The reefer ship "Crystal Lily" stuck in the ice outside St. Petersburg, I doubt if theres any crystal or lilys onboard but I thought she was good looking classic lines, and all that, a proper ship.
We are heading at rapid speed towards the Kiel Canal, or Nord Ostsee Kanal as the Jerries call it these days, they don't call it the "Kaiser Wilhelm" canal anymore strange that.
Then it's onward to Hamburg, home of the Hamburgers I suppose. But seriously though it will be my first time to Hamburg and the Elbe, have been to Bremen on the Weser and that was so memorable that I remember we had to keep "fumf bar" pressure on the cargo line, that was OK for them.
We will be passing the ferry crossing between Roedby in Denmark and Putgaarden in Germany, Anna and I had a huge fish platter in a restaurant on the German side, we had on Marks on us(that will tell you how long ago it was and we thought we were going to get busted for not paying for parking, lack of marks) so I asked if it was ok to use my Northen Irish Visa card (also a dim distant memory), and if the good lady waitress knew what the exchange rate was from Pound Sterling to Mark, it was particularly favourable to those in possession of sterling at the time to which I replied to the Fraulein "That's good" and she put her hands on her hips and exclaimed " Zats good for you but itz no good for ze Jormanz"
Previously that day I asked at a road side coffee shop newsagent how much a road-map was, the offending map was whipped from my hand and an impatient german woman pointed at the bar code as if I was an imbecile, apparently the first four digits above the bar code are the price, wouldn't have caused an outbreak of civil unreat to actually use words and tell me the price but there you go, I gave her the Visa card too, who gives a shit what the price is I thought to myself.
Cheers Tim|||114409527838935542|||