Tues. Aug. 20, f

Dinner: apple and pear salad


Flank steak on polenta


Cake


Our dog towel


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Tues. Aug. 20, e

Our final stop for the day was at the Peter and Paul fortress. Here is Elena with her DenRus sign waiting for the 16 of us to gather. We were going in the yellow building which was a church. The smaller building was built to house Peter the Great's boat. (He liked to have buildings protecting his rather mundane things. He lived in a log house while St. Petersburg was being constructed. There is now a brick building surrounding it.)


The Royal family is buried here.


This room is for the last tsar and his family. They are under the white marble tomb.


And of course there is gold.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Tues. Aug. 20, d

The Church of the Spilled Blood was the first stop in the afternoon. It was built on the site of an assassination of a tsar. (They all run together after awhile, because they only seem to use 3 names and most of them die badly. This one had his legs blown off.)


In the style of orthodox churches there are icons everywhere. Everything else is crusted in gold. There are no seats and the services last up to 4 hours.


Outside, there was a bridal car AND


The bride. I know she wasn't in the church - I don't know if she was just wandering around for photo ops.


At every place we visited there were people in costume willing to pose with you for a tip.


Across the street from all of this action was a bazaar. My friend who booked the tour had told me that I could bargain here and pay in dollars. It worked. The vendors asked, "How you want pay? Rubles? Dollars? Euros?" Then they would name a price. I offered lower and we dickered. I probably could have done better, but the tour was going to leave.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Tues. Aug. 20, c

Lunch was a three course affair with wine at a nice restaurant named Le Gran



We started with a green salad. Then had chicken on rice.


And finished with cake. We could choose white or red wine or beer.


I have been noticing that portapotties look exactly the same the world over.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Tues. Aug 20, b

St. Petersburg is a planned city built on a delta, so there are rivers and canals all through it. Peter The Great originally did not want any bridges. He wanted everyone to use boats to get around. He gave boats to the nobility! The middle class had to buy theirs and the poor people had to build their own. Now they have bridges, but many of them are draw bridges that open during the night, so if you stay out too late, you can't get home.

This is the Winter Palace.


Lots of gold again. Somehow, it looks much gaudier that Versailles.


These are plates that were created with pictures of brides. Had to get my bride fix in.


Palace Square had pretty blonde girls driving the carriages.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Tues. Aug. 20, a - St. Petersburg

For the last TWO nights we have had to move our clocks FORWARD. So, we have lost 2 hours and now must get off the boat at 7 am. We ordered room service.


This is really St. Petersburg in a nutshell. Lots of gold seen through wires between zillions of cars. The first morning we drove around to various picture opportunities. The sun was shining on the many golden domes.


Then we stopped at our first souvenir shop. Marushka dolls as far as the eye could see. The main reason for stopping at these places is because they have lots of clean bathrooms.


The Bronze Horseman is an important novel in Russian literature. We parked here to go on our canal boat ride.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Mon. Aug. 19 c

Dinner was mussels


Pheasant


Sacher torte


After dinner one of the knitting teachers waxed poetic about the literature of St. Petersburg. She driveled on and on. We have lost two hours in two days and have to get off the ship at 7am, so when she finally seemed to be running down we headed off to bed.

A shrimp tonight.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Mon. Aug 19 b

Yes - Micky D.'s. we had a cup of coffee and used the facilities, then went to the museum.


Sadness, the architecture portion was closed.


I thought the 3 legged chair was cool, but I was stopped from taking more pictures.


The sun came out. It was much nicer to explore. We found 2 more yarn shops and went back to the market for lunch. We choose the stand with Lapp food. I had sautéed reindeer on mashed potatoes with lingonberry sauce.


Ana had mixed grill which included reindeer meatballs.


T'was tasty.

We wandered back to the shuttle stop and returned to the ship.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Monday, Aug. 19 Helsinki a

We all took a shuttle into the center of Helsinki. It was pouring. I WORE MY NEW RAINCOAT. I was the only dry one in the bunch. I was afraid that my return ticket was going to dissolve before I could put it in my pocket.

We all trudged along the esplanade with the rain beating down.


The first shop was actually a shawl. She had a ton of kits for mittens. It again looked like a feeding frenzy of sharks.



Ana and I went to find the design museum. We found the place the map claimed it was and saw nothing that could be it. I went into a very modern shop to ask. Since I was really dripping, I only stepped inside the door and the proprietors came to me. The map isn't very accurate. We headed up the street, but found it wouldn't open till 11. No problem, we can explore even in the rain.


This walking street had Formverk (fabulously interesting modern things for the home), a thrift shop, several gentlemen's clubs, and...

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sun. Aug.18 b

I also knitted with people and read, but I don't see the joys of cruising.

For dinner I had French onion soup,


Duck salad with a poached egg,


And cherry sundae.


After dinner we had our briefing on the activities in Tallinn, Estonia. It had to be several days early because stuff had to be planned.

Tonight's towel was a turkey.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sun. Aug. 18 a

A blog without pictures. I am having trouble posting.

I ate breakfast with an Australian couple from Brisbane. This was their 44th cruise. They are staying on the ship after Amsterdam and crossing to New York and doing the Leaf Peeper cruise to Quebec. Then they are flying to Seattle and cruising back to Australia. That last part takes 4 weeks. They were proud of the fact that on the Princess cruises they have done enough that they get free laundry! Big Whoop!

Today was a sailing day. Thank goodness that there are not too many of them. People seem to wander around from one silly activity to another. I went to the Faberge talk. On display were some OK eggs, but I have seen the REAL THING, and these were not it. The guy giving the talk was trying to tell people that since the Tsar paid only about $1000 for his egg and Malcolm Forbes sold his eggs for many millions, the eggs that he was selling were going to appreciate that much also. The terrible thing is I think that some people believed him. (Of course, the Franklin Mint people do the same thing.)
For lunch, Ana and I joined 4 other knitters for dim sum at one of the "special" restaurants aboard. The only choice was dessert. We had soup, several steamed and fried dims (or is it sums?) and fried rice. I had mango sorbet for dessert. It was merely ok. We had made a reservation for later in the cruise, but are giving it away.
In the afternoon there were tango lessons.
They taught everyone a routine and then picked the best four. The four were then paired with pros and we picked the best 2. These were then going to compete with finalists from other lessons some night. The 2 best were an Asian brother and sister from Pennsylvania.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sat. Aug. 17, b

We split up after the yarn and explored on our own.


Just like home. The clothes looked the same.


Ana and I took a tram to the train station. We took the scenic route and had to get off and try again, but finally made it. It was a short train ride to Warnemunde, the seaside village. It has little pensions that are made to look like the original fishermen's cottages.


My daily bride. She and the groom were holdings flag with their names and the date.


Melissa had said that there was a ferry that would take us back to the ship. She misspoke. It went back to Rostock, so we just retraced our train and tram.

Ana and I split up. She went back to the ship and I wandered through stores and the supermarket.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sat. Aug. 17, a. Rostock

Rostock is a small Hanseatic city that was part of East Germany. Now, it is a large boat building and seaside vacationing area for Germans.

We visited 2 yarn shops. You would think that these women had never seen yarn before. It was a feeding frenzy. It is catching! I, who usually can resist, bought stuff. ( Prunkist)

A great deal of this town was destroyed during the war. The brown building was from 1490. The others were rebuilt in the same style.


I loved the door and discovered that it houses an architecture firm.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Friday really Aug. 16 c

Just realized that I was off on my dates.

I took an Estonian stitches sampler class this morning. The class went all day, but I know my limits. There was a woman who talked incessantly in a very loud voice. She fell behind and when she was trying to get back on track had the nerve to complain about people talking. I thought the very nice lady sitting next to me was going to go ballistic. Most of the other people in the class said that they went brain dead about mid-afternoon.

For dinner I had duck mousse pâté,


arugula and pear salad,



quail stuffed with cabbage,



and chocolate mousse.



In the evening, a Dutch woman who is part of the group did a trunk show of her designs and the yarn that she uses to make them.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad