The Comfort Tour

So due to visa restrictions in Russia when we traveled there earlier this year, we had to sign up for a tour. We were coming off of a busy season of life and didn't want a high speed pressure filled event, so we signed up for "comfort class" tour.

The group was small and consisted of those who'd past 70  -- and us! I don't know what I expected but not the senior citizen tour.

An old trucker and his wife from Texas. He was rambunctious and couldn't hear and she repeated things for him. He had his wallet stolen at the Peter and Paul Fortress in the line for the turnstile, but other than pride and a few choice words, no damage done. He only brought cash in his wallet from the boat since he was worried about pickpockets. I had to wonder if you didn't bring your credit card on land to buy foreign things, why did you have it with you at all? It was a strategy that paid off for him though. 

Two delightful Vietnamese sisters retired and living in California had an amazing sense of humor and traveled without their significant others. One of them spilled her water bottle as we were getting on the mini-bus and was very adamant that everyone would know she didn't pee.

A retired Canadian couple born in the UK but living in Ottawa had very British accents and almost felt like a comic sketch of a British couple. He thought everywhere was unsafe but had had to travel with a "government office" during his working days. He fancied himself an expert on everything and liked waxing eloquent on it. He was a major pro-picture taker.

A quiet tall older couple from Minnesota or the Dakotas were a matched set of tallness.  She was friendly; he didn't talk. I found myself standing by him on the 5 minute escalator ride to the bottom of the St. Petersburg metro station. It was dramatically long. He was so overcome he spoke, "You'd have to leave for work early." Then at the bottom of the long escalator was a booth with a guard sitting in it. "That'd be easy work." I guess he thought about work.

There was one other couple and they were an exact match to this northern pair where one was friendly and one didn't talk. For the life of me I couldn't keep them straight. Except one fella wore a fishing cap.

While my mother has told me that I'm middle aged, I am not even beginning to be able to imagine the word retirement, so this was not my normal social set. It was almost like any group of quirky people but the quirks seem to be on steroids. Maybe our oddities increase as we get older? Is it harder to hold in our natural instincts of telling all you know or announcing loudly how bad the food or prices might be? I just don't know, not yet anyway.

 One thing that was unexpected for my husband and myself was that we felt responsible for all these people. I'm not sure if it is that we are used to living overseas and often are taking others around to see sites. We perhaps are in the habit of watching over folks. On this day, of course, we'd all paid dearly for a tour guide. She was a nice English teacher and probably around our age.

Nevertheless, my husband and I were tech support for the earphone technology, along with the tour guide, checking channels and volume buttons. We would hang back if we noticed one of the pack falling behind. We were cautioning them about pickpockets when we went into the metro station. We were definitely in mother hen mode even though it wasn't our job.

The cute thing is when we arrived late the first day (see earlier post) they were all worried if we were okay especially those from the north that must have skipped breakfast knowing the passport lines were long. It was our first time, how were we to know?

We compared notes with some younger people on the normal-non-comfort tours. It sounded miserable. They were road marched past a few more sites than us but never allowed to stop or ask questions. It sounded like a race to run past famous monuments, plus that tour was made up of three full sized bus loads of people and we were only 12. We could chat with our tour guide and ask for random potty stops while the big tour people did not have these luxuries. I was thrilled we had taken the comfort tour and had been able to enjoy the sites. To tell the truth, the comfort tour managed to wear me out anyway.

Impressions of St. Petersburg, Russia

St. Petersburg, Russia ---

We did a river cruise first and I didn't realize there were so many old palaces there. Many of course have been converted into museums or other things. They are mostly a classical (I'm guessing) 18th century look of sort of row palaces along the river (like row houses). Many had white stone corners and lintels while the facade was painted bright colors. Totally did not expect the bright colors in Russia.  I didn't expect miles upon miles of them along the canals.  The river trip was a bit of a blur but there was weak warm sunshine that made a light jacket just right in June!

We took a hydrofoil ride to Petershoff castle. I slept thru the ride. The time difference of two hours from Madrid and getting up super early for the tour was really painful. We were getting up at like 4am our time. What a whiner I am - I could have had jet lag if I'd come from the US!

We just toured the gardens of Petershoff which were Versailles-esque. Peter was influenced by Versailles and wanted to have something equally impressive. The fountains were lovely and gravity fed which was impressive.

We got lots of history from the tour guide Oksana thru out the two days.
Catharine the great was from Prussia (part of Germany depending on the century). She plotted with one of her lovers to kill husband Peter III and become empress for 35 or 40 years! She was known for having many lovers. She built the one who helped her kill hubby Peter a palace on the river called Gratitude palace.

A long bus ride to Pushkin followed where the palace of Catharine is. Catherine's palace was huge from the outside, light blue, white and gild nearly in a circle but the small buildings on the opposite side were kitchens and staff quarters. The anterooms and the throne room were recently restored (since the 1970s) after being burned by the Nazis on their way out of Russia (we were told this several times). The public rooms had so much gilding, pounds of gold leaf! I think a second rococo style. It was so ornate and grand. Definitely worth the trip and effort  to go there. The entire palace is still not restored from the Nazi exodus. I did not expect the Soviet era to have taken such an interest in their history. I guess I thought they were busy rewriting or doing away with history, so this was interesting to me. Perhaps a pride issue?

We signed up for an evening folk dance show so the tour dropped us in a coffee shop in downtown where a tour minder stayed with us (I assume so we didn't wander off and have to report us to the police again). The girl was in her first year in University in philology and was studying Spanish so we practiced Spanish and talked about Spain and Russian life.

She took us over to yet another palace where the hopping and dancing was in the ballroom. Whistles and amazing glittery trimmed costumes accompanied the dancing. I often find the tourist shows a bit cheesy but this one was well done. It was just the dancing, no schtick in-between things.  At intermission, the Asians in the crowd (the majority) shoved me out of the way to get to the crackers and champagne. Shove may be too gentle of a word actually. I guess they are used to conditions so crowded they just shove and push to get what they want. Or maybe it's a vacation urgency thing. It was harsh but we enjoyed the show and recognized that this was local artists and dancers trying to make a living at their art who probably had other jobs they had to work as well like most artists.




Next time Day 2 of the sprint around St. Petersburg.

Pros and Cons of Cruising from an indie traveler perspective

I just got back from a Baltic cruise. I don't have much experience with cruising. We are not the people that go a couple times a year. In fact, it's been twice in 25 years. The first time was a family outing and I did not make any decisions about it. I showed up when I was told to and it was Caribbean so quite different than this Baltic one. My impressions from that long ago cruise were few: everyone was seasick as we had bad seas, lots of different food I hadn't had before,  brief visits that were far too short to see an actual location, and expensive.

Normally we do independent travel. Plan our own tickets and hotels and go on our own, sometimes in the car and other times flying and pubic transport. Five years ago for example we the Amalfi coast of Italy. We stayed in four cities and used public transport to change cities every couple days.

This year was a special anniversary, so we wanted to do something out of the norm. We also had an exceedingly hectic six months prior to this opportunity to vacation, and really no time or maybe no energy to plan something. We found a last minute deal on the cruise, had a good tax return this year,  and decided to go for it. We needed to relax.

Pros:
We had free room service available and took advantage of it by having breakfast in our room nearly every morning. It was relaxing and easy. Two mornings we had to be up and moving early we didn't do it and I found the group dining room to be crowded, hard to find a table, and hassle ridden. God bless the wait staff hustling but it was crazy. A much greater selection of food was available in the dining room however, than what was on the menu for room service though.

I also took advantage of room service when we were deciding to eat later by ordering cheese and crackers, or cookies. It was wonderful to eat a light snack and watch the sea go by while sipping a hot tea. It was chilly up there so I enjoyed the tea service a lot. This was one of the more relaxing aspects.

No thinking needed. The agenda is laid out for you on the cruise. What things there are to do at what times and what time you can get off the boat to see the city. This is a season of my life I needed to not have to figure out what was next and this made it more relaxing. Granted I didn't take very much advantage of their offerings and mostly relaxed with my book.

Unpacking once and sleeping the same place. I think that made the trip much more relaxing. I think if you are trying to see a wide scope of places in a short trip cruising is probably much less harried than say a bus trip where you change hotels each night.

We were advised by several experienced cruisers to get a balcony and this turned out to be very good advice. It was really nice to watch the ports come and go or to step out and watch the sun or check the weather. It made our room much more appealing, a good refuge.

If you are a nervous traveler, cruising is a good option. The food is there and you don't have to second guess much of anything. You can even sign up for shore excursions  and be hand carried to see the important sites. It can be a no brainer.

Variety and Service. Our boat seemed full of people from all over the world and in the evenings we chose to randomly eat with different people which was very interesting. We ate with people from Denmark, South Africa, Ireland, England, and even a couple from the USA. A lot of the boat was people from the U.S. actually and because of that or the cruise company policy customer service was more like I am accustomed to in the U.S. and that was pleasant.

Cons:

Feeling herded like cattle. At the first embarkation I noticed it, we were in rows and rows of wrap around lines and lots of people were complaining. I mean we're essentially going to grown up Disneyland, so we should expect lines, right? Getting off the boat for the ports of call was definitely a herd feeling too. If you had an organized tour, you generally had a tight schedule to keep and for some that means fighting the other cattle to get ahead. The cruise people did a good job of efficiently unloading the boat but it was still 2,000 people to move.

We chose open seating for dinner and generally eat later so we never had to wait, but I noticed others waiting on occasion and wondered if you could run into the same crowded sensation with the food too if you weren't careful.

Expensive. All this hand carrying is not cheap. You get good value for your Euro or your Dollar but this was not our best value trip. Other than the buffet style restaurant and one other restaurant on board, the other eating places required a supplement between $10 per person all the way up to $89. We did not eat at the supplement locations and had good food throughout minus some soggy shrimp, but not as exotic as the first cruise I took. Perhaps though I am just a more seasoned traveler now. The food seemed heavy toward the American side but was generally good quality. The only beverages included were coffee, tea, and water. Soda, gourmet coffee, and cocktail drinkers beware. They would offer drinks at times that were like part of the show and after people took them the servers would come around and ask for your room card to charge you.

The excursions were, for me, shockingly expensive. I saw after the fact that you are paying quite a few people to help you handlers and tour guides, not to mention pre-planned private transport to very specific sites and entry tickets. So it has all been done for you - and that doesn't come cheap. We did two excursions and I will blog about those later.

Still under expensive: tips are not included and there are a ton of people waiting on you. They are doing a very good job and deserve to get paid properly and that involves tipping. The cruise company we went with charges you $130 per person for all the tips for everyone. This is after you get on and in addition to your cruise price. So it's all taken care of, but if you've never been before it might hit your budget if you didn't know.

Sales gimmicks. Everywhere you turned on the boat something was being sold or pushed. Paintings. Jewelery, Faberge Eggs, Russian nesting dolls, t-shirts from past and present cruises, photographs, photograph sittings, spa visits, drinks etc. I guess they must make some good money on all the extras or they wouldn't do it, but it felt a little shopping channel to me. Of course, you don't have to participate but it's always there.

We had a good time and for certain kinds of trips I would do a cruise again. The Norwegian fjords for example I think would be good to see from the water or anytime you are trying to get a lot of countries or a big country like China into a 10 day trip, a cruise would be an easier way to do that. You only dip your toe into the culture with say an 8 hour day trip to one city, but it's a nice taste and let's face it not all travelers are cut out for the deep immersion travel so this is a good way to visit on the lighter side with some hand carrying.

Viva la difference!
 

Global Media Culture Phenomena started by Rock and Roll?

I heard a description of new international youth culture around the world at a media conference. The speaker described the phenomena of young people in say China or Asia somewhere having a more sense of commonality with someone half way around the world, maybe in the United States or South America, than perhaps they do with super traditional family members living in the same house. It's the new global culture. The media culture.

Maybe these people from different lands became friends in an online gaming environ, a virtual world, maybe they met in a chat or on a site that allows chatting from fans. Maybe it's a site to practice a language they have in common. I've read of hispanic and arabic soap opera type programs having an on going friendship with others who are followers of the show. So you can see how this phenomena is occurring.

I've watched a few rock and roll concert dvds or documentaries in the past year and I wondered did Rock and Roll create the base for this? I watched as people on five continents could scream the lyrics of an English band. They have tattoos, and t-shirts that look the same as the people in the last country that the documentary featured. So I started wondering if the rock culture that has spread since the 1960s, the shared musical tunes, created the base for this global media culture. Pure speculation on my part, but the music whether you like the bands that are famous or not, created a common language for people. How many of you have traveled somewhere and soemone who can't speak English says, "Michael Jackson?!" Was the rock and roll invasion the basis for the internet global world?

I don't suppose I'll go do a thesis on it and have any proof, but it's interesting to speculate about. Another question that I've heard bandied about: do these people who have these intercultural communications or those who connect on facebook -- do they have "real" relationships? The media conference I was at said they had done studies and absolutely these young people consider these real relationships and friendships. I heard some, friends, uh, older than me discussing it, they said, no those aren't "real" relationships. A discussion that's only beginning I suspect.

An attempt at Satire

In Klingistan, the people are small and green. A new leader decided all the people of the kingdom would wear yellow shirts. He had found a law in the history books that said he could tell the people what to wear. So, "Only yellow shirts," he declared. "Starting on Tuesday at 9am, everyone will wear yellow shirts. Always."

One fellow, we'll call him, Adam didn't want to wear a yellow shirt.

Another person, Anna, had to make her own and she asked for a two hour deviation. By 11am she could have her shirt done, but 9 wasn't quite going to work.

Tuesday came and the leader sent the police out to enforce his new law. Many people didn't take it seriously, so he created a special police force just for the yellow shirt policy. Anna was arrested first for not being on time.

Adam started speaking out in the streets wearing a, gulp, blue shirt. He called for the yellow shirt law to be abolished and Anna to be released from prison.

Well, in the tradition of the green people the leader had to be followed. It just had to be done. The ancient writings said so. The leader sent the yellow shirt police to disband the crowd, even though they all wore their yellow shirts. It wasn't seemly for them to gather together and listen to that Adam fellow talk ill of the leader. You see speaking ill of the leader was also forbidden in the land. The original leader of the green people, many hundreds of years ago, had said so.

The shirt police fired shots into the crowd, live ammunition, killing several people. The red blood soaked their yellow shirts. No one would be allowed to congregate in the public squares, yellow shirts or no. Poor Adam, who felt he had something to say, was arrested.

It was a big event in Klingistan and well, a man who worked for the newspaper had happened by during the gathering. He was intrigued and took notes from a distance. So he wrote a little observation piece for the local paper. He tried very hard to only tell what had happened because he knew it would be sensitive. The next day the newspapers flew off the stands. All the green people who weren't at the gathering were fascinated and wanted to know what had occurred exactly.

You can imagine it wasn't long before whispering was going on among the green people. Even though the leader said so, well some weren't sure if the arrest of Anna or Adam was the for the best, but then tradition said they must obey the leader. It was perplexing, but no one was sure what could be done.

The shirt police went to the newspaper and talked to the poor observant fellow. His choice was to, well, clarify the story, perhaps recant some things or face losing his job, maybe going to prison. He got going on a new version of the event. The printer sent couriers out on the streets to gather in the unsold papers.

When Adam's family saw the newspaper the next day with the new version, they were disturbed. They knew they couldn't say anything against the leader. But poor Adam sitting in prison. He had a different opinion yes, but, well it was disturbing.  They went to the religious house in their neighborhood. It seemed they ought to appeal to a higher power on Adam's behalf.

While his mother knelt at the front, the state police entered the back of the building. A large green officer, cleared his throat loudly. "Excuse me, you will all have to leave this place. It is not a sanctioned place of worship. It deviates from the tradition. The ban is effective now."

Everyone sat or knelt frozen in place contemplating this announcement. Stunned.

"You need to leave, NOW!"

The startled group shuffled out. The general police nailed the door shut and posted a notice of where a legal place of worship existed. Adam's mother grasped the officer's arm, "Is this because of Adam?"

He shook her off. "No," he straightened the yellow uniform blazer. "I don't know what you are talking about. This worship place doesn't abide with the tradition. The new leader wants to enforce the old traditions. We must enforce it."

The poor woman sobbed as she walked home. Something didn't feel right, even though the traditions were being followed. Somehow she felt dirty or wrong. She also had a conviction she would never see Adam again. And she didn't.

the end


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Shopping legends

I heard an advertisement for a shopping area in KC that opens at midnight Thanksgiving night for shopping. Now that is a weird sale time I could get into. I can do midnight, but 5 am you've lost me there.

The idea of getting up at 3 am to stand in line just doesn't do it for me. I'm not a hard core shopper I guess. I also don't like the idea of fighting for the particular items in question.

I once went to Tuesday Morning (the shop) on their opening day. I had seen a flyer and I wanted a tiffany-style lamp they had advertised and it was on the way to work. I had no idea people lined up to get stuff that first day, and I had no idea they were after the same lamps. People pushed and shoved and ran! At Tuesday Morning in MIssion Kansas on a weekday morning!! I calmly walked down a separate isle found a lamp that was $10 more but the same style and vowed never again. I'm just not a shoving, fighting type shopper. I know it's suppose to be all in the hunt, can't do it.

The odd thing is I do like to go to crowded group events, like the Plaza lighting ceremony in KC with half a million of my closest friends. But at those type of events, I'm just there. I'm not trying to fight anyone in the crowd for a sweater.

Several of us went to London at Christmas back in the mid 90s. I can't remember but I think we arrived the day after Christmas. We decided to go shopping on Oxford street, a major shopping street with big department stores. It was really crowded. Insanely crowded. Not 5 am or anything, just the middle of the afternoon the day after Christmas. They had barricaded the sidewalks so that we couldn't spill over into Oxford Street. We reached a point where no one could walk on the sidewalk. You couldn't get from one store to the next to look around. Finally the police came and moved barricades or something. The next day we say a headline in the newspaper, "Oxford street experiences human gridlock."

So maybe you want to mock me. I don't get up at 5am to fight for deals, but I'll go into a crowd of 100,000 for the heck of it. And just maybe, I'd go to a midnight sale - to watch the crowd!

It's not an easy discussion to have

Lately I've been pondering a very sticky issue. Pacifism - in regards to all of the variety of definitions, personal restraint from military participation, the belief that no country should resolve differences with war, and just a personal opposition to war or violence of any kind.

In the past, I would have answered quickly that well, yes, I believe in using war at times to resolve things. However, recently I've heard some compelling arguments using the New Testament for pacifism in all circumstances. I also have read recently of Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr's use of nonviolent protest to cause change. Both the groups that followed these men used nonaggression in their protests and met with violence. The world and their nations grew in their compassion for the causes watching the unprovoked violence that was done to the protestors. Again very compelling.

I recognize as a believer that Jesus did not chose, at the ultimate hour of his suffering, to react with violence to what was done to him; nor did he endorse his followers using violence during that dark hour of his being taken by authorities and eventually killed. His "pacifism" in this case did not result in a physical change like Ghandi's. It was a spiritual triumph and a philosophical change for sure, but the Pharisees and Sadducees as a body of legislators did not become "converted" or changed as a system. Not a huge success physically in the non-agression annals, while I do believe it changed the universe spiritually.

The idea of love changing people and systems is very appealing to me. Convicting even. I think in Martin Luther King Jr's case it wasn't that it was love by the protesters as much as a non-agression policy. The same with Ghandi. Yet, it was powerful. But people did die. It wasn't a bloodless event in either case.

If this was followed very strictly, our country would not exist as we know it. While we can trust in God to be at work, it seems that we have Biblical precedent to act in behalf of others. "Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for his brothers." (John 15:13, 1 John 3:16 and many more). Jesus indeed laid down his life for all of us without a personal benefit to himself.

So I ask myself if fighting tyranny and bringing liberty or freedom, to another group of people is worth sacrificing for? Or even to an individual? I mean that is what Ghandi and others have done with non-aggression, right? But would this same manner have worked in the Nazi situation or were drastic measures called for? I know many Jews tried to go along passively until suddenly they were out of opportunities to escape or resist or bring about change.

On an individual level, I realize we are called on to love. We are never to persecute an individual, but we also hold standards out to all individuals. We don't love them into complete acceptance of every action. (pedophilia, murder) So it seems limits, don't mean that we aren't loving. We may be introducing people to something better, healthier even by placing restrictions on them rather than tolerating everything. Not all things are good for an individual. So when is it our loving responsibility to take action? When a woman is being attacked, does she love or fight her attacker? Does a bystander stop the attacker or find a passive way to protest the situation?

Can the same argument be taken to a larger scale? Sometimes pacifism works - Romania's velvet revolution (though some died). But what do we do with Tienanmen Square in China where people were squelched and imprisoned? I want liberty and freedom for everyone so they have a chance to hear about Christ and make a decision for themselves and for them to live without physical tyranny. Surely that's not a bad motivation? I find personal liberty to be part of what Christ stood for. He didn't stone the woman caught in adultery - he set her free and stopped her attackers. (Yes, I acknowledge he did it without violence.)

Honestly, I haven't resolved this issue. I'm fascinated by both sides and find the subject more complicated than I used to. I know we are living under a different time period than the eye for an eye time period of the Bible, but I'm not sure I can go to complete pacifism in all circumstances either. Another stretching place in my character...

The 5k

Ode to the ones who passed me by, oh so many of you. Thank you four office ladies for keeping the pace in front of me and giving me such interesting conversation to hear. And yes, the answer is we were sore the next day. I think it was the hills.

Lady with the ancient dachsund, how were you able to pass me and disappear into the distance with that geriatric hound?

Oh you runners of the 10k, did you know you do funny things? I suppose all runners do as I am not among your class. There's the girl in the red sport bra top with the one hand that is floppy and keeps a different rhythm from the rest of her steady jog. There was the lady who appeared double my age, yes in a sports bra and matching jogging shorts. Yes, she passed me by and seemed just fine when I saw her at the finish line. An inspiration for sure but I'm still not taking up running.

Lady with the stroller and two walkable age children, was it necessary to keep stopping and passing and stopping and passing?

People I know, where were you in the crowd? I know I'm short, but I should have been able to find you.

Ode to you the ones that pick up the paper cups no longer filled with water that all the runners and walkers fling to the ground at the half way point, and the cute teen volunteers holding signs indicating how far we've gone - thank you for stolid encouragement.

I would do it again, yes indeed. In fact it was bliss to be involved in fund raising that didn't involve yours truly.

Misfits?

On occasion I find myself in a group of strangers for my work with the odd sensation that it is a group of unusual people. They are outside my experience by default as new people, but for some reason there are these groupings where everyone is in eccentric or misfit category. This doesn't bother me and I find these people are more endearing for their eccentricities. And really it's all relative, isn't it? Who gets to judge eccentric or misfit? But you know what I'm saying when you meet these people. I know I've also had the feeling in other circles of being the misfit in the room.

But I had the sudden thought that we are all misfits. None of us can attain a level of perfection or acclimation that will make us acceptable to everyone else on the planet. Much less can we manage ourselves into a state of acceptability to God. In the eternal economy we are all misfits, none of us gets to go across that line of acceptance or goodness based on our own work on our personalities.

What a joy I took in bowing, figuratively, to God  on the same side of the line as the misfits or challenging people (in my limited view). I can't propel myself across the line. It's a freeing idea really. Hopefully it helps me to feel more generous to the people I find different from me recognizing that we all need God's hand to reach across the line and erase the selfishness of myself.

Back from the IKEA wars

We are celebrating Labor Day this weekend, but our car is in the shop so we didn't travel. We took a newcomer to IKEA today to get some stuff and just to check it out. The problem is that it was an uncharacteristically sort of rainy day. And vacation month (August) is over. This is two MAJOR strikes against the mall. The third is that it is Saturday.

So we joined everyone else in Madrid at the San Sebastian de los Reyes IKEA. We chose the small yellow dolly rather than a full size cart so it would be easier to negotiate the crowds. So did everyone else!

A crowd challenge you face here, and I'm afraid I'm developing this habit, is that people just stop where they are and have discussions. Doesn't matter that their bodies and baby stroller and or cart are blocking the entire aisle and that there is no way for you to pass around. You get to wait until their conversation is finished. So that makes it interesting.

I got bumped a lot by people's carts or yellow dollys and I know I bumped a few people as the load got wider than the mini-dolly. But one lady took the cake. She pushed so close and so abruptly close to me that a large box protruding from her dolly drew blood on the back of my neck! It's a good thing I wasn't facing her or it might have been my jugular. I'm being facetious somewhat but, man, I've never had a shopping injury before.