October 4

 This morning I flung the drapes open to see Sweden, and another day with blue skies! We are four-for-four now. We had breakfast in the Garden Café onboard. The usual…..bread and cheese for me, PB&J toast for he, bowls of fresh fruit, OJ and bad coffee. The fruit is fabulous, huge mixed bowls of watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, canary melon, pineapple,  grapes and strawberries and all SO juicy and full of flavour. It makes me wonder why our fruit over here is not as good. Still no line-ups and not a lot of people in sight.

An interesting apartment building at the port of Stockholm. 

The old town and city centre were too far to walk (a half hour drive) so I decided upon a shore excursion today. 

There was a small café and a fairly decent souvenir store right as we got off the ship, which was where we waited for our bus. There were about 8-10 tables outside and honestly, why are Americans so loud? I know it’s a cliché, but it is so true. I now know who’s from Vegas (a very overweight & blustery man), who’s from Colorado (a woman with purple hair) who’s from Pennsylvania (a younger woman) and who’s from Arkansas (an older, white haired lady). I know who had the government job, who is a vegan, who doesn’t normally drink but had a Bloody Mary for breakfast and who has now been to 104 countries. I was not sitting next to them either….everyone in the café now knows all about them.

The drive into the city was nice, the guide on the bus was really funny and also very informative. Stockholm is built on 14 islands, but the Stockholm archipelago has over 30,000 islands! Some of them are very isolated and thus there is a lot of inbreeding. One uninhabited island, Öland, shows particularly high inbreeding and low diversity and over the years the moose have become very short….more like great big dogs. Apparently they look very ridiculous and I would love the see them!

The trees are still full of green leaves and haven’t started to turn yet. I really expected much colder and more “wintery” weather, so this is a very pleasant surprise. We toured the city, which was very hilly and I don’t know why that surprised me. I pictured Stockholm as very flat.

We stopped at the top of one hill and had a photo op looking over the Norrström River. I think it would be beautiful at night. 

Then we had a stop at the IceBar, the world’s first permanent ice bar. 

It’s kept at -5C so it really wasn’t too cold for us, or for me at least. I wore gloves to hold my drink, but other than that I didn’t need them, or a hat although everyone had to wear the thermal capes.

We each had a drink, mine was a non-alcoholic really sweet fruity sort of thing and was SO good,  and his was Absolut vodka, which he said was excellent.

We drank our drinks and looked at all the incredible ice carvings, as well as tables, chairs, walls all made of ice.  It was really fun, I’ve always wanted to go to one. 

Showing the thermal lining. 

Chariots of….not fire, but ice!

On the way to the old town we passed by this bank, which was robbed in 1973 and hostages were taken and held for six days. No one was hurt. Why is this interesting? The hostages became fearful of the aggressive actions of the police and became attached to their captors. A criminologist and psychiatrist ended up coining the term we all know…”Stockholm Syndrome” 

We walked to the old town square which is bordered by the Royal Palace. The guards outside stand behind small fences and if you walk into their space, they will warn you to leave once, and if you don’t get away they can shoot you in the leg. I highly doubt that they ever would, but I wasn’t about to test them. They also have women guards there as well.

Don’t cross that black chain fence!

The royal palace.

The old town is just behind the royal palace, I imagine there are all sorts of other ways to get there, but there was a opening in the wall, and no one was being stopped, so that’s where we went. 

It was a surprise to me to see the buildings that looked so much like Amsterdam. We found a café that served hot & crispy roasted potatoes so we grabbed a seat and had a snack. 

The yellowish building you see through the leaves is the Nobel museum as well as where they announce the nominees for the various Nobel prizes (not where they award them, that’s in Denmark) but it made me think of you-know-who and his dismay about not even being nominated.

We then walked through the streets and admired all those amazing buildings. 

The historic merchant houses from the 17th and 18th century. Restaurants and shops on the bottom, and apartments and hostels/hotels on the upper floors.

Statue of the King of Sweden from 1818-1844

This historic fountain is now connected to the city water supply, so it’s potable and delicious!

The National Museum of Natural Fine Arts on the other side of the river from us. The white boat you see there is now a youth hostel.

This is fountain is on the outside of the Royal Palace, rumour has it that when the fountain is running, the King is home. Who knows? Rumour has it that it means the toilet in his private bathroom has just flushed. Those Swedes and their humour. There is a statue of Moder Svea or Mother Sweden (who is the female personification of Sweden, sort of like Lady Liberty in the USA) on top of the parliament building. The buildings architect placed the main chimney exhaust right behind her and on cold days when the parliament heaters are running, you could see smoke billowing out from her rear end. 

There is also a very sneaky sculpture called “The Cuckold of Skeppsbron”. 

You can see the face of a man, with an exaggerated look of anger or maybe despair, or according to the story, a bit of both. And below him you can see….ummm…is that….?  Why yes, yes it is….

(This picture is not mine, I’m not sure who the photographer is)

Anyhow, the story goes that a rich merchant discovered that his wife, who was his true love, was having an affair. In his rage he had her genitalia sculpted so that the entire city could see her betrayal. But he was also heartbroken so he had his face sculpted so that on rainy days the water would run down his cheeks like tears, showering the part of her that he had loved and lost. Good God. Can you even imagine if a sculpture like that was put up somewhere today? The pearl clutching would be like nothing we have seen before. 

After a few hours of people watching, coffee drinking and checking out the local shops and market stalls, we hopped on the bus to go over to the city hall. It’s a beautiful building, just over 100 years old, built with 8,000,000 red bricks. The oak tree you see was planted the same year, with over 8,000,000 leaves. OK, I lied about the leaves part, but it could be true. 

The City Hall has a nice park overlooking the river beside it, a great place for wedding photos to be leisurely taken. Why do I mention this? Read below!

A wedding was taking place today and I thought that we were lucky to see it until I found out that the city hall is such a popular place for weddings that you can see one approximately every 10-15 minutes! When you book your wedding you have to choose from the long ceremony, or the short. The long is 3-5 minutes, the short is substantially shorter! You are allowed 10 guests and that includes the photographer and any possible babies. No speeches allowed, you listen to the registrar and say your “I do’s”. Exchange rings and off you go! No rice, no flower petals, no bubbles blown or no confetti. Talk about IKEA type efficiency! Brilliant!

The taxes in Sweden are very high, but health care is free, university is free, day care is free to an extent, it’s heavily subsidized and free for many. School supply hot nutritious lunches. No wonder Sweden always ranks high on one of the happiest countries.

We got back to the ship in time for our reservation at Cagney’s Steakhouse. I had tried to get a reservation weeks and weeks ago when I first booked, but it sells out months in advance. When we got on the ship I figured I’d try again, and luckily there had been a few cancellations so we got a table. Oddly enough the whole time we were there, there were a lot of empty tables, but maybe they time them for the various seatings. 

I had heard about the bacon appetizer, and maybe it was delicious, but it was far too fatty for me, I cannot abide that texture of fat in my mouth. I ate the little meaty part you can see on the left, but other than that…ick.

And I know my steak looks sort of like a giant, ummm, pile of yuck, but it was a petit fillet and it was delicious!  The mashed potatoes were drizzled with truffle oil…oh so good. Steven had a ribeye, which he said was fantastic.

The entertainment that night was a young Scottish comedian and he was really, really funny. 

Off to bed, good night from Sweden.

October 3

Today I woke up in Estonia. That’s a sentence I never thought I’d say.

I love, love getting up in the morning and flinging open the drapes and seeing where we are.  I had done my due diligence regarding research of each place, and Tallin (Estonia) was said to be one of the easiest to walk to  from the ship, so a shore excursion was not necessary. 

It’s supposed to be 16C and sunny today, so fingers crossed for another day with no rain. 

We were up and ready to leave by 8:30 after a quick breakfast of rye bread and cheese for me, PB & J toast for he. And a cup of the horrible ship coffee. I honestly think it’s some sort of Nescafé instant, which I guess makes sense…how do you make enough for coffee for all these people, 24 hours a day, using good quality ground beans? Answer: you don’t. Another problem might be that your choice of coffee cream is either skim, regular milk or half & half (which is only 10%) and I cannot be persuaded that anything other than 18% is fit for coffee consumption. Even the specialty restaurants serve the same awful coffee. They do, however, have the best orange juice I have ever had and we drink gallons of it every morning, so there’s that. 

There were no line-ups anywhere and not many people in sight, I think maybe a lot of folks were just tired after their flights and travels and maybe just wanted to sleep in a bit. We left the ship and saw a Hop On-Hop Off bus, so we hopped on. It was mildly informative,  the commentary was good, and I like to get a sense of where we are in a new city, and it was interesting to see the Russian influence on all the buildings (so gray and gloomy) and the difference between those and the modern city, but I wanted to wander through the old town (where buses obviously can’t go) so we hopped off after a partial loop in a spot that was right near the old city walls.

We passed by this huge monument which symbolizes the loss of 852 lives when a ferry sank in the sea between Tallinn and Stockholm in 1994 (the same route that we will be taking tonight…in the dark…) It’s a huge curve, split in two, you can just see the other part over the hill. That part rests on a large granite block with the names of all 852 people engraved on it. The empty space between the two arches represents the empty spaces left by the victims from the 8 affected countries. 

We walked down the path for a minute or two and the spires of St. Olaf’s Church, from the 12th century (on the left)and the Nunnatorn, a defensive tower from the 14th century (red roofed, on the right) came into view. Can you even imagine living by such incredible places? I practically scampered to get there.

You enter through the main gate, passing by the tower fortification called Fat Margaret. It was constructed in 1511 as a defensive tower, the walls are 6 metres thick! It obviously wasn’t called Fat Margaret then, and no one really knows why it’s called that now. Rumours say there was a cook who worked there who was fat and named Margaret, or, they say, it’s named after a massive cannon that was installed in later years. It was originally just called The Round Tower. Simpler times in the 1500’s!

Fat Margaret in all her glory. We entered the old city through that small archway.

 Walking through Tallinn’s Old Town felt like stepping back in time about 500 years. With the cobblestone streets, the medieval towers and secret, tiny, winding alleyways it just felt magical. I fully expected to round a corner and see a horse-drawn cart rattling over the cobblestones and a shop keeper who has been there for hundreds of years.

Walking alongside the old city walls.

Thank goodness for those “sidewalks” because even though they were tilted and had a lot of missing bricks, they were easier to walk on as opposed to the cobblestones. Although, I did walk on the cobblestones now and then, imagining all the tens of thousands of ancient feet who walked there before me.

A very medieval looking door.

Another twisty street. I like how you can just see the faint indentations in the road from hundreds of years of carts rolling down the street. Those cobblestones must be made of awfully sturdy stone!

A tiny (like really tiny!) Russian Orthodox Church.

An unusual window frame, not from medieval times obviously, but so intriguing nonetheless.

Something beautiful is at the end of that passageway!

Cappuccino and people watching in Estonia, along with this poppyseed sort of treat.

After this we meandered slowly back towards the ship, stopping to check out a few stores and grab a couple of small gifts. Because we travel with carry-on luggage only, the things I buy are definitely small!

As we were walking, Steven noticed a couple of people going down some dark and gloomy stairs and wondered where they were headed. I saw the sign that said “KGB Prison Cells” and I remembered that I had read about this tiny museum and really wanted to see it, but I had totally forgotten. I was pleased that he spotted it, so we walked in to check it out. 

The building itself is quite lovely. It was built in 1912 as an apartment building, but the basement storage area eventually became a place of unimaginable suffering. During the Soviet occupation of Estonia it became the headquarters of the secret police, the KGB, and the cells were used to interrogate, torture and imprison thousands of people.

It was particularly sobering when I realized that these cells were in use less than 35 years ago. Estonia did not gain their independence until 1991. The memories of these times ares still alive for many Estonians. 

The door and the sign are very unassuming. This was originally the way down to the storage area of the apartment building.

• When you go in, you see the long hallway with the cells and other rooms on one side. The hall turns right at the end, with more of the same.

Cells with beds for about 6 people, but as many as 20 people were often crammed in one small cell.

The solitary confinement room. More of a closet. It is set up so that a person cannot sit or lie down, and one cannot stand comfortably. The ceiling was just a removable board that could be adjusted for the prisoners height, to make it uncomfortable of course. Sometimes two people were put in together, often for days. There are still scratches on the walls.

The interrogation chair. I have no words.

The stacks and stacks of papers, each for one prisoner. So many.

One room had videos of people who survived their time here. This woman was talking about how she did whatever was asked of her in order to have her children left alone. 

You know, this place is so small and inconsequential compared to places like Auschwitz and Buchenwald and Bergen-Belsen and all the others, that it almost seemed insignificant, but cruelty doesn’t have a size and all the suffering that took place here is every bit as real as the atrocities that happened in the other places. 

There were large meat grinders there. Let that sink in. Meat grinders. 

One of the quotes I read was: “Some of history’s darkest horrors are hidden in the most unassuming places.” 

After that sobering visit, we headed back to the ship for a little respite. Luckily it’s not more than a 10 minute walk. While he caught up on some much-needed sleep, I found myself drawn back to Tallinn for another walk through those enchanting old streets. It was a welcome change of pace after the earlier visit through the darker and chilling chapter of the city’s past. I do not regret seeing any of it though, it’s important to remember that our world can hold extraordinary beauty as well as heartbreaking history. 

I walked to one of Tallinn’s most historic buildings, The House of the Blackheads, which is a horrible name, sounds like it belongs to a skin care clinic, but The Brotherhood of the Blackheads was a guild of unmarried foreign merchants from the Middle Ages, and their patron saint was Saint Maurice, a black man and his image became the brotherhood’s symbol. Today the building is used for concerts and other events. Can you imagine going to a concert in a building that was built in the 1500’s?

I wandered through some “newer” streets, areas from the 1600’s, but never going more than a few blocks in any direction for fear of getting turned around. These streets are so twisty that it’s easy to get mixed up.

Eventually I wound my way back to Fat Margaret and hoofed my way back to the ship. We were having dinner at one of the specialty restaurants tonight, the Japanese Teppanyaki.

A decorative sculpture at the cruise port called The Wave, symbolizing….you guessed it, waves. 

Our hysterical chef at the Teppanyaki. We had miso soup (I’ve never been a fan of miso, so I only had a mouthful), seaweed salad which was very good, the veggies that you see on the grill with “yum-yum sauce”, huge amounts of fried rice, and seafood galore….shrimp, calamari (which was much more rubbery than usual) and scallops, and they were so good. Matcha cake for desert. 

The woman beside me asked me where I was from, and I told her “BC” and of course I then had to ask her where she was from and she replied “Quebec”. I casually mentioned that I had lived there for a few years when I was a kid and she asked “Oh, where?” And I said “Oh, a small place in the middle of nowhere, an Air Force base that was decommissioned years ago. I don’t think anyone has really ever heard of it, I’m not even sure if it even exists anymore, maybe the small village is still there. Moisie.” She looked at me all agog, and said “Moisie? MOISIE? I LIVE there!” We were mutually astounded and amazed and she FaceTimed her husband (who was at home…in Moisie) because she said no one would believe her otherwise. She said even people in Quebec have never heard of it. What are the chances? Seriously, I wonder what the chances are that of all the ships and all the people on them, and all the restaurants and seatings, that we would be seated beside each other? A statistic site had me enter a bunch of information and said that the chance that we would sit beside each other on this cruise was approximately 1 in 100,000, but the chance that we would choose the same cruise on the same dates was incalculable.

I love coincidences like that, and it makes me wonder how many times we pass people or make eye contact with someone and miss a connection by mere seconds. 

After dinner, in the elevator, an elderly white haired lady, very tiny and sweet looking, she was maybe 85, grabbed me and said “I can tell by your accent that you’re Canadian and I want to truly apologize for our president. We hate him too. Fucker.” 

And on that note, we went to bed. 

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