Helsinki

EagleIZ at Uspenski Cathedral

We left the ship about 9:00 and started on a 1.3 mile hike into town and the City Museum. Along the way we looked for GC3P0C6 geocache but had to log a DNF. We arrived at the museum but found it was closed until noon so we proceeded on to GC9898 at Uspenski Cathedral. We could easily spot the onion domes of the Eastern Orthodox church, a huge affair on an island hilltop near the East Port. The cache, our first in Finland, was in the wall, behind a rock, in a tree covered corner, nicely hid. On the way we saw an interesting display of 100s of padlocks of all sorts attached to a small bridge to the church's island. We weren't sure of the significance at the time but have since seen others like it and even a few geocaches placed on these lock collections. Turns out it is a favorite custom of couples to seal their love for each other. 

A word about Judy's yellow jacket.  We bought these on a trip to Washington DC when the weather turned a bit nasty on us. Since that time we've worn them all over the world and I still have them packed away somewhere. One of the best buys I've ever made! We had them on in Amsterdam when a fellow approached us and wanted to take our picture. His "thing" was taking photos of couples dressed alike and we had caught his eye. He has a website loaded with interesting photos but we didn't make the bigtime.

The Bad Boy

On our way to the next cache (GC238FX Central Market Square) we ran into the Bad Boy sculpture and took a photo for our friend Roy. The cache was under a bridge and hard to get to without attracting the attention of 100s of nearby nubbles but I think we did ok. This area was known as Cholera Basin and was apparently infamous as a city sewer. The Bad Boy was an appropriate sculpture.

We eventually did make it back to the Central Market where I had lunch of some delicious fried fish, rice, and a local beer. I've heard stories that our beloved "french fries" actually originated as something like this during WWI. The fish vendor ran out of fish and fried up some potato strips instead. The Belgians were speaking French and our soldiers took the recipe home and called them French Fries. Whatever the story, the fish were excellent if just a bit much. Central Market was a beehive of activity and more like a flea market or a pulga mercado back home.

Lunch at central market

Central Market

             

The City Museum cache was worth the revisit.  This is billed as the world's largest geocache container and the entire museum is considered the container.. We spent some time admiring all of the travel bugs permanently affixed to a basket in a side office where the log was located. We beat it back to the shp and were soon off for our next stop: Saint Petersburg Russia.

Rønne Bornholm

Welcome to Ronne

 Our first stop was Rønne where we had a short but wild ride on a tender into port.We walked the short distance to the "large square" and were surprised to find no evidence of tourism. No vendors, no shored excursions and the local currency is not the Euro. The town/island is more of a vacation site with lots of cycling and camping. There were some geocaches in town but none that called out my name. While on ship we had met Richard and Jo-Ann Simon from Michigan who I had met online via cruise critic. I'm still friends on Facebook with Jo-Ann but Richard sadly left us a few years ago. We said goodby to town and took the tender back to the ship in time for 4:00 tea and met a couple of other English speakers:Angela and Bob from NY/FL and Shiela and Sonny from England/Belgium. The 8 of us had dinner and caught the second show: a nice variety singer from South Africa.

The next day was at sea on our way to Helsinki. Weather was partly cloudy, chilly in the 60s but warm in the sun. We listened awhile to Duo Caseopia (piano and cello) in the Chocolate Bar. 

The hike into the Large Square

A wild tender ride

Onboard the Costa Romantica

Boarding the Costa Romantica

 Before we left Rolla, Judy managed to snag a Baltic cruise on the Costa Romantica out of Amsterdam. The ship was smaller than many of our Caribbean cruise ships so we were surprised to find ourselves in a cabin that was actually larger than our hotel room with a lot more storage. The food was good and included the usual buffet with assorted restaurants around the ship. Coffee was scarce and only available at breakfast so I began hoarding instant coffee packets. No ice tea at all so Judy was out of luck until she discovered that hot tea and ice worked just as well. Entertainment included a piano/cello duet, Gordio (an Italian piano player singing rock songs), and a couple of guitarists from South America who were very good. Other than the crew, we were some of the few English speakers aboard. A comedy act one night was a lost cause! We missed the theater
shows on other cruises but the lounge music was great and we got along just fine. Unlike other cruises we were able to see coastlines often and saw LOTS of other ships - mainly cargo vessels.  The Baltic is a busy place. 

Goodbye Amsterdam

Amsterdam Trip

 I'm finally getting around to catching up on my travel blog. For some reason or other, we quit just as the travel was starting to pick up. In 2014 I was still volunteering for IEEE on the Region 5 executive board. This was Sections Congress year and the board decided to send everyone to Amsterdam. It almost broke the bank but we had a good time anyway. Judy went with me and did the sight seeing while I sat in a faceless conference room attending meetings. We and the Merediths stayed at the Citizen M hotel which John said looked like two WWII submarines welded together. He and I walked the few blocks to the conference through Beatrix Park, a gorgeous nearby park each morning, rain or shine. Some memories: Getting stuck at the airport in St Louis before even starting; an unscheduled stop in Frankfort; losing our luggage; running into Tim Ault, one of our old students from UMR; watching out for bicycles before crossing a street; riding the city buses; geocaching in Amsterdam (very fun, even in the rain). Judy managed to snag a cruise on a Costa ship through the Baltic after the conference. More on that later.

Our home in Amsterdam: Citizen M

HP3 arriving at Sectons Congress 2014