BALTIC CRUISE AND DENMARK TRIP AUGUST 9 TO AUGUST 30, 2010 And so we begin the second great journey in this, our fourth year of blissful retirement from useful labor, by traveling to Stockholm, boarding a cruise ship that will sail the Baltic for ten days and take us to relatively exotic ports, and visiting Copenhagen before driving around the rest of Denmark. Our only concerns before leaving the U. S. of A. are: (1) Will the Icelandic volcano (Eyjafjallajökull by name) erupt again, thus interfering with our overseas flight? (2) Will the brutal heat wave* that has enervated much of _____________________________________________________________________________ *It has been an unusually hot summer in Eastern Europe. Moscow has been ringed by forest fires and St. Petersburg, one of our destinations, has seen temperatures over 100°F. In fact, a Houston native, if you can believe it, having taken the identical Regent Seven Seas Voyager itinerary that we'll be following, but from July 8 to 18, reported on Cruise Critic how beastly hot she found the various museums and churches in St. Pete, none of which had the benefit of modern air-conditioning. _______________________________________________________________________________ this part of Europe break by the time we get there? And (3) Will my sciatica* be well-enough behaved that we can enjoy ourselves? _____________________________________________________________________________ *Readers of my New Zealand journal (http://web.utk.edu/~rmagid/NewZealand2010.pdf) will recall that the sciatica that began in October, 2009, was but a mild nuisance during our travels earlier this year. This summer, however, the pain in both of m y legs increased to the point that I had an MRI done in early July, visited a neurosurgery practice on July 27, and was advised to get a cortisone shot directly to the area of the spine where the bulging discs were impinging on the sciatic nerve. Alas, it was not possible to schedule an appointment for the magic injection before our August 9 departure. It's a shame, really, because I now realize (post-injection in early September) that the shot would have provided substantial relief. _____________________________________________________________________________ In the course of this document, I will occasionally use the acronyms TMOU and TWOU to refer, respectively, to Prof. Dr. Mr. Ron Magid and Prof. Dr. Mrs. Lee Magid. My loyal readers, whose numbers can be counted on the finger (no, not that finger) of one hand, will know the meaning of these abbreviations. For the rest of you, here's what I wrote in my New Zealand travelog: These two expressions were used extensively in my Scotland travelog from 2001 (http://web.utk.edu/~rmagid/europe01.pdf) and are "explained" in the index to that travelog (http://web.utk.edu/~rmagid/eur01index.pdf) as follows: "At several points in the document, I found myself using the expressions 'the man of us' and 'the woman of us' ... It’s not plagiarism if I admit that I lifted these expressions, albeit quite subconsciously, from a favorite book. A prize of inestimable value will go to the first person who can identify the source." Although thousands (and, perhaps, even millions) of readers have enjoyed or hated or fallen asleep reading the Scotland travelog, not one has com e forth to claim the prize. So the offer still stands. Alas, nobody who has also delved into the 2010 New Zealand travelog has claimed the prize. Is it possible that I have no readers? Or are they just too lazy to do the necessary research? Or is the question too damned hard? Or pointless? W ell, the offer stands: a prize of inestimable value awaits the first person who can identify the source of these expressions. OK, here's the truth of the matter. One tortured soul, Dr. Julian E. (call me "Jay") Parker, a former Ph.D. student of mine and now languishing in South Carolina,* did deduce the author to whom I referred but not ________________________________________________________________ *Ah, yes, the great state of South Carolina, which started the U.S. Civil War by firing on Fort Sumter. More recently, South Carolina has "distinguished" itself as the home of Gov. Mark ("You mean the 2 Appalachian Trail isn't in Argentina?") Sanders; Rep. Joe ("You lie!") W ilson; Sen. Jim ("If we're able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.") DeMint; the late Sen. Strom Thurmond (who is, mercifully, still dead); Miss South Carolina (and her memorable answer at the Miss Teen USA pageant); and football coach Steve Spurrier. ______________________________________________________________________ (alas) the book.* Nice try, Jay, and too bad - you are now disqualified from the contest. But for the rest of the 6.7 billion Earthlings who would like to compete, here are some more hints to the author's identity: ___________________________________________________________________________ *Stop the presses! Yet another example of a South Carolina GOP politico acting stupidly has just surfaced. Glenn McConnell, president of the state senate, came to a meeting of the National Federation of Republican Women dressed in Confederate soldier garb. Pictures show him alongside a couple of ... um ... "darkies" who are dressed as slaves. How amusing! (See http://www.fitsnews.com/2010/09/14/how-republicans-party/ ) __________________________________________________________________________ An American, he has written nearly 20 novels or collections of tales. He is 80 years old. He lives in an eastern state but not in South Carolina. He sprinkles neologisms like herward, himward, and usward in his writing. In his most recent collection of stories, he wrote "The terms of the endowment are un-fiddle- withable." And he often begins dialogs with expressions like "W ell, yes ..." or "Yes, well ..." Back to the matter at hand. Arrangements for the cruise had been made with Stefan Bisciglia of Specialty Cruise and Villas, a family-run travel agency in Gig Harbor and part of the Virtuoso network of travel agents around the world. Stefan had helped us set up our accommodations in the North and South Islands of New Zealand early this year; and had worked with us on selecting the cruise line that offered the best value and most interesting destinations without the pomp and ceremony of larger* cruise ships and ________________________________________________________________________ *W e selected a medium-size# ship, as these things go: 700 passengers and 450 crew. Stefan also advised us to book a cabin closer to the front of the ship, so as to minimize vibrations on the open sea. On the ship that we selected, all of the suites had balconies: we had the smallest (at 306 sq ft plus 50 sq ft for the veranda) but it turned out to be much more than adequate. This was, by far, the most popular size, but had we been Arab oil barons or U.S. bankers or NBA stars, we could have had suites as large as 1300 sq ft, not including the grand piano, swimming pool, man-cave, and heliport. #The ship may be considered "medium-sized" although it looks huge when we sail by it on our Helsinki harbor cruise on August 12. Nevertheless, it pales in comparison to the recently commissioned Royal Caribbean Oasis of the Seas which accommodates over 6,000 passengers and has 16 decks. It is so large that on its maiden voyage in 2009, when it had to pass under the Great Belt bridge Denmark (more about this bridge on p. 41), the smokestacks had to be lowered; and, by traveling at low speed, the vessel was able to run deeper in the water. The newspapers this week (early November, 2010) described a similar close call for this ship with a normal air draft of 72 m going under the Great Belt bridge with a clearance of only 65 m. _________________________________________________________________________ longer voyages that require form al wear at one or more dinners. In every regard, Regent Seven Seas was the clear winner. Indeed, one of the chief features of this cruise line is that the price is all-inclusive: unless one wants to make purchases at the ship's très chères boutiques or throw away money at the casino, there is no charge for anything. (Well, there is a fairly steep fee for a very slow and quixotic internet connection; and there would have been significant roaming charges had we used our cell phone.) Thus, all meals, wine, liquor, service, etc. are included. There is even a policy that forbids giving gratuities to the staff. Perhaps most surprising is that the price includes the delivery of two bottles of whisky and one bottle of wine to the room . W e took advantage of the former, ordering one-liter bottles (huge!) of single malts Macallan and Glenfiddich (not our preferred brands, but the available list was limited to these and three others - and the "price" was right); the Macallan we consumed, little by little, in various Danish hotel 3 rooms, although we left the last one-third to any staff person at the Copenhagen Hilton who wanted it; the Glenfiddich we carefully packed in our checked luggage - I'm pleased to report that it survived its arduous journey intact. The cruise we chose was scheduled for 10 days and would allow us to visit Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg (for three days), Tallinn, Riga, Visby, Gdansk, Berlin, and Copenhagen. We also selected (from a fairly long menu) a number of no-charge excursions and guided tours provided by the ship's staff; the only exception was a modestly priced outing: a 3.5-hr bus ride, each way, from the port of Warnermünde to Berlin and a six-hour tour through the capital city. In addition, at Stefan's advice (and the advice of many experienced travelers writing for Cruise Critic), we arranged for a private guide and car during two of the three days in St.