Saturday and Sunday, June 11 & 12, 2011

Saturday and Sunday, June 11 & 12, 2011

We’re off!  Saturday had been a long day.  Packing and “final details” took up the morning and ran into the early afternoon.  Leslee arrived in Yorba Linda with the “grandpuppies” in tow—she will take us to the airport in the early morning.  Then it was down to Bob and Nanci’s to celebrate Megan’s graduation from Gordon College.  Congratulations, Megan, we are very proud of you!  We enjoyed a pleasantly social evening communing with family and friends.  Returning home, we confronted the realities that before we could hit the sack there were last-minutes items with which to deal.  All of you are familiar with these I’m sure, the sort of things that ALWAYS crop up at the last minute.  To my horror (and bitter distaste) I found it necessary at 10:30 pm to drive over to “Open 24 Hours a Day” Walmart to purchase a replacement TSA-approved lock for my luggage.  Lynn wrestled with her fingernails, and the grandpuppies alternately whined and barked for attention as they understood something was in the offing which might not be to their liking—being left at home while Mommie took Grandmommie and “Grandpaw” to the airport and away from their licks, tail-wags, and tummy rubs.

005- Bill and Lynn at LAX—at 5 o’clock on a Sunday morning it’s a pretty quiet place.  MC8017

After an all too brief sleep we dragged ourselves out of bed at three A.M. on Sunday morning.  Leslee brought us to Los Angeles International Airport, where we said our tearful good-byes (she will be spending most of the summer in Central Washington working on her graduate studies).  We are both excited about what Leslee is planning to do, to earn a Master’s Degree in Theatre Arts with an emphasis on College Teaching and the management of community theatres.  Study well, Munchie, we are sure this will help you to achieve your professional career dream!

Departures made, Lynn and I then had to endure the alleged “security check” hassle with humourless, uncaring TSA agents—it took us over twenty minutes to get through!  I was careful to say nothing however, not wanting to spoil our trip by expressing too loudly my anger and contempt of this process pushed upon us in the name of “homeland security,” but which in reality represents a philosophical victory for international terrorism (however you choose to define that).  Yes, I know that I am venting some anger here, but it disturbs me a great deal that fear of terrorist attack has driven our society into abject paranoia and caused we Americans to lose yet more of those personal freedoms once guaranteed by our Constitution but steadily stolen away by officious government bureaucrats allegedly trying to “protect the public.”  To meet the demands of this mantra I was forced not only to partially disrobe in public (in itself unpleasant to observe) but also to reveal that a teddy bear was secreted in my luggage as I had to show not only the electronic devices I was carrying but also explain the abundance of pharmaceuticals I carry when travelling.  As I said above, it could have been much worse, but I kept my mouth shut, my anger in check, and posted a moronic grin of compliance on my lips as I endured the process.

Our trip “Over the Pond” to Europe is in two stages this time.  The first flight leg is from Los Angeles to Washington D.C., and the second over the Atlantic to Amsterdam.  This required a change of planes at Washington’s Dulles.  Lynn and I are travelling First Class on this trip, a pleasure for many reasons.  Yes, it is more expensive (admittedly those United Rewards Miles do come in handy), but the traveller is treated with a great deal more respect and politeness by the airline staff, more like in the earlier days of international air travel in the 1950s and 1960s.  Best of all, I comfortably fit in the seats!  We had some time before our first flight was called, so we were able to enjoy the serenities of United’s First Class Lounge at LAX—a wonderful

006- Lynn doing some final work in United’s First Class Lounge.  MC 8020

experience after enduring the indignities of TSA.  Our first leg was just over four hours and relatively calm, but the bumpy air as we approached Washington hinted that weather was brewing.

Lynn has a lot more experience with Dulles that do I, and she was very pleased that our shift to another plane did not require us to use the inter-terminal motor transfer vehicles for which that airport is famous (infamous?).  Just as we landed, a thunderstorm started up, and we were hit by a wall of humidity as we walked through the jetway into the terminal.  Yeah, I guess I sound like a hick Californian, but heavy humidity and massive thunderstorms are a rarity in our part of the world.  I mean, I appreciate a good rain now and then to green up our hills, and certainly a Californian knows what 95-degree heat feels like, but you can keep the humidity out of the equation, thank you very much.  Anyway, we had just over two hours until our flight to Amsterdam was scheduled to depart, so we wandered back to the First Class Lounge to enjoy a respite from the cacophony of the bustling terminal (hey, its our HOLIDAY, right?), and I could recharge my laptop battery, which had been severely drawn down on the first leg from LA.  In the lounge we were informed that the airport authorities had delayed all outgoing flights because of the intensity of the thunderstorm which, we could see (and hear) through the lounge window was a real gully washer punctuated by many deep growls of thunder. 

To make a long story short, our flight to Amsterdam departed two hours late, and we experienced a real traffic jam as we waited our turn to take off with nine aircraft lined up ahead of us on the taxiway.  This delay was mitigated by the wonderful First Class accommodations in our Boeing 777 international flight aircraft.  There are only five First Class seats, but each is a “locale” holding a television with movies, sporting a seat that reclines into a bed, and even having a 110-volt AC outlet to power the computer!  Suzie, Lynn’s little teddy bear who is travelling with us on this trip, came out of her bag and laid down for her portrait as though she was the Queen of

007- Suzie in her First Class sleeper seat.  MC 8028

Sheba!  Lynn is pleased, too.  As for me, if I can’t ride in the parlour car on a scenic railway, I guess this is the second-best way to travel. . . .

008- Afternoon clouds over the North Atlantic.  MC 8032

As I type these words we are flying at 31,000 feet somewhere over the Atlantic.  Lynn is sound asleep in the “locale” next to me (it feels as though we should have street addresses) and I am so excited for our long-awaited trip to be underway at last that I am too keyed up to sleep.  Maybe I should try; after all we will be landing a Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam in less than four hours now.

Monday, June 13, 2011

009- Sunrise over the North Atlantic at 31,000 feet.  MC 8045

I awoke to a beautiful sunrise over the Atlantic, and dozed for the last hour and a half of our flight.  As is customary for me during eastward-direction travel, my body clock is all messed up and I really don’t know what time it is, or to whose clock the time should be ascribed.  Thanks to the weather delays at Washington Dulles, we were just over two hours late arriving at Schiphol Lufthaven (Airport) near Amsterdam, touching down around nine A.M. local time.  The airport is thoughtfully signed in English as well as Dutch to minimize the culture shock travellers can experience when they debark in a foreign place.  The trip through European Union customs was painless (except for standing in a long line of very pushy travellers), and we recovered our baggage with no problem at all.  It soon became apparent to both of us however, that the “light packing” we thought we had performed still left us with a nearly unmanageable quartette of heavy bags to maneuver through the crowds and up and down escalators.

Finally we got to the Netherlands Railways booth at the airport and purchased two tickets on the high-speed train south to Rotterdam.  This process was a bit clumsier than we had anticipated because they would not accept our Visa card to pay for the tickets (something about it not having a “chip,” whatever that meant) so we had to dip into our carefully hoarded reserve of Euros to pay for the trip.  Then we had to get our bags down to the train station in the basement of the airport—a very good locational design, but still not very accommodating to those carrying clumsy quantities of luggage. On the station platforms we were forced to endure the culture shock of all signs in Dutch only (unlike in the remainder of the airport), and I confess that alleged “train expert” though I claim to be, I was a bit confused as to which train we were to board, especially as this station was busier than the proverbial “Grand Central” of old, with numbers of trains arriving and departing every few minutes.  When the train arrived it was one of the bi-level trains I thought were used only in commuter service, not the sleek high speed equipment one sees in advertisements.  Then Lynn and I had to hoist our baggage aboard the train, fortunately a ritual we have perfected in many years of train travel.  We were also fortunate that the conductor was a pleasant young man who spoke English well and assured us we were boarding the correct train for Rotterdam Central.

010- Bill on board the high-speed train to Rotterdam.  MC 8052

We finally settled in to our seats on the lower level.  Sitting next to Lynn were an interesting pair of brothers, elderly American men travelling on their way to a business conference.  When it became apparent that they were engineers, Lynn soon joined the conversation.  Meanwhile, next to me sat a boy and his mother, on their way to Antwerp for the day.  The mother spoke English very well and the boy was learning it in school, and soon we were chatting together.  The boy’s eyes widened when I told him that we lived less than ten kilometers from Disneyland—you would have thought I was talking about the Holy Grail!  Meanwhile our train sped through the flat countryside of the Netherlands, where farmlands were intersperse with small villages.  Our train passed through Leiden and Delft without stopping, and made a brief stop at Den Hage (The Hague, which is the political capital of The Netherlands).  The station at Hage is a beautifully restored Victorian monument to railway magnificence, a latticework of iron and glass panels.  Oh, it is lovely to be back in Europe!!!

011- The restored iron latticework of Den Hage Station.  MC 8063

We arrived at Rotterdam Central just forty minutes after leaving Schiphol Airport, a telling reminder of what benefit high-speed rail service is for those countries intelligent enough to utilize that technology.  We trundled our bags through the station to the taxi stand, where we had to find a van large enough to carry our bags and ourselves.  Honestly, we did pack light, but it still amounts to four large and four small pieces in total.

012- Our train at Rotterdam Central Station.  MC

Rotterdam seemed quiet and subdued.  When we arrived at our hotel we learned that today is a holiday in The Netherlands, their version of what we call Veterans’ Day.  In addition, the famous race known as the Roparun was ending in front of the Stadthuis (City Hall), which was right across the street from our hotel. 

013- The Rotterdam Stadthuis from our hotel room window;
it was raining but that didn’t dampen the party down on the street.  MC 8087

We checked in, took a short nap to try and reset out body clocks, and then, at three o’clock we walked out into the city.  As you can see from the appended pictures, we caught the tail end of the Roparun race with its attendant celebrations at the City Hall, complete with an energetic drum line which was enthusiastically saluting the victorious teams.  Needless to say, the entire affair, broadcast on Dutch television by the way, was made even more enthusiastic by the vast quantity of beer (mostly Heineken and Grolsch) being consumed by all and sundry.

014- Lynn prepares to explore Rotterdam with some
Gouda cheese to keep her strength up.  MC8092

015- The drum line at the finish line in front of City Hall.  MC 8103

As the festivities came to a close Lynn decided that we should walk over to the riverfront, so off we went.  A few blocks of walking (and some interesting trolley views) brought us to one of Rotterdam’s most famous modern landmarks, the Erasmusbruke (Erasmus Bridge).  This very interesting suspension bridge carries trolleys, autos and trucks over the River Maas to the south bank of the river, where some of the major port activity takes place, including the cruise ship embarkation centre, which we will visit tomorrow.  The very contemporary one-tower design of the bridge makes it a landmark both to modern engineering and metal fabrication.  I took Lynn’s picture on it, but she couldn’t climb to the top as she had done in Sydney—I think that she was relieved at that.

016- Lynn beside the Erasmusbruke. MC 8163

Rotterdam is a city filled with trolleys, a Mecca (if you will) for enthusiasts such as myself who are frustrated by the thoughtless destruction of urban electric rail transit in most American cities over fifty years ago.  The “RET” operates a large fleet of very modern trolleys (trams to the Europeans among you), many of them of an articulated, multiple-unit design popular in many European cities.  The “RET” also uses its trams as rolling billboards advertising numerous

017- Who says trolleys are old fashioned?  Notice how the tracks are in a grassy private
right of way so they don’t interfere with other traffic.  MC 8137

products, so they tend to be very visible.  We even saw one painted entirely in a Barbie-style pink colour.  Believe me, the walk out to the Erasmus Bridge was a nirvana for me, with trams rolling by very frequently—often less than a minute apart.

018- Victorian-era steamship at Rotterdam’s Maritime Museum.  MC 8119

We also passed Rotterdam’s famous Maritime Museum.  Because it was closed for the national holiday we were unable to go in, but tied up outside were a number of interesting maritime relics, including an iron steamship from the mid-Victorian era, right down to the gold scrollwork on the forepeak, the reverse-curved prow, and the raked funnel to exhaust coal smoke from the boilers below.

After our walk through these wonders and our visit to the bridge, we walked along the northern bank of the River Maas.  Visible across the river, which I estimate at this point to be about 1,000 feet wide, was the old Holland-America building, now doing duty as a hotel.  In addition to the two prominent “Holland Amerika Lijn” signs on the shore front and side of the building were two prominent copper-domed towers, one sporting a clock and the other a weathervane to show the wind direction, this last a reminder that before the Industrial Revolution all sea travel was by sailing ship.  Interestingly, the wind vane atop this latter tower was shaped like the sailing ship still featured in the company’s logo.

 

019 & 020- The old “Holland-Amerika Lijn” headquarters building, now a hotel;

(inset) close-up of the sailing ship weathervane.  SC8484

As we walked along the quay (pronounced “key”) or river embankment, now a lovely walkway cleared of all industrial detritus, I encountered an odd-looking structure made of black stone.  At first I thought it was a bench upon which to rest, but I soon saw that it was a memorial to the massive bombing of Rotterdam which took place during World War Two. 

FYI for any students out there who might be reading—just so you know:  Nazi Germany conquered The Netherlands in a matter of hours in May of 1940 in the early stages of the infamous “Blitzkrieg” campaign which quickly led to the conquest of The Low Countries and France.  Fortunately the British Army was able to escape defeat by being rescued from the beaches at Dunkirk, but they lost nearly all of their military equipment, so it was quite some time before the British Army was able to take on the Germans in Europe.  In the meantime, the Royal Air Force (later supplemented by the American Army Air Force) began a program of massive bombing of European industrial centres.  Rotterdam, a key North Sea port second in size only to London, was also used by the Nazis as a repair facility for U-boats (submarines).  Thus it was no surprise that this port city was repeatedly bombed by British and American aircraft.  (In addition to explosive bombs, incendiary bombs were dropped to start fires that would do further damage.)  The memorial I saw commemorated a massive raid which burned out the ancient heart of the city.  This of course explained why every building in the part of town where our hotel was located, excepting only the old City Hall, was a new post-World War Two structure.

021- Monument to the bombing of Rotterdam; the grey area in the middle of the map is the area destroyed by fire during the incendiary bombing of May 14, 1940.  MC 8190

Our walk took us back along a grassy former canal which also had trolley tracks on one bank.  On one side were older buildings clearly built in the nineteenth century, on the other side, all newer buildings even though some were designed to look older.  At one point we came across a small square or plaza with a large fountain in the middle.  The fountain was of a design frequently used in the Europe of yore, a commemorative statue in the middle, water splashing out below the statue, and at the base a large pool to collect the water, clearly intended to be a place where horses could come to get a refreshing drink of water. The statue commemorated someone completely unknown to me, perhaps a local notable, who had died in 1902.  Assuming that this statue-fountain was built soon after, it was the only piece of “old Rotterdam” left in that area, as all of the buildings surrounding it were modern ones built since World War Two, even though some of them were intended to look older than they really were.  For some reason I was taken by this contrast between old and new, and between peace and war, so I took a picture of it.  It is sad that much of the old core of Rotterdam was destroyed during World War Two (and so many other cities as well), but that is the reality of warfare in the modern era—the civilians suffer as much, if not more than the military.  Well, I guess that’s enough history for right now. 

022- Trolley beside the canal.  MC 8208

023- Lynn beside the old fountain monument, surrounded by new buildings trying to look old.  MC 8194

By time we returned to our hotel it was eight o’clock in the evening, although the sun was still high in the sky.  We ate a small supper and retired to bed.  Because my body clock is still out of whack I awoke sometime during the night and before I could get back to sleep I spent some time transferring pictures from both of our cameras to my computer.  These will form the basic collection from which the illustrations for this blog will be drawn.  Good night from Rotterdam.

A note to my readers (if any).  I have been late getting the text and pictures onto my blog in part because of our busy schedule with few "at sea" days, and in part because of the expense and EXTREMELY slow speed of the ship's satellite connections.  Please be patient with me.