Baltic Boating Part 8: Days At Sea

Pardon our horribly-slack blogging, we're packing up to go home! We're going to make it up to you by finishing off like we started - a blog a day! Yes, if you can remember almost three years ago, unemployed Johnny was cranking out a new blog post every day on average. Now those idle days are back again, so for the sake of symmetry (and catching up on a lot of adventures) he'll attempt to roll them out like he used to until it's time to head to Heathrow...

We just had a few more things to say about our cruise experience through Scandinavia, or more specifically about one of our new all-time favourite things: Days At Sea.

As cruise virgins, we'd been slightly worried about being bored on our four "Days At Sea". We'd supposed that only mad-keen Bridge or Bingo players would enjoy what the ship had to offer on these days. But we were so wrong. The Jewel Of The Seas was like a 5-star hotel dropped onto a Whitsunday Island, decorated with everything from the Weight Watchers Forbidden List. Our typical Day At Sea would see us shuffle into the all-day buffet at around 10.30 (just in time to catch the omelette-making-guy before he knocked off) and gorge ourselves before attempting to burn off the calories with EPIC table-tennis matches - rallies lasting hundreds of shots were not unheard-of. We'd then swing past the library to pick up the day's cerebral activities - fresh trivia, crossword and sudoku puzzles were provided each day - and settle down somewhere, possibly with a coffee from the (hideously-named) Latte-tudes Café. After swinging back past the buffet for another bout of eating, we'd often adjourn to the games room for some Scrabble, take our books to one of the pool areas, or do something a bit more active like Mini Golf, Rock Climbing or hitting the gym. And then all too quickly it would be time to eat again, this time in the Tides dining room with our regular dinner companions.

Of course we got to know our fellow diners very well. But with this cruise being an American-run enterprise, all of the service staff were hyper-attentive in that "Really want a good tip" way. Luckily our Peruvian waiter Juan and his Turkish assistant Mehmet were genuinely nice guys and had quite a Laurel-and-Hardy routine going - often unintentionally! Mehmet had more than a touch of Manuel from Fawlty Towers about him, while Juan was ever the consummate professional.


Our "stateroom attendant" Sori was a towel-folding magician - each time we came back from dinner we'd have a new sculpture awaiting us. It turns out that all stateroom attendants get taught how to do this, which slightly diminished the special feeling, but it was still impressive:

There were characters among our fellow passengers as well, some of whom achieved notoriety through participating in the various game shows run by our cruise director Joff (aka John Cleese - exceedingly witty and entertaining, even if his endless quips had a slightly well-practised feel to them). One couple in particular will forever remain in our memories. During a "Love and Marriage" show, the wife was asked who (aside from her, of course) her husband would most like to have with him on a desert island. She replied that he would choose his brother. When they swapped over, the husband (they'd been married for a year) simply could not think of an answer. Under intense pressure from Joff, his wife, and the crowd, he blurted out "My secretary?!?!?" at which point both the crowd and the wife exploded, but in rather different ways. For the remainder of the cruise that couple looked somewhat strained.

Johnny has already expressed his displeasure at violators of the dinner dress code - the passenger who most incurred his wrath was a Hispanic diner on the next-door table who consistently flouted not only the dress code but also basic rules of table manners and politeness. Thus he acquired the unenviable nickname of "Stupid Latino Ugly Guy", or SLUG for short. Sadly we have no picture of the Slug, but just imagine Jabba The Hut from Star Wars but with fewer interpersonal skills and you've got him nailed.

On the subject of famous likenesses, Johnny thinks that our cruise line may in fact be the forbidden lovechild of the Transformers' Autobots and Decepticons:

+ =

At 90,000 tons, if the Jewel ever does transform into a robot, JUST RUN!

Good and Bad News

Let's begin with the bad news - Johnny's reverse-Midas touch with employers continues. After 15 months at ICOM, the company has been declared insolvent and all employees made redundant on Wednesday (September 30).

This follows more than 9 months of late and partial payrolls, and we are all still owed for August AND September. Officially the company has NO assets so the chances of getting anything out of them are very remote. (In classic dodgy-business style, the bankrupt company that employed us is a separate entity to the one that owns all of the stuff like computers that could be sold off)

There is some chance of getting some compensation from the UK government's "National Insurance" arrangement that all companies have to pay into. It's exactly the kind of situation that NI is meant to cater for. It won't fully cover what is owed - not even close - but it will help.

Luckily, it's not too big a problem. John was in the process of resigning anyway, because, drum roll please...

We're heading back to Melbourne, for good, in November!

That's the "good news" bit if you were wondering. Yes, it will have been 3 years almost to the day - we've absolutely loved our time in the UK and gallivanting around Europe, and we always wanted to leave at the point where we felt we'd really got to know it well, but before it all became too familiar. We've averaged one international trip a month for the last 35 months, and have seen some fantastic stuff, but we can safely say we're "over" budget airlines now! And it really will be nice to spend some quality time with family and friends back home after relying on phone calls, emails and Facebook for so long.

So we're Melbourne bound at last!! See you soon!!

Baltic Boating Part 7: Oslo

After another delicious Day At Sea we steamed up the Oslofjord to Norway's capital. By sea is definitely the best way to approach Oslo; virtually every passenger on our boat was glued to the stunning views of the lush green valley-sides dotted with impossibly-cute wooden cottages. If there had been a Norwegian estate agent on board he would have done very well out of our boat that morning!


After several hours navigating the fjord, we docked directly opposite Oslo's 14th-century Akershus Fortress - the most picturesque large-boat mooring of our trip, if not the entire world?

Oslo, like almost all of the Scandinavian cities we visited on this tour, is a compact city, and after an enjoyable hour or so, even the attraction of riding giant bronze tigers though the town square was starting to wane.


Luckily, a short tram-ride away was Vigeland Park, the astonishing sculpture park of Gustav Vigeland. He personally sculpted 212 human figures, in varying positions and phases of life, which are now set out impressively throughout the park.


Back at the harbour, we treated ourselves to a taste of Norwegian fare: a small bowl of delicious fish soup (that's one bowl, shared between us), washed down with a local beer (again, just the one). 160 kroner (16 pounds) later... and we returned to the Jewel with a full appreciation of just how Oslo got its reputation for being one of the most expensive cities to visit. At least the sculpture park was free!

Baltic Boating Part 6: Tallinn

Teeny, tiny Tallinn - the town that 300,000* term theirs. Tourist-thronged, true, though totally typical throughout. Though this, the third* town that these tired travellers took to traversing, tellingly touched them thus:

Phew! Terribly taxing that! Tallinn was a charming little place, compact and quaint, making a pleasant contrast to St Petersburg's ornate grandeur. The capital of Estonia, it boasts a beautifully preserved medieval old town, complete with cobbled streets, walls, towers and a bustling Town Hall square. A traditional market was in full swing during our visit, selling handmade woollen and wooden goods, among other things.


We were mostly content to just wander aimlessly and absorb the atmosphere (it was certainly nice to leave the tour-group-sheep feeling behind), and indeed there wasn't a great deal else to do. Naturally, we made time to sample some of the local food and drink - an interesting fried cheese concoction, sausages, black bread and a local honey beer (quite sweet, funnily enough!)



* Some poetic licence was taken here in order to maintain the ambitious and potentially ill-advised alliteration. Hence, these figures are not, in the truest sense of the word, accurate.

Baltic Boating Part 5: More St Petersburg

Despite feeling slightly weary from the previous day's activities, we were both looking forward to our second day in St Petersburg. We'd signed up for two more excursions - a morning walking tour and a 'panoramic' bus tour in the afternoon - in the hope that these would give us ample time to explore the beautiful city centre, having only glimpsed it briefly the day before.

Once we'd been processed through the port border control rigmarole (Russia was the only country that required this and they certainly weren't friendly about it, not even once cracking a smile), we met our guide for the walking tour, Polina. Another native St Petersburgian, she was pleasant and spoke excellent English, but lacked the enthusiasm of our previous guide. In fact, she seemed to us to be rather bored and just going through the motions. But, nevertheless, we hung on her every word as she marched us along past monument after impressive monument.

Highlights were the iconic Bronze Horseman statue of Peter the Great, the vast and imposing Palace Square, St Isaac's Cathedral with its gleaming golden dome and the fascinating Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. Notable for being the only building in St Pete's designed in the traditional Russian style, complete with onion domes and mosaics, it was built as a memorial to Tsar Alexander II who was assassinated on that spot. Hence the slightly gruesome name.

Polina let us loose in the conveniently situated souvenir market across the road from the church. The explosion of crapinski was surely a sight to behold. Thousands of painted Matryoshka dolls of all shapes and sizes stared back at us, making Johnny very nervous on a number of levels. Thankfully, Bec satisfied herself with just a few small purchases, and took only 43 of our allotted 45 minutes to make her selections from the vast choice available.

We returned to the ship for a well deserved buffet lunch, before heading out again (more grumpy passport scrutinising) for our afternoon bus tour. We were slightly disappointed to discover that our guide was again the disinterested Polina, and even more disappointed when it quickly became clear that this was basically the same tour. Same monuments, same stories told with the same tone of voice, same crapinski market. We consoled ourselves by spending as much time as possible away from the group, exploring this lovely city on our own, and even managing to sample a local brewski.

Baltic Boating Part 4: St. Petersburg

We are the first to admit we are not great scholars of history. Johnny's head for dates only works for the 20th century and while Bec loves stories of Ann Boleyn and Mary Queen of Scots, she couldn't tell you which century they lived in. As such we were fully expecting Russia's "most European" city, St. Petersburg, to be a mind-melting series of Tsars, invasions and revolutions. While it certainly delivered on that front, despite its relatively youthful 300 years, it was also stunningly beautiful and grand - as long as you ignored the grey communist-era ugliness that surrounds the town centre.

As mentioned in a previous post, it's impossible to visit Russia without a tourist visa, and getting one requires levels of diplomatic back-scratching that we weren't willing to try. The loophole, such as it is, is to arrive as part of an organised tour group run by a suitably-approved company, such as a cruise line. As such, we had to sign up for wall-to-wall "shore excursions" - our only ones for the whole cruise - in order to see the best of the city in the two days we had available.

We kicked off with a gruelling full day tour: The Peterhof palace and gardens, a traditional Russian lunch, and then the mighty Hermitage museum in the afternoon. The Peterhof was created by Alexander I as a rival to Versailles - it certainly aroused all of the "expensive, opulent, dunno-if-I'd-actually-like-living-there" feelings we remembered from that particular über-château. The gardens and fountains were if anything even more exquisite though - so well played, Big Al.


The lunch (at "one of the city's finest restaurants" - located at the base of one of the aforementioned grey communist-era tower blocks) was a decent mushroom soup, followed by the obligatory beef stroganoff and finally an unidentifiable tiramisu-like dessert. Most interesting was the shot of genuine local-style Russian vodka given pride-of-place above each person's plate. Johnny was keen to try - one of only three on our wimpy table of 10 - and pronounced it a winner. Almost completely lacking in taste, it was instead pure heat; clearly designed to stave off those cold winter nights. Try a shot next time you find yourself about to turn up your heater! Perhaps not your car's heater though ...

Finally we arrived at the Hermitage, whose 1000+ rooms simply cannot all be explored in a mere afternoon. Luckily our brilliant guide Elizabeta was an absolute guru, having studied art history in these very environs. She steered us expertly to all the big-name artists (so to speak), giving all the information we could hope for in her delightful lilting accent, which was just how the Russkies always spoke in Cold War films, but much, much friendlier: "O-kay all my love-ly people, you're wel-come to be moo-ving with me to the next ex-hibit". The buildings that house the collection (one of the largest in the world) are so grand they almost outshine the art itself, the most impressive being the Winter Palace. Once home to the Tsars, it was famously stormed during the Russian Revolution, and so has seen its fair share of history.

Baltic Boating Part 3: Helsinki

Helsinki was always going to struggle to make a big impression on us; its population is a tiny fraction of the previous cities', it has far fewer obvious must-see attractions, and the Finns have a reputation for being rather cold and detached. Or at least their racing-car drivers do - are there any other famous Finns?

Add to this the fact that in contrast to our previous stops, the weather was overcast and drizzly, things weren't really looking good for "The Sink". We kicked off our exploration by walking over to The Rock Church. Sadly, there was no sign of Jack Black or indeed any loud music at all, just a rather interesting church carved out of a natural stone crag. We had to generate our own rock:

Continuing our Scandi-coffee research tour, we headed through the middle of town, and noticed that Helsinki has trams very reminiscent of Melbourne's. We passed over the coffee made by Bec's dad, and instead went to the imposing Senate Square, Helsinki's finest. Perhaps in an attempt to give the town a grand meeting-point, the Government Palace, Cathedral, University and Library surround the square, with a monument to Alexander II in the centre. Fortunately Alexander I also paid a visit, allowing a rare photo opportunity.


As you can probably tell from the photos, the weather picked up slightly and our spirits were further improved by a visit to an excellent free museum of Helsinki's history, tucked away just off Senate Square. Helsinki has been a strategic stopping-place for Swedes and Russians for centuries and as such has changed hands several times in a Baltic tug-of-war, before finally establishing its independence from Russia in 1917.

Upon exiting the museum we were greeted by a fresh downpour, and soon after headed back to the comfort of the boat. We'd spent just five hours in Helsinki and that seemed to be sufficient. Our overall impression matched the stereotypical Finnish character - cool, reserved, orderly, and not given to great flourishes. As such we found it a little hard to warm to.