At Sea in the Baltic

This ship is much nicer than the one in the Mediterranean. Perhaps it is newer, Not that the other wasn't nice --- it was great, and the people were very attentive. One of the best things is having a big window to the outside world. Even though our view is of the lifeboat we can have natural light and we can see the condition of the sea. The cabin is a bit larger and the bathroom is luxurious in comparison to the one on the other ship.
Tomorrow we will make landfall in Estonia....so for today we cruise. Surprises abound.

1. It is pretty cold here. It makes sense. This is very far north and the water is no doubt fed from the ice caps.
2. This cruise has a lot of older folks aboard. Most probably in their 70s or 80s. There are the standard groups of families taking a family vacation together, and there are few people who are younger as well.
3. Russia must be a difficult place to travel --- that changes the rules with some frequency. Today we were told to bring our passports and have them copied because we would be required to have the copy of the passport, the pasport, and a special pass issued by the tour line as well.
4. Food on this ship is a bit more elegant -- today there was a high tea at 3:00 p.m. in addition to the regular offerings in the main cafeteria.
5. There are more people with mobility limitations on this ship than on the last.
6. The swells are a bit higher than in the Mediterranean where the seas often resembled glass, still the rocking is very gentle and not a problem at all.
7. There is a detail of officers that go through checking public areas for dust or streaks --they called the cleaning crew over when they found some dust and ordered it cleaned up --- things must be spotless.
8. The crew seems mostly Asian -- many are from Indonesia-- on RC there seemed to be many Indians and some Asians.
9. Fresh SQUEEZED orange juice!! EVERY morning.
10. Most of the crew seem eager to please -- but may not be as experienced or trained as the RC crew was.
10 Sunset here is at 11:30 p.m. and id is not really dark all night-- just sort of twilight.

I took a long nap after yesterday's exercise and missed lunch entirely (not that I needed lunch and certainly tea sufficed!) Kathy went to tea also at a different time. I think she napped as well, but since I was a asleep, she may have been out having adventures during the afternoon. I went to the library and found a very comfortable chair and checked with the Internet person about the slowness of the connection. Apparently I need to try to connect very early in the morning and maybe it will be O.K. or very late at night! The explanation for the high cost is that this is satellite, but then there are fairly inexpensive satellite connections in U.S. Also it is not advised to take my computer into Estonia or Russia. Chances are that there would be no connections and additionally there would be the probability that it would be stolen....

When I tried to post yesterday -- it took nearly 5 minutes just to get to the blog! The post failed --- I spent 20 minutes on line without succeeding in posting. I did check my email so that was good --- but it is not a happy Internet connection --- and the thought that I could do research on each place we visited is just really outrageous. The ship offers free instruction in most Microsoft applications which seems like a great deal for folks who need some instruction! But the cost of Internet is horrible --- since it takes a long time to connect --- eating up money at $.55 per minute!
Early to bed! Tomorrow - Estonia