Return to the Baltic (Vacation, part 1)
May. 13th, 2017 08:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krpalmerWhen my parents said they'd be making another cruise to Northern Europe, the thought of coming along did appeal to me. Unlike the trip I'd made eight years ago, I'd be flying all the way out and flying back, but I suppose that could also mean more time to see things off the ship. One thing I did think I'd try this time was to look for wireless connections at the cruise terminals, remembering how expensive it was just to ration out ten minutes a day. There hasn't been quite as much wireless available as I'd hoped, though, so I'm trying to squeeze what I can out of a stop in Stockholm even as I tell myself there's nothing wrong with taking a vacation from more than one thing at once.
While the weather's been pretty chilly at times (especially in Helsinki, where it was a fair walk from the ship to the city centre), the sights have been impressive. Tallinn in Estonia, with its preserved medieval buildings and walls, was quite picturesque, but the pre-Revolutionary culture concentrated in St. Petersburg was interesting as well. It did just so happen our ship reached the city on May 9, though, which is Russia's Victory in Europe day; getting caught up in the press of a parade with crowds of people carrying pictures of relatives who'd fought in the Second World War was a tense moment and left a few people from our tour to get back to the ship by themselves. It's just so happened, though, that in returning to Kiel in Germany and Stockholm, which we'd visited on the previous cruise, I've managed to revisit a few ordinary places I'd happened on the first time. It's oddly intriguing (on an altogether different "cultural" level) to look into a Swedish science fiction bookshop and see how much English language material is for sale. (It seems some people in Sweden are quite capable of moving between disc-playback regions when both American and British anime DVDs are available.)
While the weather's been pretty chilly at times (especially in Helsinki, where it was a fair walk from the ship to the city centre), the sights have been impressive. Tallinn in Estonia, with its preserved medieval buildings and walls, was quite picturesque, but the pre-Revolutionary culture concentrated in St. Petersburg was interesting as well. It did just so happen our ship reached the city on May 9, though, which is Russia's Victory in Europe day; getting caught up in the press of a parade with crowds of people carrying pictures of relatives who'd fought in the Second World War was a tense moment and left a few people from our tour to get back to the ship by themselves. It's just so happened, though, that in returning to Kiel in Germany and Stockholm, which we'd visited on the previous cruise, I've managed to revisit a few ordinary places I'd happened on the first time. It's oddly intriguing (on an altogether different "cultural" level) to look into a Swedish science fiction bookshop and see how much English language material is for sale. (It seems some people in Sweden are quite capable of moving between disc-playback regions when both American and British anime DVDs are available.)
