Day 9 - Guten morgen from Warnemunde, Germany!

We have to be up and out by 6:30 to make our train ride today, so here are some shots of what we might be seeing...will report more tomorrow...enjoy your day! Hugs....

Update on these canned photos...this is the hotel made famous by Michael Jackson dangling his baby from the balcony. This is by the Brandenburg Gate, which is the second photo...

And this is the German Parliament building....
Of course, this is Checkpoint Charlie...
The Holocaust Memorial....in memory of the 7 mil Jews killed....Parliament building in the background...
Dick and I are 'playing' in the digital workshop right now. We've uploaded some pictures, and have many more to upload. Check them out and leave us comments at... www.ivylog1.spaces.live.com for Dick---mine is www.ivylog2.spaces.live.com That should work, if not, let me know and I'll ask our instructor for more assistance!!! Later, gator..........

Day 8 - At sea - say HI to the crew!

Today is a day to do chores, maybe nap...whatever! Hope you are having fun!!! Tomorrow is our day to take the train to Berlin, so it will be a looong day, and I may not get on the puter till very late in the day. Stay tuned...I'm back....

Our sea day dawned far too bright today...good morning from the Baltic Sea...I awoke with a monster headache, no, not from too much wine. I was just overdue for such a happening and today was the time and it made me miss the Walk on Deck for the Cure, which I had wanted to do. That’s life for you; it respects no calendar, but I am happy it happened today rather than for our train trip to Berlin tomorrow.
Our entertainment last night was provided by guitarist Dr. Justin Miller. He did a special, one-time performance today at 3p, unplugged and alone. Last night the performance included the HALCats and the Adagio Strings (four talented ladies)...magnificent! He played everything from Bach to rock on his guitars and mandolin!!! Today he discussed Rogers & Hammerstein, Bing Crosby, Johnnie Mercer, etc., and the stories behind some of the people and pieces. Of course this interferes with one of the digital workshops we want to attend, but there will be more of those in the coming days. Speaking of, this is an overview of the rest of our itinerary, with times representing time in port:
8/12 Train trip to Berlin - 6a-11p
8/13 Arhus, Denmark - 10a-7p
8/14 Copenhagen, DK - 7a-5p
8/15 Oslo, Norway - 9a-5p
8/16 Stavanger, Norway - noon-7p
8/17 Bergen, Norway - 8a-5p
8/18 Torshavn, Faroe Islands, DK - noon-7p
8/19 At sea
8/20 Reykjavik, Iceland - 8a-5p
8/21-23 At sea
8/24 St. John’s, NF, Canada - 10a-6p
8/25 St. Pierre, France - 8a-5p
8/26 Sydney, Canada - 8a-5p
8/27 Halifax, Canada - 8a-5p
8/28 At sea
8/29 NYC and home!
I’m enjoying reading your comments, so please keep doing so...let me know what is happening with you! Hugs, y’all!!!

Day 7 - Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm, Sweden, is one of the world’s most beautiful cities, splendidly spread out over fourteen islands in the interlock between Lake Mälaren and the magnificent Stockholm Archipelago seascape with its 24,000 islands, islets and skerries. Stockholm is the Nordic region's largest city, with historic and cultural grandeur unparalleled in Northern Europe.

More on Stockholm later... I have been asked to tell y’all a little about the ship. Of course if you’ve been reading from the beginning of our trip, you know that we are onboard the brand new Holland America Eurodam. We are on the port side of the ship in a nice cabin that has a balcony with two chairs on it. We have been pretty busy, so we haven’t spent any time sitting out there yet, but we do go outside quite a bit and check out the scenery and take pictures of the docks. There will be a pic posted so y’all can see it. More on that later.
The food is excellent, and the dining room staff is very accommodating; everyone is friendly. The entertainment is outstanding...we both love the band; the nightly shows are Las Vegas quality, with high-energy, talented dancers and singers. Carnival Corp. leads the industry in stage, lighting, scenery, etc., in our humble opinion. We’ve enjoyed Bob at the piano bar the past couple of nights...Beatles/Buffet one night; ‘50s and ‘60s music another night, all sing alongs. Bob has been hard to stump! As mentioned before, we are very fond of the decor of the Eurodam. It is decorated with good taste, with no need to explain the theme as some ships need to do. We would definitely sail on this ship again.
Our fave crew member is our digital workshop instructor, Trisha. She is funny, knowledgeable, and full of energy. Even Dick went to her blogging class with me Saturday, and he set up a blog and uploaded some pictures of our trip. Can you believe that?!!! We’ll see how that goes and work on some fine tuning. Today we both attended the Movie Making class...and can’t wait to apply what we’ve learned!
Oh yes, we enjoyed Helsinki...everyone was friendly...a welcome change from St. Petersburg. We rode on the London double-decker bus for a two-hour tour of the city, with a nice stop at the Church of the Rock, a very unusual Lutheran church that is aptly named. We got off the bus at the Helsinki Cathedral and walked through the park back to our shuttle bus that took us back to the boat.
And today in Stockholm, we woke up to sunny skies for our shuttle bus ride to the center of town. We took a scenic boat tour (go figure), complete with headsets with a choice of Swedish or English translations to tell us what we were seeing along the shorelines. Stockholm is another big but beautiful city filled with interesting architecture and friendly folks. Clouds are moving in, so our departure later on may be a bit wet. We’ve been very lucky with the weather.
Monday is a sea day, so we’ll attend more workshops, I’ll take care of a little RV park stuff I need to do, and give myself a pedicure. Ah, the good life! Thanks to all of you who have left comments. They are automatically emailed to me so that I can download them onto my laptop every day when I go online. I read EVERY comment...and miss visiting all my fave blogs. I hope y’all are behaving! Let me know what’s going on with you!

Day 6 - Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki Cathedral...that is a pic of Alexander II in front of the cathedral...we road the shuttle into town, then got on a double decker bus for a two hour tour. We thoroughly enjoyed it...beautiful, friendly town...
Our Friday morning in St. Pete greeted us with liquid sunshine on the day we were to take a river cruise. A river cruise when you are on a cruise ship you ask? Yes, of all the choices offered in St. Pete, the Thursday panoramic tour and a local river tour on Friday were Dick’s picks...the Hermitage and palaces can be seen on the Internet, while seeing the sights on a small boat gives us more of a local flavor (his rationale), even in the rain. Our guide, Ms Lovedthemicrophonesky, gave us entirely too much history, and not enough details about what we were actually passing while on the tour bus. I know there are history buffs out there, but Americans aren’t good at remembering their own history, much less care about hearing about all the begats, dethroning, coups, etc., from another country! Just sayin’. It was still sprinkling, so we mostly sat inside, but Dick did go outside to take a few pics and videos. We’ll have to figure out how to post the videos...later! We stopped at Yusupob Palace (this guy was almost as rich as the Czar of his time) but after going inside and checking out how crowded it was, and ALL jackets/bags had to be checked at the cloakroom (I’m sorry, it should be our CHOICE to do this, not be FORCED to check stuff), well....we opted to go outside and look at the waterway and then sit on the not crowded bus...although we were joined by others of a like mind.
St. Petersburg is an interesting city (is that polite?), comprised of many islands, linked by dozens of bridges over the many canals. The port where we are docked is a very busy, industrial port, with dozens of cranes lining both sides of it. Dick’s observation was that ‘our’ side only loads 20' truck containers, while across the waterway, there are stacks of 40' truck containers waiting for loading. There are also many pallets of flat steel sitting outside, as well as huge rolls of steel that we’ve watched being loaded onto ships.
We have heard our two tour guides label St. Petersburg as "the Venice of the North," however we have visited the ‘real’ Venice many times and there is only a slight similarity between the two...they both have canals and bridges! Dick sez that Russia is not a third-world country; maybe just a second-world one! They certainly do not roll out the welcome mat for the cruise ships, but maybe they’ll eventually learn to do that to entice more tourists to come here. We heard a few folks complaining about getting through customs getting back onboard the previous evening, something that is totally out of control of the cruise ships. Our Friday experience was a quick in/out through customs. The slowdown occurred going through the X-ray machines onboard our ship. We did not pull out on time, however, it was only a relatively short trip to Helsinki, so that wasn’t a problem. The Jewel of the Seas pulled out right ahead of us. Hmmm, I wonder if we’ll be docked together at our next port? In watching CNN as we awaited departure, with the current aggression by Russia in Georgia, cruise ships may need to rethink visiting here. The travelingbells do not need to come back here, and that decision was made even before hearing this latest news. At least our departure was under sunny skies...and we begin moving our clocks back an hour tonight! And a very big HAPPY BIRTHDAY today to our park manager, Mary Lou! We couldn’t be traveling without her and Chuck! We’ll celebrate the occasion when we get back home....OK, now to go get cleaned up for 'formal night.'

Day 5 - St. Petersburg

More 'stock' pictures to enjoy, although the one from the dock is pretty much as it is today......leave me comments!!!!!!

Hello from St. Petersburg, Russia, NOT Florida! Disembarking wasn’t too bad yesterday morning...slight mix up in the colored stickers for the buses, but that got fixed. Ours being the 4 hr. bus tour, we were the last to leave...and we heard the dumbest question asked of the shore ex manager–‘why are we last?’ Surely the manager wanted to inform the guest that it was because he looked around the audience, picked this particular idiot out, and decided...let’s make HIM board last! Heelllllooo...what part of common sense don’t you realize? Get the buses with the longest route out FIRST, and the ones with the shortest route out LAST. What a concept!!! With great patience the manager said just that...the buses taking an 8-9 hour tour go out FIRST, and the four-hour tour goes out last. Heeeere’s your sign, boys and girls! Unfortunately, this guy was not a foreigner and couldn’t use a language barrier as an excuse for stupidity. Oh well...
We saw many beautiful buildings on our drive this morning, and many that were not as pleasing to the eye, but that is OK. We learned a bit of history from our guide, Ms Nevertakeabreathski. She was easy to understand, but gave us far too many specific dates and facts that no one is interested in learning, much less remembering. A bit more generalization would be a better way to go. Just sayin’. We did stop and tour the Peter and Paul Fortress, which is a not a fortress as we would label it–it is more of a compound of buildings, grouped together–not walled off as I would consider a true fortress. The main feature is the cathedral where St. Alexander is interred in a beautiful crypt next to his wife, equally beautifully interred. The Russian Mint is located across the plaza. Of course we had one couple to be 15 minutes late boarding...they apparently couldn’t move fast and lost sight of the group:-)
We did stop at a (as opposed to "the") Hermitage souvenir shop...again we were bad tourists, but I did get some neat shots of boats going under the bridge. St. Pete is comprised of many islands connected by dozens of bridges, so it is an interesting city from that standpoint alone.
Tomorrow we take a river tour...go from a cruise ship to a boat and go on a river? Yes, that is what Dick chose, so we are doing just that. Stay tuned....



And a big happy birthday to nephew Jason today!

Day 4 - From Russia, with love!

Tallinn update
We did the 15 minute walk into the old town after lunch. I put up a sample blog Tuesday, with two of 21 stock HAL pics that the class was using for practice. I was unable to get online during the day in Tallinn:-( They had problems with the system, so I couldn’t upload Tallinn pics to the new blog that I set up in class.
Back to Tallinn...this is an old, walled city comprised of Russian, Ukrainians, Byelorussians and Estonians. It is a highly educated society due to the accessibility of higher education. We walked up the many steps to reach an upper level of old town that afforded a great view of the dock. We wound our way back through a lovely open square and walked down a narrow lane, rather than walk back down the steps! There are some charming buildings and churches here, and lots of souvenir shops, although we were not tempted to purchase anything. Bad tourists!
After our two-hour walk, we were happy to be back relaxing and reading in our room...and looking at the scenery -- we were docked right across from the Norwegian Jewel, the ship we were on with friends Mike/Jennie last September from Istanbul to Athens! Parked next to her was RCI’s Jewel of the Seas. That particular ship we’ve never been on. They both left port an hour earlier than we did, and the Eurodam overtook them!
There is a band from Australia that we discovered and are enjoying after dinner each night, with a classical string quartet playing before dinner, so we are getting a good mix of music.
Thursday and Friday we’ll be in St. Petersburg, which should be interesting. How are you enjoying the trip? Let me know! Comments will be emailed to me so that I can read them offline, so please leave your comments. I love reading them. Enjoy the pictures I found ahead of time...we may not have internet service while here.......:-(

Day 3 - Tallin, Estonia

These are the places we hope to see today.....pictures culled from other sites:




Happy birthday today to sister Nan! Hope you have a terrific day...I hope you are reading the blog to know that I'm sending you this greeting...listen real carefully and you'll hear a duet from Mother and me singing "Happy Birthday" to you today...xoxoxo