2013 DCS tour
Created | Updated Jun 1, 2023
Dedham Choral Society tour of Latvia, Estonia, and Saint Petersburg, 2013
Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 13, 2013 by Online Nowpaulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant
It's morning in Riga,Latvia, on Saturday,July 14
The flight over from Boston seemed to take forever. My carry-on bag wouldn't fit in the overhead compartment, so I stuck it under the seat in front of me, but it jutted out enough to make it hard to get my legs in any comfortable position for the flight. There was a layover of about five hours in the Frankfurt airport, where wen waited for the connecting flight to Riga.
What made this bearable was the free coffee and the double chocolate muffin that I got at a food stall.
Then we were off again to Riga, and this time I got some sleep, three naps' worth. No one lost any luggage at the airport. The ATM at the Riga airport worked fine,so many of us had enough Lats [the currency] to spend. Our hosts met us at the airport, and we piled into a bus for the journey to the Albert Hotel.
The hotel had three elevators, of which one was being repaired. After a brief period of getting our luggage to our rooms, we reassembled in front of the hotel for a walking tour or Old Riga, given by our tour guide Trixie and our local guide Mary Anne. We saw many venerable churches, the most memorable being the Dome, built around 1200 AD, with stained glass windows along one wall but not the other. As with many things, the Nazis were to blame, having blasted away the windows. No one knew what the old windows looked like, so they were replaced with stained glass.
At night, we were bussed to a place where local singers and instrumentalists entertained us, while we ate traditional foods. The traditional foods consisted of a soup containing ham, potato, kale, onion, and some spices. next came a porridge of barley and potato, ending with a vanilla mousses with strawberries opn top.No main course, though.
That's all for now. I hope to continue tomorrow.
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 13, 2013 by Online Nowpaulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant
This morning the chorus had breakfast in the hotel restaurant. It was a feast fit for a king: Two kinds of potatoes, scrambled eggs, hardboiled eggs, bacon, sliced turkey, grilled tomatoes, four different cereals with all sorts of things to put on them -- milk, cream, yogurt, dried fruits -- and a a fairly generous assortment of salad stuff for those whose breakfast fancy went in that direction. Yes, there were three coffee dispensers, each of which offered six coffee or cocoa options.
At ten o'clock a.m., we piled into the bus and went to an open-air "museum" in the countryside outside Riga. It was a lot like Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts, in that the numerous historic buildings had been trucked in from other places. It was in a wooded area -- our local guide explained that Latvia is 50% forested. Yesterday we had a waling tour of the city,so today we saw conditions in the other half of the country, though at a remove in time. There were a summer kitchen, a pub, a couple of old wooden churches, a bathhouse, a granary [which served as a schoolhouse in winter,when there were no crops to tend.
When we got back to the hotel, I ate lunch in the hotel restaurant, feasting on pork chops stuffed with mushroom and topped with a red wine sauce.
Then at 3:40 we piled back into the bus and drove to St John's Church in Riga for a joint concert with a chorale from the Riga Technical College. They sang a lot of Latvian songs while we sat in the audience. Then we went up and they sat to listen to us. Our repertoire is varied and eclectic. We have old hymns such as "Amazing Grace" and "What wondrous love is this and "Shall we gather by the river". We have spirituals such as "Swing low, sweet chariot" and "Down by the riverside." We have contemporary religious pieces such as the Lauridsen "Gloria" and a "Ubi Caritas" arrangement that uses a counterpoint theme provided by an African chant "Obaye Obaya." We have another "Ubi Caritas" arrangement by a Latvian composer, and the so-called "Estonian Gloria" by a noted contemporary Estonian composer.
After the concert,I found a good Italian restaurant, where I feasted on grilled chicken with steamed zucchini, broccoli, and red pepper. dessert was apple strudel drizzled with chocolate sauce and topped with vanilla ice cream. It was expensive, but I have Lats to use up. Then I walked leisurely back to the hotel, which was nine blocks away.
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 14, 2013 by Online Nowpaulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant
The concert was well-received. I think both choruses had some good material and delivery.
I don't remember much about the Latvian songs, except for their lightness and delicate harmonizations. I'd love to have some CDs of Latvian choral works in my collection.
The church was still probably being used for worship services, but I can't be sure.
I have learned no Latvian, but nearly everyone speaks and understands English. Our local guide says that students in the schools learn English and either German or Russian.
That's all I have time for. The bus is waiting. On to Talinn!
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 15, 2013 by Online Nowpaulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant
Sunday was interesting. We left the hotel early and went north toward the border of estonia. i can't do capital letters on this awful hotel dutch-screen computer. the shift key doesn't work, and half the time the space bar doesn't work either.
we stopped for a walking tour of parnu, a resort town in northern latvia. a hurried lunch was arranged for us at a local hotel. then we were off to estonia. we left our stuff at the europa hotel, and then rushed off to the saint john's church for our rehearsal and concert. the concert went well.
back at the hotel, trixie led us on a walking expedition of the old city in search of an authentic estonian meal. she recommended the peppersack, where i dined on roast pork, sauerkraut, pumpkin salad, and potatoes. i somehow found my way back to the hotel alone.
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 15, 2013 by Online Nowpaulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant
this morning we had the mother of all walking tours in tallinn: four hours at the mercy of stanislaus, our local guide. we saw the
amphithea where 300,000 estonians gathered to sing in the early nineties. we saw freedom square. we were shown through nevsky church. stanislaus took us to some high points and showed us the sky line. there were breaks for coffee and pastries.
we worked our way down toward the lower city, ending in the square around the town hall. a knight in medieval garb came toward us with a sword and draped his chain mail around the neck of steve, my roommate - steve looked very medieval. this was obviouly staged - the knight must have been anactor hired by stanislaus.
we gradually broke for lunch, or to get away from stanislaus' nonstop talking. i had a chicken caesar salad with hazelnut/cranberry brown bread at the cru restaurant and then walked back to the hotel for an afternoon nap.
at 7:00 we all gathered for supper in the hotel.
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
We got off to an early start, rushing to breakfast at 6:30 a.m. and then boarding the bus at 7:00 for a long ride to Saint Petersburg. It rained heavily at first but then eased. We were supposed to explore Lahemaa national Part in the north of Estonia on the way, but this was cancelled due to fears that it would delay our arrival in Saint Petersburg. [This fear proved prescient.] To facilitate our skipping of the park, we had the hotel give us box lunches that we could eat on the bus.
There was road construction at the border. Only one bus at a time could get through, and our tour bus had lower priority than regularly commercial bus lines. We showed our passports several times: 1.To an Estonian customs official on leaving Estonia, 2. to a Russian agent on entering Russia, and 3. To another Russian agent just down the road, for good measure apparently. The Narva River forms the border between the two countries. Having crossed the river, we found ourselves in a landscape somewhat similar to Estonia, but with more evergreens and birches and poplars. Old clunky cars became more common on the roads.
We entered Saint Petersburg, a city that seemed to go on and on. Natalia, Our local tour guide, pointed out numerous features of the city: the many canals and bridges, a blue-domed cathedral, Saint Isaac's Cathedral, the Winter Palace, the Marble Palace, the lady of Kazan Church, the Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood, etc.
We stayed at the Pribaltiskaya Hotel, a member of the Radisson group. When we arrived, we left our passports at the front desk for safekeeping, picked up our room keys, and settled on the 8th floor. My room was 8126. Venturing outside the hotel alone was said to be unsafe, so I decided to eat supper at one of the hotel's restaurants. I feasted on salmon, potatoes, and spinach, which I paid for with a credit card. Then it was off to bed for me
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 20, 2013 by Online Nowpaulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
Breakfast was in the green Room, which got its name from the broad horizontal neon stripe over the door. I got downstairs and tried to go in, but they told me to look at the "ticket" that my door key card was enclosed in. So I want back upstairs, got the ticket, and jumped into a scene of utter pandemonium. The room was vast, but so was the throng that was inside. The only person from our group was Ed, a Taiwan-born man who sang tenor in my choral society. He told me that we were sharing the room with a vast number of Korean tourists. They were anything but gentle. Worse, the nearest available table was far from the food. I couldn't carry much at a time, but if I left the table to go get more food, chances are the staff would carry off what I had left at he table. After I got back to Boston, I found that I had lost\r weight on the trip. No doubt this was because of the vast distances I had to go in order to get any food!
At 9:00 a.m., we left the hotel for a long drive to our morning attraction in the town of Peterhof: summer palace of Peter the Great.
We were delayed a bit because our route crossed an accident scene, where a motorcyclist had been killed. The summer palace had large crowds of tourists. I had bought a neck pouch to conceal my money in before I left on the tour, and I was trying it out on this trip. It worked quite find, but it made my belly look bigger than normal. When we got to the door of the castle to get tickets, our tour guide [Natalia again] told us that only 30 people at a time could go through. We had 28 singers and 6 spouses/friends of singers, which came to 34. So 30 of us went through in one group [led by natalia], and 4 went through in another group [led by Trixie]. Just before the tour proper could begin, we were required to put on blue plastic coverings for our feet, so we wouldn't wear out the parquet floors.
The rooms were ornate, with gold-covered wood carvings of filigree designs on the walls and ceilings. After exiting the castle through the gift shop [!!], I walked downstairs to the lower gardens, where dozens of spectacular fountains were shooting water into the air. I walked around the perimeter of the gardens, and down the central canal to the sea, where there was a "parkfood" franchise. I had only had a chance to get 1,000 rubles at the ATM in the hotel, and 700 of that was earmarked for a group supper that night. That left me with just 300 rubles to cover lunch. Prices seemed to be high here, but I managed to buy a cheeseburger at Parkfoods for 195 rubles. I ate it with some bottled water I had bought near the parking lot. I walked back down the canal on the other side, and completed the perimeter of the other garden, then stopped for Russian pancakes at another Parkfoods franchise. i lucked out here, too: pancakes with strawberry sauce topping for 90 rubles.
We returned to the bus at 1:30. Even with the accident scene cleared up, traffic was still slow. We got back to the hotel about 3:00.I got more rubles at the hotel ATM, changed into my concert dress, and piled back on the bus for the evening concert at 5:00 p.m.
The trip to our concert venue was impeded by heavy traffic once again. We were late getting to Smolny Cathedral, so there was little time for rehearsal before the concert. The exterior of the cathedral was decorated with gold trim against a background of white and light blue. There were numerous turrets and domes [a central one representing Jesus, and four around it representing the four evangelists. Inside, there were areas partitioned off while they underwent renovation. The cathedral was large, with many gorgeous seats. The stage was too huge for our group, so we stood far forward. Against the back wall was an immense light blue curtain. The concert went well. before each piece, Jonathan would give an introduction, which Natalia would translate. Acoustics were not as reverberant as they were in the previous concert, and this meant that we had to sing out in order to be heard. There was an audience of about 30 at first, but about 15 more wandered in halfway through. Jonathan and Darryl played several pieces for piano four-hands. These were well received. The piano was a magnificent one that showed off their talents. We posed for group photos in front of the church, and then left in the bus, which was waiting for us.
When we got back to the hotel, I changed my shirt for the 9:00 group supper, but in doing so I left my room key in the pocket of the shirt I changed out of. I realized this mistake just *after* I started down the hallway. I had to go down to the dining room [the Green Room again], page my roommate, borrow his room key, go back upstairs, retrieve my own key, and then return to the dining room and return my roommate's key. The meal was buffet style. There were thick sauces on most of the foods: meatballs, chicken wings, rice, mixed vegetables. There was berry cobbler for dessert. We chatted for quite a while after eating.
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 20, 2013 by Online Nowpaulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant
Thursday, July 18, 2013
I spent the morning catching up on my journal on a pad of paper
I bought at Logan Airport on the way over. I planned to transfer it to my blog after I got home. Unlike the hotels in Riga and Tallinn, the hotel in Saint Petersburg lacked a public Internet computer, as far as I could see.
At 10:00 a.m., we got into the bus for our visit to the Hermitage Museum. There were long lines in front of the museum as we drove by, but Natalia assured us that we would enter from a side door that would be less crowded. The bus turned a corner and drove into a vast courtyard, and we entered through an entrance that had a turnstile, wearing earplugs so that we could hear Natalia's scintillating comments on the art in the museum. We proceeded upstairs and
downstairs, from one building to another. We saw an Egyptian Room, a Greek Room, A Rembrandt Room, A Florentine Room, a Venetian Room, etc. In each room, Natalia explained the significance of selected paintings. There was an omipresent din because many tour groups were doing the same thing, but as long as we were close to Natalia and kept our earplugs on, we could hear her. The walls, ceilings, and floors were heavily adorned. All the while, there were multiple levels of
experience: the art in the room, and the equally magnificent view through the open windows, where we could see the river and the magnificent palaces along the opposite bank. The hermitage is no ordinary museum, grand though it may be; it's just one part of a city that is a museum itself.
Continuing through the Hermitage, we saw a magnificent throne room and other treasures. There was even an Impressionist Collection -- dominated by Cezannes -- that had been added long after Peter the Great's death. When the sensory overload of the place left us unable to take in any more, we found our way downstairs to the gift shop and
the cafe. There was a computer bank along the wall, where tourists were accessing info on the museum's collection, but we were more interested in feeding our bellies and quenching our thirst. I had a tuna sandwich [the tuna was okay, but Russian bread tends to be heavy
and too dry] and a strawberry cake that was heavy on strawberries, thank goodness!
From the Hermitage we were bussed to the town of Pushkin for a tour of the Catherine Palace, built for the wife of Peter the Great. Heavily damaged in the war, this palace has some restored rooms and some unrestored rooms. The latter contain photos along the walls to show how badly they were damaged in the war. There are numerous restored rooms of one dominating color or another: green rooms, a white dining room, even the famous Amber Room, furnished with panels that represent an educated guess as to what the originals [destroyed during the war] must have looked like. Peter the Great had received the original
panels as a gift from another government, and had not wanted them because they seemed too luxurious for him [!!], but his wife liked them, so they became the centerpiece of her palace. Crowding was extreme here, resulting in shoving by other tourist groups. As in the Summer palace, we had to wear plastic shoe protectors.
We exited the Palace through the gardens and made our way back to the bus, in which we were carted to our final group dinner in a restaurant in downtown Saint Petersburg. Some of us had requested caviar, so we each got a teaspoon of it in the first course, which consisted of
Russian pancakes with sour cream. The main course was beef stroganoff with mashed potatoes. Dessert was ice cream topped with a berry sauce.
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 21, 2013 by ITIWBS
There's a serious moral to paragraph 2, excessively strict limits on ATM withdrawals can discourage tourism and accumulation of valuable foreign exchange.
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 21, 2013 by Online Nowpaulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant
Hi, ITIWBS.
I could have withdrawn more, but didn't know how far a thousand rubles would go. I thought it would be fine.I didn't know yet that a group supper would be proposed, nor that it would eat up 70% of the rubles I had taken out. By the time the proposal was made, I was on the bus to Peterhof,k with cash in my neck pouch but no ATM card [we had been told to take as little as possible, because of thieves. In fact, our accompanist brought his wallet and had it stolen from him. The thieves withdraw $1,000 from his credit card within two minutes]. A thousand rubles is worth about $33.00. I fwlt very rich when I saw that the balance in my account was worth 67,000 rubles!It looks much less impressive when expressed as dollars. winkeye
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Subject: Welcome from Riga
Posted Jul 25, 2013 by Online Nowpaulh, vaccinated against the Omigod Variant
The last day was a long, long one -- almost 24 hours of continuous sunlight. I watched the sun come up at 4:00 a.m. in Saint Petersburg. The sun had just gone *down* in Boston at the time, and I was flying East for most of the day. So, by the time the sun went down again in Boston, I was there to see it do so.
