St. Petersburg and Estonia

Big news!!  Thanks for praying everyone - I finally got confirmation today from the company for Chelsea to some on board with me!!!  Praise God!  He is WAY too good to me. :-)  I'm really looking forward to her coming in just a couple days.  Well, we are nearing the end of my second cruise here. 

Ok, got to catch you all up on our last few ports of call!  We'll start with St. Petersburg.  Russia is very strict on immigration policies, and even crew needed a passport, a photocopy of their passport for them to keep, our crew pass or ship card, plus a tour ticket or ticket for the shuttle bus.  No-one goes out on their own, in other words.  You can't even take a taxi - you HAVE to be on an official shuttle bus so they have a record of you.  I chose to go on a tour, of course - its just easier.  So I went on an all-day one that hit both the summer and winter palaces of Catherine the Great, and Peter the Great.  Peterhof Palace is a palace/museum, where everything has been preserved and restored, and is very ornate.  It was quite beautiful, especially the gardens and impressive fountains.  The second palace is now part of the Hermitage Museum, the second largest in the world, behind the Louvre.  We spent a whirlwind two and a half hours in the museum, breezing by Renoir and Van Gogh and Rembrant and Monet......I couldn't believe their collection.  We only saw the tiniest part.  Apparently it would take years to properly view every exhibition.  It was very impressive.  St. Petersburg is really a city of contrasts - with the official and royal buildings incredibly beautiful and lavish, next to the rather unattractive city itself.  The disparity between rich and poor was very evident.  

The next day we stopped in Tallinn, Estonia.  I was really pleasantly surprised by this place.  It has a medieval feel too it, and reminded me of Rhodes, Greece.  The country was only recently released from Soviet rule in 1991, and definitely has a bit of a Russian flair to some of the architecture.  But they have their own separate language which is among the most difficult to learn.  It was an absolutely gorgeous day, and I went on a short tour.  It was a really beautiful city - I wish we spent more time there.  I'm looking forward to next time.  

Today was a sea day, and it was nice not to have to work until almost 8pm.  We played some more big band music, in addition to the Baked Alaska farewell ceremony.  Tomorrow we will be in Copenhagen, Denmark, which I'm also really looking forward to.  

Berlin, Stockholm

(This is a retro post...I have been trying to post it for a week!  Sorry all!! )  Wow, where to start....the past few days have been pretty overwhelming, just because of the incredible places  I'm seeing for the first time.  First of all, Berlin.

I was not prepared for how much there would be to see in Berlin.  Aside from the 2 1/2 hour train ride, the day was really a whirlwind of stopping every ten minutes to see something.  There is so much history to the city, even though most of it is chilling and has to do with World War II.  I saw parts of the Berlin Wall, the place where Hitler ran the war, where his bunker used to be and where he committed suicide, a very effective memorial to holocaust victims, and so much more.  The Brandenburg gate, Reichstag building, the Twin Cathedrals, museum island....the list goes on.  Plus our tour included a "traditional" German lunch, which of course included bratwurst and sauerkraut.  One of my favorite poignant sights was a cathedral that was damaged by bombing during the war, but was left in that state - neither demolished nor destroyed.  It was neat to see.  It was an amazing day, and I'm so glad we were able to go.  We got back to the ship at 10pm and went straight to sound check, then did a simple play-on and were finished before 11pm.  I sure crashed that night, and slept in the next day until...well, you don't need to know.  It was late. :-)  

Today was Stockholm, and I wasn't prepared for the beauty of that city either.  It was really incredible and picturesque.  I went out with Marie and Liam and Tim, and we shopped, ate lunch, and watched a changing of the guard at the Swedish Royal Palace.  It was a neat afternoon - free time was nice after all the tours I've been doing.  The sailaway was really nice as well - Stockholm is surrounded by something like 40,000 islands, and it takes over 3 hours to get back out to the open sea. I stayed outside on deck 7 to watch for an hour or so by myself - it was really relaxing.  The air felt wonderful and smelled like ocean and forest at the same time.  Tonight we had a couple of late big bang sets and now its time for bed!  So I'll post this tomorrow.  Goodnight, all!