And Now To Explain The Ferry To St Petersburg

About six weeks ago Holland America Line reduced the price of a special Transatlantic crossing to quite a low price, in fact to a price that I found I was unable to resist.   So my good friend in the travel business, Sue of Luxury Cruise and Travel hooked me up! The crossing is on board the MS Rotterdam from Manhattan's West side piers, across the Atlantic to Rotterdam, in nine nights, with a call at Cohb Ireland, the last port call of the Titanic   The occasion is to commemorate the 40th year since HAL ceased regular Transatlantic service.  I tend to look at a crossing the Atlantic by ship as simply the best way to get to Europe, so there's no way that I was going to just fly home! The ship continues on, after she will kick me off in Rotterdam, through the Baltic all the way to St Petersburg, Russia. I said to myself, you know Paul, I'll bet you can cook up your own Baltic Adventure, and indeed I have. This has turned into a 25 day extravaganza! I didn't mean for it to, it just happened.  Honestly, I do wonder about myself!

I'm already on day five, am onboard the beautiful Rotterdam, steaming due East  at 20 Knots (about 24 mph), out in the Atlantic maybe 400 miles from NYC. I flew from Denver to Washington's Reagan National Airport on Saturday July 9, having cashed in Frontier Airlines miles, with plans to spend the weekend in Philadelphia at the home of my housemate Dave's parents, who had invited me to visit. The great American ocean liner, the SS United States, the fastest passenger liner ever built, and indeed our Ship of State, is docked in South Philly in the Delaware River. I have always wanted to see her, peeling paint and all, and indeed I did. She's been docked there now for sixteen years, stripped of her interior fittings, fate up in the air, but as of February this year is owned by the SS United States Conservancy, whose goal is to restore her as a permanent hotel, retail and convention attraction in Philly, New York or Miami. It was absolutely thrilling to see her. While we were there, peering through the chain link, a woman came running up excitedly exclaiming that she had, at the age of nine, crossed the Atlantic on board and how wonderful the ship had been.  I wish the Conservancy great luck in it's restoration efforts.

Dave's parent, Ed and Janice, are the most enthusiastic and gracious hosts ever! Besides the SSUS, we toured the great battleship, USS New Jersey, docked also in the Delaware across from Philly in Camden, NJ, ate Philly Cheesesteaks, saw the Liberty Bell, a new exhibit next to it that exposes George Washington's attitudes and practices concerning slavery (not particularily pc) a magnificent Tiffany favril glass mural in a downtown office building, the Italian Market in South Philly, the mansions of the Main Line, and the wonderful home in the woods of an early 20th century furniture maker, artist and architect, Wharton Esherick, (google that, it was amazing!). My hosts said I could rest on the ship! We had a great time, it was a wonderful weekend. They even drove me up to NYC yesterday morning to catch the ship at Pier 88 on Manhattan's West side.  It was a great thrill sailing down the Hudson yesterday afternoon, the grand skyline glittering in the sun on our left, the Statue of Liberty on the right, then under the Verazano Narrows Bridge and out to sea!

Five days and there have been two rescues already: Saturday on Amtrak from DC to Philly the train in front of us lost all power and had to wait on the track for an hour till we came along to the rescue (conductor's words) Three hundred passengers plus crew crammed on board our train. Then last night on the Rotterdam there was a medical emergency, the ship made a u turn and the US Coast Guard sent out a copter to airlift the poor guy and his wife to shore. Hope he made it. The Captain this morning told us about the event at a meet and greet organized by Cruise Critic dot Com that I attended.

Tonight is the first of three formal nights, my tux shirt just came back from the on board laundry, I've been assigned to a table of eight at the 8:15 seating, so I'm set!  Here's the upcoming itinerary: Cohb, Ireland; Rotterdam, Holland; Copenhagen, Stockholm, Tallinn, Estonia; St Petersburg, Helsinki, Reykjavik, Iceland; NYC, then home to Denver on August 2.  Stay tuned!