*found this on a wall in Tallinn
After doing day trips each day with Michelle, we packed up the kids once again and drove 6 hours to Kiel, Germany for our Baltics cruise. It was definitely a LONG trip, full of stops, with two kids that were tired of being in the car. But we made it and got to have more adventures as a family. Now for the recap by city:
Hamburg/Kiel, GermanyWe drove up through Hamburg so we stopped and walked around a little. Maybe I'm just not as knowledgeable as everyone else, but I had no idea there was going to be so many rivers/canals. It was fun to see, but it made me a little nervous to have Kherington walking on her own.
We walked over to
Miniatur Wunderland. It is home to the largest model railway in the world! It was SOOOO intricate. The kids did great...we only had to snatch Kherington's hand away from the moving cars a few times and she didn't break anything :). It currently has 8 different sections that are modeled after different cities.
Before driving up to our hotel, we stopped at a little Italian restaurant. Pizza and Pasta always tastes good (our last dinner experience in Germany was Mexican and we won't do that again). The table had a candle that we tried to keep away from Kherington. She kept saying 'Birthday' and trying to blow it out...we finally caved and let her.
We really didn't see much of Kiel except the view from the ship, but that's okay...it was Sunday and everything closes on Sunday's anyways.
Stockholm, SwedenThis city definitely ranks as one of the coolest cities I've ever been to. It took us a while to get some money to buy a ticket for the metro, but once we did we found our way to
Pippi Långstrump's (Longstocking's) House at
Junibacken. Kherington had blast running from one thing to the next...climbing buildings, going down slides in houses, driving the train, etc. There was an awesome train ride that has you literally flying through the air (your in a cart and it lifts you up and over different scenes).
We didn't get the funniest part of the visit on camera, but I'll still share it anyways...Kherington was playing and I noticed there was a rat wheel (where you walk and it spins). I got her to go in, but she was having a hard time walking to get it to move, so I figured I'd go in to help her. Well, I wasn't too smart and didn't step on exactly the bottom middle part of the wheel so when I stepped in it went spinning and I totally wiped. It kinda hurt, but luckily I didn't land on Kherington.
It was a beautiful day so instead of taking the metro we wandered around town. A couple times we saw groups on kids out and about (either walking or playing at a park) and each kids was wearing neon vests...pretty smart thinking for keeping track of them. We found lots of statues to climb on and there were fountains all over the place. The new city had wide streets and was very open which I loved.
Before heading back to the boat we wandered over to the old town. The narrow, cobble streets reminded me a little of Venice (minus the water). Of course we stopped for some ice cream...well, I actually opted for a slurpee from 7-11 (not as good as the US slurpees).
If you're thinking of going, definitely do it. We would love to go spend a couple days there, but it's not likely to happen considering all the other places we still want to see.
Tallinn, EstoniaTallinn was the smallest city we stopped at. We only visited 'Old' Tallinn ('new' Tallinn just looked to be a bunch of hotels). It is always interesting to me to see the different charm of each city.
Kherington needed to go potty. We asked and found there were some behind a church. It just so happened that there was also a nice little playground, some sun bathing chairs and a ice cream shop there too :).
At one point someone stopped us and asked if we would be willing to help them with an animation project by holding up pictures. Can you find us in their
movie?
One thing I learned about Tallinn is that somehow marzipan is huge there. I bought a piece to try and I'm not such a big fan.
St. Petersburg, RussiaAfter a rough start to the day including lost cruise cards (you need those to leave the ship), no breakfast and Kevin rolling off the bed while we searched for the cruise cards (fall #1) we made it to our excursion meeting at 7am (keep in mind we were -2 hours from Brussels time so more like 5am).
This was the city I was most excited and most nervous for. We decided to do an all day excursion through the cruise ship because (1) to get a visa is expensive (about the same cost as the visa, but then we'd have to figure everything out on our own, (2) doing a private tour was WAY expensive because there was just the 4 of us and 2 of us didn't really count and (3) doing two half-day excursions would mean going through border control twice and I had read some reviews saying sometimes it takes forever.
With that all in mind, we went for and and prayed our kids would be good. I thought we'd be able to just tag along at the end of the group since groups normally have about 40 people, but just our luck our English group only had 9...and that was including 3 of us (Kevin didn't count). They did AWESOME. People were very impressed that our kids were so well behaved.
Our first stop was
Petrodvorets (aka Peterhof Palace), one of the summer palaces built by Peter. I was excited to see this because I had read some awesome reviews about the grounds with tons of fountains and walking paths. I was a little disappointed when we spent so long inside and then rushed through the gardens. Since I've never been a huge history person (I don't remember anything when it comes to history) I was amazed as how much our guide could tell us about the life of Catherine the Great (she introduced gambling, alcohol and coffee to her people).
Between the stops the guide kept talking (through a head set) which allowed us to learn more about the places we wouldn't have time to actually stop. Kherington spent a lot of time watching her movies and Kevin slept a lot too (score). On the tour it finally clicked to me that a ton of cities have their own triumphant arch.
We stopped for lunch at a Russian restaurant. Our fellow excursioner's were very happy to hear that we didn't drink which mean they got our vodka and champagne (learned lots about alcohol on the trip) which was provided with lunch. The food was good and the kids were a handful all through lunch. Kherington did enjoy watching the fish at the pond inside the restaurant and pouring water between glasses :).
We were able to tour St. Isaac's Cathedral. It reminded us of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican. There were paintings covering all the walls. Apparently art isn't really the kids thing because both of them zonked out (just while we were inside).
We stopped at
The Church of Our Savior on the Spilled Blood but only for pictures. I'm sure you've all seen pictures of it before but it was amazing in real life. I wish we had time to go inside. We were also able to stop at a less expensive souvenir shop where it just so happens they provide free vodka and biscuits...people on the tour were liking that.
We ended by driving through the middle of town down nevsky prospekt (a famous street). It was a fun, enlightening, packed day. There is soooo much more I would have loved to do there, but if we were to do it all over again I'd still do what we did (I do wish we could have squeezed in a canal tour).
Copenhagen, DenmarkI think Denmark was the only place where we had issues figuring out public transportation. There was a ticket machine at the metro station where we were trying to get on with English instructions, but the error it spit out was in Danish. The main issue was we hadn't exchanged money yet so we didn't have coins and it didn't like the cards. We only wanted to go 2 stops and we had all day so we decided to walk which ended up being a good decision. One station away was the famous Mermaid statue that we would have missed. Honestly I thought this statue was going to be huge, but it wasn't (think manneken pis size). But what was so cool was down the walkway from the statue we found an awesome park for Kherington to play at AND a gentlemen's club (true meaning) with everyone dressed in all white setting up to play croquet. They had setup a tent with soda, snacks and bbq stuff so it reminded me of proper people getting together to play their version of football or soccer. I love seeing the different personalities in each city!
As we were coming up on their palace square, I wasn't paying a lot of attention because we were just walking into huge open space and I almost ran into these soldier who I totally did not expect. Each building had 1-2 soldiers pacing in front wearing full uniform and carrying riffles.
Copenhagen happens to be home to the original Christus found in The Church of Our Lady. I don't know how our church ended using the statue, but we thought it would be cool to see the original. In addition, the church has statues of the 12 apostles at that time.
One thing that surprised me about the city was that there were bikes everywhere. Probably about as many as Amsterdam minus the parking garage of bikes. So they were everywhere, but not only that, they were awesome bikes. There were a lot of the wheelbarrow bikes and 'tandem' bikes where the double part is really just a seat for kids. It would have been fun to find a place to rent bikes and tour that way (maybe we'll give it a go in another city).
Of course you can't go to Denmark and not try true danish pastries. They definitely did not disappoint. On our last cruise we tried pastries in each city and each time we'd get something that look really delicious and we'd bit in and it would be dry and/or coffee flavored. Here the pastries tasted even better than they looked. On of the markets we went to had little booths of people selling fresh baked goods and you could see them making it all right in front of you which we enjoyed.
After grabbing some ice cream (yep, we try some everywhere we go...well, except Russia because we couldn't find a place at any of our stops), we headed back to the boat. We saved enough changed to be able to buy the metro tickets and then with our leftover money (a whole 20 krones) we went into the Aldi's and found a treat for Kherington (kettle corn for her to watch movies with).
Cruising with KidsNow for the actual cruise part. Went went on MSC. I think the best way I can describe it is a European budget cruise line. Kids are free which was the real seller for us (the cruise was still pretty price because of the ports), but there are a couple things that are different than other cruise lines like the buffet isn't always open, they don't provide normal water at dinner (just bottled that you pay for) and room service costs money. In my opinion the food was definitely inferior to Royal Carribean...with that said, the Europeans on the boat seemed to love it, so I think it's just a personal preference thing. Everyone thought we were German until we started talking. It wasn't until the second day at sea that we met other American's with kids (met at the park) then we had a fun time swapping stories and learning from each other.
Our room had a queen size bed with two 'bunk' beds that folded down from the wall. The first night was pretty rough...we all ended up on the queen which was not comfortable. We tried having Kherington sleep on the bunk. Nap time was fine, but bed time she almost fell off through the guardrail. We finally got it down with Ryan and Kherington on the Queen and me and Kevin on the bunk. We had a window (and thick curtain to keep the light out), but Kherington's nap schedule was not so good. When we were on the ship she didn't want to sleep, but she did catch some sleep in the backpack carrier (look at her head...that totally does not look comfortable, but every time I moved her back she'd move right back to this position).
They had two formal evening (there were 3 types of dress recommendation, but we pretty much did casual or formal...informal evening we wore casual). The kids were so cute all dressed up :). The second formal evening Kevin slept most of it and Kherington was pretty entertaining. She ate a whole patty of butter plain and put a whole second patty on her roll (nasty). Each dinner we ordered her either pasta or risotto. On this evening she decided she wanted to eat with her daddy. They shared some cream of asparagus soup (from the color I didn't think most kids would touch it) then some risotto. She is so good at helping feed people...I'm pretty sure she's practicing for when Kevin starts solids.
The most amazing thing about the ship that we weren't expecting was the playgroup. On the top deck there were 2 uncovered and 1 covered playsets. This was especially nice since kids are supposed to be 3 years old in order to use their actual kids playroom area. Kherington was a little short for climbing up on the inside to get to the top on the slide, but she is pretty resourceful. She figured out right away that she could just climb up the slides. The park had the slides, a gantlet area, ropes and the little horsey moving things.
Kherington on board: Kherington loved the shows. We only made it to two of them (3 if you count the classical performance that she and I watched a minute of before she asked me where the princess was and once she found out there wasn't going to be one got up and walked out). She thought it was awesome running around without shoes on (it's posted they you need shoes on so that was a challenge). Each morning at breakfast I would lift her up and let her tell me what she wanted on the plate. She'd get a egg, waffle, peaches and roasted tomato and then request 'a lot of' bacon. Just like her daddy. She made friends with the workers so they kept giving stuff to her. We got free ice cream (you normally pay for on this cruise), post cards, little umbrella's that go in drinks, cocktail stirrers. In addition when we were at the buffet we always walked out with random items that workers had handed her (spoon, 3 oranges, etc). She fell off the bunk bed a couple times (missed the ladder) but there was no blood or broken bones :). She watch Ratatouille over and over and over again...except she would skip parts (the same parts each time) so it wasn't much fun for us to try to watch with her.
Fun Story: On our last night we had put Kherington in her diaper and pj's and she was happily watching a movie. Out of nowhere around 9pm she gets off the bed, and says "Dress, dora" meaning she wanted to wear a dress and put on underwear. Kevin was asleep and we didn't want him woken up so we went with it. After getting dressed, she put on her shoes and walked to the door. I was in my pj's which I didn't think would be a huge deal...I had just planned on wandering the ship following her. Well, we left the room and she walked in the direction of music. She found a bar with live music and an open dance floor and started having a ball dancing all by herself. After a couple songs she was looking a little tired. She comes over and pulls me up off the couch, sits down at my seat and says, "Mommy Dance." Haha...still in my pj's and that definitely was not happening. We went back to our room so I could change into jeans then she danced until around 11pm (and got lots of applause). The next morning I had a couple lady's comment on "the dancing queen".
Kevin was definitely the youngest kid on the boat and everyone LOVED him. When we were checking in he was getting so much attention and I started worrying that Kherington might get jealous but that didn't happen. Anywhere we went people wanted play with him. I was on the elevator and a couple got on. The man was so enthralled with Kevin he missed his floor and had to wait for the elevator to go back down.
