This trip is flying by now! We were just on the ship for two days of classes and now we are in Stockholm, Sweden. We arrived yesterday morning and we have decided we are going to move here! Our two days on the ship were good. We had regular classes and we had some TEDx coaching and dress rehearsals (the event is on August 4th) and we did a fine dining reunion evening with all of the people that sailed with us in 2014. There were about 15 of us at our table. ...

We spent our last day and a half at some pretty amazing places in St. Petersburg. We visited the Summer Palace of Catherine the Great and toured the Peterhof Gardens as well. Catherine the Great's Palace was out of this world. The outside is a beautiful blue with white trim and gold accents. The inside….holy moly! All of the rooms that have been restored to their original conditions are the definition of opulence! There is not a bit that is not covered in s...

To begin our Moscow trip we got up at 4:30am and boarded a bus that took us to a bullet train to Moscow. The trip took about 4.5 hours. When we arrived it was a 2 day whirlwind of activity. Met our guide as we got off the train and began the counting. We were a group of 60 students and Geno and I were responsible for 30 of them. They were VERY well behaved and always on time when we set various meeting times. On our way to lunch we got to see a little of ...

This morning started with a briefing with a diplomat. It was very informative. He told us about the current safety concerns as well as updated us on the growing tensions between Ukraine, Russia, Europe and the USA. After the briefing we returned to our room to get ready for a day out on the town in St. Petersburg. We really relaxed this morning and didn't get off the ship until around 11am. We had been told their were a few buses that would then take you to ...

Today is day three on the ship since we have left Norway. It has been an incredibly busy few days (mostly because we are drama folks). Our first evening back on the ship we had a talent show rehearsal. We have about an hour of shipboard community performances and then for an hour the crew performs. The rehearsal went really well. The Resident Director, Margaret, who was in charge of coordinating the event was fantastic and so "type A" organized that we were ...