Northern countries II: Baltic cruise

As the University Guest House in Helsinki was fully booked, I decided to solve my hotel dilemma in an alternative manner--the cost of two nights on the Viking cruise line to and from Stockholm would be less than one night in a standard hotel; and six hours free to walk around Stockholm would be icing on the cake. I reported to the Viking Line for the 17:30 departure from Helsinki. This is an enormous cruise ship that plies the Baltic at a snail's pace--the 245 mile (400 km) trip between Helsinki and Stockholm would take about 15 hours, or at an average speed of about 16 mph. The idea, I was told, was for the passengers to have plenty of time to gambling, eat, drink, and buy duty-free goods. For others, like me, it was just a nice excuse to enjoy the sights on the Baltic while making one's way across Europe.

On the way over, my three roommates were from Somalia. On the way back, there was a young Vietnamese engineer from Paris, a Hungarian student of philosophy, and a vodka-besodden pair of Russians who wanted me to change rooms with them. This gave me my first chance to practice my Russian: "chitiri chilavikie" .... "o minya yeast ticket!" Luckily, they went away, and in their place returned a young American backpacker who they had apparently convinced, with sign language only, to change rooms with them. The secret to the trip was the bar, which served all kinds of Belgian and German beers, and the small bottles of cognac one could buy at the duty-free shop. These together guaranteed a sound night's sleep in both directions.

For most of the trip, the only view is of the wide-open sea. But as one reaches Sweden, one passes through a more narrow channel, filled with islands, and pine forests where many Swedes keep summer cottages.