This TR will not be the classic TR for I worked my way through the trip as a mashgiach on Kosherica. I am writing this up for myself so I don't forget my trips, but I wanted to share it with others as well. Enjoy
[Disclaimer: I will not be discussing how complicated it was to be a mashgiach on a ship that catered for 2,000 non-kosher passengers in
the same kitchen that we had to use for 90 kosher passengers. For that you can PM me. ] I will never be a mashgiach again, especially now that I have the miles to travel.
I wanted to travel the world since I was a child. I aspired to see Europe, Australia and frankly anywhere else that I had yet to be. My family went on vacation when I was younger and they were great, but they were usually beach destinations like Hawaii, Mexico, Dominican Republic etc. I desired more.
In April of 2012, a friend of mine was in contact with Kosherica to be a mashgiach on 3 cruises to Alaska and I asked him for their email address to see if they had other mashgiach positions available. Long story short, after 50+ emails in 2 days I had a ticket booked for myself and a good friend to Stockholm with a return ticket from Amsterdam 21 days later.
I was to work 8-10 hours a day, but I would get to eat gourmet kosher food and would be able to see some spectacular places. I estimated the cost would be a flush; my plane ticket and travelling expenses would be about the same as I was set to make. I checked the price for the 17 day option and I was happy to see I was getting a $6,500 cruise+cash in return for some labor. I was told that I could work early and late shift some days in order to have 8 consecutive hours off, and even on the worst shifts I would have 3-4 consecutive hours off to tour the area. As a 19 year old this awesome. I had not yet built up any points and I could now travel to some great places in luxury for free! I didn't even have to get a hard pull for this.
The itinerary looked great. We were to travel ( I do not remember the order): Stockholm-Estonia-St. Petersburg-Amsterdam-Finland-Germany (Berlin and Hamburg)-Copenhagen-4 stops in Norway. I was most excited to see the fjords in Norway.
The trip started in Stockholm, and my taxi ride was the extent of what I saw there. The first day itself was the most laborious for we had to kasher the kitchen and learn about all the protocols of the ship and of kosherica. (the ship had many more rules than kosherica). After the shift, I explored the ship and it was great. I new I would spend my free time while cruising on the roof playing basketball or watching people lose a bunch of money in the casino (we were not allowed to gamble as machgichim).
The first night was a great steak dinner and I was tired from the travel so I went to my room for an early night.
In Estonia my friend and I were able to get off the same time and we went to explore the quaint town. We saw a few signs for segway rentals and decided we had to rent them. We asked the guy if it was happy hour (buy one get one free) and he was amused by this. He said unfortunately not, but he would give us a discount anyways. We rented the segways and set off to tour. It was a very small town and most of my pictures are us having fun on the segways:
The ship docked in Estonia:
The marketplace there:
TBC when I am bored with physics.......