Italy Soon

We leave for Italy on Sunday. We're going with Robin's brother, Jack, and his wife, Wendi. We land in Rome, spend three days there, then to Florence for three days, over to the Adriatic Sea for three days, and then to Venice for three days. After Venice, home. If you need any "stuff" while we're gone, our key is always under the mat. Take whatever you want. But do us a favor and make it look like you broke in. Because we're going to tell the insurance company that our crappy stuff was way more expensive than it actually was.

Final Thoughts - Onboard

This will be the last entry on the Baltic and will include some general (and generalizing) observations and thoughts about the now sadly-completed trip.

Not surprisingly, various nationalities found one another onboard, and gently staked claim to their own parts of the ship. The indoor patio area near the children's pool was the spot for blood-sport board games by the many Asians. How lovely it was to observe the multi-generational intensity of their play, only to be occasionally punctuated with great bursts of laughter after a particularly brilliant (or dismal) move. Speaking of games, the longed-for Scrabble playoff between me and Pam never occurred as the several games were consistently signed out when we wanted to play. Next investment: our own travel Scrabble set.

The Spanish speaking families, from a culture of ultra-late dining, (not certain if they were from South America or Spain) were in riotous form in the dining room at 11:00 PM or later. Their children, young teens from various families, sat together and away from the adults, and they had the time of their lives. And that reminds me of the Tango.

Each evening, in an area of the ship called the Piazza, a small dance orchestra played. The repertoire was standard "Titanic" and "Ship of Fools" fare; if you closed your eyes while listening to them, you found yourself waiting for the iceberg's crack. But one evening, I noticed a number of Asian women looking over the railing from Deck 7 down to the dance floor below. They were mesmerized and I soon found out why. A particularly lovely and elegant young Asian couple, the only dancers on the floor, was dancing the tango. Their lessons were not in vain, and the orchestra was in heaven to accompany such expert execution of this tricky dance. I found it all quite touching: the obvious pride of the observers, the grace of the dancers, the joy of the musicians (as they played tango after tango to keep the couple dancing). It was a "moment," that's all I can say. A moment of sheer beauty.

Concurrent with this tangoliciousness, another scene was being played out, as it was every night of the cruise. Tables (a' la street vendors, only they were ship vendors) were set up in the hall on the aforementioned Deck 7, piled high with wares that varied not at all over the ten days at sea. Baltic amber, Russian nesting dolls and lacquered boxes, costume jewelry and various other gimcracky continued to delight the women passengers (who piled up five deep at the tables) as thoroughly on the last night as it had on the first. Why, Pam and I wondered, did the fascination hold, when the merchandise remained virtually unchanged after ten days? It's the fever of the marketplace. It's what vacationers do, and it's goofy. The only item I purchased on the trip was a Russian nesting doll for my friend Cathi whose cat Cassie bears a resemblance to the cat painted on the doll. The painted cat, as inanimate as it is, is more likely to extend a friendly gesture than the real cat, that goes without saying.

One of my favorite scenes, repeated daily, was the sight of my friend Pam on the balcony of our room. She loved to sit out there and read after a day's excursion while we sailed off to the next port. Eventually her eyes would close and while she napped a look of utter contentment remained always on her face. This is one of the scenes that will come to mind when I think of this trip.

Estonia, Who knew?

Robin and Pam's cruise on the Baltic Sea is in its final days. They visited Estonia and the next day they got a little glimpse of Germany. Here's what Robin wrote.

We stopped at Talinn in Estonia right after our grueling two days in Mother Russia. As if divinely prompted to smile on free people, the weather was cool, breezy and sunny for our visit to a country that has only been out from under Communism since 1991. What strides they have made!!!! The people are so hopeful and happy to be free – something we take for granted. While the town was bombed during WW II, (the Russians said the Germans did it, the Germans said the Russians did it, but the townpeople recognized the difference in the sound of the planes and declared that it was the Russians) most of the old town was spared, and it is charming. We were treated to an organ concert at the oldest church. Music is a huge part of the national psyche, and the largest choral music festival maybe in the world is held there every five years in a huge amphitheater. Thirty thousand singers from all over the world convene. The contrast to Russia was overwhelming.

Today we are docked in Warnemunde, a small German port town. Many hearty souls on the ship made the three-hour journey into Berlin, but we decided just to stroll around the village knowing that three hours in means three hours back, and precious little in between except a high level of fatigue. The town of Warnemunde is clean and orderly as you would expect in Germany. Even the gulls in the harbor seem to fly in a more orderly fashion. I found myself wanting to walk up to the sausage seller or the schnitzel vendor and ask this simple question: "Two world wars. Eight million jews. WTF??" But I didn't. Pam and I argued about culpability. She believes that because these people were not alive or too young when that all went down, it's an unfair question to pose, just as those of us alive now in the States are not directly responsible for slavery, she believes. Maybe I don't believe in redemption after all, because to me there is a national stain that can't be erased by the passage of time. I may be wrong. I just don't know.

THEN I got to thinking about the personalities of nations. Does the personality of a nation come from some critical mass of individual personalities within it? I think of Russia's bullyness, and Kruschev pounding his shoe on the table at the UN, and I tell you, I observed similar behaviour from many Russians during my brief stay. So volatile, so quick to get angry. And the Germans...I guess giving the world the Mercedes and the BMW gives your feelings of superiority some credence, but war and extermination?

Then I think of the Swedes. And I wonder if their confidence, their ability to take care of all of their people with social programs, just the smoothness of their whole operation, comes from having a nation of tall beautiful people who don't even have to wear makeup?

And finally I think about our young nation, and the gosh-by-golly attributes shared by so many Americans, and the childlike way we provide aid, and in return want the recipients to play by our rules. We are the children on the world scene. Big powerful children.

It all makes sense in my goofball mind.

Only one sad thing happened on this extraordinary trip, and that is the loss of the fair Aurora. The Aurora, a great ship not quite as large as our behemoth, was our constant companion from port to port until we left Talinn. She followed in our wake. At night we looked out on the black sea and there she was, and she always was berthed right next to us in every port. We became attached. As we left Talinn (it might be Tallinn, I forget), I felt that she wasn't getting moving as she ought. Her ropes were still tied and the usual bustle of pushing off activity was missing. As we moved a few miles out of port, I kept waiting for her to catch up. By dusk I was sitting on the balcony, binoculars in hand, searching the horizon. No Aurora. I got up in the middle of the night and saw only the black, black Baltic. In the morning, I checked first thing. That's when we had to reconcile ourselves to the fact that she had made another turn, the shipping lane not taken. Now, of course, I wonder: Where did she go? Back to home port? To some other Baltic outpost? She's gone and we miss her companionship. Does she miss us?

Tomorrow's the last day. We think we'll stay aboard and savor our last day in the lap of luxury. We've yet to have had our proper Scrabble challenge, something Pam particularly enjoys as she always wins. I'm always so joyful to have gotten a word, ANY word, that I never bother to count points and all that. She counts, she wins.

Don't Drink The Wodka

Robin and her friend Pam are taking a cruise on the Baltic Sea. The ship took them to Russia, where they spent two days touring on land. Here's the first of her reports from there.

I am so doggone tired, I hardly know how I'll remember anything. Saturday and Sunday we were in St. Petersburg, touted as the cultural and aesthetic center of mother Russia. I hardly know where to begin. Saturday morning we boarded a bus for the Hermitage, the second largest collection of paintings next to the Louvre, as the cheerful guide told us at least 200 times. It was not the size that stunned us, nor the paintings, nor the fact that Peter the Great had lived in a place this enormous. (No question why these folks revolted their asses off.) No, what stunned us was the fact that the paintings were subjected to the vagaries of the climate with virtually no controls at all. It was about 95 degrees inside, the windows were flung open, the sun beat in on the paintings, the salty humidity poured in like a vapor, and instead of weeping for our sweaty selves (and our physical misery was ACUTE), we wept for the paintings - thinking of how coddled they are in even second and third tier museums at home. How they have stayed in one piece here through centuries of rough treatment is beyond me, and you can bet if it's this hot in the summer, the winters are equally frigid. We were herded through the place much in the same way one is sent through the Vatican Museum. Paintings of dead fowl and slain fawns seem to have been favored by Russian royalty - the secular version, I guess, of St. Agatha getting her breasts ripped off at the Uffizi.

Three dripping wet hours later, we returned to the ship and passed out prior to the evening's entertainment off-ship: "An Evening at the RUSSIAN BALLET!!!"

I got a weird feeling on the bus on the way to the theater, like a light going off in my head. "Wait a minute," I thought, "this is August. This is NO ONE'S official ballet season: Might this be a performance put on merely to pander to me and my shipmates?" The answer was YES! And the results were hysterical. Before I say anything snarky, the prima ballerina of our ballet (Swan Lake, naturally) was extraordinary, and she danced the role of both female leads. In the company's defense, as we were merely sitting in the 90 degree theater, they were dancing in the heat. How, we do not know. But, as it is summer, it was apparent that many of the usual members of the corps were on holiday, and other girls whose only attribute was their body type, were conscripted to perform. We don't know if they had any advance warning or were just pulled in off the street, but the resulting confusion on stage was both nerve wracking and comical. Then there's this other matter of the happy ending. Does the white swan die? No, no, no, not in the tourist version. Pam, a balletophile, said to me, "I can't believe I remembered that ending wrong." I screamed, "This was the wrong ending!" As we approached our bus, we discreetly asked our guide "WTF????" She told us that when Stalin saw the ballet for the first time, he hated the sad ending and made them change it. Now, apparently, ballet companies may choose which ending they will use. Unbelievable, and oh so funny, were it not for the sweat coursing down my body.

Yesterday took us to Catherine the Great's summer palace, and it was beautiful. Again so hot. We had lunch there while some Russian folk singers entertained us, and tried to sell us their musical instruments. Then we were off to Peterhof, the summer palace of Peter the Great. There are beautiful gardens and fountains there which we greatly enjoyed. However, while we were touring the interior of the palace, a great storm came up quickly, and the power went off. After completing the tour in darkness, we left for the bus under great torrents. We were soon as cold as we'd been hot. The traffic was nightmarish getting back to the ship because, we found out later, so many trees had been blown over and into the streets. Fortunately the ship waited for us as we were quite late getting back.

That's the minutia of Russia. Here's (my) big picture. It's depressing. The people are depressed. Oh, I'm sure in some town somewhere you could have big fun tossing down "wodka" shots with a Russian. But in general, the mood is less than jovial. Much is in disrepair. There's not much of a work ethic, and certainly no experience with philanthropy to help keep the theaters and museums in good repair, which they are not. All of the museum workers slept in their chairs with their heads in their hands in each and every room. I'm glad I saw that little slice of Russia, even for the short time I did. Clarified one whole hell of a lot. About the "wodka": Some folks from the ship apparently imbibed while in St. Petersburg, got sick as dogs, prompting the ship's doctor to put a message in the daily newsletter that essentially said: Please do not drink that Russian shit. It's got an alcohol content you never even heard of.

Tomorrow I'll tell you about TODAY, about Estonia - finally out from under Russian dominance in 1991. Oh, it's a very happy story indeed.

The Ship That Sank

OK, I'll get the sequence right soon. This posting from Robin fits in between the two postings below.

Today was lovely. We arrived in Stockholm at 10:00 and boarded our bus. The first thing we visited was the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is a huge wooden ship built in the 1600's that was going to lead the Swedish ships to Poland, where the king of Sweden was waiting for them to help in his war against the Poles. Well, the woodcarvers got a little carried away in the construction of the ship and made it very top heavy. It sank in the Stockholm harbor within 15 minutes on its maiden voyage. Only within the last 20 years did they bring it up, restore it (along with the skeletons of those drowned) and build a mother of a museum. It arouses an inordinate amount of national pride considering the first puff of wind knocked the damn thing over.

Then we went to old town, and to the armory, where it became apparent that when fully armored, a horse could not possibly walk, nor could its rider move at all. Interesting, but a monument to man's insanity.

The weather was beautiful today, about 80 and sunny. The Swedish archipelago has 30,000 islands, and we are passing nearly 1000 of them on our way out of Stockholm and back into the Baltic, on our way to Helsinki. This is the most beautiful passage imaginable. I have to keep telling myself that while these little islands with their very occasional cottages look so inviting in the summer, the winters are horrid. So I haven't bought any property so far. This is a WONDERFUL experience in a part of the world I never would have come to had it not been for Pam. It's just beautiful.

Before The War Words

Robin Galvin is visiting countries along the Baltic Sea with her Friend Pam. The following words from her came in before the War Words posting below this one. (Note: On the flight over Robin had a nasty reaction to the Ambien she took in order to sleep on the plane.)

Holy crapola, Pam and I woke up at 12:00 noon today. We just had a great workout, but lo and behold, the other passengers are all dolled up for formal night and we look like two drowned rats. We're having a wondeful time. Wish I could have seen more of Copenhagen. Certainly Tivoli garden was so charming. It took two days for the GD Ambien to get out of my system. I was a maniac on the plane - Pam had her hands full, which she endured with humor and good cheer. We've had many a good laugh over it. The ship is HUGE and filled with true diversity in terms of ages and nationalities. No financial downturn for the Asians. Whole families including little children all over the place, and of course they look particularly gorgeous tonight in their fancy garb. Could write for hours but need to shower and get beautiful myself. This day with no ports was just what the doctor ordered. The cabin boy said he had no STDs and I believed him.

War Words From Robin

Robin Galvin is on a cruise on the Baltic sea, visiting countries in that area. She sent the following today.

What I've learned about the history of this region: Way back when, Sweden ruled the Baltic. They had all kinds of territory, including land that is Russia today. Finland was Finland until the Russians decided it was Russia. At some point, Russia decided that land that was Sweden's was Russia's. Germany decided it all was theirs a couple of times. The famous Amber Room in the Catherine Palace was made with amber from land that was Russia's, then Germany's, then Russia's. But it pissed the Germans off to the point that during WW II, feeling ownership of the amber, they dismantled the room stone by stone and hid it all in a castle that got bombed and burned to the ground. So far, what I've gathered is that Poland and Finland had to bend over every time someone got a whim that they wanted the land. It's insane, I swear to God, and no different from the Middle East. Oh yeah, and during WW II, the Finns - remembering that Russia had annexed them 100 years prior - joined with the Nazis in the bombing of St. Petersburg. The FINNS!!!! I think the only reason Finland is Finland now is that folks finally figured out it's not much more than some outcroppings of rock anyway. Isn't it amazing that wherever men have settled, there is war? This is the lesson of travel - Not that mankind is all the same, but that mankind is all nuts.

Today the ship stopped in Helsinki. Because we face two wildly busy days in St. Petersburg tomorrow and the next day, We decided to stay on the ship. The people who went into Helsinki said we missed seeing a church and the parliament building. Instead, we had great workouts, swam in the pool, read our books. What a lovely day....Gotta go.