Baltic Cruise 2010 - July 26 through August 10

We headed out with Jason and Alex on the shuttle bus to the city center. We bought one day transit passes and hopped on the 3T line, which looped around the city. After trying to activate our passes, we ended up enlisting the help of a nice local woman who showed us that we just needed to hold them up to the middle of the scanner, LOL.

Our first stop was the Olympic Tower at Olympic Park, built for the 1952 Olympics. The view from the top was great, we could see the whole city. From there we walked around the lake in the middle of the park, then hopped back on the tram for a few stops and walked through a residential neighborhood to get to the Rock Church. It's literally carved out of the ground, with a huge domed roof overhead. After walking back to the city center we had lunch at an outdoor cafe, then walked through the city to Fazer, a chocolate store. They have all different kinds of tasty treats, and we got an assortment to sample.

A few blocks over we saw a big gathering around a marching band competition, then toured the church above the plaza. Walking south, we went in to a large brick church on a hill. Then we walked down to the water where Rick suggested we take a boat tour around the area. The boat was fairly empty so we had lots of room. They even had a buffet of salty fish, which Rick really enjoyed.

The last thing we saw on the boat tour was a set of ice breakers, which are needed in the winter to keep the shipping channels open. After taking the shuttle bus back to the Eurodam, we all had dinner in the Pinnacle Grill, the other "specialty" restaurant on board. After dinner we scooted over to the theater to see Jennifer Coolidge (from Legally Blond and Best in Show) who was really funny. At 11 we checked out the 80's party, but it was really dead, so we called it an early night at 11:30.