This morning we are pulling into a sunny Koblenz Germany in the central Rhine. The Rhine River Cruise transition has begun. This is the beginning of the castle region of the Rhine and we have already seen one while eating breakfast. The one that’s overlooks Koblenz is Ehrenbreitstein Fortress (Festung Ehrenbreitstein), perched high above the Rhine and Moselle confluence in Koblenz. It sits on a plateau overlooking the “Deutsches Eck”. It’s one of the largest…
My plan on this cruise was to get my daily exercise in early in the morning by going up onto the Sun Deck of the River boat. Yesterday when I went up at 6 AM it was dark cold and rainy so I made it one time around the track and went back down to my room where I did the best I could with the limited floor space in doing my stretches and calisthenics.…
This morning we docked for several hours in Kinderdijk, south of Amsterdam and just east of Rotterdam. Kinderdijk is one of the real low-lying spots of Holland and is supposedly where the young man of fables, Hans Brinker, stuck his finger in the dyke to keep it from failing. What’s interesting is that these ancient clay levies they call dykes are not the sort of structures like concrete dams that could or do spring leaks…
Anne Frank was a Jewish girl born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1929. When the Nazis rose to power, her family fled to Amsterdam, but after Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1940, life grew increasingly dangerous for Jewish families there. In July 1942, when Anne was 13, her family went into hiding in a secret annex behind her father’s office, along with another family and a dentist. For over two years, they lived in cramped, silent…
I only know one word in Dutch and it’s godverdomme, or God damn it. Even though I have a Dutch brother-in-law, my best friend in high school was Dutch and I worked with Dutch engineers for six years (don’t get me started…godverdomme), it was Teddy Van der Horst back at Bankers Trust, who taught me the word. I did my first banking internship in the North Europe Group of the Europe Division in 1976. Teddy…
I just read my just-published story and was offended by all the autocorrect typos. Apologies. I will be more careful to edit on the fly.
We boarded the Viking Sigrun river boat at 4 PM yesterday and at 6 PM. We had our first trip briefing from the Cruise Director. He opened with the disappointing comment, but after six weeks of carefully monitoring the rain, River water levels and still making the passage from Amsterdam to Basel and from Basel to Amsterdam repeatedly, Viking has determined that continually has to end with this voyage. He told us that on Saturday…
On Sunday we head off to Amsterdam to start our Viking Rhine River cruise. As it turns out, the Vikings raided up the Rhine repeatedly during the Viking Age, and it’s a genuinely good history to know given our Viking Rhine cruise. In the 9th Century Norse raiders discovered that rivers like the Rhine, Seine, and Meuse gave them a highway straight into the heart of continental Europe. Their shallow-draft longships could sail far upriver,…
Years ago, I cut out a New Yorker cartoon that struck me as particularly funny. It showed a Viking warrior, pushing up against the tree and said, “Even the Vikings had to stretch.” Interestingly enough today we are on our way to be Vikings, so stretching is on my mind.This morning I am dressed and packed and ready to go on a long car service ride to LAX for a flight on Lufthansa that takes…
Medicare was established in 1965, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law as part of the Social Security Amendments of 1965. It began covering enrollees the following year, on July 1, 1966. Johnson signed the bill in Independence, Missouri, with former President Harry Truman present. Truman had proposed a national health insurance program back in 1945, and Johnson gave him (and his wife Bess) the first two Medicare cards as a symbolic gesture.…