Mid-voyage reflections…a little late

I have been wanting to post a mid-voyage reflection for some time now but the fast pace of the voyage has left me nearing the end of the summer with still no time to reflect! In an attempt to let you know how I’m faring, here’s a quick rundown by the numbers:

• In the past 58 days, I have visited 14 cities in 10 countries.
• The total number of countries I’ve visited in my lifetime is 32. My summer work with Semester at Sea has offered me the opportunity to add 5 countries to my list and I’ll add one more before this voyage is complete. My goal was to reach 27 countries by my 27^th birthday and check – this goal has been achieved!
• This summer I have taken 1,942 pictures. I have taken 7,830 pictures since I started working on the M.V. Explorer, Semester at Sea’s ship, in January. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for giving me a new camera AND an external hard drive for Christmas. These were worthy investments!)
• When I depart the M.V. Explorer on August 21, the last day of the summer voyage, I will have spent 176 days of 2014 living on a ship.

It is very rare for a Semester at Sea staff member to complete two voyages back-to-back and I’ve been asked many times by my summer co-workers how the voyages compare. The answer is they don’t. Each voyage has its own personality and it’s hard to draw comparisons across the two.

Sailboats in Helsinki, Finland.

Another question I get quite often is whether it’s was difficult to come back for the summer voyage and the answer is it was and it wasn’t. It was great to come back to the ship in June; it’s amazing how fast a place like the M.V. Explorer can become your home so when I saw the ship again this summer, I felt like I belonged once again. However, coming back was also challenging. The spring faculty and staff became my family so when I got on the ship in June, I half-expected to see my “family” again. They weren’t there, even though I kept searching, so this was a difficult transition. It has been difficult to be away from my family and friends who are back on land for so long. I’ve grown travel weary and am ready to be in one place for longer than four days at a time. I can’t eat anymore pasta or potatoes – staples on the ship’s dinner menu – and am looking forward to choosing my own meals again in just a few weeks.

Don’t get me wrong – the opportunity to travel the world and gain experience vital to my career in the study abroad field has been amazing. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to make friends and connections around the world and look forward to continuing these connections post-Semester at Sea. I have no regrets. The final question I get often is: would you work for Semester at Sea again? The answer is yes. One thousand times – yes. This is a life-changing experience and I can’t wait to be part of it again…after a nice long break!

On to Stockholm, Sweden

After an exciting, fun-filled few days in St. Petersburg, the ship transitioned to Stockholm, Sweden – the land of music group ABBA, clothing retailer H&M, and tall, blond, friendly, beautiful people! Talk about a culture shock! Just the architecture alone told me I wasn’t in Russia anymore – grandiose, baroque buildings covered in gold were behind me and I now saw the more subdued, reserved beauty of Sweden.

Stockholm is a lovely, very walkable city made up of several islands which are connected by bridges or ferries. The weather was wonderful and sunny the whole time I was in Sweden so I saw Stockholm in all its glory (I hear winter is another story; I don’t intend to personally find out!). Stockholm has a number of sights to visit and see, but the city exudes a calm and relaxed nature. This is the first city I’ve visited this summer where I felt comfortable just “being” instead of running around like a tourist trying to see everything I can in just a few days.  It was nice to move at a more relaxed pace and be able to stop and smell the roses, so to speak.

So, how did I spend my four days in Stockholm? Let me show you through these pictures:

View of Stockholm from Djurgarden Island. Djurgarden Island features great museums like the living history museum called Skansen, the ABBA Museum and the Vasa Museum. I visited both Skansen and the Vasa Museum.

"Mama Mia! Here I go again..." My co-worker Julie Roa and I posing outside the ABBA Museum in Stockholm.

View of Stockholm with the Vasa Museum in the foreground.

The Vasa warship. The Vasa warship sunk on her maiden voyage in 1628 - just minutes after sailing from Stockholm. The ship was salvaged in 1961 and is the only preserved 17th century warship in the world. It looks like a ship straight out of  the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean."

Another view of the Vasa warship. The ship sunk because it was loaded down with too many cannons.

The back of the Vasa warship is very decoratively carved.

The shield of Sweden on the back of the Vasa warship.

Me in front of Drottingholm Palace. The Palace is located on Lovon Island and is the home of the Swedish royal family. "Drottingholm" literally means the "Queens Islet."

View of Drottingholm Palace from the gardens in the back.

In addition to Drottingholm Palace, the Swedish royal family has a palace right in the heart of Stockholm. Everyday they have a changing of the guards ceremony which puts the English changing of the guards ceremony in London to shame!  45 minutes of pomp, circumstance and music-playing. By the end of the ceremony, we all had the same feeling as these guards: "when is this thing going to end?!"

The band playing Swedish tunes from on horseback during the changing of the guards ceremony.

The drummer playing from horseback during the changing of the guards ceremony.

If it weren’t for the snowy, dark, cold winters, I would finagle a way to move to Stockholm – I liked it that much! My great-grandfather was from Sweden but being a few generations removed must have created wimp out of me, and I’m not sure I would physically survive a winter in Sweden. Perhaps that’s what makes this country so special – only the hardy and truly dedicated live in this foreign land and I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to share a much appreciated short summer with the Swedes. 

Catherine the Great’s Palace

Now I’ll admit – before going to St. Petersburg, I didn’t know much about Catherine the Great other than the fact that she ruled Russia a long time ago. My visit to STP told me all about Catherine and I can confidently say she was one rocking lady! (I should have known. I mean, she has “the Great” attached to her name!) She was a ruthless leader (exhibit A: she had her own husband killed so she could rule Russia), she expanded the Russian empire to include from current-day Poland and Lithuania east to Alaska, and the time of her reign is considered the Golden Era for the Russian empire and nobility. Her accomplishments are impressive especially considering she lived during the 1700s when women around the world had very few rights.

At the ballet in the Hermitage Theater.

I visited Catherine the Great’s Palace during my stopover in St. Petersburg. The Palace is located about 45 minutes from STP and the long-ish bus ride didn’t disappoint. The Palace continues the seemingly standard baroque style of St. Petersburg and is enormous (I’m learned that everything in Russia is big. If you think things in Texas are big, go to Russia – mind blown). The Palace was damaged quite a bit during World War II and has since been refurbished to resemble how it looked when it was first built. Just when you thought St. Petersburg couldn’t get any gaudier, take a look at the Palace pictures below!

The most amazing room in the Palace is the amber room but because it's so wonderful, you cannot take pictures in this room. The room's interior is basically wallpapered in amber, a gemstone found in the Ural Mountains. The whole room glitters and shines with an orangey-yellow glow. Here's some pictures of the amber room for your viewing pleasure.

Continuing on with the Catherine the Great theme, I also attended a ballet in St. Petersburg in the Hermitage Theater which was Catherine’s favorite theater. Just in case you’re interested, Catherine always sat in the seventh row. I missed the opportunity to sit in Catherine’s seat but nonetheless, the ballet “Swan Lake” was very good.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about St. Petersburg as much as I enjoyed visiting. This blog may mark the end of my St. Petersburg posts. We’ll see if I can come up with anything else about STP and if not, I’ll move on to my next country visited: Stockholm, Sweden!

The seal of Catherine the Great, as seen on the gate leading into her Palace.

Catherine the Great's Palace. Everything you see that is now painted a brownish-yellow was once pure gold.

Catherine the Great's Palace. The palace is enormous.

Selfie in the "Gold Room" with Professor Mark Peters!

Catherine's "Gold Room"

Detailed work in the Gold Room at Catherine's Palace.

Main staircase in Catherine's Palace.

A replica of one of Catherine's dresses, as seen in the painting on the adjacent wall.

WWII damaged the Palace greatly. Here's the before...

...and after. The Palace has been restored to it's original beauty.

Added bonus on my day trip to Catherine's Palace: Peterhoff Palace and Gardens, home to thousands of fountains!

The Peterhoff Palace and Gardens, showing many of the fountains.

Orthodox St. Petersburg

About 75 percent of Russians practice Orthodox Christianity, a religion I know very little about, so while in St. Petersburg I took a tour of four Orthodox churches. Two of the churches were working churches and two had basically been turned into museums. The two churches I write about today are the two “museum churches:” the Church of the Spilled Blood and St. Isaac’s.

Church of the Spilled Blood in STP.

Probably the most famous church in St. Petersburg is the Church of the Spilled Blood (sometimes known as the Church of the Savior on Blood). The church was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated in 1881 and a special memorial marks the exact spot where he was mortally wounded. The Church was supposed to be torn down just before the beginning of World War II but when the war broke out, the gunpowder to be used to blow up and destroy the church was instead used for the war efforts.

The outside of the church is pretty spectacular but believe it or not, the inside is even better! Covered in more than 7,000 square meters of mosaics, the church’s interior sparkles as the sun streams through the windows. Sorry Michelangelo, but this may beat your Sistine Chapel!

My visit to St. Isaac’s included options: go into the church or up into the Dome for a view of the city. Over 200 stairs later, I was up taking in an amazing view of St. Petersburg! It was a beautiful day with a beautiful view.

Visiting the two working churches was interesting. I heard from the religion professor on board that Orthodox Christianity is one of the purest forms of Christianity still practiced. I was surprised by their use of icons. The churches were covered in paintings and statues representing religious icons, and patrons seemed to pick an icon and pray to it plus also make little offerings. The patrons’ behaviors regarding the icons reminded me of the Hindi temples I visited this spring. Perhaps common threads run through the world’s religions after all.

Inside the Church of the Spilled Blood. Everything you see is mosaic!

The spot where Tsar Alexander II was mortally wounded. It's said that the stones on the floor still have his spilled blood on them, although I couldn't see anything. Hence the church's name.

Interior of Church of the Spilled Blood in St. Petersburg. All mosaic work.

Church of the Spilled Blood.

Church of the Spilled Blood.

Church of the Spilled Blood.

Libby, a Charlottesville native, UVA student and one of my work studies, and I at the top of  St. Isaac's Church.

View from the top of St. Isaac's Church in St. Petersburg. You can see the Hermitage State Museum on the left and the Church of the Spilled Blood on the right.

Ceilings of the Hermitage

In front of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg!

On to St. Petersburg, Russia! Having the opportunity to go to St. Petersburg was one of the reasons I accepted the offer to work for Semester at Sea this summer so I was very excited when we docked in STP a week or so ago. My first activity: the Hermitage.

The Hermitage is a state museum featuring an art collection originally purchased by Catherine the Great. Catherine the Great was very adamant about purchasing collections, rather than just one or two paintings from an artist, and because of this desire for collections the Hermitage now has one of the largest art collections in the world. The Museum is only able to showcase about 10 percent of the collection at a time and literally has millions of dollars of priceless artwork sitting in the basement.

The collections include Picasso, Goya, Monet, da Vinci, Titian, Matisse and many more art superstars. However, I have to admit I didn’t spend much time looking at the artwork. Why, you may ask? Because the building itself is A-MAZING! The architecture and interior design are so overwhelming wonderful that I couldn’t take my eyes off it long enough to enjoy the surrounding artwork. For this reason, I have dedicated this blog post to the ceilings and interiors of the Hermitage. I hope you enjoy.

One may think that I wasted my trip to the Hermitage by not carefully examining the paintings. This may be so but because I basically missed the artwork on this first trip, I now have an excuse to return! J

Front of the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia.

One of the first rooms I entered in the Hermitage. The vase is so large they created the room around it! The vase is made from malachite which is found in the Ural Mountains.

So, I lied. This blog post features a few other things besides the ceilings. This is the inlaid wood floors in the Museum.

This room is known as the "Small Italian Skylight Room." Small you say...hmmm....

Another view of the Small Italian Skylight Room in the Hermitage.

Many ceilings were intricately painted in the Hermitage.

Me standing in front of a royal seating area in the Hermitage Museum.

Another royal seating area in the Hermitage Museum.

Up close of the gold and carvings above the throne.

Pretty, pretty! Another ceiling and chandelier in the Hermitage Museum!

Pavilion Hall in the Hermitage Museum.

Norway photo essay

I feel like I’ve been writing a lot of text on my blog lately and let’s be honest here – you’re busy and don’t want to read paragraph after paragraph about my adventures in Northern Europe. You want the quick and dirty! So instead of dolling on about my visit to Norway, I’ve decided to just include pictures with short captions.

Here’s the skinny: I was in Bergen and Oslo, Norway – 1 day in Bergen and 2 days in Oslo. In Bergen, I did a SAS-organized field program which took me on a fjord tour to Flåm and Aurlandsfjord. In Oslo, I went to the National Gallery to see the “Scream” painting and other artwork by Edvard Munch. I also toured the Royal Palace, which is a bit like the White House except with less security. You could basically walk right up to the front door and everything but knocking was allowed. The weather was beautiful and not surprisingly, I got sunburnt. (I am actually quite proud of this because I think it takes great skill to achieve a sunburn in Scandinavia.)

Enjoy the pictures from my visit to Norway! After Norway, we sailed on to St. Petersburg, Russia – more on this country in my upcoming posts!

Waterfalls seen on the bus ride up to Aurlandsfjord. 

I took a fjord cruise on Aurlandsfjord. The fjord was beautiful. As you can see, it was a cloudy and rainy day but the weather held for the cruise.

Aurlandsfjord, as seen from the boat cruise.

Sailing through Aurlandsfjord.

Big waterfall on the way back to the ship from Aurlandsfjord. There were many waterfalls seen throughout the day, snow pack melting and running down into the fjords. Yes, there was still snow on the mountains in July.

A staple on the Oslo waterfront - the opera house. It's built so you can walk on the roof for a good view of the city and waterfront.

View from the top of the Oslo opera house.

Oslo opera house. The inside looks a bit like the Sydney opera house.

Norway Royal Palace. I took a tour of the inside but wasn't allowed to take pictures.

No big deal - just plugging in my boat in Oslo!

The world is truly a small place. In the Oslo city hall, I ran into fellow spring voyager Phyllis! We sailed together on the spring voyage and were in Oslo at the same time! Great fun to see Phyllis again.