May 24: day at sea

Today was a day at sea, between Warnemünde and Tallinn. It wasn't terribly exciting, but it's always good to have an easy day and a sleep in! The mornings have been quite early and there seems to be a very loud noise as the ship arrives into port; bilge pumps? It is much more noticeable on this cruise than others, maybe because our cabin is the lowest we've ever had (deck 5); maybe because we are at the very front of the deck (cabin 5001). Anyhow, on this morning we enjoyed a sleep in, since there was no bilge pump-y sound.               / We attended a talk about art works in the Hermitage, St Petersburg since we were going there the next day. We were not going to have very long there, so they wanted to tell us which artworks were special and why. Apparently if you spent only one minute in front of every artwork in the Hermitage it would take you seven years to go through. It is the biggest art collection in the world (2nd biggest Rembrandt collection). We had one and three quarter hours!                                    / We attended a talk on arts and crafts of Russia which actually talked mostly about lacquer miniatures, but was fascinating nonetheless. Lacquer miniatures are little paper mâché boxes made in 4 special towns in Russia (all relatively close to Moscow), ranging from around 2 cm square to around 8 cm square. The ones around 4 cm are the prettiest in my opinion. They are made of several layers of paper, heat dried/treated/sealed, lacquered multiple times and then hand-painted and sealed again. It can take up to 6 months to make one. What makes them special is that the paintings are tiny but in beatiful detail, sometimes with brushstrokes of just one bristle's width: think an eyelash of a pretty Russian girl, a hair on a fox's coat, ripples on a lake. Each town has their own 'flavour': Russian folk tales with traditional black backgrounds, winter city scenes with mother of pearl inlays, pale blue backgrounds with pretty animals and Russian girls dressed in winter clothes. The lacquer miniatures are beautiful and of course very expensive, especially those painted by 'masters' (there are a handful of masters in each village, all teaching apprentices, who will in turn become masters with enough skill and practice). Maybe I will get one one day :)                    /  Sunset was getting progressively later: on this night it was at 10.17pm which we thought was bizarre. Little did we know what was to await us in St Petersburg!