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August 31st - Dublin, Ireland

Today in Ireland, most of my time was spent escorting a guest tour: A Summer Drive Through Ireland's Countryside. I was a little worried that I'd be cooped up in a bus for 8 hours, but there were plenty of opportunities to walk around and see some neat stuff.

First stop was for morning coffee at the Glendalough Hotel in Wicklow county, which was conveniently next to some monastic ruins, some dating back to the 6th century, when Saint Kevin established the monestary. Two structures from the 11th century remained almost perfectly intact, due to the fact that they were small enough to have stone roofs.

Next to the monestary were two lakes that made for good picture taking, and then we took a little walk up to a waterfall (trickle...not a lot of rain here recently). I was a bit worried that the elderly guests wouldn't make it up to the waterfall, but slowly and steadily those who wanted to see it, got there.

After this, we headed to a different Inn for a lunch of chicken, potatoes, peas, and carrots. And being in Ireland for the first time, I had to order a Guinness with it.

Our final stop was to the Powerscourt Estate and Gardens, which has been the temporary lodging to many heads of state over the years, until the building burned in the 20s. Now it is restored, and the gardens are kept in immaculate condition with a view towards one of the Irish "mountains" they call the "sugar loaf". Actually, they have 2 sugar loafs, and they are both basically hills, but I'm told that the Irish like to call them mountains just the same. Either way, it also made for some good photo opportunities.

Having spent the whole day in the countryside meant I didn't see any of Dublin. However, that night after our early sets were done, we had time to go to town again, since the ship wasn't leaving until midnight. Ellert, Brandon, Anna, Zowie, and myself all went to a bar with live Irish music and had a very good time. They played lots of traditional Irish music, some Scottish, some John Denver. And I drank a bit too many Kilkennys. But I suppose it is something you should do in Ireland

Zowie convinced me to head out for some adventure tomorrow in Holyhead since, it being a small town, maybe there will be interesting things to do on our own.

September 1st - Holyhead, Wales

Even though we had only 4 hours, there was a neat looking rocky hill on the waterfront, and it looked like a great place to climb up, so we set off to go find the way up. It wasn't particularly difficult as it seems to be a regular spot to hang out for the locals. Zowie thought it was too far away to get to in the time allotted, but I knew we'd get there with more than enough time, and we did. It probably wasn't even 1000 feet up, but we managed to get a 360 degree view of everything including the bay, a lighthouse, the countryside, and the city of Holyhead. We had so much time that we were able to hit another path to a point overlooking the cliffs above the ocean below. Still having time to burn, I sat down with a book while Zowie worked on a bracelet she was tieing (or making or whatever) and did that for about 15 minutes when some other acquaintances/friends from the ship found us. After we took a group photo, they went where we came from, and we went where they came from.

Everybody seemed to have a dog, nobody had the same breed of dog, and nobody had their dogs on leashes. Apparnetly, Wales is one big dog park. Or at least Holyhead. All in all, it was a very nice afternoon.

Tomorrow we cross back to Ireland again. Not sure what's in store for that, but I'm never sure about any port I've never been to.

The morning of the 27th in Edinburgh started with me escorting a tour to St. Andrews, a small community famous for having the oldest (or actually, one of the oldest) ever golf courses, which is one of the courses played on PGA type events. I'm not into golf, so I'm not sure how I got on this tour, but seeing St. Andrews was fun enough anyway. There were ruins of both a medieval castle and abbey that were fun to walk around in. Our guided tour went to the abbey for 15 minutes, but we had some time on our own a bit later, so I returned (instead of seeing the 17th hole bunker which I guess is a big deal). The castle was quite a bit smaller than Dover castle unsurprisingly, The neatest thing about this castle was, during a siege, the invaders tried to storm the castle by tunneling under the wall in an effort to collapse a castle wall. The defenders, seeing this, started digging their own tunnel to meet and defeat the invaders. After a couple of false starts, the defenders succeeded in connecting tunnels...I actually can't recall who won. But I did get to crawl through the tunnels, and I do almost mean that. The defender tunnel was only three feet high, so it was a bit cramped. After the tour, I returned to the ship (which is docked in Rosyth) and hopped on a shuttle which takes the 30 minute trip to Edinburgh. From the shuttle drop off, I could see immediately Edinburgh castle perched high on top of a rock in the middle of town, far more imposing than even Dover castle. I found my way up there and enjoyed touring the same types of things as in the Dover castle....it was even more touristy than the Dover castle, but certainly worth the price of admission, even though I guess I could have gotten a crew discount in both castles. I was going to go back to the ship to round up some people to come back and catch a comedy show or find a bar. Currently the Fringe Festival is going on, which means that the town is loaded with street performers and every venue has some sort of act going on. I needed a group of people because the last shuttle was to go back to the ship at 9:30, and a taxi could run me over $100. Fortunately, before I even got on the shuttle back to the ship, I saw Matt and Brandon and they had the night planned out for 2 comedy shows, and the 1 train that returned to Rosyth at 11:20. The first show we saw was an American guy..he was funny, though not excessively so. But the second show was a guy named Richard Herring, and he was hilarious. He had a rather irreverent show called "Christ On A Bike", where he, well, makes lots of jokes about the oddities in the biblical stories. He recited the first page of the Gospel of Matthew from memory...A begat B, B begat C, C begat D...and his brethren. Even though he had a joke about practically every name (such as Booz...who is named Booz, and why did Matthew feel the need to call him Booz of Rachag...were there really that many Booz's?), the funniest joke was that after listing the 100 generations that were to separate the prophesied savior from Abraham, he gets to to Joseph, being a descendent, and then says that he married Mary and she begat Jesus. The funniest part was, Matthew must have made a mistake because he defeats his whole argument by finally pointing out there that Jesus actually isn't descended from Mary at all since Joseph isn't his father. I guess you had to be there, but it was really funny. This morning is the 28th and I took the shuttle back into town. In fact, I'm typing right now in a little pub waiting for my fish and chips. I had planned on just shopping for stuff that won't break my bank, but I found a monument to Sir Walter Scott that was 200 feet high and you can go up to the top. What was really fun about this was that you climbed inside the stone structure via a spiral staircase that was so tight at times I had to take my backpack off, and call ahead to hope that nobody was coming down when I was going up. I got dizzy both going up and down. It did afford some nice views of the city. This is my last day in Scotland, so I did manage to buy 3 rather interesting looking varieties of Scotch, 2 of which I'll give to Dad and Ryan back home. I'll basically just guess what to give and what to keep...I have no idea what I'm looking at.

August 25th, 2010 - Dover, England

I am starting by catching up about the 25h when we were in Dover, as I had a pretty decent day there too. Dover has a castle/fortress sitting on top of the high point in the city, so I knew that would be a destination for me. After a morning jog, I set out by foot to make my way up to the top. 40 minutes and 15 pounds later, I was in the walled castle. The castle has had many alterations over the years. The oldest structure there actually dates back to the 2nd century AD. It is a Roman lighthouse, and part of it still stands. Right next to it is the only Saxon building still standing there...a chapel dating back to something like the year 1000. Many of the walls and some other structures date to the 12th-14th centuries, but throughout the years more and more walls and structures were added on. Even in the 20th century, a series of tunnels was dug from which Vice Admiral Ramsey directed numerous WWII operations, including the evacuation of Dunkirk. This is a fact that they let you know about every 5 minutes up there, but since it is actually pretty important, I'll forgive the repetition. After walking around the entire castle, I finished up with a guided (somewhat) tour of the tunnels. We still couldn't go off on our own and get lost in the tunnels (and they made it sound like we would actually get lost). The tour had a bit too much production...recordings of actors playing out WWII scenes, the lights would flicker as if under a German air attack. But after that, we did go into the actual rooms that Ramsey and his team used to plan operations, and saw the table map that they used to as well.

August 12, 2010 - St. Petersburg, Russia

Today I was assigned a rather interesting tour excursion that started with a canal boat tour of St. Petersburg and ended with the Church Of The Spilled Blood. The canal tour was scenic and interesting. Our tour guide obviously knew a tremendous amount about Russian history, but I couldn't always hear or understand her due to the headsets we had to use to listen in. Thus, probably the most interesting thing about the canal ride was this youngish Russian guy who would wave at us from a bridge and then run ahead to the next bridge and wave again. Pretty early on, I figured that he was doing this for tips at the end of the tour, but I'm wondering if in fact I should do this myself next St. Petersburg. Nobody pays me to run ever.

The Church Of The Spilled Blood was only completed in the early 20th century after 25 years of construction. It was built by Alexander III to commemorate the assassination of his father Alexander II. The architecture however is based on 15th to 16th century designs and was quite impressive, but on the structure and in the decoration on the outside. But it was more amazing on the inside, as practically each square inch of wall and domed ceiling was layered in tiny tiles depicting all sorts of sacred images. I can't imagine the work it must have taken. No wonder it took 25 years.

After the church, we finished with a whole hour at a grossly overpriced giftshop that tours all get funneled through. I slept on the bus for much of that time.

August 9, 2010 - Tallinn, Estonia

I finally signed up to escort another tour this day, and I received my first choice, that of the Soviet Prison Tour. I'm not sure why they call it that, because it was built as a fort in the mid 1800s, was converted to a prison after World War I, when Estonia was independent, and remained so until entering the Soviet Union after World War II.

We didn't get to see too much of it...it certainly wasn't like a tour of Alcatraz, nor walking around the prison on Devil's Island. Still, it was a fun time knowing that I wasn't a Soviet political prisoner and could actually leave at any time. I have no real details to give, except it sounds like they didn't treat prisoners very well, and the guides had some colorful ways of describing the details and I won't go into here.

July 25, 2010 - Bergen, Norway

Particularly given a pair of unnecessary morning trainings ("this is how you say 'hello' type ones) and a completely pointless production show rehearsal that put me in a bad mood, today was a perfect day to go off on my own. I have most recently been here 4 years ago, and I decided to go to the same place, which was up the hill behind the center of Bergen. It goes a little above the timber line, and last time I was there it seemed like it was a place that not many people go to.

Today being a Sunday and a sunny one at that, the way up top, and the top itself were relatively crawling with Norweigans. And that is to say that I'd bump into one every now and then, though I was able to find a rock to sit on for a while out of sight of everybody (and remember, there were no trees) where I could read for an hour. I couldn't really remember how to get up there, and for a good portion of the hike I'm sure I was taking a different route, but I did find the same area eventually. It was a good relaxing day away from everybody.

Thus ends our tour in Norway. It is too bad we are going to the Baltic again...I'd much prefer to repeat the cruise we were just on a few more times. But there will still be some neat things to see in the Baltic, and I still have the British Isles to look forward to. And the Atlantic crossing!

July 24, 2010 - Flam, Norway

Our reherasal was moved to 11 am...since it originally perfectly bisected our port time, any shift was a good shift as it afforded me a little more continuous port time. Thus, I was up early to simply scout out where it was I would be going, and by 12:30 I was out on the road. I wasn't sure who, if anyone was going to be going with me, and would have been perfectly happy going by myself. But Zowie alone came with me (after I made it clear to the other guys that I wouldn't be waiting for anyone).

We decided to walk up in the direction of a massive waterfall that was visible from town. First I suppose I should tell a little about Flam. I've never really seen a town like this...it was like Juneau, surrounded by towering walls of rock and trees, only with far fewer houses, all of an odd style that almost represented colonial America. Oh, and the huge waterfall in the distance, as if it didn't look enough like a painting from Wooden Bird yet.

It didn't seem to me that Flam could hold more than a couple hundred people, and on our way to a "trail" (actually a road), we passed through 2 other "towns" that were named on our map, but again, only had about 10-15 houses in each. The houses all had nice lawns and maintained gardens. It kind of renews a desire to get a job where I can work remotely 100% of the time...this would be an unbelievable place to live at least during the summer months.

The walk was uneventful...the road, which saw hardly any traffic, zigzagged up into the mountains and occasionally we'd leave the road to follow a trail that some goats may have left. And sometimes we ran into those goats, who would eventually pause in perfect unison to look at what the strange interlopers were up to. Eventually, without a summit, we turned around. This gave us time to climb up to the waterfall on our way back, which was worth turning around for.

Tomorrow is Bergen, and after that we are back to the Baltic runs. It is unfortunate that we only spent a single cruise doing Norway, and as neat as it was to go as north as we did, I find myself wishing that we had just stayed in the fjord towns the whole time. It seems to me though that Flam would be an excellent place to spend a good month of kayaking, climbing, biking, and camping. Maybe next summer, if I can save up enough money.

July 23, 2010 - Alesund, Norway

This marks another day that is had rehearsals scattered thoughout the day. The first didn't hamper my port time, since we didn't arrive until 2 pm. But the second was right in the middle of port time, so I couldn't go as far as I would have liked, but that's ok because there were neat things to see close to the ship, and after rehearsal I returned for a run anyway.

I went out with a group today...more than half the band, and Zowie and Anna (the two junior activities people). Not liking large groups, I wasn't terribly thrilled, but they're good people, so as long as I keep them moving, I'm fine. And if they fall behind, that's fine too.

Someone in the group commented that this was like a little Rio De Janerio, and it really looked like that. A neat looking bay, surrounded by hills, and a big rock formation similar to Sugar Loaf in Rio. There was an observatory at the top of the rock so we all went up the steps to the top. It is a tourist favorite, but rightly so as it affords some pretty good views of the quaint town. There were trails leading away from the observatory however, so we took the trails (after I lit a fire under people's butts) to go see what was out there. Eventually, we found a little used trail into the woods that Brandon, Zowie, and I were compelled to follow but the rest were not, Anna (from Sweden) saying, of all things, "it's just the woods, what are you going to find there?" I think some people aren't happy unless there is a chance of a shoe store showing up.

Anyway, we made it back in plenty of time for the rehearsal, after which I took a run back to that location and found some more trails.

Tomorrow we have another rehearsal (during which I won't play a note and will probably just put my headphones on and listen to other things). I should have 6 hours after though, so maybe I'll be able to find something fun to do.

July 21, 2010 - Longyearbyen, Svalbard, Norway

I guess first I should write about the past few days, which first had me in Honnigsvag, Norway. On the map it appears that this is the northern most town in continental Norway and thus Europe. Nevertheless, it is still actually an island off the north coast of Norway. Regardless, it was really far north.

While we were docked all day, I had a rehearsal right in the middle of the day, so if there were any long adventures to go on, I wouldn't be able to do them. Fortunately, the big hill I saw in front of the town only took me 1.5 hours round trip to do, so I was back in time not only for rehearsal, but for lunch buffet too!

I ran into some guy from a different cruise ship (2 were actually docked). Actually, he ran into me. He was running up the hill behind me. At first I thought he was a local taking a daily run up the hill (which would be pretty hard core...it wasn't that far up, but it was a lot to run). But he was just in a hurry. Nice guy from New Zealand. He liked to talk about how he did that kind of thing a lot and he was very concerned about the possibility of me slipping. Meanwhile, it sounded like his lungs were going to explode.

I was glad to return to the ship when I did, because even though it was unusually sunny when I started the walk, the rain came right as I returned and it didn't really let up until we left.

Over the next two days, we cruised further north still in search of the "ice barrier". We passed all of Svalbard and went all the way to 80 degrees 35 minutes north. Finally we ran into ice. The funny thing was, compared not only to Antarctic ice, but to ice in the Alaskan fjords, it was pretty unremarkable. We turned around, but we could have gone straight into the ice for quite a ways before it became dangerous probably. Still, better safe than sorry at 80 degrees north. It was about 25 degrees F out, with frost collecting on open deck. Mark Merchant, the ventriloquist, commented to me that figured people could have just stayed at home and looked in the freezer. True, not very spectacular, but probably as far north as I'll ever make it.

Rehearsal was moved back to 11:30 am today, so I had about 4 hours to walk around Longyearbyen, a city founded in 1905 actually by an American, for the purpose of mining. I was able to get off the ship at 7:30. Zowie met me at the gangway for a walk into town (the shuttle didn't start moving passages the 750 meters into town until 9 am). We had heard that we were not advised/allowed to do any walking outside of town for danger of polar bears unless you were with a guide with a gun. While I had no doubt that polar bears were occasionally around, we decided to chance it a bit anyway. Seems to me I'd be able to see one from a good distance anyway, there was very little snow, nor food (except for myself of course). I also have a theory that, Longyearbyen's economy having been transformed from primarily mining to primarily tourism, rumors of the dangers of polar bears may be exaggerated to get people on the expensive tours.

And in the unlikely event that I become polar bear food, well, it'd be a spectacular exit.

At any rate, the only wild life we saw was the occasional flower, and a group of ship passangers who were appalled that we were up there wihtout a guide. On the way there, we found a trail going up the barren hill to an abandoned mine. No, I didn't explore an abandoned mine shaft...I'm not that stupid. But I did peak in one of the old rooms. There was old machinery buried in ice, and then another room with some old nude pictures seeminly from the 40s.

Leaving the mine, we kept up the valley (which was devoid of almost all vegetation or signs of life) towards the distant glacier that I could see toursists walking on. After passing the group that really looked concerned for our safety, we came upon what I thought was a scientific expedition...actually it was just some casual fossil seekers. This area is prime for old fossils, and they showed us their collection. One of the people actually let us take a pick of fossils to take with us, so instead of picking my usual rock, I have a fossil from Svalbard of an old leaf...probably from about 50 million years ago.

To make it back to the ship in time for my rehearsal, we had to run all the way back. Unfortunate, but I still did manage to make it only 1 minute late.

We are leaving any minute now to start the trip back south. More later.

July 16, 2010 - Trondheim, Norway

There were no hikes to do in Trondheim...certainly none that wouldn't require a taxi ride, and none that were even in sight. Nevertheless, Trondheim was a nice little "town" of about 200,000 people.

The backup plan was to play frisbee, but I noticed early on during the walk from the pier that I thought I'd rather go off on my own. Since the other 2 people with me couldn't keep up, things just kind of worked out :)

I started with a cup of tea and a bit of reading, and then trekked around the town finding various things of interest, including a large old cathedral, a military museum, and the natural history museum. The military museum, while a very very short military history of Norway from 1000 A.D. to the present, was pretty interesting. They possessed weapons and gear from each area and a little factoid about certain moments in Norweigan history. There was a large exhibit about the Nazi occupation, and about Quisling's Nazification of Norway.

The natural history museum seemed geared towards children, so I didn't stay long. I also wanted to get back to the ship for a late lunch, and to rest, because I'm really sore after yesterday's activities. And I have a live show to do tonight, so I want to be rested.

This will likely be the last posting for a while as I will be without internet perhaps for the remainder of the cruise, as we go further and further north.

July 15, 2010 - Geiranger, Norway

The annoying thing about this cruise, one of the only cruises this contract that really compelled me to sign, is to due rehearsal scheduling difficulties, I'll be rehearsing smack in the middle of most of out ports. Thus, finding good long hikes simply won't be possible.

However, today was an exception to that rule. In an departure from my normal procedure, I actaully recruited 3 other to wake up early and get off the ship as soon as possible (which unfortunately wasn't until 9:30). Dustin (sax), Gordon (piano) and Zowie (Junior Activities Director) all went with me to see how high we could climb up the what was a pretty spectacular Norweigen fjord. It looks a lot like Alaska, but something about it is different. Maybe the fjords are deeper, with higher walls. Or maybe the village was more quaint. I'm not really sure, but it was a pretty remarkable time.

The first segment took us up to 300 meters and a restaurant. At this point, Dustin and Gordon decided to go separate ways as they were having a hard time keeping up with the pace of Zowie and myself.

Zowie and I continued up to the next stop, which was a brilliant waterfall at about 550 meters. At this point we could have gone up to a farm type area, or pushed to a summit of 1420 meters. The only problem was we had to be back at the ship's tender by 3 pm. 5 and a half hours is pushing it to do a hike of such altitude, but we decided to really push it, and I must say I was surprised at Zowie's persistance and stamina. Of course, she's done this kind of thing before, and is only 23 years old, so maybe she should be surprised that I kept up with her. Before the last push, she asked me (the official time keeper) what our time was. I told her I didn't think we'd make it, so she hit the gas and I was on her heels.

After 3 hours of hard climbing we came to the summit...ok, in fairness, we were actually about 15 minutes away from the actual summit, but we were close enough as we finally had a fiew of the fjord from above. The cruise ship was almost directly beneath us, and as I sat there dangling my feet over the cliff I got a little too weirded out to stay there long. And I don't really have any problem with heights.

The trip down was harder, as it usually is for me. We actually ran some of it, which was hard not because I lacked energy or cardio strength, but just because going down really works the legs. Nevertheless, we walked up to the tender at exactly 2:59 pm.

I may be trying to look for something in Trondheim tomorrow...I should have time there too. It is only after that that time will be very limited. Hopefully 1 night of sleep will be enough to recover and do it again.

July 13, 2010 - Copenhagen, Denmark

I had a pretty long day today thanks to not having any show to do. I started off finding a little jazz cafe from which to do some internet browsing and listen to some music. Sadly, the cafe is going out of business in a week, primarily due to lackluster CD sales of late. The ship arrived a day after a 10 day jazz festival ended, so I just missed being able to see some great acts. Too bad!

Following coffee and internet I basically wandered around downtown Copenhagen. I had a map, but had no idea where the shuttle bus had dropped me off, so that added a bit to the excitement. I found an old astronomical observatory called the Rundetaarn, billed as the oldest fuctioning observatory in Europe, which is to say that even though there is no longer a large telescope underneath it's dome, people still go up there with small portable telescopes for fun. So it really isn't actually being used for anything but a tourist attraction, but it still afforded a good view of the city.

I later wandered through a couple of parks to find the Castle Rosenborg. King Christian IV build it in 1606-34 as a summer castle. For only 75 crowns ($12-$15) you could gain admission, for for another 20 crowns you could even be permitted to take pictures! What a deal. It was a pretty neat looking castle though...not a square inch was left undecorated by something.

In the evening, Ellert returned a day early to his bandmaster position and 9 of us planned to go to Vitoli, the local amusement park. Ellert has been friends with Hylnur for a long time, and since Hylnur was leaving just as Ellert was getting back, Hylnur was looking forward to spending time with Ellert. Sadly, due to bad planning and separate taxis, we became separated, and Hylnur, myself, and Matt went to the amusement park alone. I was kind of against going there from the start because it was really expensive to get in with full access to the rides (300 crowns), particularly when it was late, and there was lightening, so many of the rides were closed anyway. We opted for the 95 crown entrance fee, after which we could pay for individual rides. Ride tickets were 25 crowns each, and we only learned too that that any rate worth taking cost 3 of those tickets. Not the best deal.

Still, they had a big band playing in a gazebo that was good enough to rival any pro big band in Minneapolis. Nothing flashy, just a solid swinging band with great soloists. That made the cost of admission worth it, though it did little to comfort Hylnur.

The next leg of the trip is remote Norway. Hopefully our rehearsal schedule won't get in the way of port time, though if I know Crystal well, I'm sure that they will do their best to make sure that rehearsals interfere with port time as much as possible.

July 10, 2010 - Warnemunde, Germany

I suppose I should catch up on recent activities as well. A few days ago in St. Petersburg, Russia, I escorted a ship tour to The Hermitage. Actually, the most interesting aspect of the tour was probably the conversation I had with a Hawaiian gentleman named Daniel at lunch. He made a good living as a singer, then as a television host in Hawaii, Japan, Korea, and China. He speaks 10 languages, and it turns out he's the cousin of Don Ho, of "Tiny Bubbles" fame.

The next day in Helsinki I basically used to go running with my Icelandic friend Leonard (it's actually something like Hylnard but he just goes by Leonard because people can pronounce that). After our run, I went back into town for some internet. So it wasn't a particularly eventful day.

Today brought a few interesting occurances in Warnemunde. There was a canal in the town that was hosting some sort of 20-man canoe races. People had pitched tents to watch the matches. The place was so crowded and tourist oriented, I thought it was like what Key West would look like if it were 800 years old. I ran into the lighting guy from the ship, so we wandered through all of the stands, including someone that was selling actual dentist tools pretty cheap. We eventually found a beach and I thought I was in Miami...the place was packed. I guess they have few days like today...sunny and close to 90 degrees. Manny (the lighting guy) watched my stuff while I took a swim. The water gave away that we weren't in the Caribbean, but it was no colder than any lake in Minnesota in the summer. And it wasn't particularly salty either.

Given that I had started the day with another run with Leonard, I'm kind of exhausted now, but I have a show to rehearse in 25 minutes. At least they scheduled it for 7 pm instead of the usual 12 noon rehearsal that breaks the day up.

We are going to one more port in Germany before moving to finish the cruise at Copenhagen, after which I will start one of the legs of the trip that I'm looking forward to: Northern Norway!

June 25, 2010 - Visby, Gotland, Sweden

This day brought me to the island of Gotland, to the municipality seat Visby. The town has that European combination of old to ancient buildings with newer buildings that still look old or ancient, with cobblestone streets that barely allow a car to fit through. I basically meandered may way around town going from site to site, first coming across some city walls which still surround the old city, and then finding purely by chance several examples of church and monestary ruins among the homes and shops of town.

Most of these buildings were built in the 1200s. However, the Danes invaded in 1361 and remained under their rule (more or less) for about 300 years. I was told that in the 1500s most of these churches, except for the Cathredral of Visby, were abandoned.

I didn't have a long time to stay on shore as I had a training to attend on the ship (that amounted to about 12 minutes). Upcoming is St. Petersburg, but I am not planning on going ashore due to the constraints applied by the local officials. $15 per day per person, plus, the shuttle bus (which is required...bikes not allowed) is ANOTHER $15. I'm not sure if that is round trip or not. Needless to say, I won't be going out on my own much, which is probably for the best anyway. I'll try to get on some of the guest tours however. I'll have plenty of opportunities to do so.

Oh, and happy birthday, mom! :)

June 23, 2010 - Oslo, Norway

Not only did I make it to the ship easily, but now I have a nice voucher for a flight elsewhere in the world (at least a good chunk of it paid). My taxi driver was waiting for me at the airport, and the 90 minute ride to Dover was interesting.

My driver looked asian (oriental) and his accent sound like an odd mix of British and some sort of Asian accept. I was surprised to find out that he was from Afghanistan. He has been in England now for about 12 years, but he has family back near Kabul. Interestingly, even though he was well old enough to remember the Soviet occupation, he says his part of where he lived saw no effect from it.

He told me he was Islam, and where he was from he was generally hated by the Pashtoons. I can't remember which brand of Islam he follows, but it didn't ring familiar to me. Maybe it was hard to understand with his accent. Anyway, given that the general stereotype of Muslims is that they are all fanatical, and didn't seem that way, I had to ask him how intently did he practice. For instance "do you pray 5 times a day"?

"I pray 3 times a day. That's why the Pashtoon don't approve".

He's married to a Christian Lithuianian. Neither of them have British citizenship, and neither of them seem to have an issue with the differing religions. Huh.

Today in Oslo, I've just walked around a bit. I'm ported in a different location than my last time hear 4 years ago, so I was unable to find the sculpture garden. Which is fine, because I've been there twice. I did find the Royal Palace, which had a nice lawn and assortment of duck ponds. Lacking sand beaches to tan on, the seem to flock here (though not in mass beach numbers). I couldn't tour the palace because I can't seem to find a money exchange, and they only take cash. Norwegian cash. One thing I've noticed is that, among the large number of people biking around here, I've yet to see one helmet. I wonder if the Freakenomics guy has done a chapter on bike helmets. I think people overreact on the whole helmet thing.

I think I'm going to head back to the ship for lunch. Maybe I'll come out again. I have nothing for a couple of hours, and then I have a busy night ahead of me.

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