I can't believe we went to Russia!

I've always wanted to go to Russia - honestly with the same passion as most people want to go to Italy or France.  Some of this comes from the fact that I am (partly) of Russian descent - my great grandparents (my dad's mom;s family) were from there .  But I think it is even more than that. I've always had a yearning to go - an unexplained attraction to the country.  Maybe the desire stemmed from the fact that I never thought I would actually get to go (you know how us women are - we always want what we can't have - ha!)  But seriously, I can't explain it - I just know that I really wanted to travel to Russia at least once in my life.  And although it was very short (only about 7 hours), my dream was fulfilled last weekend with a trip to St. Petersburg on the St. Peter's Line!  But of course the only thing that this did was make me want more!  I LOVED IT!

Mr. William's Party
This past weekend our friends, Sarah and Zann Hawkins, joined us in Helsinki before we all hopped on the cruise to St. Petersburg, Russia.  We met them through Jamie Durham Pfister's great connections (thanks Jamie!) while we were living in Zurich.  Together we make up 2/3 of Mr. William's Party (we missed you Sara and Josh!), a nickname we got for our group while traveling in Egypt together.  We love "Mr. William's Party" and hope to have many more years of traveling together in our future!

Mr. William's Party from L to R - Zann, Sarah, me, and Nathan

Helsinki
Sarah and Zann arrived last Wednesday night, then the three of us - Nathan had to work :(  - went into Helsinki on Thursday to check out the sites. We got a bit of a late start, so we headed first to Market Square to check out the Finnish goods and then over to the delicatessen stalls in the Old Market Hall to eat reindeer (okay - only Zann got reindeer but all of our lunches were really good!).  After this we started on a "Walking Tour of Helsinki" that I downloaded from the website VisitHelsinki. We started the tour in Senate Square with a look at the Helsinki Cathedral.

The size of the Cathedral does make it an impressive site. 

Then we went on a rather boring 45 minute walk where the "tour" pointed out stuff like "a sculpture of two horses in a small park entitled, Maternal Love" - okay really?  And the "small park" was a bed of flowers - no seriously.  I think I might have said this before, but there really isn't that much to see in Helsinki (not trying to offend any of the Finnish here - sorry guys!). So we finally decided to ditch the "tour" to see the one last site I hadn't made it over to yet - the Uspenski Cathedral - the largest Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe and one of the clearest symbols of the Russian impact on Finnish history. 

Uspenski Cathedral

After this I HAD to take them to the Suomenlinna Maritime Fortress - it is the #1 thing to do in Helsinki on Trip Advisor you know:)  (I covered Suomenlinna in this post if you want to find out more about it.)  By the time we reached the island, we only had two hours to look around and get back to our apartment to meet up with Nathan, get our luggage, and head to the cruise ship to St. Petersburg, so we only hit the "highlights"! 

Of course we had time for a panoramic picture!

The Cruise
I'm not sure what it is about these overnight cruises that turns Nathan into a drunkard, but this trip was no exception:)!  And of course he brought Zann down with him!  Sarah and I did partake - but definitely not at the same level - after the beer, lonkeros, champagne and wine we held off on the whiskey, vodka, and shots of jager.  We kept saying "you'll regret this in the morning on our ONLY day in Russia" - but to deaf ears!  I think I even got an "I see your lips moving but I don't hear nothin' coming out!"  Needless to say the cruise over to St. Petersburg was fun - at least that night:)

Oh yeah - did I forget to mention that all 4 of us were in a 9 square meters room with no window?  Mr. William's Party only travels in style:)  The cruise (back and forth) and the bus ride into the city was only 62.50 Euro per person - what can I say - my husband likes a deal!

 

Later, after many more drinks, Sarah and I got kicked out of this bar by two very large Russian security cops.  Note to self - don't try to reason with these people.  There was a point where I thought we would be in "Russian Cruise Jail" and Nathan and Zann wouldn't even know it because they had left us to get more Jager shots!

Is this place packed or what?  How do two sweet American girls get kicked out of an empty bar?  I'll never tell.:)

We were stoked to have made it out alive and we even got to take our drinks - woohoo!

The rest of the night, including gambling away our money in the casino, was a bit of a blur for some of us (not naming any names), but we finally got back to the room for a couple hours of sleep before our big tourist day!

St. Petersburg
So as you might imagine, the next morning wasn't super fun trying to get everybody "up and at 'em".  I was actually fine when I woke up and was the first to get up to take a shower - until much to my horror - I found out that that wasn't a hair dryer in our room!  Now I know some of you are thinking "drama queen" - but you have no idea - if I don't dry my hair I basically look like a stringy short haired dog!  So I went with the other option - no shower - for the possible "greasy homeless person" look.  I of coursed hoped this wouldn't be the case, since I just bleached the crap out of my hair and it is still pretty dry from the trauma. ANYWAY - I digress... I just wanted to set the stage for how we all felt in St. Petersburg - tired, hungover, unshowered, greasy, and ready for a great day!!!:)

Oh yeah - and the whole time the trip was planned (until mere hours before getting on the cruise) - we all thought we were going to be chained to a tour bus with all the other suckers who didn't get a Visa to enter Russia (the St. Peter's cruise line is the only way that I know of to go to Russia without a Visa).  But not so much.  We found out the night before that we were free to roam the streets unattended.  Of course this was good news, but also kind of bad because none of us had done any research or put together an itinerary on what to do or where to go!  Thank goodness Nathan was able to visit our friends over at the trusty Trip Advisor website (seriously our BFFs) while the rest of us were gallivanting around Helsinki.   He actually did a great job of finding a walking tour of the city and info on all the "highlights".  Thank you Nathan!

The cruise provided a bus from the dock to a couple points in the city.  We chose to be dropped off at the State Russian Museum as it was the fartheset point on our walking tour.  From here we went to the Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood.  What a sight!  Coming upon it - I thought it looked a little like Candyland or something!  It was so ornate and colorful!  Absolutely beautiful on the outside and inside!  The inside was covered  with the most beautiful mosaic interiors which were completely restored by 10 mosaic artists over a 14 year period. This was after being used as a warehouse in Soviet times, and having been bombed in WWII. I read that there are over 7,000 Square meters of mosaics inside - it was VERY impressive!  (Side note - on top of everything else - my camera was doing something weird where all my pictures were turning out blurry!  It was so frustrating!  And because of this I didn't get very good pictures in Russia at all:( So sad! But here they are anyway...)

I've decided that I want to go back to all the places we've been in about 10 years - hopefully then all of Europe won't be covered in scaffolding!:)

 

View from the side of the church

This is ALL mosaic artwork! Unbelievable!

The larger head in the middle is actually in one of the "onion domes" that you see from the outside.  I thought it looked really cool!

 The entrance side didn't have scaffolding - yeah!

Across the street was a huge market full of Matryoshka/Russian Nesting Dolls.  I already knew that this was what I wanted as my Russian souvenir so I was super excited to find this market. It was a bit overwhelming but I love the one I chose!

Next up was The Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan (also known as Kazan Cathedral).  It is St Petersburg’s major Russian Orthodox cathedral. It is located near the Church of our Savior on Spilled Blood - on the city’s central street, Nevsky Prospect. Built in the early 1800s to duplicate the Vatican's Basilica of St. Peter, this huge cathedral served as a monument to Russia's victory over Napoleon in the War of 1812.  During the Soviet era, it was used to house the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, but now it is an active church again.  Someone was even getting married when we went inside!

Had to use the panorama setting to get the whole thing! 

The people in the center are the bride and groom - everyone around the sides are tourists.  Must make for interesting wedding photos later - ha!:)

Then we just strolled along the streets, visited the Mikhailovsky gardens, and had lunch.  I will have to say that St. Petersburg was not what I expected at all.  Basically I was expecting a run down, sullen, kind of dirty city that looked like it had gone through many hard years - more Budapest than Vienna for example.  But that isn't what we saw at all.  I thought that the streets were very clean and everywhere you looked there were huge churches and beautiful ornate sherbet colored buildings.  And when I say the buildings were ornate - I mean ORNATE!  The architecture was amazing (you'll see when I get to the Hermitage later).  We all wondered though what it looked like about 10 miles outside the city.  Was it pretty there?  Unfortunately we didn't get to see that, but that is another reason I want to go back and tour the whole country! 

Next we visited St. Isaac's Cathedral, which was once the main church of St. Petersburg and the largest church of Russia. The church was designed to accommodate 14 thousand standing worshipers - it was huge. But by this time, we were over churches, so we didn't go inside - I will have to "google image" what it looks like - ha!:)

St. Isaac's Cathedral

Finally onto the State Hermitage Museum which is housed in the Winter Palace.  This museum is among the most famous in the world, so we had to go inside - I just wasn't sure if the boys were up for the excitement.:)  Good thing I didn't tell Nathan there were over 2.7 million exhibits inside or we would have found him later drinking a beer on the river:)!  I'll have to admit - I wasn't sure I was up for a ridiculously huge museum either but I am SO glad we went inside.  The artwork was fabulous - yes - but the part I really loved was just looking at the architecture inside.  Pictures were strictly forbidden (although I did get 2), or I would have taken pictures of everything including the floors - the inlayed wood work was so detailed - my grandfather would have loved it! I also liked how it wasn't "just an art museum" - several of the rooms were set up like a Palace (like visiting Versailles) so you could see how the Russians had lived here back in the day.  Absolutely a must see when in St. Petersburg!

The outside alone was beautiful!  And it was HUGE!

The entrance to the entrance to the museum.

Several of the rooms inside looked like Wedgewood!

Nathan thoroughly enjoying the artwork.:)

After the Hermitage we only had about 1 hour left before having to get back on the bus to go to the ship, so we decided to hang out on the river and have a beer and some Russian pancackes (which were basically just crepes but they were yummy!)  I wish we would have had 1 more day in St. Petersburg or at least another couple hours so we could have seen Peterhof's Palace and Garden - but again I guess that just means we have to go back:)!

View of the Hermitage (on the right) from the river

Back to Helsinki
So after our whirlwind tour of St. Petersburg we were back on the boat.  We were all exhausted, but Sarah and Zann found the energy to "ice us".  Have you guys heard of this?  You "get iced" when someone hands you a Smirnoff Ice and you have to get down on one knee and chug it.  Pretty brilliant marketing ploy on Smirnoff's behalf (although Smirnoff is denying being any part of it) - because let's be honest - why else would you drink a Smirnoff Ice?  I googled it because I wasn't sure if I fell for a really bad practical joke, but seems as if it is going on around the country and especially in the south (of course)...

You've been iced!

Saturday in Helsinki was basically just a chill day.  We did the "3B/3T" tram tour of Helsinki, had an impromptu picnic/rest near Töölönlahti Bay, and then stumbled across the Helsinki Beer Festival!  What a great end to the day and trip!  We met some nice Finnish people, tasted some great Finnish beers, and got a recommendation for a place to get reindeer stew for dinner, Zetor Restaurant!  I love it when a plan comes together.:)

Imagine our luck to have stumbled upon the Helsinki Beer Festival!

Before heading to dinner Zann had the brilliant idea to buy these nasty little fried fish - which we were then all forced to eat.  But the good thing was that the heads were cut off and they were gutted - because sometimes they aren't - gross! 

Great Mr. William's Party Weekend in Finland/Russia.  Next up - Greece in October!!!

Thanks for reading!  Love you guys!

Vasteras Sweden - Biggest American Classic Car Festival in the World

Hello Everyone.  Nate here. I know what you are thinking. "Why is Nathan writing on this blog?...and where is Mandy?"   Mandy is back in the states for a couple of weeks shopping for her store.  She left me strict instructions to write of my travels when she is off providing for our family. :) 

This past week, I journeyed to Vasteras, Sweden for some business and pleasure.

Before we get to the pleasure part of the trip, I would like to share with you a little about Vasteras. Vasteras is located about 60 miles (100 km) northwest of Stockholm.  Vasteras is one of the oldest cities in Sweden and Northern Europe. The name originates from Västra Aros, which refers to the estuary of the river Svartån. The area has been populated since the Nordic Viking Age (before 1000 AD). Västerås is predominantly known as an industrial city. The town is currently the sixth largest city in Sweden with approximately 136,000 inhabitants.

During my visit I had the opportunity to capture a very creative hotel.  Approximately 5 minute walk from my office, in the main city center park, exists Hotel Hackspett (or in English Hotel Woodpecker). This hotel is a little different then most as it is situated 40 feet up in an old oak tree. It was built in 1998 and renovated in 2006. No damage to the tree was done when they built this cottage, no nails - it is suspended by very powerful steel wires. Yes, it does has both a kitchen and a toilet up there too, so you don’t have to worry about getting down the rope ladder in a hurry!   Personally, I think the hotel has a rather reasonable room rate if you consider the experience of a lifetime: 1000 SEK (150 Dollar / 100 Euro), 1250 SEK with breakfast and 1500 SEK with breakfast and dinner. It can only be booked between 1 April - 31 October since it does not have any electricity or heat (other from yourself!). I am planning to head back to Vasteras at the end of August and will see if I can wrap up my trip with a 1 night experience in the WoodPecker. Stay Tuned....

Hotel Woodpecker

The Swedes definately have a passion for American classic cars. Vasteras is home to the annual "Power Big Meet" festival.  This year it happened to take place during my visit (imagine that!).  Power Big Meet has to be the biggest American car show in the world.  The event started in 1978 with 400 visitors and 80 cars. This year (32 years later), there were over 15,000 classic cars that participated in the event.

Wow...That is alot of cars.  I wonder how this compares to Woodstock back in the late 60s.

I have never seen such an amazing event in all my life.   I think this video does a very good job of summarizing the event.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-EuqMQ-9NE&feature=related

Below are a couple of additional pictures that I liked.

Check out the American & Rebel flags.  Made me feel that I was back in my home land.

Midsummer in Sweden

Last weekend was Midsummer, a National Holiday in both Finland and Sweden, and we were asked by one of Nathan's colleague's, Per Ivars, to join him and his family for a traditional Swedish Midsummer celebration.  And how can you turn that down?!?!  You can't!

So Nathan booked us a room on the Silja Serenade, a cruise ship that goes from Helsinki to Stockholm for Thursday night arriving Friday morning (leave at 5 pm arrive at 9 am).  We hadn't been on a cruise since my 30th birthday, so I was really excited we were going this way instead of flying!

Nathan loved watching the Semis drive onto the boat!

It actually all started when we were in Turku... and saw the ABB Azipod.  Nathan said "The Azipod is used on a lot of cruise ships  - we should take a cruise to Sweden to see Per - it could be like an ABB sponsored trip." (um and yes - we really do have converstaions like this.)  I told Nathan that ALL my trips were sponsored by ABB (thanks ABB!), but that I would love to see the Azipod in action anyway.:)  Turns out the Azipod isn't used on the Silja Line... so I guess we are just going to have to go on one of these Royal Caribbean ships where it actually is used.:)  Anyone want to join us?  I'm thinking New Year's - yes?!

Enjoying our departing Lonkero ("long drink" made of gin)!

Leaving Helsinki

Do you guy's remember my post on Suomenlinna? This is a view of King's Gate from the cruise ship - pretty cool.  I love that you can see all the little islands behind this island!

The Good Life!

Right after that picture was taken we headed down to the Tax Free shop and bought some alcohol for "later"... as in later that night.  After our lonkeros, we bought beer, a bottle of champagne, a bottle of wine, and then ended up going to the Irish Pub on board for more beer and to watch the "football" game.  Needless to say it didn't take long before I looked like this...

Good Times!

And Nathan was up to trouble...

I don't think you are supposed to be there honey.

Needless to say we had a great time - well that night - the next morning was a little rough for Nathan - I guess 35 isn't treating him that well:)!

I love being in the middle of the ocean (okay the Baltic Sea), but no land just water - I love it! 

 Oh and this picture was taken at 11:30 at night - crazy!

After arriving in Stockholm, we took a bus and then a train to Ransta (a small town of about 800 people) to meet the Ivars Family!  Camilla, Per's better half:), was the Hostess with the Mostess and prepared TWO amazing Midsummer Feasts for us.  The Ivars - and their family and friends - sure know how to show an American a good time!

We started out with the traditional sil (herring), potato, and snaps (schnaps) lunch - drinking songs included - of course!  Camilla served three different types of herring, and I surprisingly liked the onion and the mustard
kinds - not sure what the third kind was but it wasn't my fave - good thing we had the snaps to wash it down...

All the Snaps bought just for us (and a little vodka thrown in too) - thanks guys:)  I guess a little of hair of the dog is always good.

Håkan gave Nathan a list of snaps we HAD to try (the list in front of the bottles) - and they had gotten all of them - thank goodness!?!?

Beautiful table - and I loved that they got an American Flag for us:)

Here's a video (here's the link of you can't click on it below) of us trying to sing some Swedish Drinking songs.  They translated them to english phonetically (so we could sing a long) - but I have no idea what they actually meant!  This is the one I call "Hell & Gore" because that is what it was translated to:)

Skål!

After lunch we went to the next town over, Scala, to see the local festivities including a dance around the Maypole!

When we got back Per organized a brannboll game - they told me it was kind of like baseball - but I'm going to have to call BS on that.  Well - I guess it was played with a ball and bat, but honestly I'm still not sure the rules - all I know is that nobody actually gets "out" and even if you strike out you still get to go to 1st base.  Is this an "everyone's a winner" kind of crap game?  Us Americans like to have "outs" so we know who is winning:)  Well at least they do keep score - and our team WON!  We were naturals - what can I say.:)

Per trying to explain how his team LOST - sorry Per we can't all be winners:)

Now on to feast number TWO!  The Swedens sure do know how to celebrate!  While helping Camilla prepare dinner, she let me taste a bunch of Swedish foods that I had never had before - reindeer cream chesse (good), caviar in a tube (like toothpaste) mixed with mayonaise(?) possibly (I thought it was good but then when I was sober the next morning decided otherwise), and messmör (made from whey - what's "leftover" when make cheese - I think this is what they make the Swiss drink Rivella from - anyway it was AWESOME - loved it - even the next morning:)!)

The Girls!  Victoria, Camilla, Caroline and Me

Dinner - so good!  With more Snaps and drinking songs - of course!

After dinner we got in Per's homemade hot tub.  Nathan wants to make one of these for our house in Raleigh - I think I'm a little scared.  But this one was awesome!

The hot tub

And the heating unit!

The next morning Per and Camilla drove us to the train station for our weekend in Stockholm - thank you both so much!  We had an AMAZING time!

Our gracious hosts - Per and Camilla! I'm pretty sure Per was still drunk in this photo...:)

On to Stockholm!  Which I believe to be one of the most beautiful cities in all of Europe.  We LOVED Stockholm!  Unfortunately our pictures don't do it justice at all:(  I think it was just that it was so majestic being there - the energy of the city, the great old buildings, the harbors, the little islands - but something that you can't catch on film.  It was small enough to feel "cozy" and be able to walk everywhere, kind of like Zurich, but still big enough that there was lots of stuff to do and explore!

First we checked into our hotel, the Birger Jarl, which was kind of a long walk to the city center but was still nice (and we discovered where the bus was the next day - duh!).  Then we headed over to Djurgarden to see the Vasa Museum.  Very cool museum centered around a ship that sank in 1628 - 20 minutes after her maiden voyage began.  The wreck was salvaged more than 300 years later in 1961 and was in amazingly great condition!  It was really cool to see a ship that was designed so many years ago - and to see how ornate this war vessel was made.  Highly recommend it if you go to Stockholm.  Our pictures are especially crap here though because it was dark inside the museum.  But here are a few anyway so you can kind of get the jist...

Starting at top Left - Nathan with a model of the ship from what they think it looked like fully painted in 1628, remains of one of the few people who died on the ship, me with the actual ship, and the back of the ship - it was very ornate and the carvings describe kind of an "FU" to the King of Poland at the time:)

Then we conducted our own 4 hour walking tour of the city (we think it was about 5 miles) that I got out of our Let's Go Europe book.  It basically took us to every nook and cranny of Stockholm and was a great way to see the city!  We especially loved Gamla Stan (the old city) - I could have just hung out there for hours.

Our tour first took us by the NK department store - please notice the huge picture of the crowned Princess of Sweden.  She got married the weekend before Midsummer (it was a big deal here - not sure about in the States) and I think this must be her engagement shot (it was also on tons of magnets, postcards, plates, etc).  Why can't I be a real Princess *sigh*?

Here I am on the bridge to Gamla Stan - this was a really beautiful spot - too bad you can't tell from the pic:(

I'll put a link at the bottom of the post to the rest of the photos from this day if you want to see them - they really aren't that interesting to share here:(  The only other thing of noteworthy was this guy driving his "house boat" in his bathrobe near Gamla Stan.  Hilarious!  Everyone stopped, looked, and then took a photo - ha!

That night we just ate a little Irish Pub in Gamla Stan, because they had the USA/Argentina soccer game on.  Funny thing was, a couple from Zurich sat down at our table with us and I swear it was the longest conversation I ever had with a Swiss person and I lived their for a year - ha!  I guess they are more friendly outside their country:)  ALSO, this wasn't to offend any Swiss - all the Swiss that we went out with from ABB (and their spouses) were lovely - just all the other random Swiss people were standoffish - but honestly I think the Swiss like that about themselves - it is just part of their culture - "don't bother with the pesky foreigners - they'll eventually leave anyway":)! 

Sunday morning we woke up and headed to Skansen - an open air "old time" Swiss Museum with old farmsteads, Nordic animals, traditional crafters and the like.  Buildings have been brought in from all over the country and Skansen gives you a glimpse of what it was like to live in Sweden from as early as the 1300s to the early 1900s.   It was such a beautiful day to be outside and we enjoyed learning more about Swedish History.  If you go, I recommend bringing a picnic - so many great places to have one! Again with the crappy pics though, so I'm only posting two...

Nathan with on of the huge Elk!

In the early 1900s people had moved into the city but still needed plots of land for vegetable gardening, so they would buy small plots of land and then build "houses" on them that the whole family would live in for the weekend.  My Dad built my sisters and I a playhouse that was bigger than this when we were little - crazy that a family of more than 5 would stay there!

  The cruise home was a little more relaxed than the way there (we both had to wake up and work Monday morning), but we still had to have our departing lonkero!

I'm pretty sure Nathan is saying "Dude, get your feet off me":), but I stayed in this position for hours and even got burnt!

We loved our Swedish Midsummer Weekend and would be happy to be invited back next year:)! Skål!

 

Link to the rest of our pics!