The final post

So this will be my final blog post about this trip. It's now almost 2 weeks after my return to Portland. I have survived jetlag, though how, I'm not sure. I have almost reestablished the routine of dogwalking, plantwatering, foodbuying, and television watching which existed before the trip. I have discussed the trip with so many people that I have my little rap down: "Well, I'm not much of a cruiser, I don't like such short stays in port, the food was pretty awful, I did see and buy some wonderful things, the other knitters were a mixed bag....." etc. Just like the end of any trip.

But I still have photos to post, and I wanted to show off some of the things I bought while touring, so here goes one last hurrah for the travel blog:

Copenhagen (or Cobenhavn, as it is in Danish) was my final stop, and where I flew out of. I had 3 days there, counting the day of departure. On the first day I went to the National Museum with several of my fellow cruisers. It's a great museum, if you're ever there. Lots of gold and silver from Viking hoards:

along with lots of other Viking-iana:


I was particularly drawn to this display of footwear and sewing tools (since textiles rot so fast, there were very few actual garments on display, and they were in special, very low light rooms):


Personally, I think the scissors on the far left are a hoax. They look like they came out of my sewing box upstairs (except the corrosion....)

We also all descended on a couple of yarn stores in a huge hoard and picked them clean. It felt like being part of a swarm of locusts. (Actually, the woman who makes the mitten kits in the open air market in Helsinki actually wrote on her blog about the experience of us coming into her booth en masse.... she was gracious, but with a detectable edge of panic.)

The next day I was on my own. I made my way down to Nyhaven, which means New Harbor, but which is paradoxically one of the oldest parts of the Copenhagen waterfront. It used to be pretty seedy, but in recent years has been spiffed up and now is a bit touristy.
There I found a restaurant in which I had a terrific meal, certainly the most unusual of the entire trip. A little place in the cellar right off the street had a herring buffet:

Twelve kinds of cold herring, and two hot ones, served with rough rye bread and new potatoes. I was in heaven. I ate way too much, but man, was it terrific. The smoked herring was my favorite. (Yes, those are raw egg yolks to be eaten along with one of the salted preparations. I declined. )

I also took a harbor cruise, but it was raining, so the camera stayed in my pocket.

And the next day, I went home.

So the rest of this post is about my purchases. First, the shoes.

These are my favorites, boots I bought in Amsterdam my first day in Europe. I saw them in the window of a shop, told myself it was stupid to buy boots to shove into my luggage, spent the day at museums, and then came back and bought them.

Cute, no?

These I bought in Oslo, also after seeing them in a store window.

Though I bought them in Norway, they are from a Dutch manufacturer.

The next ones are actually from an American designer, Marc Jacobs, and I bought them in Berlin. When I got home I realized I already own slip ons from the same collection. No wonder they were so familiar looking:
And the last pair I bought in Helsinki. I've actually seen the same shoes in the states, they're made by Reiker, a German company. They were much less expensive in Europe, even with the crappy exchange rate:
They're very very comfortable. And red. I think they'll cheer me up this winter.

I did buy some yarn, but I'm choosing not to post photos. Some is for gifts, some is just to plain, and some I'm not sure what I'll do with, so I don't feel like writing about it yet.

So, on to the knitwear. I bought 3 lace shawls. One in St. Petersburg, mostly to warm up on the day I got drenched in the rain and had no coat with me. That one was inexplicably impossible to photograph well, so let me tell you: it's a large, square shawl out of some kind of mohair blend. I think it's handknit (there was much discussion the night I bough it about whether it was handknit or machine knit or some combo). I also bought 2 Estonian shawls, both on the small side, which may end up seeing more use as scarves than shawls:

I also bought mittens in Tallinn:
I like the souvenir quality of this. Like a greetings form Tallinn postcard. Also these, which may see snow shoveling duty the next time we have a blizzard:
They're slightly fulled, and double knit, so they're very soft, thick and warm. Very similar to this hat I bought in the market in Helsinki, because the wind came up and I was freezing:

It's actually made of the same yarn, as is this machine knit hat, which is silly, but I love it:
The yarn is Kauni Effectgarn, which is a fingering weight wool yarn which changes color very slowly and makes these garments with terrific color gradations. It's milled an dyed in Estonia, though it's usually marketed by a Finnish yarn company. (I bought some of it, of course. It's rarely available in the States, and is MUCH cheaper in Estonia.)

I also bought a felted hat in Helsinki from an artist in a cute little artists' mall:
It was an impulse buy. She also had these fantastically embellished wool coats which I loved, but alas none in a size that matched mine. The last in the parade of hats was this Norwegian fantasy:
All wool, embroidered, lines with fleece, I will make walking the dog in the winter a real joy.

So that's it. (Well, I also bought some jewelry, and an amazing blanket I had shipped to me, and which has yet to arrive, but enough is enough.)

It was fun to blog this all out to you, to share it in (nearly) real time, to have folks comment and talk about my experiences even before I got back. I may do it again if I undertake another trip or project (though I'm not sure I'll use blogger.... it handling of photos is just absurdly awkward.) Anyway, thanks for listening.

Bye bye!

The end of the trip, chapter 2

So the next stop was Stockholm. This stop was all that is worst about cruising: a really large, interesting city, which we had exactly 6 hours to tour. The limitation was due to a passage into harbor that takes 4 hours, through many small islands and narrow channels. It can only be done with a pilot on board and during daylight. So we had the number of hours of daylight minus 8 hours to be in port.



I chose to go to the Nordic Heritage museum:




and the Vasa exhibit:


This is a restoration of a 3oo year old wooden ship which sank in the harbor on its maiden voyage (too little ballast).

I also went to Skansen, an outdoor historical museum, filled with old Swedish buildings. Mostly, I was impressed with the cafe interior:

And the stoller parking (I think Scandinavian stollers are even huger than American ones):

The sign on the left actually says stroller parking in about 3 languages.


So since we really couldn't see much of Stockholm, lots of the passengers chose to stand on the deck and watch the passage back out of the fjord into the Baltic. The weather was lovely, and it was a relaxing way to spend a few hours.



The next day we were at sea and I took a class with Nancy Bush to make this Estonian colorwork inspired fingerless mitt:





Though I had a great time in the class, I tore the whole thing out. I will reknit it on different size needles to get a better look. The 2 color cast on was the biggest challenge, and I did make a couple of errors (another reason to start over.)

Now I'm in Copenhagen until tomorrow. I am SO GLAD to be off that ship, and to have regained my autonomy. I'm staying at an expensive, yet crappy hotel at the center of the city. Yesterday I wandered around taking pictures of buildings and other sights.


I'm in love with the orange and ochre colors on the old buildings. Not so in love with cobblestones, but at least they're not as bad as the ones in Helsinki, which were just spherical rocks stuck in the ground, and guaranteed to twist your ankles repeatedly (I took pictures of them with the lost camera....you'll have to trust me.)

I did a bit of yarn shopping (more on this below), and went to the National Museum. Last night I had dinner with a couple of gals from the cruise group at Tivoli gardens. I'm pretty much ready to come home.

About the shopping: somehow I had missed that this was designed as a 3 week international yarn crawl. Women in my group are coming home with several extra bags containing nothing but yarn. I bought a little (some locally dyed linen in Estonia, and a Hanne Falkenberg kit at half the US price yesterday), but not sweaters and shawls and socks worth. I did buy some handknits, and regrettably, some shoes and boots (harder to pack than yarn, admittedly). Maybe I'll post some pictures of purchases when I get home in a couple of days.

So now it's just a matter of making it home tomorrow. And then getting over jetlag (again). Wish me luck!

Last day in Europe

Well, the trip is finally coming to an end. I'm in a Netcafe in Copenhagen. It's raining cats and dogs outside. I was going to try to go on a canal boat tour, but given the weather, I think I'll go shopping instead. (Not that I have any room in any of my bags anymore....)

First, let me update. I do have photos on my point and shoot camera, just none from Estonia. So letøs start with St. Petersburg. I have to say that Russia was not my favorite part of this trip. The ship docked overnight so we had 2 days there. The passport control and security was very strict, and we were not allowed to leave the ship except on scheduled shore excursions through the ship's contracted tour agency. All the tours were marathon length rushes through various tsarist (I can't choose a spelling for that word... there are so many!) sites. All of them have been meticulously restored after destruction in WWII, as well as years of Soviet neglect. We, along with what seemed like hundreds of other tour groups were smashed into room after room of gilded excess, and then rushed up or down stairs into the next spectacle. I saw Catherine's summer palace, the Hermitage and Peterhof, the summer palace of Peter the Great. Here are an assortment of photos:
The ones above are all from Catherine's palace and the Hermitage. The ones below are from Peterhof:


After seeing all this, it makes sense that there was a revolution.

Of course, the city itself was much more grim and grimy than the palaces. I just saw it from a bus window, but really, it didn't entice. A few folks had their own visas and reported having very nice meals and yarn shopping experiences. So I really can't report more than what the tours were like, and in general, it was not my favorite travel experience.

The next stop was Helsinki, which in contrast WAS my favorite travel experience, at least on this trip. Lovely, mid sized, clean, well organized, full of beautiful shops and markets, surrounding a lovely harbor.... I felt like I could move to Helsinki. Here are some photos:
Oh yeah, that's right. Helsinki is where I lost my camera. This is the only shot I took with my point and shoot. So you'll just have to take my word for it.....

I will go to post #2 for Stockholm and Cophenhagen. See you in a sec.

Well so much for those photos...

A quick post from the ship: we're leaving Helsinki (which I LOVE, btw). I had a great day there, lots of shopping and handcrafts. But unfortunately I lost one of my cameras, the one with all the Estonia pictures, and many other from other ports. I still have my little point and shoot, so I will update with those in future. Drat.