Baltic Cruise: Days 8-9
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!)
Wed., July 6, 2005
At sea, around 10:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.
I
just have to share these pictures. I know I’ve been going on and
on about the sunsets and the white nights and all but last night I saw
seas I have never seen before on a cruise ship. The water, as we were
heading from Helsinki to Stockholm, was as smooth as glass. The few gentle
ripples reflected pink, mauve, turquoise and gold, iridescent and mystical.
The
photo above was taken just as the sun was setting, around a quarter to
11. However, on the opposite side of the ship—we were trying to
walk laps but kept stopping to marvel or take pictures—the colors
were much more subtle, the horizon even more 
ambiguous.
Kind of like it might have looked if Maxfield Parrish had painted a scene
out of The Mists of Avalon.
Everybody who was out on deck, and there really weren’t
all that many of us, were totally blown away. I do hope people were watching
from their cabins or the lounges cause this was just amazing.
I
was down in the library working on this blog last night around 1:15 (Has
anyone seen Al Pacino in Insomnia? It’s sort of like that...)
when I looked out the window and saw the scene on the right. The coolest
thing, and there was no way I could figure out how to capture this with
my camera, was as you turned to the right, the sky faded to black, and
did so rather suddenly, like we were being chased by this enormous black
cloud. Such a dramatic change in such a very short distance. Absolutely
breathtaking.
OK, I’m tempted to swear off sunset rants but
I have no idea what’s in store for us tonight!
Wed., July 6, 2005
Stockholm, Sweden
It’s
a little after lunchtime and I swear I am watching a Viking ship sail
past my balcony. Yes, really. I now have my camera nearby in case it ends
up looping back up this way again.
I’m
in Stockholm, looking out at a beautiful view of several of the 14 islands
that make up the city. (I had no idea!) There’s a certain understated
elegance to the town, or at least the parts I saw, and can see from my
balcony, in the palaces and government buildings, the churches, theaters
and hotels—including the Grand Hotel where the Nobel Prize winners
stay. And the islands all through the Swedish archipelago are beautiful
as well.
I’ve
always found it fascinating, as you move from one country to the next,
to observe the different nuances in architecture and the character of
a city or town, how Copenhagen is similar to Amsterdam, for example, but
different enough to have its own character. Same here in Stockholm. Nothing
radically different from other things I’ve seen in northern Europe,
but nothing exactly the same, either.
I
don’t actually have much to write about as we really didn’t
do much today! We got off the bus twice to take a few pictures and buy
a few souvenirs. (And, some of the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted—peach
with raspberry swirl and this amazing vanilla. It’s not just for
breakfast anymore!)
We’re
all taking these digital photography classes so Aili picked up on this
fun shot, which we’re all taking at the same time. (I think we kind
of look like the silhouette of a Mariachi band, though.)
I
have to say that sitting in on these classes has really reawakend my taste
for composition and technical excellence, much of which I lost when I
got an automatic camera. (I am hoping to learn how to make the kind of
adjustments I used to make on my manual camera in the class later today.
I have no idea where most of those controls are, or how to use them!)
I really like the camera I have, but I will admit to having gotten lazy,
and too-easily satisfied with just taking pictures (or documenting my
experiences) instead of creating photographs.
I
love that I’ve started noticing details like what’s around
the edges of a shot or whether I’ve got the best angle for the subject.
I often don’t have the kind of time I’d like to compose a
shot—especially when I’m shooting a live subject or trying
to capture the only shot I’m gonna get from a moving bus. But I
feel a certain consciousness returning and for that I’m grateful!
When
we got back to the ship, we all (Aili, Terry and I) realized we were a
bit excursioned out. I only got about 4 hours of sleep last night so I
think I’m gonna take a nap for a bit. Kind of a shame to spend a
beautiful afternoon in the cabin, but I need a bit of a break. Sorry,
Stockholm. It’s a gorgeous and friendly city, from what I can see.
I just can’t do one more tour or museum right now.
Hey,
I was just packing up and look what just came back! I ended up having
a terrific nap (lots of naps on this trip!) and we are now heading
down to Visby. No idea what to expect there, but I’ll fill
you in sometime tomorrow.
Thurs., July 7, 2005
Visby, Sweden
The
tour we were on today billed Visby as a town of “Roses and Ruins.”
And indeed, that’s what we found there, a beautiful town on the
island of Gotland, one of 24,000 islands that are a part of Sweden. (Who
knew?)
It
was warm—I had no idea it could even get as hot in Sweden
as it was today, though our guide said he’s seen it go up to 100°F
there. (Again, who knew?) The bus was not air conditioned. It tried, but
it was really hot and stuffy. Fortunately, we didn’t spend much
time on the bus, but instead walked through the town and the ruins of
the castle, the market, the gardens, the Norman-and-Gothic church.
For
an island that’s essentially a big granite rock, there was an amazing
amount of greenery and flowers everywhere! We walked through a botanical
garden with an unbelievable array of colors and variety of flowers (even
lotuses)! I never would have expected a place so rugged and so far north
would have had a (climate zone #0) garden in its midst.
The
town boasts an array of roses, though we were told they don’t really
go into full bloom until late July. They do seem to be all over town and
we saw a wonderful variety of colors in the garden.
I
only got photographs of stuff on the first half of the trip. In the photography
class I had been playing around with the settings on my camera and had
accidentally left it on the highest quality photos, which just ate up
the memory on my poor little 256 MB Flash card! Just as we got to this
terrific medieval fortress, my camera started flashing “Memory”.
Lovely. I had just changed the battery and since I normally never run out of memory (I clear the card every day after our tours), I
didn’t really think twice about leaving my camera bag on the bus.
Fortunately,
Terry loaned me her camera, so I did get a couple of good shots, and although
her memory card was fine, her battery was nearly dead, so I didn’t
get quite as many shots as I would have liked. Nevertheless, the rest
of the photos on this page are those I took with her camera including
the two shots of the castle ruins and the one of the church.
I
could have easily spent several more hours exploring the town—sometimes
a tour is great, and you always end up seeing things you’d never
know to look for, but the things people seemed most excited about were
in the Viking museum, which was not included on our tour. (Viking jewelery,
including silver and glass beads, seem to be the hit of the show, which
would have been a real thrill for me to see! Oh well. Next time!!)
We
were back on the ship early and suddenly I remembered that they were offering
Mac classes during the afternoon, including one on iPhoto I really did
not want to miss!! It was superb.
I
am so pleased with what I’ve learned on this cruise. Every workshop
has been terrific, and any question I had about just about anything—my
camera, the tool I needed and couldn’t find in Photoshop, how I
could find a particular bit of software, or tell if my email program was
actually picking up email—all I have to do is mention it around
any of the participants or workshop leaders and somebody has
an answer and an explanation that makes sense to me.
Tonight is yet another dress-up dinner and it’s
really neat just sitting here in the lounge outside of the internet cafe,
watching people going by in their finery. I don’t know if I have
the energy to get changed so it’ll depend on my table mates whether
we hit the dining room or go up to the cafeteria.
The food has been fantastic—delicious, beautifully
presented, and plentiful, if in reasonable-to-small portions. I have yet
to see the gym on this trip, though we have walked laps on the
deck for the past several nights and I have yet to get in bed without
putting well over 10K steps on my pedometer!! Still, I’d have to
walk back to the US to work off what we’ve had this week! What a
great vacation!
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!)
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.
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