Jen and Jerry's Excellent Adventure

 Riga, Latvia                                                                                                   Wednesday, May 25, 2022                Today’s tour was labeled as “Go Local” which is a designation of tours offered fairly rarely to allow any of us who wish to spend time with a local person doing what normal people do in that area.   Today, we walked with a small, retired woman born and raised in Riga who loved her hometown and the opportunity to show it off.                 Ludmilla (“just all me Lucy since it’s easier to say”) was fast-walking, knowledgeable, and poised to give us the absolute best taste of her city.   Our ship docked late (very unusual) and that started our walking tour late which made us miss our first city bus while setting our entire tour back by an hour.   So the first decision for the 10 of us was whether to abort for the day or simply march on and get back an hour later than planned.   Normally I would have no problems with the schedule change,

 Klaipeda, Lithuania                                                                                     Tuesday, May 24, 2022 Met by this group at the pier (Note a temp change)                Ohmygoodness, we have another guide who is also a teacher!   Sanna is a literature professor who enjoys collecting stories.   She is originally from Sweden, fell in love with a man from Lithuania—a country she had never heard of—“and now I speak a language with my two children, a language I had never heard.”   She gave us an oral quiz before we started.   Thankfully we passed.    With grace.                Today’s tour was both shorter and more geographically confined.   And very different.   Hopefully we can explain.   If you look at a map of Klaipeda, Lithuania, you will notice that a very narrow strip of land somehow separated from the mainland and extends along its coastline for 100 km in length and the width of 400 yards to 2 km.   Our guide called it a “spit.”   Half of the Curonian Spi

 Gdansk, Poland                                                                                                     Monday, May 23, 2022                Yesterday was a rare sea day that began with our nondenominational worship service.   I will try to remember to attach my prayers under Stories from Jen.   As I type this a few days later, the TV is informing us of another devastating shooting in an elementary school.   Our prayers are spoken with deep, deep sadness.                Looking ahead, we stay on the Baltic Sea (so far, anyway) cruising tomorrow to Klaipeda, Lithuania; Wednesday to Riga, Latvia; Thursday to Tallinn, Estonia; Friday and Saturday to Finland, Sunday and Monday to Stockholm, Sweden; then it’s the end of yet another leg of the long journey! Today, a bit more refreshed after a sea day, we boarded our tour bus at a little before 8:30 am, to enjoy a drive through Gdansk, a walking tour through its Old Town with free time (“to contribute to the local economy”),

  Warnemunde, Germany                                                               Saturday, May 21, 2022             At yet another mouth “munde” of another river that feeds into the Baltic Sea is another charming town where, today we had signed up for a tour that would drive us outside the resort beach city and into the countryside, but it didn’t leave til afternoon, so we breakfasted, typed, then left the room by 10:30 so our stewards could clean.   Found a map just outside the bus and took off to explore on a cool Saturday morning.    Since it was Saturday, markets were set up and locals were out buying at the fish market or purchasing ready-made salads or smoked fish sandwiches and eating while walking and browsing.   We enjoyed seeing local life for ourselves, wandering, then returning to the ship to relax and prepare for the afternoon.           An Organ grinder  Local cathedral (not open) Unique fountain Teapot Epic sand sculpture We boarded our bus by 1:30ish (there were