10 July 2010

New Year's Eve - in July!


So...... second last night on the ship and they have a big New Year's Even type celebration where they have a count down and then they drop balloons and then there's a dance party and the works.......

Yes - she likes Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain. No, she's not into yoga and she has half a brain...........................

And the countdown begins.......

3....2.....1..... - WOOHOO!



Let's dance!

09 July 2010

All I Want For Christmas is a Knitted Jumper From Tallinn

Tallinn is a gorgeous little place on the coast of Estonia in the Baltic and today's tour takes us to the Tallinn "Old Town" which is just lovely. It feels like you are wandering around in the fairytale city of Far Far Away from Shrek.
They have the obligatory tourist trap shops, and they have a lovely market in the town square where you can buy hand made jewellery and linen etc...
and a lot of ye ole worlde charm


A lovely flower market where you can just wander past and take the time to smell what ever takes your fancy.

They also have a "sweater Market" where you can buy all sorts of very fashionable knitwear apparel. I wanted to buy these jumpers for my family for Christmas ala Bridget Jones' Diary - but they were just going to be too big and itchy to put into my suitcase. Alas, my family loses out this time.


We went to Tallinn with a group from the ship and there were quite a few special people in the group. This one (below) insisted on walking in the front of the group and would push his way past everyone to get there. I felt like I was back at school - "we're all going to the same place mate and really you're arms won't fall off if you're not first!" He did have an ingenious idea of where to keep his brolly though. Full marks for that.


And........ I bought a hat from the market! Look out for me on the streets of Melbourne this winter.


07 July 2010

A Little More Conversation.......

"I mean, when do I touch my face with my elbow?"

Where's the caviar?

We're first on the bus and we got the good seat just behind the rear door. There's more leg room, you have more of an uninterrupted view and you're close to the exit to get off quickly. We're waiting, waiting, waiting as the old, the infirm and the nearly dead slowly moved through the passport check and to the bus area. Then, when we were all finally on, we were 1 seat short. Our tour guide asked a single passenger to move to another tour group, so that party to get on our bus, a group of 4 could sit together, so we all waited while he got off and the others sat down..... then the tour guide realised that there was no other group and we were all to move to a bigger bus... (oh yeah, it gets better) Here we go again. Jen and were off and on the other bus before anyone else had got off so we got our same seat again and waited waited waited. The average age of the passengers on today's tour was about 65 and that was only brought down by 2 young ladies from upstate New York who were in their 20's.


Our tour guide was Julia, a nice enough girl of Russian origin who couldn't make eye contact with anyone and seemed to be unable to pause between her heavily accented sentences making listening to her speak like having a jackhammer pound into your temples. She was taking us tot he Hermitage Museum, something we, especially Jen, were very excited about. It was a Monday and the HM was closed to the public but they let big tour groups in . Once we'd got in Julia told everyone that if they would like to go off and look by ourselves that it would be fine to do so and to meet her back in the foyer a couple of hours later. We chose to get as far as we could away from her voice and took off in the direction the only sign we could read - "exhibitions". We walked the length of a corridor where all the shops were closed and the doors were locked. On our return we found a man who worked there and we asked him for directions. I love a good charade and he gave it his all in describing through the medium of what seemed to be free movement mime and we headed in that direction. We were met along the way with builders and maintenance men doing renovations, this coupled with everything being closed took a little bit of the lustre away from the experience, but it gets better..... At the end of that corridor we came across an angry Russian speaking woman. She was short in stature, but made her authority known by shouting at us in Russian. The only word I could make out that sounded anything like English was "group" leading me to think that she was wanting us to return to our group - the shooing movements she was doing with her arms also helped me to come to this conclusion. We found our group easily but there were others who had ventured on their own and we then had to stand in the foyer and wait for them to return to the group. We stood and listened to the short, angry Russian lady berate the tour guide for letting people wander around by themselves. So then a very embarrassed Julia needed to count everyone before we could start our tour - again. there we were in the Hermitage Museum, in St Petersburg, standing in the foyer amidst scaffolding with our hands in the air waiting to be counted. Not how we imagined it.


Julia raced us through the exhibits we were allowed to see and talked 100 miles an hour without any use of punctuation about.... what? we don't know. I took my earphones out and just looked around. She had her microphone so close to her mouth that in between single breath monologues, so was a heavy breather - it was too much to bare! We walked through one room where there was to be no photography, but some people didn't see the sign (I'm not the girl in this story by the way), so when the young New Yorkers took a photo another rude Russian speaking lady flew at them in the style of the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld shouting what I guess to be "no photo" in Russian.... it was so unbelievable it was starting to be funny - we looked for candid camera cameras.
There were also quite a few would be painters working on some 'originals', so this is all we got to see of some of the works:
The building is amazing. It has the most beautiful wall and ceiling decorations. It's by far the prettiest museum I've been in.


Back to the bus where Julia talked about things she already talked about on the way there, I think, her habit of saying "um" in between EVERY SINGLE WORD made you switch off for your own sanity.


We booked ourselves (very cleverly, or so we thought) on 3 tours in the one day in St Petersburg, wanting to make the most of the time we had there. so we raced back onto the boat and when I say 'raced', I mean lined up in an orderly fashion to have our passports checked and had a quick sandwich and a cake before heading back to the passport control and once more to the bus for Tour No. - A canal and river cruise ....... and guess who was the tour guide? Power up your jackhammers! I decided not to have a headset this time but that didn't stop Jules from grabbing any other microphone she could get her hands on ... on the bus..... on the boat. She wasn't going to let a lovely, sunny, relaxing boat ride get in the way of her monotone, no full stop droning. No sirreee! Remember to breath........ and back to the bus.


This time we only had time to get through the passport control, get changed and get on another bus. Jen had I devised a plan as to what we were going to do if Julia was our tour guide again for this one. We were psyching each other up, "we'll just have to say 'No, I'm not going, there must be another bus." but luckily we didn't need to say anything, we had the lovely Marina, who had a lovely velvety voice, quietly spoken, so even on the microphone you weren't forced to listen to her by fear of your ears bleeding. Tour No. 3 and Marina were taking us to Catherine the Great's Palace to look at her carriages and have dinner. We were meant to get caviar which was the main reason for choosing this tour - all I have to say about the dinner is that the thumb nail of caviar we got was lovely. I will cry if I have to talk about the rest of the food and I'll break down in uncontrollable sobs if I have to describe the wine!

First we were taken to the Royal Carriage Museum where all of the original carriages used by Catherine the Great are kept.
Then to the palace which was beautiful and obviously decorated by a lady. It was a very 'girlie' palace. We were made to wear these special booties whilst walking through the palace which made everybody's "casual elegent" dress look ridiculous.
They went all out with the entertainment. We were marched into the palace by a brass band....


We had a string quartet in the ballroom with champers.....
then some people dressed as Catherine the Great and her hubby came out and pretended we were all loyal subjects.....
then there was some ye olde worlde dancers.....
then out to the courtyard and a horse drawn carriage flew around the grounds.......
then the band let us down to dinner. We came out of the dinner which also included a folkloric band of singers and dancers and got back on the bus at which time Jen turned and said to me, "I've got one thing to say. If I ever say to you that I'd like to go to a themed dinner with folkloric entertainment with a huge group of people I want you to remind me of this night."

Summary:

Hermitage Museum: pretty - but terrible tour and people there were RUDE!
Boat tour: would have been fabulous to just sit in the sun and watch the world go by if Julia had just shut up.
Passport Control: scary ladies with absolutely no humour...... I tried.
Palace: pretty

Entertainment: kitchy

Dinner: Shyte

Wine: undrinkable

Caviar: measly

I think that says it all!

06 July 2010

Come Dine With Me.......

We are "Anytime Diners" which means that we can go to any restaurant at any time rather than being allotted a time/table/companions that you have to stick to every night. The Maitre' D always asks you if you are happy to share a table with other people, but this night I didn't want to. We were tired and didn't want to make small talk - so we said we'd prefer a table for 2. There were people behind us and it didn't occur to us until later that us saying 'no' to sharing meant that we didn't want to share with them. There were no tables ready so we had to wait 10 minutes. We went for a walk and came back to find that our table was ready - they had moved a table for 4 apart by about 4 cms effectively making it a longer table for 4 with a hole in the middle and guess who was sitting at the other end? Well, it was all a little awkward. They made jokes about us not wanting to sit with them and now we had to and we made our excuses and there was nervous laughter. Then all four of us were determined to stay with our own conversations even though I could see the lady looking over at us and I know I was looking over at them. I was thinking "just ask them about their salad" or "ask them where they're from" - but finally it was Jen who broke the silence - she obviously couldn't stand the tension in the air either and really it was ridiculous sitting at the same table and not talking! In the end, we were on of the last tables there. They were a lovely couple, let's call them Peter and Diane ('cause that's their names), and we had a lovely evening. maybe we will share next time - could we be so lucky twice?

05 July 2010

Travel All Over The Countryside - Ask the Leyland Brotheeeerrrsssss

The day trip today was to Helsinki and then a little steam train ride would take us out to Porvoo - which is oldest town in Finland.


This is the steam train that we caught.


from this station.....


and we got off at Porvoo Station which is the red brick building that you can see behind Jen in this photo. This is where we all piled back on the bus and then the bus drove to where Jen is standing, then we all piled out again and walked over bridge into the old town of Porvoo. It took us longer to walk back to the bus and pile on that it would have to walk to the town from the train station!



Our tour guide spoke English very well, but paused inbetween every couple of words, so it was very frustrating to listen to..... we were sitting directly behind her in the bus and we had to hold each other's hands down to stop us from smacking the back of her head to get those words out. It made it very hard to stay interested in what she was saying..... but really - she was mainly telling us which faculty of the university was based in each building as we passed through Helsinki, so who cares? Then every now and then you would hear a ".......were very often guests of the King." or "...... had to get out of Russia." That's when Jen and I would look at each other and say "Who?" and then have to shrug. Who knows? It was however lovely to get out of the city and see some of the country side.
We were then taken back into Helsinki to the have look at a few of the sites.



I heart Helsinki..... noice one Jen!

A Little Less Conversation...........

* Little Girl to her Grandmother: "We both know its his fault grandma" (spoken in American
drawl accent)

* Agro woman to her boyfriend: "you don't know, you were asleep!"

* Man storming out of the lift with his wife following behind: "It's this way. Just follow me and
don't argue!"

* Her: "So is that what gives you diahrea?"
Him: "yeah"

* Man on the train: "She smells like glue!" (refering out our tour guide)

To be continued.........

04 July 2010

Have You Heard About The Vasa?

So far we have heard the story of the Vasa about 5 times. Don't get me wrong, it's a very interesting story - but there has to be something else in Stockholm other than the Vasa!

Let me share the story with you.......

You see - There was this ship - the Vasa that was built by King Gustav II and he was insistent on having an extra floor on the top - to which the builder said "whoa Gus, that will make the ship tip over!". But the King was having none of it and the ship was built to his specifications - they sailed it out amidst huge fanfare and after 28 minutes there was a gust of wind and the boat rolled one way. It righted itself and then rolled the other way. Because of all the whooha going on the cannon portholes were open as they were giving it some canon action on the way out and water started gushing in the portholes, causing the ship to sink right there and then. The Stockholm bay, where it sunk was only 30 metres deep, so when it hit the bottom the top of the masts were sticking out of the water. The King was more than a little embarrassed about this and just cut the masts off and said, "um..... show's over. Nothing to see here" and that was that. 300 years later, they rose her from her 30 metre, watery grave and built a museum around her. They were very lucky because of the water in which the Vasa sank was a special type of briney water that doesn't have wood eating worms - so the wood on the ship was preserved rather than eaten by worms! Hence, she's a museum now that has the masts sticking out of the roof so you can see how tall she was......and apparently that's all that Stockholm has to talk about! Great story hey?

This chap was in the next tour bus to ours - when in Sweden........

The Star Princess


The Star Princess is fabulous! I feel like I'm on the Love Boat! There's a Lido Deck and a Promenade Deck and an Aloha Deck - just like on the Love Boat! And we've even had a personal invitation from the Maitre' D at one of the restaurants with a complimentary bottle of wine from the Captain (Thanks Julia and David x).


We sat on our balcony as we sailed in to the sunset



A fabulous view from the balcony




The people we've met so far on the boat (and when I say 'met', I mean stared at as they walked past or sat next too us) haven't been people that we have really wanted to stay in contact with. We have had the "one armed diners" who we guess were mature honeymooners as they sat on top of each other and only used one arm each to eat.... he had one arm around her shoulder and used his fork with his right hand; she was uncomfortably snugged into his armpit and used her fork with her left hand. We have spotted them around the ship and they have been joined at the hip each time. We have also come across another couple - we're not sure what their story is, but she has, as Jen describes, an ugly mouth. She is quite aggressive and doesn't appear to be happy with anything. He looks desperately like he's trying to appease her bad mood - then we realised that they were in the cabin below us.... we look forward to those fireworks!