The Fourth Of July, European Style

How did you spend your Fourth of July? I know the 4th has been long past and a post about fireworks and hotdogs and sparklers seems a little late, but you see, we didn't get any of those things on our Fourth of July. Let me go back to explain.

My typical Fourth of July was a big neighborhood bar-b-que out on the grass of a friends yard. It was kids running around in swimsuits with sticky Popsicle dripping off their chins. It was groups of friends finding ladders to put fireworks on so they seemed bigger. It was groups of friends melting the plastic top of ladders with the heat from the fireworks. It was the local cop showing how big a bang you could make through out the whole neighborhood if you threw a firework down in the storm sewer (he was such a good example). It was neighbors who would duct tape a firework to an old remote control car and drive the firework down the street while it spewed sparks and flame. Yeah, we knew how to have a good time. 

If you live in the United States, your holiday was pretty close to this, maybe minus the neighbor who was intent on burning everyone's ankles with the small car that was on fire. Our holiday wasn't close to this at all. We spent our holiday in Russia, and then finished it up on an Italian cruise ship. It was kind of strange.

When we came back from our long, and exhausting day in Russia, (read about that HERE, HERE, and HERE) we found invitations to an exclusive and private event on board. An event only for Americans  I started to get excited. I hadn't seen any other Americans on board other than our partners in travel (and crime) in Europe, The Point Family. There had to be some more if the Costa cruise line was going to throw us all a private party, right? 

This is what our private party turned out to be. A lounge singer with an electric keyboard and hors d'oeuvres with punch and champagne. What could be more patriotic than that?

And don't let me forget the marzipan cake they had in the shape of the American flag. (Don't Europeans know that Americans don't like marzipan? Nothing could be less American than a marzipan cake. You want to make an American cake? Call up a store bakery and get the recipe for their Crisco-based, fluffy white frosting. That my friends says American cake.)

They had a recorded instrumental version of the national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. Of course we had no flag to look at while we listened to the song. 

The marzipan cake concoction would have to do.

After the national anthem things started picking up. We had a total of 11 Americans show up for this little shindig. And don't forget Holly, our English-speaking-not-American-but-British host for the party was mingling around. And I finally, FINALLY felt like there was a place in Europe where I could be as loud and funny and annoying as my little American heart desired. Solidarity my American compadres! 

This little group did start to emit some laughing and noise (maybe that was just us and Mr. and Mrs. Point) and other cruisers were walking by our party wondering what was going on in there. But they couldn't come in. Why? Because it was private. Americans (and British Holly) only please!

We left the Fourth of July celebration without watching one firework and without eating one hamburger. But we were still buoyed by the glasses of free punch and the marzipan cake which turned out to be quite good if you scraped off the lacquer-like marzipan outside. As we walked out, the European guests who had gathered outside the door parted to let us through. Yeah, we kind of felt like rock stars. For the rest of the trip, we walked a little taller. And every time someone got in our way we thought, 'Excuse me, but don't you know who I am?'

Rushing Through Russia

Okay, where we were again? Oh, that's right. I was in RUSSIA! 

Did you miss the first part? Click here on The Peterhof to read about our time at the palace and gardens.

And did you want to enter to win the Matryoshka or Russian nesting dolls I bought over there for you? Click HERE to enter.

We had just finished up our visit to the Peterhof palace and gardens in St. Petersburg, Russia. As we were walking out of the garden, we saw a young bride and groom in their wedding dress walking through the garden with a photographer. Our tour guide, Natasha, turned to me and said in her little Russian accent "We have a bea-u-tiful tradition here in Russia. When young peoples get mah-rried, they take their families and a photographer, and they go to a bea-u-tiful place to take pictures of the day they got mah-rried and it's a bea-u-tiful tradition here in Russia."

It was at this point that I realized our tour guide had a couple of screws loose. I started thinking, I don't know what's wrong with Russians, geez! When we get married in the States we never even think to take pictures with our families in bea-u-tiful places. Wow. What a novel concept that it would seem Russia has invented. We should all thank Russia right now for letting us in on this fabulous Russian tradition they have. So the next time you look at your photo album, say "I wouldn't have done that if it wasn't for Russia."

We decided to head over to the underground metro stops in St. Petersburg.

St. Petersburg's metro is said to have some of the most beautiful, highly decorated, and opulent metro stations in the world.

The metro was started before WWII in St. Petersburg, but construction stalled during the war due to lack of money. In 1955 the metro stations finally opened. 

The metro stations were completed under the direction of Joseph Stalin. These metro stops were for "The People." He directed to have them built and decorated to show the great power and wealth of Russia. Kind of strange since 20 years before building these, Russia couldn't even feed its people. For more info, click  Soviet famine 1932-1933.

As we walked through the metro station, our disillusioned tour guide Natasha told us what a "good guy" Stalin was. How he had the people's best interests at heart and how he defeated the Nazi's from over taking the innocent country of Russia. (I'm not kidding. She said things like that.)

These are some the support columns in the station that are inlaid with gold and crystals. The station was more beautiful than some palaces and castles I've seen. I'm sure that the Russian people were very grateful to have such beautiful metro stops. But maybe, I don't know, instead of beautiful metro stations they would have rather, say, not lived in fear of being dragged out of their house in the middle of the night and killed in front of their family? For more info click Stalin's Great Purge.

So our tour guide thinks that Stalin was pretty okay. He did give them nice metro stations after all. And Nazi Germany attacked Russia when all Russia was doing was minding their own business. Hmm... okay. And then she went on to tell us what a good guy Vladimir Putin was. In my little, blonde, brain I heard the sound of breaks screeching and I just wanted to ask her if she really believed that or was she giving us a Russia-has-to-look-so-great-to-the-Americans-white-washed version of history? I know there are things in my own country's history that I am not proud of, but at what point do you say "Yeah, my country did some uncool things, or leaders in my country did some uncool things," instead of saying "Yeah, my country can do no wrong and we are better than everybody else."

But I really didn't want to cause an international incident so I just kept my mouth shut and nodded my head. She also told us about how Napoleon attacked their fair country and he wasn't able to overtake it. The way she spun it was Russia has just sat there for hundreds of years, minding its own business, and it keeps getting attacked by all the bullies and poor Russia, they just want to get along with people. Okay then.

Russia may not be communist anymore (much to the dismay of our tour guide because you know that guy Stalin? He was the BOMB) but signs of its Soviet past were everywhere.

The Soviet emblem of the hammer and sickle were on many walls and buildings through out St. Petersburg.

These walls are made with real, Italian marble that they had shipped in to build the metro stations.

The St. Petersburg metro is one of the deepest in the world due to the water table so we had to take long escalators up and down to reach the stations. At the stations, our tour guide actually told us how to use turn styles and escalators. Now this is just getting weird. Does she think we don't have turn styles and escalators in America? Or does she just think Americans are slightly less intelligent than the rest of the world?

Here is our friend, Mr. Point riding the very long and apparently, very complicated escalator to the surface. Mr. Point is a bit of a history buff and he would ask Natasha questions about the Russian Revolution and if we could please go and see some of these places. Natasha shut him down, and all us actually, whenever we asked anything about the Russian Revolution. And she told us these places were too far away. We drove by one of them not once, but twice without her saying a word.

After the metro stations, the troops (our combined eight kids) needed reinforcement so we found a cute little Russian cafe that sold Russian pastries.

They didn't like the sight of meat and onion filled pastry. Even though it was really good.

They also had apricot, apple, and strawberry filled pastries. Our kids liked those a little better.

Next we went and did a little souvenir shopping. I ask you, what says "I've Been To Russia" more than a Barack Obama Russian nesting doll? 

For the next few hours we drove around St. Petersburg taking in the sights. I apologize in advance for the quality of the pictures, but they were taken out of the window of the van. 

Here is a submarine in the Neva River that flows right through the main part of St. Petersburg.

As we drove around we would catch little glimpses of places like this. Palaces that would rise up right out of the former communist sprawl of the city.

Their metro stations may look like palaces, but their street cars were easily over 60 years old. They continued to use the same battered trams because they were unable to buy new ones, due to the cost of replacing all the tracks in the streets.

This gem of a home just popped up as we were riding along. I have no idea the historical significance of this place. I was just fascinated by the intricacies of the building.

And just after we would see beautiful palaces, we would see blocks and blocks of Soviet era apartments and sprawl.

St. Petersburg has a long Soviet history. When the city was founded it was called St. Petersburg. In 1914, the German name of St. Petersburg was changed to Petrograd, the Russian-ized version of St. Petersburg. Then in 1924, it was changed again to Leningrad, or Lenin's City. After the fall of communism, it was changed back to St. Petersburg in 1991. Even though the city changed its name back, it seems that shaking its communist past will be harder than just a name change.

In addition to Soviet era apartments, there were Soviet era tanks and cannons scattered all over the city.

Okay. I think that is good for today.

Coming up next, our time at the Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood.

The Peterhof - Russia

Russia. Russia. Russia!!

First, I brought home a little souvenir to share. A Russian Matryoshka, or a  Russian nesting doll. If you want to join the contest to win it, click HERE to enter.

So! We have been to Russia! In our quest to see all the countries of Europe, I was worried about how this one would happen. First, Russia is NOT part of the Schengen Agreement. What's the Schengen Agreement? It's the deal that certain European countries have made to relax their borders. You have to show your passport to get into Europe, but once you are here, you can drive and basically border jump all you want without ever showing your passport. That does NOT mean you don't have to have your passport with you. There can be random border checks so make sure you have it on your person. The Schengen Agreement is why with all the traveling we've done we only have one stamp in our passports. It's the stamp for Russia so it's still one pretty cool stamp. Do you have questions on traveling within the Schengen Area? Click here for more information.

When we booked our cruise it was less than two weeks out. Yeah, that's how we do things around here. By the seat of our pants. My good friend and traveling partner, Mrs. Point, started looking up the rules for applying for a visa to go to Russia. We read that the only way they will let you off of the boat was to either A- have the real Russian visa which can take weeks to get. Or B- have booked a tour with either the boat or a reputable tour company in St. Petersburg that would issue you a visa. We really didn't want to book a tour because they are expensive and we feel we can see and experience a place better on our own than with a tour guide. But then we looked up the steps to actually get a Russian visa. It goes something like this.

1- Decide you want to go to Russia.
2- Book a hotel or a tour group in Russia.
3- Wait for that hotel or tour group to send you an invitation to visit Russia. That's right my friends. Russia is a party that is by invitation only. There ain't no crashing that.
4- Once you have your invitation you can now apply for a visa at one of the many Russian embassys* through out the world.
*WARNING - We found out that the fees that go along with applying for a visa can vary widely from embassy to embassy. Read - whatever the official feels like charging you that day. And beware, Americans are known to have to pay more.
5- Fill out mounds of paperwork.
And the steps go on and on and on. There are like 16 steps. Some people will have to get insurance (separate from the insurance you already have). Some people will have to show bank statements (to show that you have the money to go home, they don't want you to stay there).

After reading the rules and seeing how long it was going to take to secure a Russian visa, we decided to book a tour just for our two families for the low, low price of around 800 American dollars (that's not a typo).

The company that we booked our tour with emailed us our visas to get off the boat and through Russian immigration. We sailed through (except for Matt, he got a couple of double takes with all the stamps and visas in his passport from extensive traveling in the Middle East) and met our tour guide right inside the cruise terminal.

Guess what our tour guide's name was? Really, I want you to guess.

Natasha! And the driver's name was Sasha! You don't get more Russian than that.
(Do you remember when I wanted to be a Russian Spy? Read about that here.) They had a large passenger van with air conditioning (thank heavens) and bottled water for us.

And we were off. Our first stop was the Peterhof Palace and gardens.

On our drive from the port to the palace we were glued to our windows. Natasha was giving us commentary over a loud speaker about the history of St. Petersburg and some of the things we were seeing. St. Petersburg was founded by Peter the Great. Peter the Great ruled Russia from 1682 until his death in 1725. He instituted sweeping reforms aimed at modernizing Russia. He saw that for Russia to continue to grow, they would need a better port. He seized the land that surrounds present day St. Petersburg from Sweden and set out to build a great new capital for his growing kingdom, Russia.

The Peterhof Palace was built to be Peter's summer palace and a place for him to stay during his comings and goings to Western Europe.

The palace grounds and adjacent gardens were amazing! The palace is a buttercup yellow trimmed with white and topped with gold spires.

All around the palace are these intricate gardens and fountains with statues.

We were in line with a group of Asian tourists and while we took pictures of the palace, they took pictures of our fair and blonde children. I had heard about this, but this was new experience for my family. Alexander, my oldest and blondest, got tired of this and started holding his hand in front of his face saying "No pictures." We seriously felt like celebrities being hounded by the paparazzi. Our kids tried to capitalize on this picture taking and every time an Asian tourist snapped their picture, they would point to their hand and say "Give me money." (Much to my embarrassment.) The Asians, of course, had no idea what they were doing but they thought it was hysterical so they started holding their hands out and pointing to their palms. Needless to say, no money was exchanged for the photo taking. But somewhere, maybe in Japan, a tourist is showing a bunch of his friends pictures of my fair, white children and saying "Look what we saw in Russia!" Probably in Japanese, though.

We meandered down through the lower gardens and out towards where the palace grounds meet the Baltic Sea.

We were bit by a couple of Russian mosquitoes.

We were warned repeatedly by our tour guide, Natasha, and signs around about pickpocketing.

Does it strike anyone else as peculiar, or sad, that the bill the thief is taking is marked with the sign of the American dollar? Does this mean thieves only want American currency? (I don't know why, the Euro is worth more.) Does this mean that Americans are the only ones dumb enough to be victims of pickpocketing? Does this mean that Russians view us as hapless but happy (the guy is smiling) tourists that are too busy taking pictures to realize a guy in mask is standing behind us? Things to think about, my friends. Things to think about.

After exploring the grounds, it was time for the main attraction to start. 

The cascading fountains. The anthem for St. Petersburg fired up on loud speakers.

And the fountains started up, filling the pools, sending streams of water to the next lower pool which would eventually flow in a canal out to the Baltic Sea.

Here is Matt, posing with a statue of Poseidon. I would have liked to see Matt pose in a loin cloth with a trident too, but he wasn't up for it.

Different sections of the garden had different themes. Up where the fountains were the gardens were designed in the French style.

These gardens down by the coast had a much more tropical feel to them.

After touring the gardens thoroughly (we kept all our American currency in our pockets thank you very much) it was time to head off to the next attraction.

Stay tuned to hear about our visit to the St. Petersburg metro and Soviet area metro stations, and the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood. And you definitely don't want to miss when I write about our tour guides strange view of Russian and world history (Stalin was great, Putin is great, and Russia has done no wrong and is the victim every time.)

PS Would you like to go to Russia? Would you be comfortable and safe traveling on your own or would you like a tour guide? Let me know!

Stockholm - Sweden, Part 2

Stockholm Continued... to read our first installment click Taking Stock In Stockholm.

I mentioned in the last post about Stockholm about how expensive even fast food can be. So when you find a spot where you can feed your family of six on the cheap, you take it! And that is exactly what Mr. and Mrs. Point did with us. We were able to buy French hot dogs (I don't know what made them French, but Mrs. Point loved them) for a decent price and we stocked up.

Isn't Mrs. Point cute?

We continued to meander around Stockholm and we saw things like this.

And things like this.

Even the most well behaved children get tired of walking around historic cities and ours were no exception


We took our children to the Skansen, which is an outdoor museum that shows examples of traditional, rural Swedish life from occupations, to dress, to the homes they lived in and the food they ate.

The homes are all original, 19th century buildings that were dismantled and painstakingly shipped to the museum and reassembled piece by piece.

They are furnished with pieces original to the time period also.

In one home I glanced up at the ceiling and saw this magnificent piece of work. I was in awe. The amount of work that they went to just to decorate a ceiling was amazing.

They had gardens with flowers and vegetables that the early Swedes grew. They even grew some tobacco for rolling into cigarettes. Now that is being authentic.

Of course, not all of us were as impressed with how much work had gone into making the Skansen so authentic. Here is Andre, riding a cannon. Giddy-up son.

Here we are standing in front of a working windmill that actually grinds down wheat into real flour.

Little cottages dotted the grounds. You could go in most of them and explore.

It seemed like a idyllic life. Who wouldn't want to live in 19th century Sweden? Growing vegetables, and grinding wheat among the beautiful trees. BUT, remember, this is summer. The longest days of the year were upon us. The sun was going down at around 11:30 and coming up close to 3:00 am. How would life in rural Sweden be say in the dead of winter? When nothing is growing and it's dark for 20 hours a day? Give me modern day electricity and hot water heaters please.

They had a pole with a chain on it showing where I can only guess the bad Swedes of 19th century were strung up. Here is my sweet husband giving you an accurate portrayal. Let's hear it for Matt's acting skills!

Our day had been long and we had walked the greater part of Stockholm and it was time to head back to our home on the sea, the Costa Fortuna.

I watched Aidan and his friend, Tyler Point, walk arm in arm down to the port. I can only imagine what they were saying.

Due to the large amounts of daylight that we were receiving this far north at this time of year, I had a chance to sneak out on the deck early and take pictures. Here are just a few pictures of the islands between Stockholm and the Baltic Sea. Enjoy!

I hope you enjoyed this photo tour.

Coming up next - our first time in the former USSR, Estonia! And another blog giveaway!