Baltic Cruise: Days 6-7

Page 1: Tuesday, June 29 to Friday, July 1. (Amsterdam airport, Copenhagen)
Page 2: Sat., July 2- Sun. July 3 (Estonia, St. Petersburg)
Page 3: Sun. July 4 - Mon. July 5 (St. Petersburg, Helsinki)
Page 4: Wed., July 6 - Thurs., July 7 (Stockholm and Visby, Sweden.
Page 5: Fri. July 8 - Mon. July 11 (Wismar and Schwerin, Germany; Aarhus, Denmark; Copenhagen again!)

Mon., July 4, 2005

St. Petersburg, Russia

Another excursion I’ve done before—an afternoon at the Peterhof Palace. It’s about an hour’s drive past some of the butt-ugliest apartment buildings I’ve ever seen. (The thought of someone going to architecture school to learn to design something like this rivals the thought of there being a waiting list to get it.) Holdovers from the utilitarian Soviet days, things do seem to be improving architecturally, but this is certainly a reminder of those times.

The drive is about an hour out of the city, and right before is one of the prettiest churches in the area. (So many of the buildings look like they could be anywhere in Europe that it’s really nice to see something that reminds you that you couldn’t possibly be anywhere BUT Russia!) I’ve been driven past this place twice but without a Visa, I’ve always been a hostage to the tour company, which just doesn’t stop here. This church, the Peter and Paul cathedral, is not quite as magnificent as the Church if the Spilled Blood in town (in the picture on the right, from my last trip here), but it definitely suggests that we’re not in Kansas anymore!

So here I am, photographing the “endless reflection of mirrors” in one of the rooms of the Peterhof, the summer palace lovingly restored after the German occupation in WWII. This really is a lovely building and because it was opened especially for the tour groups from the ship, it wasn’t anywhere near as crowded as it might have been.

It was also a gorgeous, perfect-weather kind of day, and after the tour of the building we got to wander around the grounds a bit. The thing about this place that has always blown me away is the fact that the fountains in the back are fed from an up-mountain stream and use gravity instead of pumps to propel the water, one 60 feet in the air.

The grounds are designed to resemble Versailles, with man-made lakes that stretch to the Gulf of Finland in the background! Here, to the left, is a view of the palace from the back, with the cascade of fountains. Pretty neat, huh?

This being July 4th, it was very interesting to hear the Russian bands, which seemed to be everywhere, from various places on the palace grounds to the passport control coming back to the ship, playing a lot of American music. Here is Aili and another cruise passenger reacting to the Star Spangled Banner.

There’s something very interesting about celebrating Independence Day in a country that historically has had so many issues with freedom and independence. I suspect that many people on this cruise have some family history involved with Russia, from the Jewish passengers with eastern European roots to people like Terry and Aili who were born in Europe and have personal history with exile and oppression. We have talked much about the intention of using this trip for healing, even on behalf of the ancestors, as it were, and leaving old hatreds and prejudices behind.

One last picture from today, which I got with Aili’s help. I can never resist a picture with kids and this Russian woman and her daughter (I’m guessing) were gracious enough to allow me this photo! Some details are lost in reducing the picture to fit here (and not take forever to load this page), but I think you can get the energy between them. A nice reminder of our ability to connect with one another, and the tenderness we can find between people everywhere.

Aili mentioned that the problem with these “White Nights” (and the fact that now at 1 a.m. it is only starting to get dark) is the fact that you never know when to quit. It’s still quite light out and I think that has to have something to do with the fact that I’m feeling pretty wide awake, and thats after excursioning and walking well over my 10,000 steps today!! The good news today: We gain one of those two hours we lost since we left Denmark back tonight.

Onward to Helsinki!

Tues., July 5, 2005

Helsinki, Finland

I’ve been looking forward to today. The plan was to meet a couple of dear friends by the market and our timing was perfect. We hooked up with Tuija Fagerlund, whom I met on my last trip here and took the same bus tour I took in 2002. The tour is a great way to get acquainted with Helsinki.

My two favorite attractions are the ones which allow an all-too-brief 5-minute stop to visit the Church in the Rock, above, and the Sibelius monument, to the right.

I love all the Art Nouveau and Art Deco architecture interspersed with the clean, dramatic lines of the Finnish modern buildings. It was great to see the train station again. A stop there would have also been nice. I love the architecture—by one of the Saarinens—and imagine the interior is spectacular, as well. The statues, tower and details evoke some retro-dystopian environment. Tuija says that television commercials using animated versions of the guys above are quite common.

The other thing I really liked about this tour is that the taped narrative is available in 9 or 10 languages, including Latin! I know I miss a few facts, but it’s such a trip to listen to all these different languages along the way!

After the tour, we met up with Eeva Martinsen, my original work contact and the woman who hired me to teach a class for Helsinki University—hence the trip three years ago. Eeva took us around to a few University buildings I had not seen from the inside before. They are right on the square with the big Lutheran church (left). I must have walked past them a dozen times when I was here, as my flat was just up the hill, a few blocks away.

We stopped in the knitting shop where I bought some wool in 2002 that I still haven’t used! I was restrained this time, but Aili found the perfect sweater and a great souvenir of Helsinki! (It was 80° here today and the heat was really getting to me, so even being around wool was making me twitch. I’m sure that worked to my advantage, as I really like just about everything in that shop!)

Then down the block to Kapelli—this unique and beautiful restaurant—for a delicious lunch and some lively discussion. (Tuija and Eeva are to the left, Terry and Aili are below.) It’s always so interesting to hear someone else’s perspectives on world events and history, politics and education, for example, especially with educators and friends who truly care about people and the state of the world in general.

Eeva’s plans to take us to one of the local islands had to be deferred to another time, as the last shuttle to the ship was leaving at 4:00. Still we had time to run into one of my favorite bookstores—the largest one in northern Europe, with books in 16 languages, maybe more by now. Tuija helped me look for a Formula 1 magazine for Jerry, but we could only find one in Finnish. Sorry, we tried! It was very hard to part ways so soon, but I spent most of the day feeling pretty blown away just by the fact of having people I care so much about in a part of the world I never expected to experience, much less twice (and even less likely, with a couple of friends from Jersey!).

The ship has just left the port and is heading over to Stockholm. We're drifting past islands, some no more than a few feet wide, one with a little red house and a tree, little more. This trip is so different in regard to our relative proximity to land and other ships, rather than being out in the middle of the ocean, as we’ve been on our last few cruises.

At this point, after days of revisitng a bunch of places I’ve already visited, we’re now headed into new territory. Other than Copenhagen, on our return, the next few days are going to be filled with locations totally unfamiliar to me. Very exciting!!

Other “Highlights” pages: 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008. For an index to all blogs, photos, and other personal information, click here.

Jane’s current Blog.

Where in the World? 100 Countries: Check progress on my life goal.

Baltic Cruise: Days 6-7

Mon., July 4, 2005

St. Petersburg, Russia

Tues., July 5, 2005

Helsinki, Finland

Changing Schools—One Heart at a Time