Russia

They liked it better under Communism.

At least you could predict the future. Now it's every man for himself, and what's worse, the game is undefined, and you have to pay $200 every time you pass Go, even though you're not sure who to lay it on and you're suspicious you're falling further behind the winners every day. If it sounds like America it isn't. We've got income inequality. But we don't have twenty four hours of sun in the middle of summer, we don't have doctors who make $900 a month, we don't have a culture of drinking because life is just too damn hard. But we do have a population without passports who are so convinced life is better in the United States that they never bother to leave, resisting insight into how the world works.

Wanna know how the world works?

War. You've got what I don't have and rather than negotiate I'm gonna reach in and grab it. Yes, you can look at a map and think you know what's going on, but until you travel to the Baltic, you've got no idea how close these countries are, nor how different they are, the whole history of Europe comes into focus and it's titillating and tantalizing as well as scary

Let me go back to the beginning.

You didn't hear from me for two weeks because I was on a cruise, a Crystal Cruise to Northern Europe, "Baltic Brilliance," to celebrate my mother's 85th.

Actually, she's pushing 87. But my sister's husband ran out of vacation time and we couldn't agree on where to go and it took this long to figure it all out. To the point where my mother didn't want to buy trip insurance, she was afraid she was gonna die before we departed!

And I hate cruises.

Because the food's so bad.

And they're so often to nowhere.

But there are a few good destinations. Like Alaska. But my sisters wouldn't go there. Which flummoxed me, because everybody I know loved it, but you've got to give to get. Yup, when they said no, I got to say I wouldn't go to the Mediterranean, nowhere where the stops were nothing but tourist traps.

So if I hate cruises so much, why did we go?

Because my mother can barely walk.

Oh, of course we could have gone to a beach resort, but I hate lying in the sun and you put that many people together for that long a time with nothing to do and the conflagration is inevitable. When my father was alive every family trip had a blow-up. But he's been gone twenty years, but it's his money we were traveling on. Actually, no. It was my mother's insurance money, from her accident, wherein a friend ran her over and she broke her hip and she was in rehab and didn't want to live anymore but pulled through and is now her same feisty self, albeit a slower walker.

That's what she uses, a walker. And on this trip, a portable wheelchair and a scooter. But she's game. She doesn't stay home and weep, she's still extracting the zest from life, I can barely get ahold of her, she's so on the go.

But what about the bad food?

Our friends the cruisers, who've sailed everywhere, guaranteed the food on Crystal would be good, there's a Nobu and a Prego and there's no tipping and I was sold. And you should be too. Sure, there were a thousand people on the ship, but no one was dunning for tips and there was no riff-raff and the food was not only plentiful but edible. As for me, I made my daily stop at the Ben & Jerry's ice cream bar, and had a chinois chicken salad after touring each day. And everybody knew my name and everybody was so nice and sure it was not cheap but if you're paying you want service, something the music industry still doesn't understand, but Crystal Cruises does.

So we started in Stockholm.

Yes, I went to see Daniel Ek at Spotify. That's a whole 'nother post. But I will tell you, after spending a few hours with him I don't see why anybody would want to work at the label, that's not where the excitement is, it's in tech. Because at Spotify everybody's smart and they provide lunch and you can criticize payouts all you want but the point is tech is changing the world and music is not. Sorry.

And it was the hottest day of the summer in Stockholm. Which meant high eighties.

And it was the coldest day of the summer in Tallinn, Estonia, where we went next.

But Stockholm is fascinating. It's so far away. And built on islands. And there are thousands of them surrounding the city. Traveling through them was the highlight of cruising.

Tallinn... What can I say, they're no longer under Russian rule, but the economy is so depressed! The guide had three jobs. She took us to a prison...that's where they killed Jews, right there.

Whew!

She took us to the cemetery, where my younger sister spied a stone that said "Lifsitz." We went to the synagogue, where we were treated as the landsmen we were. And we walked through the precious old town freezing our butts off.

Next came Helsinki.

We had a fantastic guide. It makes all the difference. She cracked jokes. She took us to the Rock Church. Look it up, it'll blow your mind.

And then we sailed to St. Petersburg. Eleven time zones away.

They don't tell you it's beautiful, they don't tell you it's low-rise, they don't tell you how you keep pinching yourself, unable to believe you're there.

Yes, we went to the Hermitage. They had more Picassos than there are in MOMA, any museum I've been. And an open window to the sea air. Huh? There was no climate control.

But you need to go to Peterhof. The Tsar's summer palace across the water. We took a Soviet-era hydrofoil that buzzed so loudly, I thought it was going to shake apart on the sea. You could see the welds. I wondered if the workers just didn't care, or they didn't have the skills or the money or...

Peterhof is the pictures you've seen. With the gold rooms.

But what they don't tell you is it's all rebuilt. Yup, the Nazis burned down everything but the facade. The art is real, the Russians stored it in Siberia, but everything else is positively post-war. All over Europe, after so many wars, you'd be stunned how little is original. It's kind of like Chumbawamba, they knock it down but they get up again.

And the Tsars served ice cream and you're there getting perspective no amount of traveling in America will give you. You see these people wanted more. They wanted to be somebody. They'd kill their relatives for power. You see how the game is played, and it's no different today.

Oh yeah, Peter & Paul Cathedral, where the Tsars are buried. Yup, right there, all the Romanovs, even the ones who were shot in 1918. You shudder and shake, you just can't believe it.

And then on to Berlin. Where I have to go back. Oh, I want to go back to Russia too, but for different reasons. Russia is different, Berlin is the same. It's low-rise and spread out, like Los Angeles. It's cosmopolitan and hip. But it's also where the Nazis reigned.

Our guide, Yael, took us to the Jewish Community Center. They had guards. On a Sunday. Provided by the government, at all Jewish sites since the '72 Munich massacre. She said she felt safe, I'm not so sure.

And we saw the Brandenburg Gate, which like the Peterhof Palace has been rebuilt.

And the Reichstag, ditto.

And then we went to the Wall.

I'm tingling as I write this. History come alive. I read about it in the "Weekly Reader." Only a sliver is left. With its graffiti. You can see the building where the East Germans swung over to safety on a rope. They closed those offices right thereafter. And right there... Is Nazi headquarters. The SS. Where Hitler made all his plans. RIGHT THERE! This ain't no History Channel reality show about pawn shops, this is the real thing, it's both frightening and intriguing, positively riveting.

And from there we went to Copenhagen. All I can say is go to the Louisiana Museum, up the coast, for the building, the art and the view. You say you want to live in Malibu or the Hamptons? Drive up the Copenhagen coast and you'll change your mind.

And after two flights lasting nearly fourteen hours I'm back home again. Albeit unable to sleep. Thinking about the trip. Wishing I was back there...

"Baltic Brilliance": http://bit.ly/185syec


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