Father and daughter travel far, but end up a little closer.

Byline: WRITE ON By Dave Sheehan For The Register-Guard

We are waterside, downtown Helsinki, Finland, in the heart of a noisy street market. It is the first day of sunshine in nine months. You can see it in the accidental grin on young men's faces and the cut of the women's skirts and sandals.

My traveling companion and I are crowded onto small wooden benches, paper plates piled with hot smoked salmon and french fried herring. We shovel it in with plastic forks.

Across a wide avenue, a crowd gathers at the entrance to a decidedly upscale hotel. TV cameras are in evidence. I am told by my elbow's neighbor - a German tourist, I think - that Bruce Springsteen is inside. I nod around a mouthful of herring. It is a surreal scene, and I wonder, not for the first time today, at how on Earth we came to be sitting here in Helsinki with our mouths full of fish.

Six months ago, my 16-year-old daughter suggested we travel to Russia and Sweden this summer. I thought it a fabulous, albeit shocking, idea. Spending time with the father doesn't run high on her priority list. Quality time is a "discussion" about homework. A summer trip together? Before she could change her mind, I booked passage on a cruise ship bound for the Baltic Sea.

The cruise ship experience is our first, and we harbor some initial reluctance. We manage, like any good traveler, to adjust. Visiting the Baltic states and Scandinavian Peninsula inevitably involves transit via the sea; the cruise ship, therefore, offers the perfect mode of transportation.

Suffering through excellent meals and service? Well, you take one for the team, don't you?

Steaming out of Dover, England, and into the North Sea, we transit the full length of the Kiel Canal, a shortcut to the Baltic Sea. On board, in our deck chairs, we, the Oregonians, British and Germans smear on sunblock and catch rays. The Floridians, Spaniards and Greeks bundle in blankets beside us.

From Helsinki, it is a short hop across the Gulf of Finland to St. Petersburg, Russia. Unquestionably a magnificent city, we are nonetheless most struck by the city's degree of stratification and its skyline dominated by cold, gray, concrete housing blocks.

We buy dried apricots and pistachio nuts and sit outside Fydor Dostoyevski's apartment to watch the proverbial man on the street. Note at once that the street itself is more pothole than tarmac.

Women bustling past are uniformly gorgeous, but life looks to hang heavy in their designer handbags, and they do not return my smile. Maybe it's just pistachio between my teeth.

Tallinn, Estonia, is considered one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe. Ruled by Russia for more than three centuries, Estonia regained its independence in 1991. The locals we meet are proud, friendly and eager to share the city with us.

If you don't remember Tallinn from your high school geography class, rest assured that McDonald's has found it. The Golden Arches are tucked into a busy square, beside an 800-year-old city wall. We use the restroom. Nobody's perfect.

We'd been told that Stockholm, Sweden, is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. We concur. Built on a group of 14 islands, Stockholm is a city of boats and bridges.

My daughter and I catch a bus to nowhere in particular and get off when a corner looks inviting. We stroll, take tourist snapshots and share a drink at one of the many cafes that sort of spill onto the busy sidewalk with no one minding very much. To stop traffic in Stockholm, one has merely to look at a crosswalk, never mind step into it.

By dumb luck we are in Copenhagen for the summer solstice. Sharing Midsummer's Eve with the Danes is akin to Christmas in Bethlehem or Fourth of July in Philadelphia. Two of our ship's crew accompany us on a nighttime city tour that begins in Tivoli Gardens and ends outside a nightclub at 4 a.m.

Nyhavn, Copenhagen's original harbor, is a place to stroll the quays and canals and be "hygge," worry free. The Danes seem very good at that.

When public transportation officials in any large city see us coming, all train, trolley and bus schedules are temporarily altered while repairs and maintenance are completed. The simplest journey becomes a Twilight Zone experience.

Oslo, Norway, pulls out all the stops for us.

Ironically, we are approached for directions at one bus stop, my daughter's blond hair and sunny disposition marking us as Norwegians.

Cruising Oslo Fjord, I reflect that it's the traveling that matters, not the mode of transport or even where you're going.

And should you find a travel partner as wonderful as my daughter, then you're truly blessed.

Dave Sheehan, 43, is head teacher at Churchill Alternative High School. His daughter, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a junior at Churchill High.

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