Viking Rhine River Cruise – Part 3 More Rhine Ramblings

by Bob Sparrow

DSC00738

Rene Van Loon

   The crew of the Jarl was outstanding – great customer service, attention to detail and always went the extra mile to accommodate our needs.  The food was excellent – varied, plentiful and often times themed according to the country we were passing through.  Our most frequent contact with the crew (with the exception of the bar tenders of course) was with Program Director, Rene Van Loon, a delightfully entertaining gentleman from The Netherlands who, each evening, gave us the next day’s itinerary along with a few amusing stories.  I had a chance to sit down with him during the cruise to talk about his river cruising experiences (I had lied and told him I was a fairly well-read travel blog writer.  It really wasn’t a lie; I am fairly well read and I do write a blog).  He talked about his love of travel and people as well as his time with Viking River Cruises.  He says, “Our CEO’s focus on customer service pervades the whole company.  Our goal is to create an UFE for each passenger”.  UFE?  UnForgettable Experience.

      When asked about amusing or unusual experiences he gave two:

1)    Prior to his cruising days he was giving a tour of Rome, when he asked the group at the end of the tour if they had anydo not disturb questions.  A tourist in the back of the bus asked: “Why did the Roman build so many ruin?”

2)    During a cruise he got a call from an elderly lady who said she was trapped in her room.  He told her that if her door was locked that she could unlock it from the inside.  She hung up, but called back a few minutes later saying she was still unable to get out of her room.  So he decided to walk her through the process and asked her to describe what she was looking at.  She said, “I see two doors, I tried one, but that was the bathroom and I can’t try the other one because it has a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on it.”

      The people we were cruising with were very fun (See Part 2) and the crew was incredibly accommodating, but if I’m being honest, the people at our ports of call, to put it as nicely as I can, seemed a bit tired of tourists.  Maybe the summer had brought them too many ‘ugly Americans’, perhaps the fact that Germany had just finished it’s ‘Oktoberfest’ attributed to a ‘hang-over’ affect.  Perhaps they’re still a bit miffed over losing a couple of world wars, I don’t know, we just didn’t see too many smiling, laughing, glad-to-see-you Germans.  Whatever the opposite of ‘warm and fuzzy’ is may2013-10-14 03.47.35 be a good description. And the French have never really had much time for us, to wit:  We were in the town of Strasbourg, France and I was trying to find change for 10 Euro so I could tip our tour guide.  After being refused in two stores I went to the tourist2013-10-14 00.48.30 office to asked for change.  I was told something in French, by the lady behind the counter, and while I didn’t understand her, I could tell from the body language I probably wasn’t getting any change.  I said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand”, to which she replied something else in French.  A British lady standing next to me in line interpreted and said, “She’s not giving you any change unless you buy something.”  I said, “Why couldn’t she tell me that in English?”  The Brit leaned toward me and whispered just loud enough for the French lady to hear, “I don’t know, but if it weren’t for British and American troops, she’d wouldn’t understand French either, she’d be speaking German.”

2013-10-17 05.00.20      Viking offers plenty of ‘included’ (no additional cost) tours to castles, cathedrals, the Black Forest, etc., as well as additional tours you can pay for – which we did for 1) a pub crawl in Cologne (What a surprise!), and 2) a tour of World War II battle grounds.  The latter was my personal favorite.  Our guide, a gentleman from New Zealand, took us to the top of a hill and described the movement of American, French and German troops in the valley below.  He was so passionate and created such descriptive word-pictures as he described the battles for the Colmar Pocket, that you could almost hear the tanks rolling and the machine guns firing.

audie murphy

Audie Murphy

     It was in one of the battles for the Colmar Pocket that Audie Murphy, the most decorated soldier in WWII, won his Medal of Honor.  There is also a memorial museum in town where there are an incredible number of WWII artifacts.

     A short cruise from Breisach, Germany to Basal, Switzerland concludes our romp up the Rhine.  In summary, I had a lot of fun, gained a lot of knowledge, gained some new friends and gained a few pounds, and it was all well worth it.

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Viking Rhine River Cruise – Part 2 Rollin’ on the River

by Bob Sparrow

Rhine map     Let’s get the itinerary out of the way first, because rather than focus on the places, which you can look up on the Internet if you’re so inclined, I’ll focus on the people – the crew of the ship, the people cruising with us and the people we met at our ports of call.  After leaving Amsterdam . . .

    First port:       Kinderdijk – Lots of windmills

    Next port:      Cologne – Gothic Cathedral

    Next port:   Koblenz – Marksburg Castle

    Next port:      Rudesheim – Quaint German town

    Next port:      Heidelberg – Famous castle and university

    Next port:      Speyer – Another quaint German town

    Next port:      Strasbourg – Quaint French town

    Next port:      Breisach – Quaint German town in the Black Forest

    Last port:       Basal – probably a quaint Swiss town, we only saw the airport

river cruise     Our ship was the Viking River Cruise Ship, Jarl. Jarl was a mythical Norse god who was the grandson of Odin and a symbol of strength and intelligence – characteristics with which I am unfamiliar.  We had a full ship at 186 passengers and 52 crew members.  River cruising provides a much smoother ride than ocean cruising, provided the water level isn’t so high you can’t get under the bridges or so low you can’t move at all, or you don’t run into all the other traffic on the river, and you are able to negotiate the tight walls of the many locks along the way.  So on the surface, while river cruising may seem rather benign compared to ocean cruising, it is actually filled with a lot more variables.  However the Captain did reassure us that if the boat sank and was sitting on the bottom of the river we could all stand on the top deck and be higher than the water level.  So we had that going for us.

     I must admit that when I first went aboard the Jarl and saw my shipmates, I had the same reaction as when I arrived at my 50th high school class reunion – “What are all these old people doing here?”  I wondered if I had mistakenly stumbled onto a ‘Prunes for the Prostate’ cruise?”  However, like the high school reunion, it didn’t take long for me to realize that I was ‘one of them’.

mensa

     As we introduced ourselves to our new shipmates, I found that the first three men I met were two engineers, and a research scientist and the first three women I met were two authors and a Stanford graduate.  I then met a group of 18 Filipinos – all doctors from Chicago.  I was wondering if we’d mistakenly been booked on a Mensa Cruise – talk about miscasting!

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Me, Linda, Liz, Cathy, Gary, Kathy, Mark, Bill

     We then met Gary and Cathy and realized that this was no Mensa cruise.  I promised them that I’d mention them in my blog so there you are!  Just kidding, they were delightful people that we hung with for the entire trip and laughed our way up the Rhine.  They are from Tennessee by way of Michigan and Buffalo and said if we ever wanted an NFL team to have a losing record that they would just need to move there.  We also met and hung with a father and daughter, Bill and Liz, traveling together – both cigar smokers.  He looked hauntingly like my late best friend, Don Klapperich and she looked like . . . well, she just looked drop-dead gorgeous.  And we also hung with three ladies from San Antonio, the Stanford grad, Krista, also a cigar smoker, and her friends, Carla and Dez.  We met a lot of other very nice people, all from the US or Canada (Viking separates their cruises by language so they don’t’ have to translate everything into 5 different languages throughout the cruise), but these three groups helped us close down the piano bar every night.

DSC00736     We became good friends with Lazlo, our delightful Hungarian piano player, who encouraged people to get up and dance as well as come up and sing.  We were told that one of the doctors from Chicago was a contestant on the Filipino version of American Idol, I guess that would be Filipino Idol, and he was very good.  One of the female Filipino doctors, specializing in internal medicine, wanted to do a traditional German dance, the hula, and asked if anyone knew how to sing ‘The Hawaiian Wedding Song’.  Having had enough rum to cause the ship to stop in the first port and on-load another couple of cases, I lied and said, “As a matter of fact I do.”  In retrospect I knew of the song and vaguely remember Elvis singing it back in the 60s.  Undaunted, I got up to sing as the ‘Dancing Doctor’ performed a quite authentic version of the hula.  In my enthusiasm I even included a verse in the Hawaiian language – or at least my interpretation of the Hawaiian language, which included a few swear words and several unmentionable (in English) body parts.  Little did I know that there was a native Hawaiian in the audience, so when I was finished and walked past him he looked at me and slowly shook his head in disgust and said, “Really?”

228

No, I’m just standing in front of a fountain!

   It wasn’t the first time I’d publicly embarrassed myself and it wouldn’t be the last.

Thursday’s post: Viking Rhine River Cruise – Part 3    More Rhine Ramblings 

Viking Rhine River Cruise – Part 1 Three Daze in Amsterdam

by Bob Sparrow

amsterdam     It’s raining as we (“we” is wife Linda and me along with long-time friends and traveling companions, Mark & Kathy Johnson) arrive and complete the stringent requirements for passage into the wild and crazy city of Amsterdam, which consists of a stamp on the passport and a pat down to insure you have enough Euros to enjoy all that this ‘Venice of the North’ has to offer.  Actually there aren’t enough Euros to enjoy ALL that this city has to offer, but we enjoyed the pat down.  The rain doesn’t dampen our spirits, which have been buoyed by a sampling of that famous Amsterdam spirit – Heineken beer.  OK, perhaps more than a sampling, but we were just trying to be good guests and help erase that ‘ugly American’ image.

ann frank

Lines around the block we avoided

  Our train from the airport arrived at busy Central Station, which sits at the north end of town and right next to the busy ‘Red Light District’, but since we’d just come from the ‘Red Eye District’ – our 7½-hour overnight flight from Chicago – we thought we should be a little more rested before we tackle ‘the meat’ of the city, so to speak.

  First stop is the Ann Frank House. As instructed, we got there early to avoid the lines to get in that extend around the block.  Reading ‘The Diary of Ann Frank’ before going will enhance your experience, but the tour through their living quarters does an excellent job of telling this amazing story.  I can’t imagine doing this in the heat of summer, as the rooms are small and the stairways are narrow, so being herded through the house shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of tourists in need of a shower could alter the experience significantly.

van gogh

Don’t look for this in the Van Gogh Museum

     It’s a short walk along a canal from the Ann Frank House to the Van Gogh Museum.  Van Gogh was many things – hard to understand as an artist, hard to categorize as a post-impressionist painter, hard to understand his relationship with Gauguin and hard of hearing – what with that cutting off of the ear incident and all.  The museum is great, but don’t go there expecting to see one of Van Gogh’s most famous paintings, Starry Night, as it is owned by the Museum Of Modern Art in New York.  You couldn’t even buy a replica of that painting, as all rights are owned by MOMA.  I almost got thrown out of the place for even mentioning the painting.

  It was another short walk from there to the Heineken Brewery – where the highlight of the tour is at the end – not only is it over, but that’s where you get to drink a few Heineken beers, which we could have done at home.  The low-light of the tour was a Disney-like ‘ride’ where you are an imaginary grain of barley or a hop or some yeast or something and they put you through the beer brewing process.  We might have been better off and certainly many Euros ahead if we’d just gone to a café next door and ordered a Heineken.

Red Light

Sorry, no photos were allowed

  The ‘Red Light District’ made up for it.  All this time I thought Las Vegas was the ‘Disneyland for adults’.  Goodbye Vegas, hello Amsterdam.  Prostitution is not only legal, but also quite uniquely advertised.  We walked down the street and there in store window after store window are attractive young ladies dressed rather scantily just standing there ‘selling there wears’.  I did feel a journalistic obligation to stop and interview a few of these working girls, but Linda failed to see the literary value in that pursuit.  Between shop windows there might be a drug store – no, not the kind of drug store we’re used to, but a place to buy a sampling of various cannabis leaves, without a doctor’s prescription.  The reality is that you really don’t have to buy it, just walk down the street and inhale deeply.

2013-10-10 07.41.03

A couple of not-so-famous Dutch painters

I know we did some other things over that three day period, like canal rides, other museum visits, visits to great restaurants and bars, but it’s all a little foggy right now, perhaps I was inhaling too deeply as I wandered through Amsterdam.

Next post: Viking River Cruise – Part 2   Rollin’ on the River

THE GREATEST GENERATION DIET

By Suzanne Sparrow Watson

So good it has its own Facebook page

So good it has its own Facebook page

The other day I was slumped over the kitchen counter, fork in hand, eating a Costco pumpkin pie straight out of the container.  It started innocently enough – I bought the pie on my weekly trip to Costco for purely scientific reasons.  Thanksgiving is at our house this year so I wanted to make sure that Costco’s pumpkin pie was up to snuff.  A pinch too much nutmeg or a surplus of cinnamon can throw off the whole dinner.  So really, it was in everyone’s best interest that I officially test it out.  Of course, I’ve been buying the pumpkin pie at Costco for about ten years and it has remained amazingly consistent.  But still…you never know when some genius is going to mess with the recipe.  Think “new coke”.

When I brought it home my husband’s eyes lit up – pumpkin pie is his favorite.  We each had a piece that day and again the following day.  Then the paragon of virtue that I’m married to says, “Well, I’ve had enough.  You can throw the rest of it out.”.  THROW IT OUT?? I was stuck with a dilemma that would have tested Solomon.  Throw out more than half of a perfectly good pie or, on behalf of all the starving children in China that I heard so much about growing up, save it for another day – or two.  Being the good Samaritan that I am, I opted for the latter.  So that’s how I found myself at the kitchen counter eating pie.  At first I just cut the tiniest of slivers but then the pie was uneven, so I had to cut a bit more from the other side.  Which of course was not at all even so then I had to go back to the first side to even it up.  Before I knew it, I had eaten a quarter of the pie.  But at least it was symmetrical by the time I was finished.  Don’t judge  – I know you’ve all been there.

As I waddled away from the kitchen I began to feel guilty about my gluttony.  I calculated how many hours I was going to have to spend on the treadmill to make a dent in my caloric intake.  Apparently I would have to walk for three days.  And then it struck me – why are we the generation that feels so darn guilty about food?  I  thought about my parents and my in-laws – all four of them lived very long lives. I don’t think any of then ever worried about eating too much. In fact I think the only time they worried about food was when they didn’t have enough. To them, the worst sin was when a hostess served “skimpy” portions. They never heard of gluten-free, cleansing, cardio workouts, sat fat, vegan diets or a gym.  Truth be told, I’d venture that the  only “gym” they got near was Jim Beam.

A thing of the past - the dreaded Jello mold

A thing of the past – the dreaded Jello mold

I think my relatives were pretty reflective of that entire generation.  Maybe it was the deprivation of the Great Depression or the sacrifices they made during the war, but they didn’t seem to obsess about food and exercise the way we Boomers do.  They were the Greatest Generation not only because of all they accomplished, but because they also perfected the sour cream/onion dip and knew how to make a splendid Manhattan highball.  When I think about the Thanksgiving tables of my childhood there was no non-fat gravy or “skinny” mashed potatoes made with cauliflower.  No, we had creamed corn, jello molds, and stuffing loaded with sausage.  Our pies were topped with real whipped cream – and lots of it. In fact one of my favorite Thanksgiving memories is brother Bob and I taking the bowl of whipped cream and embarking in a food fight at the table.  And no, we weren’t little kids.  We were both in our 30’s . It’s possible we had consumed a bit too much wine.  But back to my point – our parents lived long lives despite their love of fatty foods and arm chairs.

So what was their secret?  It’s probably not practical to come up with just one hypothesis for an entire generation so I’ll stick with my own family.  When I think about my dad and my mother-in-law in particular they both were just a little plump, they both loved a good party, they both loved to eat and they both enjoyed a daily cocktail.  Sometimes more than one.  More importantly, they were two of the most happy, fun, positive people I ever met.  They were too busy enjoying life to let a few calories get in their way.  And, no surprise, everyone enjoyed being around them too.  And why not?  They were either eating, drinking or laughing.  Not a bad way to go through life.

After giving this some thought I’ve decided that just having a positive attitude is the best recipe for growing old.  So this week on my trip to Costco I’m going to pick up the apple pie.  Purely for testing, of course.  And when my disciplined husband has had his fill, I will happily slump over the counter and eat the rest.  I’m calling it “The Greatest Generation Diet”.

Correction to URL

We understand that by clicking on the link to ‘read more’ takes you to a page that reads the ‘morningnewsinverse’ cannot be found.  We’re attempting to fix this so will be reposting today’s blog to see if it corrects the situation.  If not, I’ll get my son on it.

Childbirth, Kidney Stones and Amsterdam

by Bob Sparrow

photo (2)     Sometimes my travels take me to exotic places; sometimes my travels take me on introspective journeys, but last Friday morning at around 2:00 a.m. my travels took me to the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital with the on-set of a kidney stone.  It was my third, so I’ve become quite knowledgeable about them and familiar with the associated pain, which has become the subject of some debate.

It has been said that the pain of a kidney stone is similar to the pain of childbirth.  Having never given birth, I wouldn’t know and my personal experience has told me that some stones are more painful than others.  Obviously women would be the only ones who would be able to give us an objective perspective on this subject, but do they?  Surely some do, but it’s easy to see how they might stretch the truth a bit when they’re in there pushing and breathing and sweating and yelling while the father-to-be is out in the waiting room waiting to hand out cigars.

So to settle the question once and for all of which is more painful child birth or kidney stones, an extensive survey of both men and women was conducted.  OK, it wasn’t really that ‘extensive’, it was really just a simple question to each gender.  Because many of the male survey participants had never had a kidney stone the survey equated the pain of a stone to the pain of being kicked in the river cruiseballs.  Survey participants were asked the following questions:

To the women: Knowing the pain of childbirth, would you have another child?  Only 3% answered ‘No’.

To the men: Knowing the pain of being kicked in the balls, would you like to be kicked in the balls again?  100% answered ‘No’.

There you have it – statistics don’t lie.

So how does this all tie into my up-coming river cruise down the Rhine?  It doesn’t, but hey cut me a little slack here; I’ve just been kicked in the balls.

van gogh     Prior to boarding the Viking Jarl, we’ll be spending three days in Amsterdam and I understand, according to our itinerary, we will be:

– Touring Ann’s House of Franks (I love hot dogs)

– Goghing in a van to see a starry night (I hope it has a moon roof)

– Drinking Heineken cheese beer (Leave it to the Dutch to combine beer and Cheetos)wind mills

I’m just excited to sees the famous Wind Tunnels and a field filled with Two Lips.

OK my medication is starting to wear off – I’ll be fine.

 

Childbirth, Kidney Stones and Amsterdam

by Bob Sparrow

photo (2)     Sometimes my travels take me to exotic places; sometimes my travels take me on introspective journeys, but last Friday morning at around 2:00 a.m. my travels took me to the emergency room at St. Joseph’s Hospital with the on-set of a kidney stone.  It was my third, so I’ve become quite knowledgeable about them and familiar with the associated pain, which has become the subject of some debate.

It has been said that the pain of a kidney stone is similar to the pain of childbirth.  Having never given birth, I wouldn’t know and my personal experience has told me that some stones are more painful than others.  Obviously women would be the only ones who would be able to give us an objective perspective on this subject, but do they?  Surely some do, but it’s easy to see how they might stretch the truth a bit when they’re in there pushing and breathing and sweating and yelling while the father-to-be is out in the waiting room waiting to hand out cigars.

So to settle the question once and for all of which is more painful child birth or kidney stones, an extensive survey of both men and women was conducted.  OK, it wasn’t really that ‘extensive’, it was really just a simple question to each gender.  Because many of the male survey participants had never had a kidney stone the survey equated the pain of a stone to the pain of being kicked in the river cruiseballs.  Survey participants were asked the following questions:

To the women: Knowing the pain of childbirth, would you have another child?  Only 3% answered ‘No’.

To the men: Knowing the pain of being kicked in the balls, would you like to be kicked in the balls again?  100% answered ‘No’.

There you have it – statistics don’t lie.

So how does this all tie into my up-coming river cruise down the Rhine?  It doesn’t, but hey cut me a little slack here; I’ve just been kicked in the balls.

van gogh     Prior to boarding the Viking Jarl, we’ll be spending three days in Amsterdam and I understand, according to our itinerary, we will be:

– Touring Ann’s House of Franks (I love hot dogs)

– Goghing in a van to see a starry night (I hope it has a moon roof)

– Drinking Heineken cheese beer (Leave it to the Dutch to combine beer and Cheetos)wind mills

I’m just excited to sees the famous Wind Tunnels and a field filled with Two Lips.

OK my medication is starting to wear off – I’ll be fine.

 

Steins on the Rhein – Rollin’ On The River

by Bob Sparrow

viking     Next Tuesday I will be on the road again, this time to Amsterdam for a Viking River Cruise down the Rhein River to Basal, Switzerland.   Just like prior to leaving for Africa earlier this year, I’m noting here some pre-trip  anxiety .  Prior to Africa I was concerned about everything from getting malaria (we didn’t see a bug the whole time) to being murdered (our guide killed us, in a humorous way), so all my fears were eventually allayed.  But now on the eve of our river cruise, several events have given me pause.

Two couple friends of ours have taken river cruises this year in Europe, the river flooded one couple out and changed their itinerary, and a river lock damaged the aft of the other couple’s boat and they had to stay ashore for three days.  That’s 2-for-2, so it would seem that we could be in for a few surprises.  Here are three of my concerns:

My wife thinks she knows German (she took two years in high school) and I fear that she is going to misspeakriver cruise and get us in the middle of  a Neo-Nazi head-shaving ceremony.

While we thought that October would be a great time to go to Germany to enjoy Oktoberfest, we’ve come to find out that it is mostly in September and will be over two days before we get there, so I fear we’ll get to see the Hungoverfest.

And finally, there is free wine and beer on board for the entire 8 days we’re on the cruise, so someone will probably fall overboard . . . just hope it isn’t me . . . again.

man overStay tuned for the reality of The Rhein River Cruise – or at least reality as I see it, which may be a bubble off plum.

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