Greetings from The Baltic region of Europe-

As we have mentioned, internet café’s have been difficult to find and we refuse to pay the exorbitant rates for internet on board our ship so we are going to do daily entries and then when we finally find an internet café, we will post our blog.

Copenhagen was different. From on board our ship the view of Copenhagen was quite beautiful. But when we took a local bus to the city center Copenhagen seemed less so. Our first stop was the City Hall. There was some very impressive art work and murals on the walls inside the City Hall. We also discovered a small entrance away from the main entrance that announced that it was an entrance for weddings only. There were several small wedding parties hanging around outside the entrance waiting to go in. Don’t know what they were waiting for. Maybe just working up the courage to go in! Next we went to the Dansk Design Center. The Design Center had a small museum that showed the history of Danish Design from the 1950’s to the present. There were also two floors with displays of products that Danish designers are working on now. We have always liked the simple, clean, contemporary lines of Danish design so we really enjoyed this stop. From the Dansk Design Center we walked along a pedestrian only street of shops. It is advertised as the longest pedestrian shopping street in Europe. We would be hard pressed to argue. We found a very eclectic mix of shops from high end luxury shops to trashy tourist shops to punk/Goth shops for young people. As you can imagine, the people watching was incredible. We stopped for lunch at a little hole in the wall creperie. We each had a ham and cheese crepe. Not sure if this is a traditional Danish lunch but it was delicious. The only real disappointment in Copenhagen was the absence of “the little mermaid”. The Little Mermaid is a statue on the harbor erected in honor of the Hans Christian Andersen story of the little mermaid. We had both been looking forward to seeing it. Unfortunately, the little mermaid is in China for some special expo. Could have been worse. The statue could have been covered by scaffolding!

We’ve not talked much about the cruise ship. We have been surprised at the number of people on board that have told us they have been on multiple Oceania cruises. We are beginning to understand why. The food has been better overall than any of our other cruises. We have also been pleasantly surprised at the quality of the entertainment. The other night we heard a soprano who did a combination of Broadway show tunes and opera. Her opera was better than her broadway but it was still quite good until she missed the last note of “Tonight” from “West Side Story” In Tim’s mind this was unforgivable. Lynda was one of the stars of the next night’s entertainment. It was magician/mentalist who several people told us was very good. We got to the show early so we could get “front row seats” (said ala Bob Uecker). Mio, the magician came to our table before the show and asked Lynda to answer the four questions on the sheet he gave her, not show it to anyone, including Tim, and than fold the sheet and put it in her pocket. The questions were: your favorite food, your favorite place to visit, your favorite sporting activity, and your favorite form of entertainment. During the show Mio called Lynda on stage and explained to the audience what he had done and than proceeded to guess correctly all four answers. Tim was only able to come up with three! He guessed lobster, England and bridge as her favorite sporting activity and reading as her favorite form of entertainment. He was correct on Lobster, England and bridge, although Lynda had that listed as entertainment. Lynda claimed, and the mentalist guessed, that her favorite sporting activity was tailgating at football games. Amazing! (The mentalist, not Lynda liking tailgating.) The third night of entertainment we have gone to was a Frank Sinatra style vocalist who was excellent. He was accompanied by a live band!! There has also been a string quartet performing at various times throughout the day. The only problem we have had on board is with housekeeping. In Bruges we bought vodka and gin to have in our stateroom. It has taken us a while to convince housekeeping to have a fresh bucket of ice for us at 4:00 for our “cocktail hour”. We think we finally have the problem solved.

On Sunday we were in Visby, Sweden, the largest city on the island of Gotland. It was another of the wonderful little “postcard” cities that you see in travel books,etc. We did some geocaching while we wander about the streets of Visby. Of particular note was a lovely little botanical garden. We also went in the local cathedral. The most interesting thing about this church was the large number of large, color photographs of unborn fetus’ displayed throughout the church. This led us to believe the church was catholic and they were in the middle of an anti-abortion campaign.

Visby is the only port of call on our cruise where we did not dock at a pier but took tenders, actually the life boats for the ship, to the port. We had an interesting encounter with one of our ship mates on the way back to the ship. While talking with him he asked us where we were from. When we answered Michigan he immediately said “Go Blue!” Tim, without skipping a beat or physical violence, responded “Go Green” All that was needed at that point was for Madison to be present to chime in with “Go White!” It turns out that the passenger, Bill Cohen, was the announcer for the Michigan Marching Band in 1964. Tim and Bill had quite a discussion about the legendary Director of Bands at Michigan, Dr. William D. Revelli, (Bill Cohen called him Bill, Tim called him Dr. Revelli!) and the superior quality of the bands under Dr. Revelli’s direction. Tim then asked Bill if he was the immediate predecessor of Carl Grapentine, the legendary and present announcer for the Michigan Marching Band. This, of course, led to a thorough discussion of Carl Grapentine. The discussion closed with Bill Cohen announcing that he was a much better voice of the Michigan Marching Band than Carl Grapentine who has been doing it for over 40 years. When we returned to our stateroom, Tim observed that Bill Cohen is a classic example of a Michigan arrogant ass!

Riga, Latvia was a wonderful surprise. We both agree it has probably been our favorite port so far. The city is a blend of old world charm and innovative contemporary architecture. There were many quaint little shops and interesting restaurants. We went into one particular store that featured traditional Latvian clothing and artifacts. As in all European cities, the people watching is excellent. Tim would like to point out to the male chauvinist pigs reading the blog that the women of Riga are quite impressive. The highlight of the day was over an hour spent in the Museum of Latvian Occupation. This museum recounted the occupation by first, the Soviet Union, and than Germany during WW II followed again by the Soviet Union after the war. It is a history that is similar to the Jewish Holocaust in that the Soviets exiled a significant portion of the Latvian population to Russia and the Germans exterminated a large portion of the Latvian Jewish community. Needless to say, it was very quiet in the museum. Riga, Latvia is definitely a place we would come back to. We only had about 6 hours in Riga and there was much we wanted to see that we did not have time for.

We’ve just come from high tea - a nice shipboard tradition. Thinking of having a night in tonight - room service for dinner and a DVD movie. This is our 8th night aboard and we have another 6 to go before a night in Stockholm before flying home. A good time for a quiet evening “at home”.

Cheers

Lynda and Tim