October 2

Yesterday was September 30th, and today we woke up and it was October 2nd and I don’t know what happened to October 1st. I think it disappeared over Greenland somewhere. Time changes and Date Lines confuse me and I cannot be bothered to try and figure it out. I didn’t owe for an extra day at the hotel, so it’s all good. 😊 

We got up early and headed downstairs for breakfast. I tell you, European breakfasts are the absolute best. 

The buffet was really large and had everything from slow cooked porridge to pickled herring to smoked salmon to still-warm-from-the-oven-sourdough bread, as well as muesli, yogurts, fresh fruits, meats, cheeses and a woman making omelets. 

All sorts of fresh buns and breads.

 The omelet making woman.

I wish I was hungrier in the mornings. It all looked so good.

I had some mixed berries, including lingonberries, which I have never tried before.

Then we set off to the market. It was another gorgeous day; “sweater tied around waist” day. When I booked this trip the weather forecast was not promising, and I was hoping to get at least one nice day, and now we are two-for-two. Other people were bundled in puffy coats, but it was about 16C so really, not cold at all.

The market was really fun, lots of stalls with all sorts of handmade items. Steven bought a pair of slippers, reindeer leather (is it called that? Maybe reindeer hide?) and fuzzy sheepskin on the inside. I think you could wear them in the snow, they are so huge and thick and dense. 

We stopped at a cozy little place for a coffee, the chairs all had a reindeer hide tossed over them, for the colder days I guess, as this market is open all year round. There were so many restaurant stalls and it all smelled SO good. 

The coziest little place with, I have to say, really horrible coffee. I think it was from last week. Literally. But I wanted to sit somewhere and have a coffee and people watch in every place we stopped, so, goal accomplished.

So many different mushrooms for sale. I’m not a huge fan of fungi, other than truffles, and I am always surprised to see so many mushrooms.

Much more my style!

The architecture was stunning. 

The old market hall, built in the 1800’s. Inside is filled with more stalls and shops, selling all the foods you could imagine.

Browsed there for a bit, wishing I was hungrier, but I did try some reindeer at our hotel buffet. Then we moved on to a souvenir shop, one of the many that was crammed with everything Moomin. I bought a few little things and paid with Euro’s so that I could get coins in my change in case I needed coins for public washrooms in the upcoming countries (which often have pay toilets), but then I turned around and promptly spent the coins too. Oh well…fingers crossed that bathrooms are free.

We walked slowly back to the hotel, not getting lost at all, and packed up to head to the cruise port. Our taxi was a Tesla, we actually saw a lot of Teslas everywhere. I guess they are more popular here than in North America. It was just a 5 minute drive, but a bit too far to walk, especially with a suitcase on those cobblestones. We passed people doing exactly that and they all looked miserable. 

At the port we dropped off our suitcases, fingers crossed that they ended up in our room later, and went inside the hall…oh oh, the line-up looked horrendous, another one of those zig-zag mazes, but it actually moved really quickly and people were all in a good mood, no need to worry about missing flights and witnessing fights. When you check-in online at home, you pick an arrival time, thus the line-ups weren’t congested with everyone trying to get on at once. It was quite civilized. We saw 2 children, only 2! Both little girls about 7, dressed like princesses, really cute. 

The only thing that annoyed me was the ETA confusion. When I applied for our ETA’s, it is very plainly stated on the acceptance e-mail that you do not need to print your acceptance out, it’s all attached digitally to your passport (because you have to send a copy of your passport to the UK site). But because I worry, I did indeed print out the email with our number and information on it. But when we got to the front of the line, (the desk where they issue you your keycard) they ask for your print out. What? I showed her ours and she said she needed to see the second page as well. Again, what? I told her I didn’t have a second page and that actually my email had said I didn’t need any page. She sort of “hmmphed” and said she’d just let it go. There were a lot of people who were also very confused and upset as some had nothing printed out and they were frantically trying to find their original email. I got ours last year when we went to Iceland, so god only knows where that email even is, so thank goodness for the print outs I kept. 

Anyhow, we took our keycard, went through passport/border control, did a fingerprint thing, went through security and climbed the ramp onto our ship! Hooray, I can now breath a huge sigh of relief and relaxation. We found a spot to sit and people watch until the cabins are ready. Of course had to have a snack.

To be fair, we had fruit too, you can see the watermelon in the background!

The cabins were ready quickly and we unpacked a few things and got a bit organized. 

The cabins is really nice, king size bed which is a bonus and a sizeable balcony. The couch is also a hide-a-bed in case we have a fight. There is large closet and wardrobe to the right of me (as I take this picture)and a bathroom to the left. The bathroom was pretty small, particularly the shower. The fridge was filled with a dozen bottles of ice-cold water which I had ordered prior to our arrival. 

Ship Talk: The Norwegian Sun is a smaller, older ship. It has none of the bells and whistles that the newer, larger ones have. I guess you could call it a classic. The decor was sort of dated, but I really liked it, it felt cozy. It had all things the big ships have; an arcade for kids (of which we saw five. Five! The two little princess girls, two brothers about 9 and 11, and one small baby) A fairly large casino, two main dining rooms, six specialty restaurants, the buffet, a sports pub, a pizza place and I think a couple of more “finger food” places. The usual shopping venues, watches,  purses, and clothing, the photography studio, the art gallery, a Starbucks, plus all the other things. Oh, and a real library with shelves and books. The last couple of ships I’ve been on had a “library” but with no actual books, just a place to sit and read your own, or browse your device. 

The atrium had four glass elevators which went to our floor (9th) and opened literally 20 steps from our room. That was SO handy. At least we didn’t have to walk down those looooooong hallways to get to places. We were midship, so a fairly equal distance to everywhere, although I always went the wrong way anyhow, so I still had to walk twice as far to get somewhere. 

We went for dinner in one of the main dining rooms, The Seven Seas (original name!). I had a shrimp cake for an appetizer, duck for main course and crème brûlée for dessert. 

The little shrimp cake was pretty good, it had actual whole shrimp in it, as opposed to mashed/ground up shrimp.

I had to laugh at the little sprig of thyme in my potato. Imagine that that is someone’s job, just making little thyme trees times a thousand.

My favourite dessert, we both ate it quite frequently.

After dinner we went to the theatre to see the All Aboard show which was pretty cheesy, it was a song & dance routine intro to the NCL performers, the costumes were amazing though, full of glitter and sparkle.

Then it was early to bed. Slept like the proverbial log. Goodbye Finland.

September 30/2026

 Going to northern Europe was never really in my Top 10 of places to go, but after going to Iceland & Norway last year, I thought to myself “Hey, I really like this area. I think I’d like to come back someday and see more of it.” And that was kinda that for a while. 

Every few weeks I’d check for a good cruise in a small ship with a good itinerary at a good price, at a good time. Always looking for a unicorn. And, like the unicorn, it was always non-existent. 

To make a long story short, I eventually came across something that appealed to me, and booked it. Case closed. Our departure was in a few short weeks….nothing like leaving things to the last moment. I always try to not get excited about a trip ahead of time; I feel like that will jinx things, so we didn’t tell anyone. 

September 30. The flights were not ideal, and sadly, no direct flights to Helsinki, so we got up early (ugh) and were at Cranbrook airport at some ungodly hour and arrived in Calgary at 7:30 AM.  *whew*, at least that part is done. We had a few hours to kill so we found an amazing corner, almost like a little studio. A wall on either side, 2 sort of couches, 2 tables and a huge pillar at one end which was like a third wall. Steven instantly made himself a bed and slept and I started to read my traditional new Reacher book, a must for the beginning of every trip. There was no one around us, it was pretty cool. 

After a couple of hours of rest, we hit the Aspire Lounge, had a nice lunch, a plethora of cappuccinos, a couple of beer (we all know that Holiday Morning Beer & Clam is the proper way to start a trip), the warm cookies they provide (we also all know that Holiday Calories do not count) plus, who can turn down free beer and cookies? 

Boarding the KLM flight to Amsterdam was super quick and efficient. Since it was a long-ish flight I treated us to better seats than usual, which have more legroom, recline further, and hot towels to soothe my frazzled brow. All I wanted was for the plane to be in the air so that I could actually relax. Our flight attendant looked exactly, and I mean exactly like Walter White in his Heisenberg era. I had to ask him if people told him that all the time and he said “Uh, no.” And then he gave me a side-eye and whispered “Yes, but shhhhhh.” 

We each had an aisle seat and we each had an empty middle seat beside us! Score! Elbow room and a place to stash those annoying blankets.

Dinner was pretty good. I had vegetarian pasta which looked incredibly gross, it had a pesto sauce in a revolting shade of green, and once I forced myself to try it, it was not too terribly bad. It came with a Greek salad, and the usual cheese in a package that is impossible to open without using your teeth, which of course then risks a broken tooth in the middle of the sky, and the wooden utensils are useless for opening things, so the cheese stayed unopened. Those wooden utensils are so awful, it’s like dragging a piece of 2X4 across your tongue.  Cheesecake for dessert which was also quite tasty. To be honest, any meal that I don’t have to cook is excellent! 

By now I was exhausted and too tired to watch a movie, so I put on Project Hail Mary and “watched” it three times. I’ve seen it before and I’ll see it again, and I’m a little obsessed with it. 

Arrived in Amsterdam on time and since everything so far had been smooth and wonderful, and having Walter White as a flight attendant was a huge plus, I figured Schiphol would be a snap. I mean, everything had gone SO smoothly that I made the rookie mistake of assuming it would continue. Ha. Apparently the universe felt that I was getting a little too comfortable and we had been lulled into a false sense of travel security. 

Well. All we had to do was follow the signs for Connections, and we did exactly that, prepared to scan our passports and continue on. We rounded a corner and entered The Gates of Hell. 

I have never seen such a disorganized crowd of people. The hall/area was jammed with frustrated, yelling, angry people. I felt like I was in the midst of some sort of revolt. The security people were yelling “Zone 2! Zone 1” and gesturing wildly,  passengers were yelling, line-ups were a zig-zag mess, no one knew where to go. People were sneaking under the line divider things (belt barriers?) and getting yelled at. It was hot, it was crowded. It was pure chaos. I knew there was no way we would make our next flight, which was in about an hour. 

I heard a woman beside say to her family “Hey..I think we can get in the fast track lane if we show him that we’ll miss our flight if we stay here” and she flagged some fellow down and off they went. “Hmmm” I thought, “I can do that too.” I found a security guy and showed him my boarding pass and told him we were going to miss our flight, and could we please get in the fast lane? “No” he said, after giving the boarding pass a cursory glance, “you have time, you’ll make it”. By now we had 40 minutes left and the line HAD NOT MOVED. It was noon here but 3 AM Cranbrook time and I was just tired and ready to cry. Steven went to the same guy, said the same thing, showed the same boarding pass within SECONDS of when I had, and the guy quickly said “Follow me” and off we went. I was both happy and mighty pissed off….I guess a woman’s opinion was not worth listening to. But I wisely shut myself up. 

The flight from there to Helsinki was about 2 hours, and again we had an empty seat beside us, but I wasn’t going to let the travel Gods fool me this time so I pretended it didn’t matter in the least. We were served a snack of egg salad sandwiches, which struck me as really odd. Egg salad is one of those things that you are always warned about if they sit out for more than a second longer than they should. And normally they smell as well. These had no smell, and I ate it anyway. Best egg salad I have ever had! The time went quickly and before I knew it we were in Finland! It was easy to get out of the airport and grab a taxi. We only travel with a carry-on each (and our personal item), so no waiting at a baggage carousel. 

When I booked the hotel I was asked if it was any sort of special occasion, and I said “Not really. My birthday is a couple of weeks after we get home, so this is a birthday trip for me, plus it was our 50th anniversary last year, so this is a belated anniversary trip”, and that was that, but when I gave our name at the desk the girl said “50 years! Congratulations, we’ve upgraded you to a suite.” I was so happy! It made the stress of the Amsterdam airport vanish into the nether parts of my mind, and I knew I could finally relax.

When we got up to our room, it was glorious, and, a little box of chocolates and a sweet card was there too. 

So, note the card has a quote from Moomin Papa. Do you guys remember the Moomin family? I had forgotten that they were Finnish. I used to read my boys Moomin stories all the time, they were a bedtime story tradition. I sort of became a little emotional. Awwww…..Moomins.

I booked this hotel because it was very close to the waterfront and also close to the large outdoor market that is open daily. We will be here for a short time, so I wanted to be able to walk and see some local sights.

By now it was about 4 or 5 AM Cranbrook time, and about 2 PM here. Confuse. Confuse. Confuse. (If you’ve seen Project Hail Mary you’ll get that reference) Steven decided to have a nap and he all but disappeared into a fluff of duvets and pillows and other feathery things.

Hotel F6

Corner of the room. There was a couch and end tables to the left, and a “coffee station”, like a teeny-tiny café and I can’t find my picture!

The shower had blue LED lighting all around the doors and when the bathroom light was out, stars glowed in the shower doors. I don’t know who goes to the bathroom in the dark, or maybe who showers in the dark, but it amused me greatly. To be honest, I tried to shower in the dark the next morning, to see the stars, but it was not successful. I couldn’t find the shampoo or the soap, and then I had to try and find the light switch in the dark and it was a watery mess by the time I was done. Oh well, live and learn: showering is to be done when one can see, regardless of what marvels might appear in the dark.

But, back to the rest of Day One. I asked the girl at the front for a map, or for directions on how to get to the market and she gave me quite detailed instructions, but as it turns out, it was so simple to find that even someone with absolutely zero sense of direction (I mean me) could find it. 

Leave the hotel, turn left, walk one block, look right and you can see the water and the market only a block away. I felt quite accomplished!

The area sort of reminded me of Victoria.

The market was full of interesting stalls and little restaurants, but I knew Steven would want to check it out too, so I didn’t linger there for long.

Everywhere has those huge Ferris wheels nowadays.

The European version of a seagull, they are fat and fluffy and look very arrogant. I think these ones are called Herring Gulls. 

One of those horrible “love lock” bridges. I hate them so I have no

idea why I take pictures of them, other than the shadows here looked kind of cool.

Uspenski Cathedral, the largest Orthodox Church in Western Europe. 

Just some nice street art. 

I headed back toward the hotel and instantly took a wrong turn and somehow got lost. I mean jeez, it was one block. *sigh* I headed back to the water and paid closer attention to where I was going. 

I found the hotel and headed for a block in the other direction and found a beautiful square surrounded by benches, with this monument in the centre.

History lesson: 

In November 1939, the Soviet Union attacked Finland.  The assault began without a proper declaration of war—the Soviet Union seemingly hoped their invasion of Finland would be as easy as those in the nearby Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. (Which we will be visiting in the next few days) This was the start of the Winter War. Over 25,000 Finns lost their lives as they were greatly outnumbered by the Soviets, but they successfully repelled the Soviet forces. 

You can look through the holes in the silver ball and see thousands of pictures of the men who died in The Winter War.

This is one side of the square which was partially surrounded by trees and beautiful buildings

I continued to wander, being careful to keep track of where I was going, and because I sometimes have the mentality of a 12 year old boy, this restaurant made me snort laugh to myself.

But I think the building itself is slightly shocked and dismayed by the name.

I walked a block in the other direction to see this place, which I thought was likely a church, but it’s called The House of Nylands, it’s 125 years old and was built as student housing and a social gathering place for university students in the early 1900’s! 

By now it was getting late (or early, I don’t know anymore, and annoyingly enough enough my Fitbit won’t change to local time, so I’m either trying to subtract 9 hours or digging for my phone, or just randomly guessing.

I found my way back to the hotel and stopped in at the bar for a cappuccino. The hotel has a regular front entrance, like any hotel anywhere, but once inside you go to a central courtyard which then has doors that go to the restaurant or the bar or the elevators. This picture is that area, and also looking up. 

Even though this looks like outside, it’s actually inside the hotel, but open to the sky.

By now it was getting dark, I was totally exhausted so I went upstairs and decided to just go to bed. End of Day 1.

Eleventh Day. Time to go Home.

 We went to bed early last night, after organizing our suitcases and getting things ready for the early morning and woke up in Southampton.  Our disembarkation time was 8:15, so in order to shower, have breakfast and meet in the theatre to get our airport bus number and all that, we had to be up and out of the room by 7-ish. I hate going home. I mean, I like my home, but I could travel for much longer periods of time.

I took this picture at the port, it’s just a cargo ship, but for some reason I really love this picture. Maybe the colours or the calmness, I don’t know, but I love it.

We disembarked on time, and walked forever to get to the luggage place. Thank goodness it was all downhill, switchback after switchback, it was insane. Finally we arrived at The Hall Of Insanity & Suitcases. It was organized in maybe a 7 out of 10. We found both of our carry-on’s and found our bus. It’s was about an hour and half to Heathrow, and it was actually a nice drive though the countryside,

I haven’t been through Heathrow in years, I try to avoid it at all costs because all I hear is horror stories, but it was easier to navigate and get through than Calgary is. Honestly!  Maybe it was the day of the week and the time of the day, but sheesh, we were though security and in the hall in no time. 

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 2:10, and considering they want to you there 3 hours early, I was worried about the timing, line-ups, customs and all that, but we had time for lunch and some perusing of the stores that I can’t afford to shop in. Gucci, YSL, and even a Tiffany’s. I wonder how good those stores actually do in an airport? I just bought a bottle of water and a giant bag of M&M’s 

When we were leaving Canada, two weeks ago, we met a couple in the Calgary airport who were going on the same cruise as us, and even on the same deck! We never saw them once on the cruise, but we did see them in the hall here at Heathrow!  We compared notes, and had a little chit-chat and then boarded. 

The M&M’s were a pain in the ass to carry and my bag was so jam-packed that there was not even room for a peanut, so I quickly wrote a note on a Post-it (yes, I pack a little pad of Post-its) saying “Thank’s for dealing with a plane load of (often) miserable people. Have a treat on us” and I handed it to the flight attendant on our way in. Well, you’d think I gave them gold coins. All through the flight they profusely thanked us, and at one point four of them, two of which were men, came to our seats and said “Shannon Smitna? Steven Smitna?” And I really thought they were going to tell us that air marshals were going to escort us off the plane when we landed. But it was just an appreciation “visit”.

The flight was good, the food was fine, we had no empty seats beside us, but my seat mates both were tiny and slept  the whole way. I watched the new Mission Impossible, The Last Showgirl (man, Pamela Anderson was so good), Companion (a strange sci-fi/thriller) and Deaner ‘89, which is really bad Canadian made comedy. It’s so bad that it is awesome, very much like Trailer Park Boys with a heavy metal/hockey theme. I snort-laughed a lot. It doesn’t seem to be streaming anywhere, but omg, keep your eyes open for it. 

And in no time we were back in Calgary. It was almost midnight according to our body’s time, even though it was only 4:30 pm here, but we were pretty tired and when I had booked these flights, the idea of then waiting for hours and catching another flight to Cranbrook just seemed overwhelming, so I had booked us a room at the Airport Marriott. We stay there whenever we fly into Calgary after a holiday, or sometimes we stay there if we have an early morning flight, and man, worth every penny. It’s a 5 minute walk from getting off the plane, and a literal 2 minute walk the next morning to get to the domestic terminal. No going outside, no shuttles to wait for or taxi’s to call, to me, pure luxury. And a restaurant right there as well. 

We zonked right out, and slept until 8 the next morning, I think we each slept about 12 hours. Our flight was on time, Scott was waiting to pick us up and that was that. Back to our regular lives. 

So. A few random thoughts. I guess all airports have gotten rid of the “remove shoes” policy as we didn’t have to do that anywhere, thank god. That was the worst part of travel…the rush and haste and trying to not hold other people up. No one wanted to see my bag of liquids either, although all the security lines still say that you have to have no more than 100ml containers in the quart size bag. All the airports were so well organized and easy to navigate. Well, except the lounges in YYC.

The port in Belgium is the world’s largest port for the import and export of new vehicles, handling over 2 million a year. Right now there are tens  of thousands of Russian cars stuck here, due the war in Ukraine. We drove by them and the size of the lots are mind boggling.

People’s opinions on cruises are so varied. I’m always annoyed when someone gives that condescending look and says “I’d never cruise, stuck in a Petri dish of germs, you don’t really see anything” and blah blah blah. But, crowds are crowds, whether you’re in Disneyland, or in Vegas, or at a conference somewhere. And those crowds are far worse than off-season cruise crowds. 

I like unpacking once and yet still seeing different places. I’d rather spend 3 days seeing Norway on a cruise than not seeing Norway at all. But I also like to go on a holiday where we drive ourselves to different places and sleep in a new hotel every night. People can like two different things. Non-cruisers don’t seem to understand that. We can enjoy more than one kind of travel. 

Anyhow. Here are my favourite pictures from each place.