Things I learnt on my cruise Part 3

It has been a while since I did a 'things I learnt on my cruise' blog, since the cruses we have done since 2013 have all been quite similar, but having been on a Baltic cruise this year, I have learnt some new things.

I hope you enjoy learning a bit about our travels this year:

1 It rains quite a lot in Stockholm - I realise I was only there for 1 day, but it rained a lot...all day. I'm sure it was a very pretty place but I didn't really get to appreciate it through the rain.
2 Cruise ship captains don't know much about illness - we were told one day that there was norovirus on the ship and a day later that it was gastroenteritis. On searching google I found that gastroenteritis in adults is usually caused by norovirus or food poisoning. Personally if I was in charge of a cruise ship I would prefer it to be the former!
3 St Petersburg has a lot of gold leaf. On buildings all over the city.
4 Russian tour guides are called things like Olga and Tatiana.
5 The port at St Petersburg closes if the winds are faster than 24 knots. I did worry at one stage that they would never let us leave, but they just kept us long enough to make sure that we missed visiting Tallinn.
6 Blankenberge is like Blackpool
7 Bruges (or Brugge) and Copenhagen are very pretty
8 The trains from Bruges to Blankenberge run once an hour and are much cheaper than getting a ship's tour - even if the train back makes you think you are on the wrong train and are going to get stranded miles from the ship and be late back.
9 You can buy Christmas decorations all year round in Russia and Scandinavia.
10 If you send postcards home from Oslo they get there in 2 days.
11 There is a MacDonald's, a Subway and a Hard Rock Cafe in every place that I go. Even in Russia!
12 Russians talk about 'the soviet era' as though they were invaded by another country
13 There are nasty insects in Russia that bite me and leave big itchy lumps (although to be fair it happens to me in most countries I visit)
14 Some people have far too much money (judging by the number of cruises they have been on and have already booked for the future)
15 You can get rubbish coffee in Norway as well as the UK. But it costs a lot more.
16 I can use my credit card abroad.
17 Three at home is great. Using my allowances abroad was a real treat. And so much easier than having to search for free wifi.

Long Journeys

We went on a journey to Skegness this week. Skegness is not a place I would normally visit (although I was there when I was 6 months old apparently) but it is worth the drive to get to Spring Harvest (check out www.springharvest.org if you haven't heard of it). On the way down we usually stop overnight at a hotel to break the journey, but coming home we drive all the way home. As long journeys go, it isn't that far at 318 miles, but there are some very slow roads en route. I'm used to driving long distances, after all how would we get to Southampton for all our cruises! And I have regularly driven up and down to Derbyshire for the past 30 years to visit my parents.
The trip home yesterday was so long that it gave me time to compose part of this blog in my head! Here are my reflections on driving home from Skegness:

• 70 miles in Lincolnshire takes twice as long as it does anywhere else in the country, except perhaps on the Isle of Mull (an experience you should have at least once in your life!)
• Costa coffee in service stations is more expensive than on the high street, unless it is so long since I bought one that I have forgotten. Must check that out next week
• I need to keep reminding myself that the road is so much better than it was before they extended the A1M
• There are always roadworks somewhere on the A1
• When I say that the A66 isn't too bad nowadays I am talking rubbish
• There will always be one more lorry to overtake (and I will catch up with it when it is just too late to overtake before the dual carriageway disappears)
• However fast I go there will always be someone who wants to go faster
• Overtaking lorries in driving rain is scary
• Next outlet stores don't have changing rooms. What is that about?
• Not strictly to do with the journey, but my bed is more comfortable than any other bed I have slept in and no shower anywhere is as good as the one at home

Thank goodness when I go down to Derbyshire next week I am getting the train. I have had enough long distance driving for a while.

Blogging

I don't do new year's resolutions. I think there is no point in saying I will do something just to set myself up to fail! But that doesn't mean that I don't reflect at the end of a year and the start of an new one. I think it is human nature to need time to reflect and the opportunity to think about your life and what you would like to change.
A couple of years ago when I bought a new camera I decided to try and take a photo every day of the year to make myself work out how to use it properly. I did manage to complete the year. I'm not sure, however whether it made me a better photographer. Some of the photos were amazing and I was really pleased with them. Others, however were total rubbish and I only took them because I had committed myself to taking one every day. My colleagues at work thought I was totally crazy, especially when it was horrible weather and I was off out at lunchtime to take my photo. Some days I was taking photos of houseplants at 10pm to get it done before I went to bed. I did enjoy the experience and felt pleased that I had managed to set this target and actually achieved it.
So I was wondering what would be a good thing to do this year. A daily challenge is something that I'm not sure I can do again, at least not so soon after the last one. Having thought about it I have decided that I'm rubbish at blogging and don't do it nearly often enough. So my challenge this year is to blog at least once a month. And as I usually do, I have left it until the last minute to get this one done. January 31st and I am writing the first blog of 2016. Hopefully the next one will happen a bit sooner than the last day of February. Part of my problem is finding things that I know enough about and that I think are interesting enough to actually write about. And I am not a writer. I passed Higher English, but that is the highest qualification I have in English. Who am I to write? But perhaps the point of this is to improve. If so, you may have to put up with 12 blogs that are utter rubbish this year! Let's see how I get on. Maybe my December offering will be a reflection on what I have managed to produce over the last 12 months.