Stockholm, Sweden--Saturday, May 31, 2014 We had a beautiful cruise among some of the 30,000 islands of the Stockholm archipelago this morning before docking at the pier. Many of the islands were large enough to have towns and villages on them and many had just lovely summer homes studded across them and are accessible only by boat. Many had saunas down on the shoreline. After arrival we discovered that this port has an actual terminal building with free wifi, so first thing we did is avail ourselves of this “luxury” and sent out some e-mails and posted photos to Facebook. We have just completed the first 2 weeks of this Enrichment Voyage on board the M/V Explorer. In the morning, June 1st, she will take on a new set of passengers and we will start the ... read more

St. Petersburg (Catherine’s Palace) to Tsarskoye Selo, Russia--Wednesday, May 28, 2015 Rainy skies and cool. Once we got underway for our tour, our guide for this trip talked the whole way through and then out of the City. She pointed out various buildings that we passed—government offices, parks, memorials, newer high rise apartments, Soviet-style housing, etc. She also talked about prices for rents, usual income for a family, the education system, and various historical facts associated with St. Pete. The Catherine Palace is located about 25km southwest of St. Pete, very near the Palace of Peter the Great, and was used by the tsars as a summer residence. The Palace built in 1752, is painted a bright blue with gold and white trim in a very flamboyant rococo style. More than 100 grams of gold were ... read more

St Petersburg, Russia—Monday, May 26, 2014 Before we left home, Valerie and I had thoroughly studied the tour offerings for this port for 3 reasons. 1) We knew that we could only leave the ship without purchasing a Russian visa ($169 each and hassle) if we were with a sanctioned tour group; 2) We had spent several days in St. Petersburg before and wanted to now see something we hadn’t seen before; 3) We wanted to make sure we had tickets for tours we did want to see or we would be stuck on the ship for 3 days, if the tours were sold out. We woke up on Monday morning with the ship docked right downtown with a glorious view of the city and its monuments and church spires. Our first tour wasn’t scheduled until ... read more

Klaipeda, Lithuania--Thursday, May 22nd One of the things we found interesting about this voyage was the sights to and from our ports of call. As we approached Klaipeda and our berth, several homes were seen along the banks. Today we stayed in and Valerie iced and elevated her foot all day. The first time we were in Lithuania when Valerie taught in the capitol city of Vilnius (2008), we rented a car and drove to Klaipedia where we visited several towns and drove onto the Curonian Spit. We had originally planned to just walk into town, but we decided that wasn’t a good idea. That evening, after dinner, we went to the auditorium and enjoyed a group called Kursiu Ainiai from Lithuania that explained and then played ancient musical instruments of the region. Some examples were ... read more

Hamburg, Germany--Saturday, May 17th We had the large buffet breakfast again at the hotel and then took a taxi to the dock/port to embark on the ISE Explorer for the enrichment voyage. We needed to be on board by 10:00 and settled a bit before Valerie had an orientation meeting to learn her duties that day. We then had lunch with the staff and other lecturers before Valerie had to assist with the boarding of the passengers. Before dinner, when everyone was aboard, we had the usual long safety drill. I don’t know how this could be more efficiently done, but we spend a long time standing on the deck by the lifeboats waiting for everyone to muster and then respond to the roll call. Kiel Canal, Germany--Sunday, May 18th We were awakened by ... read more