Russian Impressions

Wow, where do I start. What a day. I got up a little before Anneka and was antsy to get out. We bought a two day pass to the Hermitage so I thought I’d go back to wander through it some more then hook up with Anneka a little later in the a.m. I stopped by a little pastry shop on the way over, one that we’d noticed the night before, and got a couple of pastry’s. Next door was a little “convenience store” for lack of a better term, where I got a Coke and that was my breakfast. We broke the bank on dinner ($90) the night we arrived and on breakfast ($45) the next morning eating at the hotel since we didn’t feel like stumbling around for either until we got a little more comfortable with our surroundings. I also thought that an extra day would suddenly help us figure out Russian.

Not a chance.




I still panic a little every time its my turn to order a meal or buy a ticket and I divert my eyes away from whoever I’m dealing with to look at the print of a menu or ticket price sheet only to see letters and words that make me think, “Did someone print all this upside down and backwards?” It’s shocking how isolated you feel when you look back up into the emotionless face of some babushka ticket lady and realize one of you might as well be on the moon, that’s how far apart you are. More amazing is when you, in complete and total exasperation, still state what you need in the slowest English you can produce and they rattle off some long chain of words, likely asking you what you want or telling you where to go or whatever, and the words go right over your head to the Russian dude in line behind you who is rolling his eyes wondering why you sit there, motionless, with that deer in the headlights look on your face doing nothing. I actually can’t wait to get back to Sweden so I can “understand” what is being said.

Anyhow, I got to the museum a little early so I waited around a bit for it to open. There was a very long line and I was grateful for already having a valid ticket as it allowed me to bypass all of it and go right in. I went first to the ticket office to inquire about entrance to the “jewels” section of the museum. Come to find out




Wow, Anneka just got back from the sauna. She was gone for like two minutes. Why bother spending four minutes getting to a sauna that you can only stand to be in for two?

So, anyways, come to find out that they only let 30 people in per day to the jewels and gold section of the museum – two groups of 15. So I went ahead and purchased two tickets to the 12:10 pm entrance and hoped that Anneka would be to our predetermined meeting place sharply at noon as we’d agreed so that I could get her and we could go in. Well, she was about 20 minutes late and I can’t blame her. I can’t name a single incident in our nearly ten years of marriage where I’ve actually met her somewhere when I said I would. So, it’s really no surprise that she’d be late since in practicality, she was perfectly on time. When she arove (past tense of arrive, like unto arrived, but sounds better) we hustled inside and with a little sweet talking (done all with hand gestures since we speak no Russian, see above) they called a guide down to pick us up and take us to the rooms. We had no idea that your tickets bought you a guided tour, in English, of the rooms. Interesting thing here is how did they know to send for an English guide? Must have been that classic “I don’t speak Russian” deer in the headlights look (see above, again) I gave the babushka at the ticket counter as I slid the 12:10 entry tickets across to her at 12:30. Somehow it all worked out and we were told in the heaviest of Russian accents to “ghwait ghere”. A guide showed up a couple of minutes later and after a brief tongue lashing, in really good English, she took us on our tour.

Two things: Turkish Sultans know how to diamond encrust their gifts to their Tsar friends, and, our guides breath made garlic smell like perfume. The outside of the Hermitage is under restoration and they grind, scrape and sand on it all day. I’m sure if you just pointed this woman at it and had her regurgitate her memorized spiel over the course of the day the paint would fall off on its own… Seriously though, take everyday objects – swords, horse riding gadgets, personal hygiene stuff – and make it out of solid gold, then encrust it with diamonds and that is what this room was full of. I could live high on the hog for the rest of my life selling one chalice in there on the open market. It was truly remarkable.



After the Hermitage we hopped on a boat for a “hydrofoil” ride to the summer residence of Peter the Great – Peterhof, on the outskirts of town. We thought the hydrofoil would be really speedy and would offset its cost in time savings. Not so. It cost $12 per person per ride, there and back for a $48 total. The bus took just as long (half hour) and cost significantly less. What really made the trip crazy though was that, unbeknownst to us, you buy your ticket for the boat ride over at the dock at the Hermitage and you disembark onto this jetty just out of sight of the palace when you get there. You buy your ticket to the grounds of the palace while still on the fenced in dock.

We didn’t have enough cash for the tickets to the grounds.

There are no ATM’s on the jetty.

The booths were manned by babushkas that speak no English.

Deer in the headlights (see above, again)

We literally were stuck. Just paid fifty bucks to get to a dock that we couldn’t get off of and had no money or ability to get any money. About the only option we had was to get back on the boat we’d just got off of and go back to the Hermitage and call it a really nauseating (motion sickness from the turbulent water) one hour trip to no where.
Alas, I saved the day. Pulled out my best display of dismay to the guard on duty who lets people back onto the dock. Kept saying the word “Bancomat” which is the word for an ATM in virtually all other countries in Europe and hoped he’d get it. When he was done with his explanation to no one (I was on the moon) he called a gal over that was loitering that he must have known and she addressed us in broken English. What a godsend. We were able to successfully explain to her our dilemma, that of having bought tickets to get to the palace without actually having enough money to go get off of the dock much less into the palace. I’ve never felt like a bigger dork in my entire life. That sense of dorkiness was however mitigated by the fact that likely 99% of the others on the dock at that moment didn’t understand a word of what we, or she, was saying. In hindsight some British dude came up to me and asked what time the last boat returning to the Hermitage left at and I told him only because it was pointed out to us when we bought our tickets before we’d left. After I told him, “Five thirty” and he walked away, I realized I should have sold him the answer for the 240 Rubles we were short.

So, this gal helped us out. We’re not sure how but in essence she talked to the guard who basically let us go in the out gate, or out the in gate depending what side you were on. But we gave her what money we had, roughly enough for one of the two needed tickets, and we assume she gave that to the guard who let us pass. It was a really weird moment of silent communication. Just the flick of the head and a glance with the eyes told us it was time to make our dash off the dock. Once we got off we found out that there are cash machines on the other side of the palace but off the palace grounds and so to get some money we’d have to leave and then pay another entry fee to get back in. We thought we’d do it, just leave, get some money and come back in. Or, have one of us leave, get the money and pay to get back in. That would be equivalent, cost wise, to if we’d paid to get in in the first place. In the end we decided against it since we only had an hour and a half to see buildings, gardens and forests as sprawling as Versailles. Plus I had to pee really bad and they charged 15 Rubles to use a potty. Since we had no money we occupied a decent chunk of our time looking for a suitably private enough tree to water…




We did see the amazing cascade of water that is the highlite of the palace grounds. Kudos to the Russians since in all our years it is the only fully operable set of fountains we’ve ever seen among all the palaces that is fully functional. And they were in amazing condition. The guilding (sp?) was fresh and the figures sparkled in the off again on again sunlight. It helped that the G-8 summit was there last year and they wanted the place spruced up for all the G-8 leaders. It was stunning in every way. We can only imagine what the inside of the palace and the formal gardens on the other side of the palace looked like. We had no money and so we couldn’t pay any entrance fees to do or see anything. It wasn’t a total bust. We were grateful to have seen what we did and we left Peterhof with an appreciation for what palace fountains across Europe’s finest capitals would look like if they were restored and if they could afford to run them. We’re still wondering how they afford to run the ones we saw. Even Versailles can’t run theirs except on weekends and holidays.



It was an amazing day. St. Petersburg is a truly amazing city with so much potential for the future. The Hermitage is perhaps my favorite large scale museum with truckloads of art and artifacts. We read in a guidebook today that only 5% of it is on display. Heaven only knows what else they have in there. Perhaps E.T. or Micheal Jacksons real nose?

More tomorrow.

Chris

The Hermitage

Well today we spent all day in the Hermitage museum. The line was at least an hour long but luckily we pre purchased our tickets online and were able to walk right in. This museum is huge! We made a start on the ground floor and worked our way up to the 3rd floor by the end of the day. We basically started at 11:00am and finished at 6:00pm with 2 - 15 minute breaks to get a snack and drink. The collection ranges from Egyptian to modern art. The museum consists of several "palaces" that were built next door to each other. Catherine the great was the art collector and built several buildings just to house her collection. I kept thinking how can one person acquire this much art! It's not even all on display. I've heard other people say the Hermitage makes Versailles look like a commoners house and that the Tsar's spent way more money on their palaces, it was true, many of the rooms were covered in gold leaf, wood carvings all over the ceilings, wood floors with intricate patterns and just so many rooms! The art alone inside each room is worth millions and millions.

Chris here. OK. A couple of observations - It's light enough out still, to take pictures and it's now 11:30 at night,
every third person on the street is carrying and drinking an alcoholic beverage, regardless of age, sidewalk, street, same difference, your not safe regardless of which one your one, they drive like maniacs, decroded doesn't describe the state of the city, it's decrodeder then decroded. I just got back from a long, meandering walk through what a guidebook called "Beauty in decay". It took me on a stroll down streets showing some of the glory and beauty of the city lost to years of communism, plaster and bricks falling off in heaps and a layer of soot and dirt so thick you could sow seeds in it. St. Petersburg is actually younger, by over 50 years, then New York, but it looks like it was built overnight then abandoned. It's amazing the sheer number of absolutley glorious buildings 99% of which are as described above - decroded, to quote Napoleon Dynamite. In fact the hotel we're staying in is a five star top of the line establishment and right across the street is a building that is completely falling apart. It's quite sad in reality to see things like palaces of Dukes, Dutchesses and other royals and members of high society that are in deplorable states of disrepair or outright abandonment. The Hermitage itself is in less than stellar conditions in many areas. Parts of it rival all the best of Europe in both beauty and preservation and not ten steps later you are in a hallway with restrooms that feel and smell as though they haven't been cleaned in years. Everything is either beautiful or groadie. It's all or nothing.





Actually, my mind has wandered back many times during the day to the idea that this is what communism wrought. Near complete and utter destruction. I think of France having nuked it's monarch in 1790 whatever then moving into, for lack of a better description, a capitalist society. And, a hundred years later they have a modern society with standard levels of decay. But also certainly with highly cared for and preserved monuments to their history. Here the Bolsheviks tossed out the Russian monarchy and resorted to communism and 60 years later you have an entire neoclassical city in need of complete rescue. I'm not sure all the billionaires in the world could contribute money enough to restore this city. It seems like there's just no pride here. Trash and litter abound. Everything is just dirty. There's no grass to mow anywhere. Just weeds.

But still, there something magical about this place. A sense of "what if?" I think if every building in a two mile radius of the Hermitage could be restored to its former glory this city would outshine all others. In spite of the near architectural sameness of the buildings, due to the city in essence being constructed in about 100 years, there is amazing potential in each one. The network of canals winding through the streets lend a Venetian feel to countless neighborhoods.

But, enough about all that.

So, we went to the Hermitage today as I'm sure Anneka mentioned at the beginning of this blog.

Indescribable.

How do you begin to put words to a palace so large you literally get lost in it? How do you wrap your mind around what one guidebook said about the collection - so big that if you glanced at each piece for a mere three seconds it would take eleven years to see the whole of it? I'd mentioned above that there are many beautiful rooms with a couple of rather run down ones interspersed within. Some rooms where gilt from the baseboards to the bellybutton in the ceiling where the chandelier hangs from. The art is overwhelming. I've never seen more Rembrandts in one place in my life. I overheard a guide say they have the second largest collection of Rembrandts in the world. They have a huge collection of Matisses and the largest urn I've ever walked under! It was like seven feet tall and some 10 to 12 feet wide at the rim and weighs 19 tons! One nasty part of the day is they were refinishing a very large parquet floor, as best we can tell, in one of the rooms and they were using a material that smelled just like they were smearing deisel fuel all over. So at times and in places the museum stunk to high heaven. There was a mosaic table about three feet in diamter made of mosaic peices about half the size of your average pinky finger nail clipping. Must have been a million or more little pieces to make up that table.




When you see me next, ask me about the Hermitage, there was too much to see to cover in simple words in this blog. Plus I'm exhausted and want to go to bed.

I'm actually having a hard time writing right now since I'm so tired. More tomorrow. We're off to Peterhof for the better part of the day and I'd like to go back to the Hermitage for another hour or so just to soak it all in. I'm not likely to ever make it back here again for the rest of my life so I need to fill the mind up with images...

Mighty Russia

Wow........ Russia is crazy! We arrived about 1:00 today into St. Petersburg. I was nervous about coming to Russia this morning. Add to that when our flight took off about 10 minutes into the flight (which was bumpy as we were coming out of a storm) the pilot turned the plane around and hovered in the clouds some more and announced in Finnish, then Russian then English that there was a technical problem and we were heading back to Helsinki. That was all he said. I was freaked out thinking our plane had some major problem and a engine might fall off. Much to our relief we landed safely and taxied to an empty parking lot where we sat for an hour while they determined if the plane was fit to take off again.

The pilot then came back on explaining in Finnish, Russian then English that the problem was fixed and we would be taking off, assuring us that it was not a safety issue but a navigational issue. With that we tried again and took off then landed in St Petersburg after an hour flight.

Once we landed we had to line up for the passport control and hand them our papers, at the passport control the booth was lined with mirrors (to see the backs of our heads?) and a measuring system on the side (to see how tall we were?) after much shifting of papers and stamping (no speaking) they waived us through in which we proceeded through the customs hall, since we didn't have anything over $3000 to declare we passed through and were met at the baggage claim by a nice russian girl holding our name on a sign.

I paid extra for the hotel to come pick us up. (For my peace of mind) I read too many stories on how impossible it was to get a cab unless you speak Russian and the only public transport was a bus which took you to a metro, etc. After seeing the state of the bus's and taxi's we were very glad to be in our nice Mercedes provided by the hotel. The drive in was from another world! There were stark contrasts between really poor and really rich. The taxi's and public transporation cars were so old and decrepid as were many personal cars, then you had brand new Hummers, Mercedes and Lexus SUV's on the road. In the suburbs we could see the comunist block housing, stark, grey and scary looking. As we got into the city the buidings became more colorful but again they were either nice and restored or falling apart decrepid.

After checking into the hotel we ventured out to find a way to get some money and lunch. We happened upon a bank and went inside to exchange money. To get into the bank they required us to show our passports (strange) then showed us to a nearby desk to wait and exchange our money, the security guard then let us out. The adventure continued as we found a McDonalds, inside was packed and the line very long, we waited, and waited and not going very far, waited some more. We then realized we needed to be agressive and not let the Russians cut in on us. Then it was time to order and discovered the young man taking the order spoke no english... can't blame him as we don't speak Russian but I would have thought the younger generation would be taught english??? Anyway through much pointing at pictures and other peoples food we managed to order a big mac, fries and 2 drinks.

With some food on our stomaches we headed out on the streets to sightsee, we walked over to the Hermitage, a difficult endeavor again since there wern't many cross walks and the streets were a chaotic traffic jam. Dodiging cars as we crossed for our lives, we made it to the square that faces the Hermatige, the place is huge! The buildings go on and on, I've heard they put a lot of money into restoring it, even with that it still looked very run down. I imagine that a place that big is just too large to keep up. Wood was rotting away from the window seals, etc. We just walked around the courtyards, we will try and cover the museum all day tomorrow. They say if you looked at all 3 Million (Yes 3 Million) pieces of art for only a few seconds each it would take you 11 Years to see everything.

Well we just have one day tomorrow and will let you know how much we conquer. After walking around the Hermitag we walked over to the "Church of Spilled Blood" this is where one of the Tsar's was assisnated so they build this monument in his honor, it's pretty cool covered in mosaics on the inside. Again because of communism?? Lack of money?? the place fell into disrepair and was turned into a warehouse, but with some recent refurbushment and probably lots of money they restored it and it opened up again as a monument in 1998.






We then spent the early eveing walking to a Russian Orthodox church and happened upon their church service, which was cool to watch, lots of singing, reciting, singing, kissing of pictures and crossing, as well as insense.

We got back to the hotel around 7pm and instead of venturing out to try and find dinner, we wimped out and opted for dinner in the hotel with a nice english speaking staff.

The city is amazing with great museums and sights but exhausting at the same time, lots of cars, noise, exhaust (tons of exhaust) and little green space, the buildings contrast just like the cars, either really old and falling apart or restored and new. Don't get me wrong I'm glad to be here and experience it but it's the hardest city we've traveled in in terms of just getting by in language, culture, etc.

Anyway tomorrow we head to the Hermatige and will let you all know how it is. Chris is already sacked out. Good night!

The boat to Finland

Well we made it to Helsinki this morning. Yesterday we had most of the day in Stockholm which we just stuck around Gamla Stan and wandered the shops and Royal Palace. We watched the changing of the Guard at the palace which was a big fanfare, they have a 40 minute marching band show with the changing of the guard. After that we then went to the Royal Armoury which held various suits of armor belonging to Swedish kings as well as royal clothing. At the end of the museum they take you down to a cellar which houses the old coaches used by royals for weddings, coronations, etc. They are over the top! I'll post a few pictures. These coaches were used one or two times and cost a mint!





We picked up some postcards and souviniers then headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags and catch a cab to the ferry. It just started to rain as we got to the hotel. We had to check in on our cruise about 3:30 or 4:00 and got there right in between. This was our first cruise experience and it was wierd for us. We've never been on such a large ship. We found our tiny cruise cabin with 4 bunk beds, the room was so small! We also got an inside cabin and the no window thing was hard to get used to. We left our stuff in the room and headed out to the front balcony of the ship to watch the boat leave the harbor. Right after the boat left the harbor it started to rain again and everyone scattered indoors, we stayed out since it didn't rain very much and watched the scenery for about an hour. The ship had lots of different restaurants and buffets but the buffet was about $45 a person so we opted for one of the restaurants instead. I think we were one of the few english speaking people on the ship, most seemed to come for the duty free alcohol. The duty free shop was packed all night with Finn's and Swedes buying cases of the stuff. It was so crazy to watch. We wandered over to the casino which was another crazy thing. You would think you were in Wendover as it looked like any other casino with the exception that children are allowed in and allowed to play the slots! There were kids all over dumping money into the slot machines.... wow. At least there was an age limit on the card tables of 18 or older!

The casino even had a live band on stage and a dancing stage, I think Kareoke was on tap for later at night. They had a spa on the ship and we decided to get a massage since it was 2 people for $100 for an hour massage. That was another experience, they told us to wear shorts for the massage, we weren't sure how they did things over here so it was a bit akward at first. My massage felt great while Chris got beat up by his masage guy from Estonia. I don't think he will do another one for a while. The massage came with free use of the sauna which we lasted 1 minute it was so hot. I guess we wouldn't make good Finn's as they love their sauna's.

Late after the massage we went to the duty free shop and bought some chocolate and cokes and sat ourside for a bit then headed to bed, we're not big partiers as you can tell, we skipped the kareoke.





This morning we arrived in Helsinki about 10:00am, we made our way off the ship and walked around the harbor to our hotel. We then went out to explore. They have a market everyday on the harbor filled with Fish, fruits, veggies, etc. We then did a walking tour of the city from Rick's book and toured the Lutheren cathedral and the Orthodox cathedral. Helsinki has a Russian feel to it, a lot of the trinkets sold are things you would buy in Russia.



Chris is off touring the Finland culture museum while I'm doing laundry and catching up on email at the hotel. I'll let him post some more later.

Oakie Doakie, my turn. I just got back from the Finnish national museum. Quite small as compared to others but it had just the right amount of stuff to see as to not be overwhelming. Helsinki's a crazy little town. It has an amazing feel to it.

Cold and windy.

Actually, they're saying today is more windy than normal and that wind has a colder edge to it than normal. Feels like were just on the verge of either crappy or perfect weather. Hopefully things will take a decided turn for the better starting tomorrow.

The market we walked through this morning was remarkable. The vibrant colors and freshness of the fruits and veggies make you want to be a chef. Then you walk a few more feet to the Finnish fried fish stall and that makes you want to vomit. Seriously, there were these mammoth wok like pans with piles of fish frying away with wafting odors strong enough to overwhelm the faint of nose... All in all though the market was groovy. It's part Farmers market, arts festival and mammoth woks of fried fish.


Crazy part about Helsinki is there aint much here. It's just too new. The Finns have really only relatively recently been a completely free, autonomous country. For centuries they were won and lost back and forth between Russia and Sweden. So, the street signs are all in Finnish and Swedish and the buildings are all pseudo Peter the Great Russian. As you walk around there is a noticable lack of medieval leftovers like walls and motes and what not so common in more southerly European places.



Anneka's ready to bug out and get some dinner and we're going to search for this Italian joint that we've been told about. The prospects of eating herring and reindeer aren't too appealing so it's either this Italian place or some other place thats been recommended too.

McDonald's

Funny thing is we can predict where the McDonalds will be in any city. Today I bet that there'd be a McDonalds within a half block of where we were standing at that moment. Anneka said, "How do you know?" I said, "Because the main scenic icon in the city, the large and looming Lutheran church with its accompanying plaza was only up the block a little bit." Sure enough, on the way there we passed a McDonalds.

I had lunch there... what can I say.

More later!

Chris

Stockholm Day 2

What a long day. When we come this way we usually will go to bed the day of arrival and awaken spontaneously at about 4am the next morning. Then day two is we go to bed and don't wake up until around 11am the next day. By the third day we're adjusted and we start to get up at a normal time.

So, like always, today I was awake by 5am, tossing and turning and not wanting to look at the clock. I'd force my eyes closed and try to "sleep" more hoping that like a half hour would go by with each cycle. Invariably though I glance at the clock and perhaps 3 minutes has gone by. Makes for a really long wait. This morning I just got dressed and went outside to explore. Not a half block away is a McDonald's and everyone knows how much I hate McDonald's but its just so darn convenient. Anyways, I strolled past this one at around 6:15 and saw that it was open. Of course I went in for breakfast. My Swedish wasn't good enough to ask for a Coke with my meal instead of OJ but it was nevertheless still very tasty. I wandered around for a bit longer in awe of the fact that the sun was quite high in the sky and it wasn't even 7am yet. I think the sun comes up at around 4 in the morning and sets at around 10:30 with it being 11 before it really gets too dark to see color and detail in things. After dinking around for a bit I went back to the room and tried to sleep. Of course that was useless as by then I was completely awake. So I laid there daydreaming about being back in Stockholm again. At around 8:30 I left the room again to go to the local store to find Anneka some pastries and OJ. Brought that back and a tub of fresh raspberries from a little fruit vendor on the street. 11 bucks. I'm still shocked at what things cost here. My breakfast - a breakfast sandwich, a small OJ and a small hot chocolate was almost 7 dollars.



Anneka ate and got dressed and we left the hotel for the day. We started by wandering in Gamla Stan - Old town - for a little while before trotting off to see the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is seriously one of the coolest things you'll ever see because it is the only one of its kind anywhere in the world. It is a warship built in the 1620's that sank in Stockholm's harbor a mere 15 minutes into its maiden voyage because it was severly top heavy and an unexpected gust of wind basically blew it over. It was not the largest warship of its time but it was the most heavily armed. It had two decks of guns and not enough ballast and so it was likely to sink sometime. the waters off Stockholm are not salty enough to support the types of wood bores that normally eat a sunken vessel into oblivion so the Vasa in essence sat at the bottom of the harbor for over three hundred years before being rediscovered and restored. The restoration was amazing. The boat is basically pickled in Glycerin and that isn't what is so amazing about it. What is hard to comprehend is that they sprayed Glycerin onto it continuously starting in 1962 and ending in 1987. That's 17 years! They found it in 1958 and the museum it sits in today was finally opened to the public with the restored and preserved Vasa inside in 1990. I can't imaging working on something for 30 years! Of course I say that and I bet I'll still be working on my house 30 years from now...



From the Vasa we walked to the Skansen open air museum located nearby. What a thrill to go back. Skansen is was the first of its kind open air museum in Europe started in the late 1800's. They essentially acquire buildings and farm houses and what not from all over Sweden and take them apart piece by piece to then reassemble them within the park. So, what you get is a tour of centuries worth of structures, ranging from a landless poor mans house from the 1600's to a southern Swedish noblemans house from the same time period. We've often stated that castles and palaces show how the king of any given country lived and buildings like what are in Skansen show how the other 99.99% of the countries population lived.





The weather today was flawless! Yesterday when we arrived we took a nap and then went out exploring in the early evening and we had reason to worry about the weather since it was rather blustery and quite cool. But today was perfect. It was probably 75 degrees and clear blue skies. Just ideal for being outside.

After Skansen at around 7 we decided to do something we'd never done before on a trip - we went to the movies. We found out that the Swedes don't dub any foreign movies into English so we went to see Harry Potter. Gotta admit that it was rather well done. But it was pricey. Based on my figurin' it cost about 32 bucks for the two of us to go. No 10 dollar pails of popcorn no 8 dollar jugs of soda. Just two tickets - 32 dollars. They charge by the hour for movies here. So, the longer the movie the higher the price. I guess that makes sense. Anyways, expensive as it was it was still fun to go. From there we walked back to the hotel stopping for an icecream in a homemade waffle cone on the way.

So, here we are. Showered and ready for bed. It's about 1:30 in the morning and the sun will be coming up in about three hours. They need daylight savings time in a serious way here. Suns up at 4 and there isn't a soul out there in it. Fingers are crossed that tomorrow will be as nice as today.

Won't post anything tomorrow since we'll be on the boat heading to Helsinki. Not sure we'll get an internet connection to be able to post. So, likely we'll post again on the day after tomorrow

So, Fahrvegnugen, or however they say goodnight in Swedish!

Stockholm

Well we made it! We left home at 8am on Saturday and finally arrived in Stockholm about 2pm on Sunday, we got to our hotel around 2:30 and crashed. We slept until 7pm then made ourselves get up and walk around. We found dinner at an itialian restaurant in the old town part of Stockholm called Gamla Stan. Stockholm is made up of several islands that are interconnected by bridges and ferries. Our hotel is only a 5 minute walk from Gamla Stan which was nice. Gamla Stan is the tourist center, its all pedestrian friendly cobble lanes and the royal palace is located on the island as well. I've posted a few pictures from walking around Gamla Stan. It was about 10:30 at night when these were taken and it's still really light! It's about midnight now and the sun is finally down. Tomorrow we plan on visiting the Vasa Museum - a 16th century warship that sunk on it's maiden voyage and was found in the 60's at the bottom of the sea. Then we plan on visiting Skansen which is an outdoor folk air museum. They bring farm houses, windmills, all sorts of old buildings together in this huge 70 acre park and restore them and show how people lived in the 16-19th centuries. It's kind of cold here, probably in the low 60's tonight. We each only packed 1 sweatshirt and 1 jacket and 2 pair of pants, everyting else is shorts and t-shirts and I'm wondering if we are going to freeze. The Delta agent in SLC was shocked that we wern't checking any bags and flying internationally, we each packed 1 small roller suitcase and 1 backpack. It was nice to not have to worry about our luggage making the connections and we could just walk right off the plane and head out instead of waiting for luggage.

Europe 2007

So we are getting ready to head out again on vacation. This year it's Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia and Estonia. Since last years blog was somewhat read by our friends and family I thought we would do it again. Plus it gets Chris to write his comments on the trip which I haven't been able to do in past years as I kept a journal of our travels. Another plus is when we get home I can print out the blog and my journal is done and looks a lot nicer then my handwriting. We head out on July 14th flying on Frequent flyer miles on Delta through Atlanta to Copenhagen then a short flight up to Stockholm finally arriving the afternoon of the 15th. We will try to keep you updated through out the trip and post some pictures. We are both looking forward to traveling to St. Petersburg, Russia as we are entering new territory of travel, dealing with a language who's alphabet I can't even understand and putting up with Russian bureaucracy. Just the process of getting a visa alone was a hassle and they only gave us a 4 day visa (they don't want us to overstay our welcome). Everything I've read about Russia is that things take longer to accomplish and nothing is tourist friendly. It will be an experience but hopefully a good one. I'll try and post some more pre trip thoughts if I get time, if not... we will see you next in Stockholm! Anneka