Sunday, May 29, 2011 – At Sea – North Sea – Raining - 59F

A crummy day at sea…

 

Windy, rainy, gray, and choppy – that about covers it. 

Not a lot of chop during the night – may the Captain went around some of the expected weather or maybe we just got lucky.

Up at 3:45 AM (clock change effect) and then again at 5:45 AM.  The Windjammer doesn’t open until 7:00 AM and there’s no place to go.  At 6:45 AM, I made my way up to breakfast.  It is usually pretty quiet on a sea day at opening but I guess quite a few people were up early this morning.  So, no peaceful breakfast this morning.  I don’t stay long and my magazine is still not finished.

The morning was spent in the Solarium – we tried the Hollywood Odyssey for Quiet Time but the little kid’s were in their playtime period.

Some hardy folks walked the deck in the drizzle and wind.

For the first time this cruise, I believe, we had lunch up in the Sea View Cafe – Tuna Melt, Veggie Sub, Onion Rings, Nachos (all the things that we are not going to eat when we get home).  It was much quieter up in the Sea View Cafe than in the Windjammer (especially when you can’t eat outside).

My final talk in the Coral Theater - “The Innocence Project” – has never been presented before on a ship.  Lots had to be trimmed from the original talk to make it fit the allotted time.   If I do this lecture again, I will need to make some modifications.  Some things didn’t flow well – I could tell from the audience.

The attendance was still good – about 250 (estimating based on 300 seats in the center section).  Nice solid round of applause at the end.

I had about 15 minutes left for Q and A and got some interesting comments (especially how there is no “Double Jeopardy” in the UK) from the audience (most of which stayed for the session).  It was a good wrap up for the series.  

Packed most of my stuff earlier today so now I can relax for a few minutes in the Solarium (5:20 PM ship time).

Before dinner, we listed to Bogart and Boyd in the Centrum play their easy listening music selections.  For the first time, I was able to get a picture of them at work (below).

 

The Farewell Show tonight is totally different from the one last cruise so we head to the theater to get seats. 

Two of the Activities staff, Jorge (I think) (from Brazil) and Nadiya (from the Ukraine) are both greeters tonight at the theater.  Jorge introduced me before my first two presentations and also sings in the Centrum every so often.  Nadiya runs trivia and is a great dancer (teaches dancing on the ship).

Before you know it, everyone is getting their picture taken.

Tonight’s show is a bit unusual.  The first act is rhythmic gymnast, Yelena Larkina, who is a combination contortionist and hoop gymnast.  All in all, it turned out to be pretty enjoyable and the audience really liked her.  She’s at work below.

The second act was Kirk Kremo, foreign but of unknown origin, who juggled hats and other items.  He didn’t speak at all but the act was OK and amusing at times.

The Celebrity Singers and Dancers finished off the evening as they did on the first cruise, singing the “RCI Goodbye Song”.

That was followed by the march of the crew, who joined Clo on stage for the finale.  Even Clo was singing along.

We met Clo outside the theater after the shows…hugs all around.

Walking back to the room after the show, I was able to capture the final sunset of the cruise (below).

Bags are all outside in the hall and we are ready to go home.

The North Sea has been pretty tame.

Tomorrow – Harwich, England.

Saturday, May 28, 2011 – Gothenburg, Sweden – Cloudy and Rainy – 50s

Tallinn, Estonia to Gothenburg, Sweden: 774 Nautical Miles

The day started out OK as the Jewel of the Seas slowly maneuvered its way to the Gothenburg Pier.  It was a tight fit and the ship had to rotate on its axis to get into the docking area.

 

Gothenburg is Sweden’s second largest city with about 500,000 inhabitants.  It is home to a Volvo factory.  The pier is about nine miles from the city so we are staying on ship today.  That worked out to be a smart move since the weather changed quickly to cold, wind, and rain.

We spent almost all day in the Solarium.  About an hour prior to push, we heard music coming from the pier.  A local band – most likely a high school band – complete with flag girls and cheerleaders were putting on a concert and marching exhibition for the passengers.  The cheerleaders were all excellent dancers and considering the conditions (cold and nasty wind), they were great.  They did not stop (over a half hour) until the ship had pushed a considerable distance from the pier.

The ship had to push pretty slowly to ensure that the stern cleared the pier before the ship started its turn to head out.  The JOTS passed several interesting islands, carved out by the ice during the last Ice Age.

Also present were the ubiquitous wind turbines – a predictable site in the Scandinavian countries.

The winds were pretty strong.  At one point, I noticed that the ship was starting a pretty hard left turn and at a pretty good clip.  The turn actually tilted the ship a good 5 degrees.  I could actually feel some incremental g-force and thought I heard a low frequency groan. This caused dishes to crash, water to empty from the Solarium Pool (the Solarium floor had about an inch of water which drained away pretty quickly), and some concern on the part of the passengers.  It was the steepest “bank” we had ever experienced on a cruise ship.  Captain Stig came on the com later to explain that the sharp turn was due to the strong winds and apologized for the excitement.  He warned that choppy seas were ahead and seasick prone passengers should prepare.

We had dinner with Betsy and Wayne in the Windjammer Cafe.  We had interesting stories to exchange.  Turns out that Betsy has a Ph.D. in French and French Film Music from UCLA.  That explains why she sings so many French songs and does them so well.

The Headliners tonight are the “East Coast Boys”, a tribute group celebrating the songs of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  They had the proper “Joisy” accents and did a good job singing.  At times, they seemed unsure of their spots on the stage.  They sang well and the crowd loved them.  At the end, they introduced themselves – the Frankie Valli character sounded like he might be a Brit.

We spent a little more time in the Safari Club with Betsy and Wayne and then called it a day.

Seas are smooth…

Friday, May 27, 2011 – At Sea – Baltic Sea – Partly Cloudy – 50s

A chilly day on the Baltic Sea…

At 10:45 AM, we signed up for the “Walk a Mile” for the Make a Wish Foundation.  A donation, a tee-shirt and a nippy, windy six laps around the running track.  Here we are (below) pre-walk – no, we haven’t doubled up at the buffet; we are wearing our tee-shirts over our jackets.  About 50 people signed up for the walk – money earned for a good cause.

 

My third talk - “Solving History’s Mysteries”- is once again in the Coral Theater at 3:00 PM.  With plenty of seating, the crowd doesn’t really arrive until about 2:45 PM.  Today’s crowd is larger than the last one – it’s hard to get a count but it must be close to 250 people.  The AV is still and issue (the King Tut information was impossible to read) and today, my remote mouse went all “poltergeist” on me and moved the slides by itself.  Perhaps some kind of interference – it had never happened before.

Attending today were Betsy and Wayne.

Tonight, we get to see “Tango Buenos Aires” once again.  The same stars, Rocio and Luciano, once again did an outstanding show.  Someone told us that this show would be a bit different but, to me, it was exactly the same.  It was still great.

Rocio and Luciano bring down the house

Amanda (and the other singers) did a great job on “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” – I think it is the best version I have seen performed and I think Amanda is the best singer yet on a cruise ship.

Amanda - “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina”

Betsy and Wayne came to hear my talk so we went to hear them perform in the Safari Lounge.

No touring tomorrow in Gothenburg, Sweden– can get some sleep.

Seas are smooth…

Wednesday, May 25, 2011 – St. Petersburg, Russia – Cloudy and Rainy – 57F

The party’s over…

The two ships with us yesterday are gone and the Vision of the Seas is now docked.

 

Our tour today is “Panoramic St. Petersburg” and our guide, Julia (“Youl-ya”) speaks excellent English and is clearly knowledgeable about the city and its history.  The bus takes the same route as earlier from the pier to the Neva River. The guide informed us that the area of the pier all the way to the Neva River is actually an island called “Basil Island”.

Our route along the river gives a good view of the two identical Egyptian Sphinxes (over 2000 years old) (below) acquired by Catherine the Great on her quest to fill the city with art and artifacts.

Our first stop is at the twin Rostra Lighthouse Monuments.  Protruding from the lighthouse are ships bows (rostra) containing animals (below).  We were told that these were ships captured by the Russians.  The four statues at the base of the monument represent the four major Russian Rivers, including the Neva and Volga (far below).

 

This seemed like a good spot for a photo op.  We were able to walk down to the actual edge of the river bank for one of the pictures.

    

I was really hoping to stop at the Peter and Paul Fortress located on an adjacent island and built by Peter the Great in 1703.  The fort, the first structure in St. Petersburg, was built to protect the city from the Swedes but it never fired a shot in battle.  The Citadel today contains the former Royal Mint, the Peter and Paul Cathedral (burial place of Tsars and their families). 

On this tour, the bus only drove by the citadel on this tour. 

Peter and Paul Cathedral (golden spire)

Our next stop was at the site of the Battleship Aurora (below).  This ship, now a naval training site, aimed it cannons at the Winter Palace in 1917 and fired a blank round signaling the start of the Russian Revolution.

The building below reminded me of Russian architecture even though it is made of glass.

 

Our next stop was to be the Church of Spilled Blood, the site of the assassination (a bomb) of Tsar Alexander II in 1881.  It started to rain and the passengers (not me) voted not to get out for pictures.  A few minutes later when the rain stopped, the bus driver tried to go back to the church but couldn’t due to the heavy traffic.

St. Petersburg has a network of over 60 rivers and canals – one of these, the Fountain River, is shown below.

The tour took us closed to St. Michaels Castle, the residence of Emperor Paul I.  He was so concerned about assassination after the bombing death of Alexander II that he refused to live in the Winter Palace.  Instead, he built another palace (below) and constructed a moat  (formed by rivers and canals).

He only lived in the Palace for 40 days until dismissed army officers assassinated him in his bedroom.  Hard to get good help.

 

One of the many canals, the Swan Canal, is shown below.

The bus then turned onto Nevksy Prospekt, the main shopping Center of St. Petersburg.  This wide street is full of people, high end shops, busses, trams, and just about everything else.  Although it was only a small consolation, we were able to get a shop of the Church of Spilled Blood from this street.

Nevsky Prospekt may be a high end street but there is still something for everyone – 6 inch sub anyone.

Our final official stop of the day is St. Isaac’s Cathedral – the largest church in St. Petersburg.  It is located on Decemberists Square and was built between 1818 and 1858.  The architect of the church stated that he would remain alive until the church was built – hence the forty year construction period (many modifications to the plans perhaps).  He died in 1859 – I guess the plan worked.

While Ellen was looking for souvenirs, I walked through the park across the street from St. Isaac’s to get a picture of the statue of Tsar Nicholas I.  Nicholas I was the father of Alexander II, who was the grandfather of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia.

  

The Park adjacent to St. Isaac’s had wonderful tulips circling the grassy area (below).

 

As we were leaving St. Isaacs, we could see the damage to the columns caused by German artillery shells during WWII.

As we got closer to the Neva River, we got a good look at the bronze equestrian statue of Peter the Great (below).  There is a lot of symbolism in the statue – a serpent behind the horse (enemies of Russia); the rock shaped like a wave.  Legend has it that St. Petersburg will never be defeated while the statue exists.  The statue was sheltered during the 900 day siege of the city in WWII and is essentially undamaged.

Our final stop was a shopping stop on the more industrial banks of the Neva (many factories).  Clean bathrooms were the highlight.  Before we re-boarded the bus I got a nice shot of Ellen already on board.

A relatively quick ride back to the pier and a much quicker pass through immigration and soon we were in the Windjammer for dinner.  As we were leaving St. Petersburg, Captain Stig came on the PA to indicate that the ship would be passed by a convoy of vintage Russian ships (headed for St. Petersburg for some type of festival).  Some of them are captured below.

 

The top two boats are vintage but the bottom boat is a Russian Coast Guard cutter.

The St. Petersburg sail away was interesting including the fort like structure below

 

The Showtime Headliner tonight was Jacqui Scott, a veteran West End performer.  She put on a great show but I wish she had done more show tunes.  She did bring the place down with “Don’t Cry for Me, Argentina” sung alongside black and white images of her in the role of Eva Peron. 

 

 

After the show, Clo came out in her 70s outfit (below).

On our way down to our room later, we did stop by the Centrum, which was packed solid with people.

Clo in 70s gear

70s Night in the Centrum

Smooth seas…