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| The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam |
It has been a very, very long time since I've posted an update. Almost 4 months in fact. But I have good reasons, promise. First, internet is not very consistent onboard cruise ships. While the rest of the world might be all about broadband, 4G, etc. the internet onboard cruiseships takes me back to the days of AOL dialup and hearing the screeching of the modem. There have even been parts of this itinerary where we had no internet at all. Last month we visited Norway for a few weeks and went above the Arctic Circle. That area is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, but being above the Arctic Circle doesn't exactly put the ship in prime locations for satellite access. And second, since the beginning of May I have been the musical director on the ship. While small ships mean less people to manage, it means lots of scheduling changes and extra work here and there.
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The Church of Spilled Blood
in St. Petersburg, Russia |
Just since my last post we have visited 28 different countries. Some of the highlights: doing another tour in the Holy Land, walking through Cannes during the film festival, being in Monaco during the Grand Prix, visiting the Anne Frank House on what would have been her 85th birthday, standing on Omaha Beach on the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landing, and seeing wild reindeer in Norway, visiting the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Russia (students have included Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, Shostkovich, and Prokofiev, and Rimsky-Korsakov was a school director!). Just in the last 6 weeks it has been a whirlwind of all new countries for me. Here is the list: England, Portugal, the Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Russia, Finland, and Sweden. All in all I've now visited over 50 countries and still have a few more to go before I finish this contract.
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| The Nobel Museum in Stockholm |
Traveling and working onboard a cruise ship gives some access that wouldn't normally be possible. For instance, I'm sitting here inside a Starbucks in St. Petersburg, Russia. Normally to visit Russia it required a lot of paperwork and expensive visas. But working on a cruise ship, it costs me $10 per day for a "crew shuttle bus tour." There is a visa exemption for staying up to 72 hours onboard a cruise ship in Russia, but you can only leave the ship on an organized tour. So they organize shuttle busses for the crew and charge a small fee and we can leave anytime we want.
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Nordkapp (North Cape), the northernmost point in Europe,
and only 2,093 miles from the North Pole |
Anna is now down to her last 3 weeks onboard; because I've been extended I still have 6 weeks to go. It's not fair, I signed on 6 weeks before she did! Before she leaves we will visit Iceland, Shetland Islands, and Faroe Islands and she will sign off in Copenhagen. After she leaves I will be visiting Edinburgh, Dublin, Liverpool, Southampton, Orkney Islands, Wales, Dartmouth, Nantes, Bordeaux, and then I sign off in Lisbon.
That's about it for this update, but it won't be as long for the next update.
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| Tallinn, Estonia |
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| Reindeer sausage in Norway |
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| At the cliffside Uluwatu Temple in Bali |
