Today we took it a little easier than the other days. We didn’t do any tour of the city, but we did ride the shuttle into Riga and walked around. The shuttle dropped us off at the main square called Town Hall Square. The architecture of Riga is a mix of old, Soviet, and modern and the buildings of Town Hall Square demonstrates that perfectly. There was an old structure, the House of the Blackheads, that was built in the 1300s, an ugly Soviet building that housed a museum, and just around the corner was a modern (post-Soviet) building. There is a statue in the middle of the square of a man holding a sword. In ancient times, the sword was used as the geographical centre of the city and all measurements were based off of that point. We then wandered to St. Paul’s church (I think it was Paul’s, it might have been Peter’s though, I can’t remember). It was like many other small town Germanic churches. We continued to wander through various streets and eventually made it to Dome Square named after the domed church which is the dominant landmark in the square. We walked around, took some pictures and ate some Latvian ice cream. Then we headed back to the Town Hall Square.

Today we were in Tallinn, Estonia. We arrived in port at about 7:00 and, after breakfast, we went out to meet our guide at about 8:30. Unlike Russia, there was no passport control or anything (which was quite refreshing). Our guide’s name was Siljva (or something like that) it was pronounced like Sill-vuh. Her English was very good and she was very well educated (she is writing her thesis to become a information technology lawyer). She was able to answer our questions much more easily than Maria in St. Petersburg.

Today we were again in St. Petersburg. I will start describing today from when we met our guide outside the cruise terminal. We first drove to a souvenir shop where the travel company headquarters was located (it appeared that the sublet space from the souvenir shop). The lady who was accepting payments for the tour said that all of the kids could get 15 Euro credit for anything in the store. (I think that that was so that the parents would stay and spend money.) I got a cool knife with a CCCP (USSR in Russian) symbol on it. It doesn’t seem very high quality, but it is cool.

Today is our second day in St. Petersburg. After the normal morning activities, we went out to our guide and she took us to a hydrofoil which we rode out to Peterhov (that’s probably very incorrect spelling), the island where the official summer residence of the Czar is located. The boat ride was fine. I don’t remember much but the back of my eyelids though. The first thing we saw on the island was the canal leading up to the palace. We got some very good pictures of the palace from a distance. I will try to post some of them here.

The stereotypes are true. Russia was pretty much as I expected.

If you like Russia, Putin, Socialism, Communism or Obama (specifically his foreign policy or, really, lack thereof), you should probably not read my posts about Russia.

When we looked out into the city from the 11th deck where the Windjammer Cafe is the buildings (they were a kilometer or so away) just screamed communist block housing. They were tall, white, ugly buildings made out of cement. It appeared that they were still making apartments like that in the area because we saw one under construction.

We woke up at about 8:00 today, ate breakfast, and got ready to get off the ship. Mrs. Coco had booked a kayak tour for us to go see the city by boat. So after the ship docked at about 10:30 we all walked out and met the guide for our kayaking tour. His name was Marti (with a rolled R). We rode by car to the shore of an inlet to the bay where they had already put the kayaks. I went with mom, Hannah and Sebastian (the oldest Coco boy) went together, and Mr. and Mrs. each went with one of the twins: Nico and Sergio.

We started today earlier than any of the other days at around 8:00. We headed up to breakfast at the Windjammer Cafe. The food selection was good for a breakfast and the bacon was cooked to my liking, unlike the bacon at the hotel which wasn’t that good. After breakfast, we got ready to go back into Stockholm for the last time.

Today we embarked on our cruise. We woke up and had breakfast at the hotel and then had the hotel staff order us a taxi to the cruise port. The ride was fine and went without an issue. To check in to the cruise ship, it’s like airport check in and security. We had to “check” our bags and at a little stand, it was very easy because we’d already printed our luggage tags. Then we went into another line to go through security. It isn’t quite as rigorous as airport security (we were able to take water bottles through) but it still took a while. Then we got in a new line to get our key cards for the ship. After these three lines (in total they took an hour or so) we boarded the boat. Then we waited forever for the elevator. Eventually we made it in to an elevator and went to the 11th floor where the Windjammer Cafe is. (The Windjammer is the lunch buffet.) By the time we were done with lunch our stateroom was ready to be occupied so we went to check it out and drop off our “cary ons”. We then went back into Stockholm for the afternoon.

Someone didn’t get up until 9:15 today. I won’t mention his name. (Oh wait, I’m the only guy, oops.)

After breakfast in the hotel, we got ready and went out to the bus stop which was about 100 metres from the hotel. We got on bus line 69 which took us straight to the Historiska Museet, the Swedish History Museum.

We started this day very late. (I’m sure it had nothing to do with some individuals sleeping in till 9:30… oh wait, that was me.) We ate breakfast which luckily ran until 10:30 and then got ready to go.

We walked down to the central tram station and got on the 7 tram which took us to our first destination: Scansen, an open air museum featuring various Swedish buildings and animals. We started out by walking around a reconstruction of a Swedish village around the 1840s. There was a glass blowing shop, a woodworking shop, a factory, a few houses and a school. One interesting thing about school during that period was that the amount of light dictated the amount of school done because they only used natural lighting. In one of the houses we went into, the guy said that it was the house of a middle class family. There were only three rooms in the house, but the room we were in was the one where you would entertain guests. It had a piano, nice furniture, and wallpaper so that you could make it look like you were wealthy, even if you really weren’t. Things really haven’t changed much have they…