if the palace was built that way, or was just decorated that way after it was turned into a museum. The artwork here is all the original – whatever had been in the palace was moved to the basement and hidden before the Nazis were due to arrive, but the Nazis never actually made it into the city of St. Petersburg so everything was saved.
We did have lunch in a Russian restaurant and Jim had caviar on hard boiled eggs – which he loves. His grandmother was Russian (native) and apparently as a small child discovered that he liked caviar. So she used to send it to him – by the case! He would eat it as an afternoon snack – to the shagrin of his mother who couldn’t believe how fast he could shovel the stuff down. Of course he had no idea of the cost at the time (not that he would have cared!!). He did find out over here that the caviar he prefers is from Salmon (not Sturgeon), which is MUCH less expensive, based on the restaurant prices. That’s not much comfort to Ray!
The tour guide was OK – he spoke very clear English. Jim had brought a copy of his grandmother’s baptismal certificate with me. She was born in Elizabethgrad, and was baptized in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). He said that the church was no longer there, but did know the site where it had been and was able to show it to us from a distance.
We’re were both exhausted by the end of the day. We napped for a bit, but we both decided to keep going. We had dinner with our friend Ti from Lafayette and ended the evening chatting with a guy from Los Angeles who runs an adolescent treatment center and gets lots of SAMHSA grants requiring an evaluator – so I ended up doing a little marketing for my business. We got up this morning at 7am to get ready for the trip and Jim commented that it felt like we were going to work. Between the time change the previous night and the grueling day yesterday, we were both exhausted. Ray’s really good about remembering that we’re on vacation and said “we don’t HAVE to go” and so we ended up skipping the tour today and went back to sleep – we didn’t wake up until almost 11am. The only downside here is that because we have to dock in the commercial shipping area, there’s no way to just get off and stroll about the city leisurely, although the Russian government wouldn’t allow it anyway – we have to have specific tours in Russia – no roaming about the streets looking for a Starbucks. So we’ll have a relaxing day aboard the ship – then we sail about 6pm for Helsinki.
The tour was an all day tour which was exhausting. Traffic is a nightmare. Russians drive on the right hand side of the road…most of the time….unless they don’t feel like it. There was one point where we were coming back to the ship and we had people in cars going the opposite direction on both sides of the bus.
We saw Pushkin, the summer palace of the Tsars, which was looted and damaged significantly by the Nazis. They’re still in the process of restoring it and re-creating the furniture and artwork, but most of it is a replica of the original which was lost. Then we went to the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul, where the Romanoff tsars are buried, and then went to see the Hermitage, which is the Russian equivalent of the Louve. It was once a winter home for the Catherine the Great but is now a major art museum – it was started with works of art that Catherine collected. It’s supposed to take 2 weeks to see. The tour guide did it in two hours. It was like aerobics on art. (Steph – I (Jim) thought of you the whole time – there’s a business concept here – it just needs the right beat behind it). What struck me most was the way the character of the rooms changed with the art. I don’t know if the palace was built that way, or was just decorated that way after it was turned into a museum. The artwork here is all the original – whatever had been in the palace was moved to the basement and hidden before the Nazis were due to arrive, but the Nazis never actually made it into the city of St. Petersburg so everything was saved.
We did have lunch in a Russian restaurant and Jim had caviar on hard boiled eggs – which he loves. His grandmother was Russian (native) and apparently as a small child discovered that he liked caviar. So she used to send it to him – by the case! He would eat it as an afternoon snack – to the shagrin of his mother who couldn’t believe how fast he could shovel the stuff down. Of course he had no idea of the cost at the time (not that he would have cared!!). He did find out over here that the caviar he prefers is from Salmon (not Sturgeon), which is MUCH less expensive, based on the restaurant prices. That’s not much comfort to Ray!
The tour guide was OK – he spoke very clear English. Jim had brought a copy of his grandmother’s baptismal certificate with me. She was born in Elizabethgrad, and was baptized in Petrograd (St. Petersburg). He said that the church was no longer there, but did know the site where it had been and was able to show it to us from a distance.
We’re were both exhausted by the end of the day. We napped for a bit, but we both decided to keep going. We had dinner with our friend Ti from Lafayette and ended the evening chatting with a guy from Los Angeles who runs an adolescent treatment center and gets lots of SAMHSA grants requiring an evaluator – so I ended up doing a little marketing for my business. We got up this morning at 7am to get ready for the trip and Jim commented that it felt like we were going to work. Between the time change the previous night and the grueling day yesterday, we were both exhausted. Ray’s really good about remembering that we’re on vacation and said “we don’t HAVE to go” and so we ended up skipping the tour today and went back to sleep – we didn’t wake up until almost 11am. The only downside here is that because we have to dock in the commercial shipping area, there’s no way to just get off and stroll about the city leisurely, although the Russian government wouldn’t allow it anyway – we have to have specific tours in Russia – no roaming about the streets looking for a Starbucks. So we’ll have a relaxing day aboard the ship – then we sail about 6pm for Helsinki.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Tallinn
Tallinn was much different than either of us were expecting. Since it had been part of the Soviet Union, I was expecting a Spartan place. Actually, since it became independent in the early 1990s it has developed quite a bit. It’s also a very charming and quaint city. We did a Café tour – going to several little coffee houses and cafés. We had sardines and a traditional Estonia beverage that tasted kind of like a cross between root beer and sassafras. We had pastries at another place and coffee at another. We went to the town square where a band was playing selections from West Side Story. Specifically, they started playing “I Feel Pretty” just as our whole group walked into the square. Hundreds of gay men, musicals, and a large open space. I’ll spare you the details – let’s just say they may have FELT pretty, but they weren’t!
Despite the long soviet influence, Estonians still speak their own language and are clearly more influenced by their connection with Scandinavia than Russia. The new buildings are more of a Danish modern style. Our guide was a wonderful woman in her 20s who was very fluent in English with very little accent despite having never studied in an English speaking country. She still remembered when they were part of the soviet union and commented about some of the strange things she experienced. For example, apparently bananas were considered “Western” and so were not allowed – she had never had one until she was twelve years old.
We turned the clocks ahead an hour last night, and do the same thing again tonight. I’ve given up on trying to adjust to the time changes! We were also commenting that we’ve been staying up WAY later than we usually do at home. Then I realized that basically we’re going to bed at 8pm Indiana time…not that much different than normal life. Sigh. But we are having a great time. I’ll try and upload several pictures from Tallinn, but they are saying that our internet connection may be somewhat intermittent while we are on this leg of the trip due to satellite issues, so we’ll see what happens.
Despite the long soviet influence, Estonians still speak their own language and are clearly more influenced by their connection with Scandinavia than Russia. The new buildings are more of a Danish modern style. Our guide was a wonderful woman in her 20s who was very fluent in English with very little accent despite having never studied in an English speaking country. She still remembered when they were part of the soviet union and commented about some of the strange things she experienced. For example, apparently bananas were considered “Western” and so were not allowed – she had never had one until she was twelve years old.
We turned the clocks ahead an hour last night, and do the same thing again tonight. I’ve given up on trying to adjust to the time changes! We were also commenting that we’ve been staying up WAY later than we usually do at home. Then I realized that basically we’re going to bed at 8pm Indiana time…not that much different than normal life. Sigh. But we are having a great time. I’ll try and upload several pictures from Tallinn, but they are saying that our internet connection may be somewhat intermittent while we are on this leg of the trip due to satellite issues, so we’ll see what happens.
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