We had such a wonderful time on this cruise. It could be the company... we went with our family, Jeanne's parents (John and Bonnie Dustin) and with our nephew Jordan (who left at the end of the cruise for home in Alaska after living with us here in the UK for almost a year). It also could be the relaxed traveling that we did which contrasted from our frantic traveling that we have been doing lately. Or perhaps it was the places we went. Whatever it was... it made for a nearly perfect trip.
This cruise was again with MSC cruises. We like them because they allow free kids (yea for our travel budget!). We planned this trip almost a year ago and when we finally booked it around Christmas-time we found it hard to get two rooms together. But the ticket agent pulled some strings and opened up some fantastic rooms for us. We were on floor 14 on the inside. Although we didn't have a window we had an enormous balcony right outside our door. We were at the front of the ship and the balcony went the entire width of the ship.
The outside door that led to our rooms (immediately on left).
The trip began from Copenhagen, Denmark. We had originally planned on sightseeing the city but chose to go directly to the cruiseline with our luggage and stayed there! It was a massive ship that held 2,400 passengers and 1,300 crewmembers! The floorplan was a replica of what we cruised with last fall so our family knew how to get around right away.
But for Jeanne's parents, cruising was an entirely new experience for them.
...and they liked it!
Grandma, Grandpa and the boys were in one room. They enjoyed watching Mr. Bean movies in the evenings thanks to a combination of Jordan's computer and Bryce's video library on his Ipod. (Poor Grandma having to live with 3 boys!)
Watching a Mr. Bean movie on a chair so everyone could see.
One evening we were able to use the ships conference room and plug in Bryce's Ipod. So we were all able to watch Mr. Bean's Holiday (appropriate since we will be going to southern France as our next "big" trip).Lubeck, Germany
The next day we ported in Kiel, Germany. The town itself is a harbor without much to see. But it has a very convenient train station with links to Hamburg and a little medieval town called Lubeck. We chose to go to the little town and walk around.
A cheap group fare on the train made it an inexpensive excursion. We played cards the whole way there and back while Christina played petshops and Madison played her gameboy.
The town had an interesting ancient building that housed a local museum. The towers appeared to be leaning toward each other!
The best part though was the puppet museum located a few blocks from the leaning towers. The girls split from the boys to see the puppet museum and right from the entry were enthralled! The most amazing puppets and creative ideas were displayed from around the world!
The first display really energized Jeanne's mom who came up with all sorts of ideas she could use with her center at which she volunteers back in Hawaii. This was a "puppet" that you collar around your neck and your face becomes the puppet! SO CREATIVE!
Another display that Jeanne saw a lot of potential in was the walking puppet theatre. Isn't this a great idea? (other than your hand would probably get tired holding them up all of the time...)
While the girls thoroughly enjoyed the puppet museum the guys decided to show their physical endurance and climb up to the top of the church tower. (We later found out that there actually was an ELEVATOR!). But they did enjoy the views and trying to fool the girls about the stair climbing thing.
We had just enough time to visit the market square and walk through the church. During WW2 a bomb was dropped that toppled the bells. The people decided to rebuild the bell tower but leave the bells where they fell.
Legend had it when the church was being built the devil thought it was going to be a tavern so he was actively helping to build it alongside the local people. But when he found out it was a church and was about to destroy it the townspeople made a deal with the devil to build a tavern right next door. Sounds to me like some of the townspeople were looking for an excuse!... but it makes for a good picture!
We timed our return to the train station perfectly (with 2 minutes to spare ... whew!).
Christina knew when it was time to get off the train and was ready! She is turning into such a confident little traveler! Maybe Christina was in a hurry to get back to the ship because she was hungry!
That evening Christina began her nightly spaghetti feast (her favorite food). There are definite advantages to traveling on an Italian cruiseline :-)
Stockholm, Sweeden
We planned on the hop-on hop-off harbor boat which took us to the two stops in the city we wanted to see. The first was the old part of town called Gammelstan. It was charming. But boy are they serious about their bikes. They are like motorways and if you walk across one without looking you could be in trouble! Jeanne while taking a photograph almost got ran over by a high speed bike. Thankfully, the bike had a bell which alerted her!
Jeanne finds it amazing how frequent the theme of slaying dragons is found throughout Europe. We as a family have actively attended and led creationist Bible studies. So when we see yet another statue recognizing St. George slaying a dragon, knowing that many "legends" have some base in fact and as well that there are many similar stories around the world, it affirms our belief that "dragons" were likely to actually have been around with humans during recorded history. For those of you who think that this sounds wacky, I challenge you to attend our Answers in Genesis Bible study that we've been hosting in our house on Tuesday evenings. I promise that it will give you food for thought on how you as a Christian view the Bible, how you view scientific conclusions reported in the media, and it will likely challenge many things that you never questioned before.
Well after walking through the town, the we toured the palace. Christina discovered an odd telephone booth. We hadn't seen anything like it in our travels so it must be special to Stockholm.
Pretty cool, isn't it?
Our next stop on our hop-on/off boat was the highlight of our visit to Stockholm. The Vasa (located in the VASA museum) was a newly christened flagship which because of it's top heavy design sunk about 1 km into it's maiden voyage in 1628. It remained in the Stockholm bay for all those years when it was carefully raised, amazingly preserved and put in a museum. The carvings on it are truly amazing! A museum about a sunken ship doesn't sound too interesting...but this one was!The carvings were so incredibly detailed and so abundant! It made me wonder how any ship designed like that could last more than a year in the harsh environment of the sea! That probably made this find of a sunken NEW ship in the bay all the more spectacular. The sand had protected much of the ship...even for over 300 years! No other examples of ships from that era have survived.
The stern (or rear) of the VASA.
Isn't it amazing?
On a more grim note, when the ship sunk they estimate that 30-50 people died. In the basement of the museum was a tomb/display of some of those bodies. A bit odd, as it seems that bones aren't often displayed in the US out of respect for the dead.
The outside building that houses the VASA was also interesting. They made the building have masts! The girls smiled and waved goodbye as we took our shuttle boat back to the cruise ship.As we left the port, we were able to watch for more than 4 hours the most amazing views of the islands of Sweden. Beautiful small villages and charming bayfront homes and cabins.
It was amazingly beautiful and continued until well after dinner!
Tallinn, Estonia
Jeanne's father had been to Tallinn several times during his world travels. So he became our tour guide for the city. It also was quite charming.
It had an absolutely beautiful town square full of temporary shop stalls.
Here is Christina in a doorway to a store that was just her size!
There also were very detail -ed doors and clocks in the towns quare!
We walked up the hill toward the summit of Tallinn.
We came to a portion of the wall around the city where they allow you to climb up to walk along the wall (similar to Rothenburg in Germany). But the stairs up were gigantic!
The view from the top was great!
Madison is such a comedian!
Grandma & Grandpa found a table in the shade and enjoyed watching the rest of us climb and play in the cubby holes.
At the top of the hill there was a Greek Orthodox (I think) church. As we posed for this picture, a car popped out of gear and rolled backwards. If a car hadn't been parked in the way some of us very likely would have been run over. Another example of God watching out for us!
Fat Margaret and tall Herman are names for some of the towers in the city which is located on a high point of land near the port. We really enjoyed the town square and walking the city walls. But our favorite feature of the city had to be just the interesting walkways and charming old town feel of the buildings.
Piggie flower-boxes?
As we left the walled city we looked out over the city square and charming streets we could see the ship.When we reached the city center Jeanne and her dad broke off to find an internet cafe while the rest headed back to the boat. Thinking that they had plenty of time to get back to the boat they stopped by a grocery store and meandered back toward the ship...only to find that there was a large waterway separating them.
Then they had to quickly walk around while worried that they were going to miss the departure time...but they made it!
St. Petersburg, Russia
Five people in our party had already been to St. Petersburg... John and Bonnie (several times), and in 1994 Scott and Jeanne visited for 2 weeks with their newborn son. It wasn't a smart journey back then and was quite full of adventure (and misfortune).
Bryce was only 3 months old at the time and had hair that stuck straight up. Wasn't he so cute????
Here is a picture of us with some Japanese friends in the Goodwill games office hallway where we stayed.
Bryce was fine but Scott got severe food poisoning and Jeanne sprained her ankle badly. Thankfully we were there working for Jeanne's dad in the Goodwill games and were staying in athlete's village with full access to AMERICAN doctors who even came up to our room!
This time we arrived at port just outside the same Prebalticskya hotel which housed us and the Athlete Village. It now is a Park hotel and the harbor land has been added on to. Now the shore is quite a distance from where it once was! Such changes! We all took a cruise tour (since we didn't get Russian Visa's which would have cost about $900). In the end Jeanne was quite happy that we took a tour which worked out perfectly fine other than the guide wasn't that good)
We saw some highlights of the city stopping first at St. Issac's cathedral.
The Church of the Spilled blood is where one of the Czar's were murdered. They built an elaborate church that actually never functioned as a church. But it is beautiful and resembles another church in Moscow.
Of course we had to get some sovenier shopping in too! Bryce found an pocket watch with the old Russian initials of CCCP and some old Russian money, Madison found a white Russian hat which she was thrilled with and Christina hunted down a mirror that she liked. Jeanne got her Christmas ornaments that she collects for the family and everyone left happy and satisfied (and without too big of a financial loss! YEA!)Day at sea
We had a fantastic last day aboard. It was a day at sea which made it even better. We were able to rest, relax, swim, play cards. This trip has been really wonderful.
Card playing was a major part of our relaxing time...if you call a cut-throat game of hearts relaxing. Having heard the reputation of Grandpa always winning at hearts, the goal of both of the boys was to beat Grandpa.
Grandma (who isn't known for winning at hearts) celebrates a good hand.
In the end... much to the chagrin of the boys, Grandpa won yet again.(but there were quite a few games played...and the boys were successful a few times! YEA!)
Christina took the time to swim in the green salt-water pool. Madison taught her how to go underwater! She was so proud of herself that she wouldn't stop. For those of you who are Dr. Seuss book fans, it was kind of like the story of the diggingest dog. (one of Jeanne's favorite)
fantastic job Christina!
In the evening Scott took the time to go our and dance with his two girls.
They had a chocolate bar fruit feast and a fun time on the dance floor.
Christina can really move to the music!
It was a special daddy- daughter(s) -date!
Before we left on the cruise, Bryce and Jeanne discovered Matalan. It was a great store with cheap men's dress clothes. He surprised us all with coordinated outfits with Jordan.
On the cruise they dressed up one night in opposite colors pink and black.
Another night they did opposite colors of red and black.
And on the formal night Bryce really shocked everyone with a tux shirt and bow tie! We have some handsome boys and beautiful girls...no doubt!
We went out on deck for some sunset pictures. It was fun.
Copenhagen, Denmark
We were required to empty our room by 7 am...which is a little bit early for us... It still took time to eat breakfast and wait for our group to be called so we didn't make it out until 10:30 am. We located a taxi van for our monster group and headed to the airport. We were hoping to drop off our luggage at the airport Hilton as we had rented the room for just the day (at half price!) and then head back to the city for a short tour. But on our way the taxi driver informed us about the incoming storms with potential flooding. So we switched plans again and took the taxi directly to the little mermaid and a fleeting tour of the city.
It was fine really as we were all tired... too many midnight buffets and late night card games I guess :-)We spent the rest of the day telling stories, resting, and playing cards.
We flew out to Stansted at sunset and saw an interesting sunset from the terminal.Farewell to Jordan
Parenting can be challenging and parenting a kid who hasn't grown up with your family can be even more challenging. But Jordan has really become an integral part of our family that will truly be missed. On our travels he dependably helped watch Christina and entertain us all. We all reckon that our car journeys will be a bit less windy from having to roll windows down (smile), but he has left a hole and the house definitely seems a bit more hollow.
This moment also marks the first time in over a year that we have only our five in our house. We have had constant visitors literally for over a year. So although it will be nice to get back to all of our family, we also are left a bit sad as we have really enjoyed all of the visitors. The amazing thing is that we have NO visitors planned for the future! Talk about feast or famine!
But it has been an amazing year! And it's not done yet!
