A Birthday Cruise in the Baltic Sea

Hello, everyone! It feels good to have some connection to the outside world again. That being said, this past week was incredible and it's safe to say that my first cruise was one of the best times of my life! Pia and I met so many great people and we were so completely spoiled these past 7 days. And now we're back to backpacking. Our little (or should I say long, 15 hour) adventure to Brussels last night was on the waayyy other end of the spectrum than our cruising adventure this past week.

No sleep and crazy hair on the ferry

Getting to and from Copenhagen was quite the task. When we left Berlin last weekend to get to Copenhagen, we missed our bus. Remember that bad karma I was telling you about in my last post? Yeah, that finally came around. To make a long story short, Pia and I looked at the arrival times for Copenhagen instead of the departure times. You would think by now we would have that part mastered. So it was after midnight and we were hanging out with all the crackheads in the bus station, not really sure what to do or where to go. Luckily, the metro was still running so we took it to the train station, pulled an all-nighter in the McDonald's there, and took the next train to Copenhagen at 5:15am. As if that wasn't an adventure in itself, an overly friendly/creepy man really wanted to hang out with us on the train and when we arrived in Copenhagen (after getting on a ferry while inside the train... that's a new one) the man almost ran off with Pia's bag. But no worries, we still have all of our things... knock on wood... and this post is coming to you safely from Brussels!

 Since we didn't get to Copenhagen until about 1pm and we had to leave early the next morning, we didn't get to see much of the city. We walked straight for our hostel and took a 4 hour nap, got ready, then met up with our friend, Jared from Kansas, whom we met the train to Austria a couple weeks back. That night, we went to an outdoor concert with Jared and his roommate.

The next morning on my birthday, we made our way to the port! As we stood in line to check in for the cruise, we looked around and we thought we would be spending the whole week playing cards with all the elderly people surrounding us. There was not a single person our age. However, by the end of the week, we had met some pretty incredible people.

our ship!

inside - The Centrum

 It was easy to find our room due to the big, sparkly birthday sign on the front door. When we opened the door, the entire room was decorated with birthday banners, flowers, a cake, and two bottles of wine, all from a dear friend. Thank you, Tom! It was a wonderful birthday surprise. While I'm on the subject of thanking people, a big thank you to my dad for the cruise, V&M and my mom for the birthday gifts, and everyone for the wonderful birthday wishes!

A nice glass of Shiraz on my birthday

 That afternoon, we took a short nap and explored all 10 decks of the ship. That night, we went to our assigned table and assigned dinner time at 8:45, where we dined with the same 9 people for the whole week. An adorable couple from England, a couple on their honeymoon, a gay couple, Matthew and Kurtis (who we became best friends with), and an awkward trio - a mother, her son, and his girlfriend, who all shared a room, which made for some very awkward dinner conversations.

Birthday dinner

This past week was hands down the most luxurious week of our lives. We loved the cruise for the following reasons:

- A room to ourselves. We were able to unpack everything, which caused us to get a little messy at times, but it was so nice not living out of a backpack.
- A real towel. I almost cried when I used my microfiber hand towel this afternoon.
- A shower with constant hot water.
- Free, all you can eat breakfast and lunch buffets. Although I'm not sure if this is a pro or con because my stomach has stretched three times its size in one week. Pia and I felt as if it was freshman year all over again and we were stuffing our faces with ISU Dining.
- Our bed and being rocked to sleep every night. The bed was hands down the most comfortable bed we've slept in since we've been in Europe. A king size bed with down pillows and a down comforter. Once we hit that bed we were out!
- The captain of the ship. Our captain, Lis, was awesome. Fun fact: she is only one of five female captains in the cruising industry!
- Free room service. Pia and I found the room service menu on the last night while packing (which is probably a good thing). Obviously we had two dinners that night. No shame.
- Our personal room attendant, Vinessen. He was so sweet and took such good care of us. We would come back to our room with towels turned into turtles and bunnies and various sea animals. The best part was when he put our headphones on the animals :)
- Our own TV in our room. It was nice being able to watch CNN... in English, and hearing what's going on in the world. And it was nice watching movies... even though they only played the same 5 movies over and over again. It's a good thing Pia and I love Ryan Gosling.
- Topi and Chris. Let me tell you a little bit about these boys. Topi is the cruise director and Chris is the activities manager. Even though it's likely that they are gay, Pia and I were smitten kitten with them from the very beginning. And we may or may not have left them a little love note in one of the tip envelopes on the last day.
- Our boys, Matthew and Kurtis. On the first formal night (the second night of the cruise), Matthew and Kurtis asked us to be their dates for the rest of the evening and that was when our friendship began. We hung out with them almost every day since. They are from Tucson, Arizona, but Kurtis' family is actually from Mapleton, IA! Just a half hour from my house... small world.
- Our waiter, Johnny, and our assistant waiter, Rade. Johnny is from Panama and Rade is from Serbia. We really enjoyed talking with them every night at dinner! Mostly because when they saw us, they said, "Pia and She-a!" and pronounced my name so it rhymed with Pia's. Definitely not the first time that's happened.
- The photos. Photographers were constantly taking pictures of everyone (so you could buy them for only $19.99 a photo). But it was fun looking at them, and everyone else's, the next day.
- The activities. There is no way that anyone could have been bored on that ship. They had activities ranging from line dancing, to napkin/towel folding, to a White Russian Party (when we were in Russia... how fitting), to game shows. One of our favorite game shows we went to was "Majority Rules", mostly because it was hosted by Chris. One of the questions was "What is the best pickup line?" You should have heard some of the answers these people came up with. Our favorites were...
1. If I told you you had a nice body, would you hold it against me?
2. Are you Irish? Because I'm 'doublin'.
3. Do you work at Subway? Because you just gave me a footlong. (I think that last one was a little too dirty for some of the people in that room.)

Pia has a drinking problem.

Just kidding. They were giving out free champagne so we couldn't resist!

from our room attendant :)

New friends on formal night :)

this guy gave me two nicknames: Shea Butter and Julia Stiles?

Table 14... the last night! Can you identify everyone I described?

Our waiter friends - Rade and Johnny

 Topi and Chris <3

Aaaand the closest thing I found to Leo on the ship...

 Some of the things we didn't like:
- No internet.
- No window in our room. One day we slept until 1:30pm!
- Our room cards which are also used as our credit cards. It was so easy and kind of fun swiping them to pay for drinks or internet, but it wasn't so fun getting our bill yesterday morning.
- Going back to backpacking after a week of luxury. We are still adjusting. This is a bigger adjustment than coming to Europe in the first place!

Overall, we loved the cruise. Everything you need is right there: Your room, two dining areas, bars/clubs, a spa/salon (where Pia cut 8 inches off of her hair!), swimming pools and jacuzzis, a fitness center and track, a theatre, a small shopping area, a casino, Ben and Jerry's, a rock climbing wall, etc. It is seriously a little city on a ship!

Pia getting her hair cut!

Before the cruise, I thought it would be more about seeing the cities rather than the cruise. But it's really the other way around. I felt like the past 7 days were more about the cruise and its activities than seeing Tallinn, St. Petersburg, Helsinki, and Stockholm. We had two "at sea" days and the rest of the four days we were in a new city, only spending a few hours in each city. That's something I didn't like because you barely get a taste of that city if you're only there for a few hours.

Reindeer Meatballs

In Tallinn, we walked to the old town area with Kurtis and Matthew, and mostly just looked around in the shops. We also visited the cathedral. In St. Petersburg, Pia and I bought a shore excursion because if you don't book an excursion with the cruise, you aren't able to get off the ship, unless you have a Russian Visa. Our tour guide, Andre, was very sweet. We took a three hour walking tour with him and saw a couple cathedrals, the palace, and a market. In Helsinki (I loved this city!), Pia and I did our own thing and took a hop on hop off bus tour, which also brought us to the city center from the ship. We saw two cathedrals, the Lutheran Rock Church, and spent time at the market, where we tried smoked reindeer meatballs... which were quite tasty! In Stockholm, we took the hop on hop off boat tour and when we got to the Old Town, we headed straight for the Palace in hopes of seeing Obama, who was there that day having lunch with the King and Queen. Unfortunately, we missed him by an hour, but we saw a very unique changing of the guard instead. Then we walked around old town and bought some Swedish chocolates.

Yesterday morning, we said goodbye to the ship and all of its wonderfulness. We hung out in Copenhagen for the afternoon, then took a 15 HOUR bus ride to Brussels. The completely full bus ride consisted of 4 toddlers screaming the whole time and the most disgusting bathroom I've ever seen/smelled in my entire life. It was so badly infested with multiple unknown diseases that no one used it and the bus driver had to stop at least every two hours so people could use the restrooms at gas stations. Needless to say, we didn't get any sleep. But we're now in Brussels and we feel much better because we showered, took a four hour nap, and our hostel is right next to the Godiva Chocolate Factory. Life is good again.

We're in Brussels until Thursday morning, then we head to France! It's hard to believe that in just 2 weeks, Pia and I will be in Madrid and I will be starting my job! Where did these past 2 months go?!