Post, part 2

Because of the way photos upload onto this program, it.s easier to do this in 2 parts.

So next stop was the German port of Warnemunde, where I boarded a train for a 3 hr ride to Berlin. There I took the bus ride I wrote about in a previous post. Here are some photos:

The Brandenberg gate:

Checkpoint Charlie, and all the museums and exhibits surrounding it:

The Reichstag:

Lots of castles, palaces, churches, most of which were destroyed in WWII. What we see now are complete, accurate recreations using rubble and new materials. Amazing.

I'll post about Tallinn later. Iäm almost out of minutes, and other people are waiting to use the station. And I desperately need lunch. Just a preview: I already scored a couple of handspun, handknit lace shawls. Yippee!

Lots of updates from Tallin

Using the only working station in the Apollo bookstore in Tallinn, Estonia, I 'm going to try to upload photos, and not type using keys like ä,ö,ü or õ.

So first, the photos from Oslo. I had big plans that day, wanted to take the ferry to the island where the Viking museum and the outdoor Folklife museum are. But I slept very poorly, and spent a good part of the night prowling the ship (It's hard to stay in a tiny stateroom with nothing to do). So I just wandered. I did manage to buy a pair of shoes and a very silly Norwegian hat (I plead sleep deprivation on the hat). But here are some lovely views of the harbor and the city:

The national theater:

Just a sampling of the amazing carvings, fountains and statues adorning city hall:

The abandoned medieval fort over looking the harbor:

The next port was Arhus, Denmark. We rode a bus 2 hours to visit the workshop of Lotte , a really amazing knitwear designer. It is also her home, and they fed us delicious sandwiches and home made cookies. Then she talkedd about her design and production process, and sold use her lovely creations.















Everything about her studio way beautiful, and I shot pictures of everything, including her gardening shelf in the sunroom:

All at sea

Just a very quick post, as I am using the ship's internet access at 75 cents/min. (yikes!)Yesterday I spent the day on a train to Berlin, and then on a sightseeing bus. I never thought I'd be in Berlin. The amazing thing to me was the constant presence of WWII, both in the continued rebuilding of the center of the city, and also in the monuments and museums relating to the Nazi atrocities. I really have to respect the willingness on the part of the German nation to be open and direct about their history.

And the history, arhchitecture and geography of the Berlin wall was amazing too.

Then I had the most delicious lunch at the buffet restaurant in the KaDeWe, the German equivalent of Harrod's. Truth be told, I think the food on the ship is really godawful. It tastes like hospital cafeteria food to me. It was nice to have food properly cooked, of high quality, well seasoned. And I spent the day with someone NOT among the knitter group, a woman from Seattle whose husband is the ship docotor. It was fun to make a new friend.

Today is a sea day, and I'm taking knitting classes (a traditional Swedish sweater with Beth Brown Reinsel, omg I'm purling with 2 colors and 2 hands!) Tonight is the second formal night.

I have photos, but no way of uploading. Maybe in Tallin, Estonia tomorrow.

A little later the same day...

So, I found another internet cafe where photos can be sent. So here goes:

First, a final photo from Amsterdam, from the elevator in my hotel:

They have to tell you this stuff in Amsterdam.

Next, the beginning of the train voyage which ended in all the bricks:

Menacing, no?

So I went to the grocery store in Rotterdam, and found lots and lots of prepared foods, including shelves and shelves of fruits and veggies, including baby carrots in the shape of melon balls (those dealies on the upper right)

This was balance by the shelves and shelves of Nutella variants and equivalents:

A view of old and renewing Rotterdam, a city which was bombed nearly to oblivion during WWII and now consists almost entirely of brand new buildings:

So we boarded the ship. My stateroom:

The lifeboat drill:

My cruise director, Melissa:

Yesterday I took classes from Nancy Bush on Estonian lace knitting (Nancy asked that her face not appear on the Internet)

and on the the Halland pullover (a Swedish traditional design) from Beth Brown Reisnel (who is less circumspect about her image) (Beth on left)

Last night was our first formal night, and I saw many knitters in handknit shawls, as is the custom among my people when we dress up. Here are a couple I managed to photograph:

Now I'm in Oslo, no photos yet.

So that's done. Now shoe shopping. And I need to find a public restroom....

Still no photos. Drat!

I am in Oslo, at a cybercafe in the train station. The internet access on the ship is 55 cents a minute and very slow, here it's super fast and 3 dollars an hour. Unfortunately, neither place lets me plug in a USB cable, (not that I blame them....) so I can't share any photos yet. I do have tons.

I'm having a pretty good time. My cabin is spacious for one, (but would be cramped for 2). The food, while not fabulous is fine. Though I did have some delicious herring.... The knitting classes are fun, and the other knitters are mostly a blast. This is our first port of call, and we only have 6 hours here. Luckily, downtown Oslo is pretty compact. There is at least one shoe store I may do myself some damage at, and a yarn store I have yet to find. I may go to the national gallery or the viking museum, but I am still not sleeping very well, and lose focus easily. Jet lag turns out to be far easier to get over when you're 20 then when you're 50. I keep waking up in the middle of the night wanting dinner. (It's 9 hours later here, so 2 AM is my dinner time back home).

Tomorrow Arhus, Denmark. The next day Berlin. With any luck I'll find somewhere to plug in my camera and let you all see what I'm doing. (We all only read blogs for the photos, anyway, right?) A blogger should travel with her own netbook. Now I know.

I hate bricks

Today I learned to love concrete. Slabs of smooth, untextured concrete. Sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, streets, all of lovely, even concrete.

This happened after dragging my (admittedly enormous, so I do take some responsibility) suitcases a half mile from my hotel in Amsterdam to the central train station, entirely on surfaces of brick, pavers and cobblestones. Each little piece with a gap between it and its neighbor, a gap just wide enough to catch the tiny wheels of a rolling suitcase. Then, arriving in Rotterdam I got lost. The station is under renovation, and apparently the first step in the renovation was to take down every single sign in every language. I have no innate sense of direction, so of course I left the station via a service entrance and walked 20 minutes in the wrong direction, dragging the above mentioned suitcases across a delightful assortment of small, irregular paving materials. I got to the hotel, which is 2 blocks from the station, an hour after getting off the train. By wich time I was deeply in love with concrete.

I'm in Rotterdam, typing this on the hotel "Internet on TV" set up. I can't add any pictures using this system. so no views of lovely bricks, or pavers or anything else. Now I just have to figure out how to get to the ship tomorrow without dragging the suitcases across any uneven surfaces........

Bicycles and cobblestones

I am in a tiny, sweltering backroom cybercafe in Amsterdam. Hello to you all back home! Here is my first official European blog post!!

My trip, which took about 20 hours, was largely uneventful (read on). It started with a very long layover in the Vancouver BC airport.

Look! They have a kelp forest aquarium in the international departures area. And look! There are 2 divers cleaning it in matching wetsuits!

Mostly the airport looked like this to me:

(I spent at least an hour napping on the floor.)

The flight to London was long, but on British airways they have generous butt-room, even in coach, along with those bending headrest sides which help you sleep without your head bobbing around. Also the entertainment screen on the seat in front of you. All good.

The only little moments of negativity were: 1. the mad dash across what I believe was the entire length of the Heathrow airport to make the connection to Amsterdam, 2. realizing that the airport shuttle driver had dropped me off at the WRONG HOTEL. It turns out after 20 hours of travelling, I can't read Dutch. The right hotel was about 4 blocks away, dragging the wheeled suitcases over cobbblestones the whole way.

Since then all has been peachy. Today I went the the Van Gough museum, wandered around taking photos, and grazed on street food. It was very hot yesterday, but a dramatic downpour, complete with thunder and lightening, last night cured that. Today was breezy, clear and pleasant. Here's some of what I saw:

This is the view of Dam square, from the window of my hotel room, (which has an ENORMOUS bathtub, BTW. Perfect for soaking the stink of travel out of you). It's loud outside, but the windows are nearly soundproof. I'm also just across the steet from Amsterdam's largest department store:

The cheese department at the supermarket:

About HALF of the bicycle parking at the Central Train Station (have you ever seen a bike parking STRUCTURE?):

They say the bikes outnumber the people in Amsterdam, and I believe it! And none of the riders ever wears a helmet.

Some random architectural and canal photos:

And this sign is everywhere in public buildings. What do YOU think it means? It reminds me of someone running to the bathroom.

Tomorrow to Rotterdam, via train. More later. Thanks for all your comments.

Europe is calling

So I'm almost packed. Lots of piles, but they're getting smaller, and closer together. The refrigerator's almost empty, the plants are watered, I've notified everyone of contact info.....

So here's the itinerary: I arrive in Amsterdam Thursday mid day, and stay until Saturday. Then to Rotterdam by train.

The cruise starts Sunday:

Sun Aug 23 ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS
Mon Aug 24 At Sea
Tue Aug 25 OSLO, NORWAY
Wed Aug 26 ARHUS, DENMARK
Thu Aug 27 WARNEMUNDE (BERLIN) GERMANY
Fri Aug 28 At Sea
Sat Aug 29 TALLINN, ESTONIA
Sun Aug 30 ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
Mon Aug 31 ST. PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
Tue Sep 1 HELSINKI, FINLAND
Wed Sep 2 STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN
Thu Sep 3 At Sea
Fri Sep 4 COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

I stay in Copenhagen 2 days, and fly home on Sept 6.

I'm so excited I could do a little dance. But I have too much packing to do.

Knitter's Business

OK, so if you're not a knitter, you may want to skip this post. Move along to Salon.com, or the Food Network blog, or whatever you normally pass the time with. For you fiber folks, I want to let you know what I've chosen to knit on this cruise, and show you yarn. (We likes yarn.)

I'm taking 3 workshops during the cruise and here's the yarn:


The stack of black, white and red is for an Estonian Mittens class with Nancy Bush. It's a Finnish yarn called Satakieli, purchased from Nancy's business, Wooly West. The red and black are half skeins of Louet Riverstone, for a class with Beth Brown-Riensel called the Halland Pullover. And the green is some unlabeled laceweight, I think with alpaca in it, I found in my stash, for Nancy's Estonian Lace class.

For my non-class knitting I've chosen to knit a simple lace sock and a complicated lace shawl. The yarns are:


The purple/orange is Lorna's Laces which has been aging in the stash about 5 yrs, since before that business changed hands. The color is called "mother lode". It is destined to become a pair of Monkey socks, from the Knitty.com pattern by Cookie A.



The brown yarn is a purchase from the Sock Summit last weekend, here in Portland. The vendor is an indie dyer called Frog Creek Fibers. The yarn base is Ebbulient, superwash merino and nylon, and the color way is Root Beer. It is destined to be knit into a Lucy Neatby pattern, the Faroese Flower shawl.
I know I won't get all of either of these finished on the trip, but I wanted options. Always with the options....

I plan to swatch tonight, and then I'll know which needles to pack.

And then I can start on the clothes.


Oh: my sister Beth told me I should mention I do have another dog, an old, blind, toothless chihuahua named Sadie, who has been my dog for 14 years. I'm not taking new photos of her anymore, but I do have old ones I will bring with me. I think my sister felt bad for the poor geriatric dog who got no blog post. So here I am, making up for it. She (Sadie) is beloved, just much less interactive than the little Ginger dog.