WC #23: The Times we had on the Baltic Sea!

A wall in upper old towne Tallinn, Estonia
Summed up our feelings for the whole trip!

A year and a half ago, I received the most extravagant Christmas present of my life. My children have always done a good job of choosing gifts for me that suit me or my relationship with them. Last year, though, Meg decided it was time for me to experience some of the family heritage that I have always held so dear, even though I know relatively little about it. On Christmas morning with a couple families together at Sami's house and everyone else tuned in via Skype, Megan (with the assistance of Andi & Cari, my two eldest granddaughters) presented a PowerPoint introducing my gift... a 2 week visit to Poland and cruise of the Baltic Sea! I was speechless and, of course, full of tears, but soooo excited! Cameron gave up taking Sami on a 2nd honeymoon to celebrate their 15th anniversary so that she could accompany Meg & I on this marvelous excursion! We were going to Europe. With our passports!

The preparations began! We all got new luggage that would be easy to spot in airports and cruise terminals. Bright orange for Sami; hot pink for me; and fun yellow checkerboard for Meg. Passports in line. Walking shoes purchased and before we knew it, May 30th arrived and so did Meg! 

June 1 my favorite transport driver picked us up in an SUV, loaded seven suitcases, purses and travel pillows and we were off to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport. 

The beginning was a bit worrisome when the ticket agent insisted that only Megan was on the flight and she insisted that it was our responsibility to find our reservations, but everything worked out eventually and we were on our way to Washington, D.C. to make our connecting flight and then on to Copenhagen, Denmark!

I became a fan of watching the progress of our flight!

My girls were able to sleep a bit better than I was...

Don't know if they even know I took this picture.
Shhhh. Aren't they cute?

From Copenhagen we boarded yet another plane that took us to our first destination:

Poznan Poland, birthplace of my paternal
great-grandmother, Bertha Guse!

In Poznan we stayed in the Hotel Bravaria on the old towne square. Sami had a bit of a rough night the first night there. She had the room closest to the square where there was a bit of a party going on in "Olga's" honor as she heard repeated, enthusiastic cheers for Olga. She was a great sport and her theme was "Party on Poznan!" She was also the first to recognize how EARLY the sun rises in June in Poland, especially after losing a day through time zones!

Original cobblestone street in old Poznan

Old buildings and farmer's market with
a variety of open air restaurants on the square.

It was so amazing to see the same buildings and sites that we knew my great grandmother saw as a young girl before she moved to the United States!

View from our "attic" hotel room.
Sami enjoyed listening to the parties at
night!

Oddly enough, we noticed everything around Poznan reflected a theme of two goats fighting... We had to hear the story. Apparently, in Poznan history, there was a king who was sponsoring a feast. Concerned that there wouldn't be enough food for all the people attending, he sent his cook out to obtain more meat. The cook returned with two goats. When the time came to butcher the goats, they were entertaining a large crowd by butting heads and fighting.

To this day, the goats come out of their respective towers and butt heads above the clock on the town hall every day at noon!

Goat fight at noon!

The cuisine in Poznan was much to our liking and, recognizing many flavors from my youth, believe "Grandma Guse" must have had a great influence on dishes I grew up eating.

"Cottage Cheese" served warm on baked potatoes, hot & sour soup (which tasted a lot like beef stew) and pierogies were the best! St. Marten's rolls, a very popular dessert, wasn't so popular with these Americans... 

reminded me a good deal of mincemeat pie, that I was also told was delicious as a child...

Quaint Polish restaurant with a variety
of pierogies for lunch!

Poznan has exceptional ice cream too! Who knew? One of our last taste tests there was parfaits. Meg had pistachio, I had beer caramel and Sami tried Seaberry. She wasn't a fan....

Sami putting on a brave face for her too sweet
Seaberry. I rather liked the beer caramel...

All too soon it was time to leave Poznan and head back to Copenhagen and the start of our cruise. Poznan is DEFINITELY one place I want to return to and hope all of my children and grandchildren make it there one day. For any of my cousins who may happen to read my blog... I highly recommend the trip. (And if you can handle the 8 flights of stairs, the attic room at the Hotel Bravaria!)

Meg's travel agent arranged for a driver to pick us up at the airport and deliver us to the Kong Arthur hotel. What a fun next phase to our trip, in a hotel with coats of arms on the walls...

and suits of armor posed in the lobby and hallways!

Devoting ourselves to eating authentically on our trip, we asked the desk clerk for a recommendation for dinner. Who knew that Denmark is really only well known for breakfast and lunch cuisine. So we took an alternate suggestion and headed to a Nordic restaurant "a few" blocks from the hotel. If you're headed to Denmark, I don't recommend it... but we were good sports and ate all of our 8 course meal.

Fried chicken foot with small lobster tail
and burning juniper twig... Ummm...Yum?

The next day, our tour guide and driver picked us up at the hotel and we began a grand tour of Copenhagen!

Across the street from the Kong Arthur

 I was thrilled to see my first REAL castle

and was fascinated seeing and hearing stories of Hans Christian Andersen, author of my favorite childhood stories and seeing the house where he actually lived.

Little Mermaid statue in Copenhagen.

Following the whirlwind tour of Copenhagen, we were dropped off at our cruise ship and prepared for a week at sea! We bought our beverage packages, the girls bought their spa packages and we headed aboard the ship! 

Having been on a cruise a few years before, I knew they were going to make us do an emergency drill, so my girls indulged their mother and we grabbed our life vests and headed for our Muster Station. We had the best organized, fun group on the ship! We know it!

The first passengers reporting!

We unpacked our suitcases... 

Checked out the view from our balcony...

And enjoyed our first night on the Baltic Sea! Wir kommen zum Deutschland!

The following morning, we docked in Germany. While we waited for our first tour, we found ways to amuse ourselves! Meg and Sami were entertained by a "Mr. Bean" lookalike...

while I tried to understand a man with a heavy Scottish brogue who came to sit by his wife near us. Thank heavens he had a good sense of humor and to my statement of "English" while pointing to myself, he spouts, again in his brogue "We' now, tha's thah bes' English I go'!" (My apologies. I don't know how to write in brogue... hopefully you get the idea though!)

One of the saddest sites in Mecklenburg was a remnant of the housing people lived in during the Soviet oppression.

Housing in Mecklenburg during
Soviet occupation

There was a big tour to Berlin that we probably should have gone on, but since there was a tour to Mecklenburg and we knew the Staffeldt family had come from there, we opted for that tour instead. 

Town square

We learned more about the tug-of-war with Russia and heard more about how they came in and "burned our stuff," 

Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Coat of Arms
The bull with the tongue out is supposed to
be frightening, seen as as sign of aggression.

but the tour was a bit rushed with no time for souvenir shopping and, unfortunately, we were three of about 12 people on the tour who spoke English.

Heaven forbid this Italian man would trade
places with Sami so we could talk...

Everyone else spoke Italian and we had an Italian tour guide from the ship... Needless to say, we didn't receive much attention... We very much enjoyed our time touring the grounds of Schwerin Castle though!

Schwerin, das Schloss

As we traveled on the bus, Megan found a road sign that she found especially entertaining..

Yes... it's pronounced the way it appears.
But it means "drive out" or "exit!"

When we got back to our ship, we traded some German passengers for some new ones and ended up with a delightful couple assigned to the next table for dinner each night. 

We set sail again, this time heading for Stockholm, Sweden. 

Cool ship as we approach Stockholm!

I loved seeing windmills of all types!
This was a shot from our balcony as we were coming near Stockholm.

This time we had a bus tour of the city with a few stops along the way. 

 It was reassuring to see the US Embassy...

And one of my personal favorites on the tour... The Abba Museum!!! Too bad we didn't get to make a stop there!

Sweden offered many more opportunities for souvenir shopping than Germany had and as we left the shop at the port, my girls had to pose with their "bums on the Sveeeedish!"

At least it's a Sveeedish horse...

Another night of sailing and we landed in Tallinn, Estonia! Prior to being given this awesome vacation, I didn't even know Estonia was a country! Now easily one of my favorite places in the world! Back to a personal tour guide, we saw beautiful sites and heard marvelous stories!

Lower olde towne Tallinn
Founded in 1154

I think Sami's FitBit said we walked more than five miles that day... mostly uphill....

The rooftops of lower olde town Tallinn from upper...
Beautiful!

Architecture in Tallinn is beautiful and a great deal of the original city walls still exist.

Lookout walk on the city wall

Cathedral in Tallinn reflects the Russian influence

Estonia suffered centuries of domination. A peace-loving people they found means of quiet protest. We were especially touched by the story of Estonians being forbidden to sing any of their own country's patriotic songs. New songs were composed to bring unity and loyalty to the people in ways their oppressors wouldn't understand. 

Amphitheater used by Estonians for
peaceful protest through song.

The oppression they suffered continued until the fall of communism...

40,000 people gathered in peaceful
through music...

We purchased many souvenirs in Tallinn, but my favorite of the whole trip is my little doll in authentic dress.

Back to the ship with one more stop to go! Our final stop was the one Meg had been looking forward to... St. Petersburg, Russia!

Sami & I were a bit leery to get off the ship when we docked. Our travel agent had said that Visas weren't necessary since we weren't spending the night in Russia, but the people on the ship said that unless we had a visa or were taking one of their excursions, we shouldn't get off the ship or we may not be able to get back on! I had visions of this marvelous vacation ending with me NEVER seeing American soil again, but Meg, determined that she was not coming all this way and NOT stepping on Russian soil, told us to just shut up and let her do the talking... fortunately she had taken a semester of Russian in college; enough to help her with the basic communication with the port authorities! It was still touchy while they called our Russian contact to verify that there was indeed a tour guide ready and waiting!

Meg, excited to be on Russian soil!

As all of the European cities we visited, St. Petersburg had beautiful architecture. What surprised me most was the number of beautiful churches and cathedrals!

Interior of one of the cathedrals
in St. Petersburg

While finding St. Petersburg a beautiful city and the people to be friendly, I was still a little uncomfortable watching the Russian soldiers march by...

And after spending the past 10 days hearing all the stories about the Russians invading other countries and "burning their stuff," it was quite amazing to hear our tour guide spouting the praises of their leaders who led those invasions!

Always one to live life to the fullest, Meg couldn't leave Russia without purchasing some authentic Russian vodka!

And raising a toast as we sailed on....

That night was our final night on the ship and we had to say good-bye to our new friends.... Lynn from Australia, who took it upon herself to let us know what was what... and occassionnally offered advise about how to eat some of the European dishes we were not familiar with...

Our waiter, Francesco, who initially seemed pretty grouchy.... but we got him to lighten up.

He even began to show signs of a sense of humor!

So many other exciting moments I haven't even touched on: Winning 450 euros at Bingo; Sami's exploding drink; Dances from around the world; Karaoke....

And before we knew it, it our ship was docking and it was time to return home, with mixed emotions. While it had been a marvelous experience and we had so much fun, we were all ready to be able to understand the language being spoken around us, to sleep in our own beds (special callout to Sami for taking the hide-a-bed for a week and Meg for sleeping without the aid of earplugs in a bed with her mother) and to eat a meal that we were familiar with and wasn't served in courses!

So, we packed our bags...

Bid our ship a fond farewell...

And began the long flight home... that, incidentally, presented an adventure itself since none of us were aware that we actually had to collect our luggage in Chicago and get it on the right conveyor to take it to the plane that would take us the rest of the way home.  Oh! And the fact that we were a bit confused on the time differences and thought we had MUCH less time to catch our final flight than we actually did! Better than the other way around, I suppose!

Enjoying some American cuisine at Chicago O'Hare field, waiting
for our final flight home. (As tired as I was, I have to say, I was
still easily entertained by my girls showing their jet lag...}

In closing, almost one full year since our adventure ended, I just want to say how incredibly blessed I am. I grew up with a strong sense of family with a pride in my heritage. I had parents, aunts, uncles, cousins and brothers who loved me and stood by me. I've been blessed with friends all over the country. And most of all I have been blessed by my God, who loves me enough to give me five wonderful children who know me and love me enough to work together to give me such a wonderful gift! This was a trip I NEVER would have taken on my own. My mind and my heart have been opened to new adventures and how wonderful to have adult children to experience them with me. I love you all and look forward to many more adventures! 

And now in honor of international dance night on the ship and the land of my ancestors.... everybody dance!