Sunday 11 September: We are sailing
Sunday was spent travelling - with quite a lot of waiting around. It rained all night long in Berlin, and looked like raining all day - we were glad our sight-seeing day was yesterday.
After a very fast taxi trip to the Zoo station (the driver thought he was the third Schumacher brother) we hung around for a while until our train arrived. A note about German trains - there doesn't seem to be any standard height for the platforms and/or train floors. In most cases this means a step up or down from the platform to the train. In a lot of instances there is also a gap of 200mm or more. Ths made it very difficult lugging our heavy cases and camera bags onto the train - especially as the doors kept trying to close on us.
Once safely seated in the first class section (upstairs), we settled back to enjoy the scenery. In a word, it was flat! Never mind, we read and looked out the window, and wondered what was so hillarious about the announcememts over the PA that had everybody else in fits of laughter.
The train was very smooth and quiet, and pulled into Rostock dead on time. From there we waited around for a while then transferred to a suburban service which took us to the port. A long walk, long wait at the check-in, more waiting around, and a short trip in a shuttle bus had us on board the GTS Finnjet.
The Finnjet is one of a large number of big ferries which criss-cross the Baltic. It is 33,000 tonnes, and carries 1750 passengers plus a couple of hundred cars and trucks. As expected, it has all the usual means of extracting money - duty free shops, cafes and restaurants with outrageous prices, poker machines and all the rest. Our cabin is small but comfortable, and we are looking forward to a pleasant day tomorrow with nothing to do until we arrive at Tallinn in the evening.
Monday 12 September: Still sailing.
Did nothing all day except relax, read a bit, watch a bit of TV (US Open replay), walk around the deck. It was cold and cloudy, so we tended to stay indoors. In a couple of hours we will reach Tallin, for our first excursion into eastern Europe.
