09-23 The Baltic 2006

Well, brother Ian did it again. On the Baltic Cruise in June, the Morrows and ourselves were upgraded on the Star Princess from mini-suites to full suites. We were with Ken and Dorothy, our friends from Maui. And what a great experience this was. Part of the secret was travelling in June when it is light to 11 pm at night. This was one of our best cruises of all time.
The attached photo of Mary with Ken and Dorothy was taken in front of the Jean Sibelius Museum in Helsinki Finland. In all the Nordic countries they seem to honour their artists.
At night you can see the lights of Tallinn in Estonia from Helsinki. And visiting Tallinn was one of the surprise joys of the trip. Sheer magic. The people of Estonia during the communist occupation could enjoy Finnish television, and all learned to speak the language. Both the Finnish and Estonian language has Hungarian roots. Mary can be seen buying a beautiful blouse from one of the Tallinn street merchants.
Got into a long conversation with a business person in one of the shops in Oslo, Norway. He said everyone plays a musical instrument of some kind in Oslo, and that is how they get through the winters without any sunlight. Saw the famous Fram Arctic ship that made historic trips to both the Antarctic and the Arctic. They had the sound of barking dogs playing as we went through what is called the strongest wooden ship ever built.
We went to Gdansk in Poland for a day tour, and it was a great experience. This is where Hitler started WW2 with his invasion of Poland. Gdansk is a strategic port and was part of Germany before WW1. In the photo Mary is seen in one of the restored streets that had been flattened during the war. The Poles rebuilt each merchant home in its original form. The whole nation represents a compelling story of reconstruction.
Stockholm, as usual, was super clean and boasts its share of museums and palaces. In the attached photo Mary is seen in the beautiful port area. The city guide, to prove how clean the port was, reached down with a cup and drank the water. Phew.
I asked whether people in Stockholm went out to restaurants the way we do in Canada. She said with the high VAT tax, people entertain in their homes, and there is a real underground economy of cooks who prepare meals for cash in people’s homes.
A wealthy local businessman said he has prospered in Sweden despite their high taxes, and with four children he saved a fortune having their medical bills and university education paid for by the state. He said there are a lot of benefits that businesses enjoy, that the public is not aware of. At his factory, for example, he has his own chef and kitchen, and he allows all of his senior management people to use it on weekends.
We visited Saint Petersburg again, and enjoyed the Hermitage Museum, which no one would want to miss. In the evening a group of us went off to a Russian Army choir performance, which was an experience. I kept slipping off my seat in the auditorium. Those Russians cannot make domestic goods of any quality, but can send people into space. Weird economic system.
Everyone wants to see the statue of The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen. We were amazed at how the people can live with such crushing tax burdens. In Denmark, it is one of the highest in the world. In one of the cathedrals, they boasted about having church contributions deducted from the pay cheques of the members of their congregation.