Ah The Dutch

Now I thought the French were rude well, the Dutch – they  make the French look extra friendly, helpful  and tolerant. The Rotterdam’s passengers are mainly Dutch (80%), with some Americans, some Canadians, a smattering of people from a few other countries  as well as 23 Australians. Now there are the nice Dutch and  the other Dutch. Lets call them the “ugly Dutch ” for want of a better word.  The nice Dutch people are the quietly spoken ones, the ones who will converse with you , are happy to share a table with you at lunch and don’t have orthopaedic shoes and hammer toes. On the other hand, the extra large, loud, overbearing ones, who can speak English but won’t, who just have to be first wherever they go  (the ugly Dutch) are an entirely different story.

Each night we dine at the same table with the same people at 8pm. The doors to the dining room are opened at precisely 8pm. The stampede begins. Preparation for the stampede has occurred in the 10 minutes prior. Pete and I enjoy the comedy aspect of this preparation.

The lift doors open, people step out and realise they are not first in the queue. The barging starts. The queue gets bigger and blocks the lift door exits. The lift doors open, no room for anyone to get out. No-one moves. The lift doors close. The people stay in the lift. Repeat twice.  Now after 12 nights there is no change. If you stand back and watch, you get to know who’s who and what will happen when they arrive.

The glass doors at the entry to the dining room are cleaned each night after the earlier sitting and before we enter. The dining room attendant made the mistake one night of opening the door to clean our side of the doors before 8pm. Cue – the doors are open – lets go in. One night, we saw a man knock the poor dining room attendant (who was trying to tell him the restaurant wasn’t open yet ) aside and barge in, dragging his poor embarrassed wife with him.

 

Nothing changes at the lunch buffet. A 20 metre line of food offering dishes from roast to stir fries, to pasta, salad, sushi indeed whatever you want, spreads on both sides of the boat. You could be the only one waiting to be served from the carvery and within seconds you could find yourself last in a line of 6. It”s not like the food would run out or that they are busy executives on their way to a very important meeting. They’re probably hurrying to get the deck chairs for beached whales closest to the pool where ice cream and tacos and Dutch fried foods are always available.

 

Usually Pete gets a table at the buffet whilst I get my meal, then he goes and gets his, as once you leave a table anyone can sit there. One woman even reached over from her table and took the cutlery that was on our table right in front of Pete! 

 

Yesterday we were invited (as returning Holland America clients) to the Captains dinner. Here the dining room attendants usher you to a table and generally you don’t have a choice where you sit . We were ushered to a table but the Dutch people there wouldn’t let us sit there so we were ushered to another table where 6 Dutch people were already seated. Unfortunately the attendant told us to sit there and soon we realised these people were also saving the two seats for their friends (who arrived a little later and were seated  at a table for two nearby.) The nice Dutch lady beside me spoke to me in Dutch so I said I didn’t speak Dutch only English. She seemed very surprised that I hadn’t picked up the language in the last two weeks. All of them could speak English but with the exception of the lady beside me, they spoke the entire meal in Dutch. She translated occasionally for us. When the Captain spoke, he spoke in both English and Dutch but said he would say a poem in English only as it didn’t rhyme in Dutch. One woman at our table said in a big loud voice “No Thanks” 

 

Even the nice Dutch are complaining about them!  And complaining to us about them.

Ah – The  “Ugly” Dutch.

Moroccan Madness

Morroccan Madness

I was so looking forward to getting to Marrakech, visiting the souk and finding all sorts of little treasures there. Because Marrakech is 2 and half hours by coach from the port of Casablanca, we were up and on the road by 6.30am. The streets of Casablanca were filthy and the housing looked like something similar to the pictures of the Gaza strip after a bombing. Our Moroccan guide was explaining how clean the city was just as we were viewing a park filled with rubbish, filthy streets and homes that had never been repaired. First stop a Service Station about an hour into our journey where we were to have a “free” drink and a toilet stop. Toilets had been demolished so we couldn’t stop there. Another hour into the journey, we arrived at a Service station and a quick toilet break and can of coke.  (Free though!)

The countryside on the way to Marrakech was really interesting – miles of fields filled occasionally with a sheep herder and about 50 sheep. (They were still there 8 hours later just standing in the fields with their sheep.) Occasionally there would be a donkey and cart travelling along a little dirt road to somewhere but I couldn’t figure out where as there were just miles of fields. The houses were built like compounds – open rectangles surrounded by brick walls and in one corner a small area with four walls and a roof with a satellite dish!!!! No running water, no windows or doors but TV obviously.

Later as the countryside changed to spice crops, you would occasionally see someone sitting in a field on their own picking the crop by hand. No house, or anyone else in sight.

Finally we arrived in Marrakech. You think the traffic in Paris is bad. Add horses, carts, donkeys, people on motorbikes carrying several boxes on their back, pedestrians, buses, trucks, police and the military all wandering around the roads, it’s a wonder that anyone survives the drive. Our coach did a U turn basically in the middle of a fiveways intersection!! Our Moroccan guide was a little suspect as was the “Agent” who boarded the bus and sat up the back and checked on us all. We were joined by 3 other male “minders” to walk the streets of Morocco.

First to the Palace, which according to our guide was something really special. Empty building with some interesting tiles and wooden roof.  A few graves of the kings wives and concubines with tiles on the top was supposed to be amazing. Not! On the way out, Pete saw our guide slip some money to the guard. We think he may have had a deal not to buy entry tickets to the palace but to split the money for the tickets between the two of them.

Next we were taken to the market – at last I would be able to shop for a few trinkets. Not so. We were ushered through by our guide and minders only having a quick look as we passed. The best was yet to come we were told. Special government approved place to shop.

Then we were taken to the souk. I found this part of the trip a fascinating insight into the culture of Marrakech. Tiny, tiny alleyways filled with market stall selling all kinds of amazing things, spices, clothing, jewellery, leather bags, meat, food, everything you could imagine. It was dark in those alleys but colourful. “Keep going, keep going” said our guide and the minders pushed us along. No shopping for me. I had seen a little pair of pink Moroccan slippers – perfect for Olivia, and I wanted them but not allowed to stop. Finally we came to an open area filled with more animals including the snake charmers. If you looked at them you had to pay, worse if you took a photo – they harassed you and while harassing you they put a snake around your neck and bossed you into taking a photo. Then you had to pay. I made the mistake of thinking that when the Moroccan man said “10, you pay 10 for photo” that it was 10 Euro which I gave him. However he was asking for 10 durham which is one Euro. No wonder he ran off. I have a great photo of Pete with a snake around his neck looking not so amused.

We asked about shopping, “ Of Course, of course, you will have plenty of time to shop in government approved souvenir shop” he said. We arrived there only to be herded upstairs where we were made to watch while men placed carpets on the floor in front of us. “You can touch, feel quality if you like”. But if you touched, you were expected to buy. Then we were not allowed downstairs to the “special” souvenir shop until we had looked enough upstairs. The special souvenir shop downstairs was awful too. As was lunch in the “5 star hotel”.  Our minders left us here not before demanding tips for their service.

Is this Blog a little long?   Well I wanted you to get my money’s worth of the $250 a head tour to Marrakech. Say no more!

Fantastic Funchal

Our ship is docked in Funchal which is just a short walk to the city comprising the Old Town and the New Town set at the base of a very high “hill”.  In the Old Town, the Government has encouraged the people to have their doors painted by the local art students so a walk through the narrow cobbled streets becomes like walking through a gallery. In the New Town we spent some time looking in the shops before catching a cab to the Botanical Gardens. You might say it was a little like the ”wild mouse” only it was all uphill. We screeched around hairpin bends on winding roads, dodging oncoming vehicles as though we were in the dodgems at the Ekka. Up and up and up we went until at long, long last we arrived. It seemed the safer option to take the Gondola ride back to Funchal. For me that is saying something!! Before doing so we considered having a basket ride (in a wooden and wicker basket with no brakes and only a couple of men wearing special shoes to stop it, down the steep and narrow streets for 2 km , sharing with the oncoming traffic!) Opted for the safer version and took the cable car back to Funchal a slow and gentle descent with just the most spectacular views of Funchal and our boat in the harbour. A great day out in Portugal.
Photos to come. Running out of net time and battery.

Dinner for Eight

Dinner for eight

Dinner is at eight every night and we chose to sit at a table with 3 other couples. As we were the first booked on to the table, it was anybody’s guess as to who would be seated with us. At Rotterdam before embarkation we had a chance to see many of the other guests. It was a bit alarming to see so many wheelie walkers, wheelchairs, walking sticks to say nothing of the average age of the people boarding the boat. We spotted a couple of people who appeared to be around our own age and when we ran into them at lunch, invited them to join us at our table for dinner. Thank God – someone else under 80. So that made 4 – two Canadians Peter and Jane and ourselves. At eight, we made our way to the dining room. Jane and Peter were already at the table. Shortly after an elderly German couple Giselle and Bernard (who seemed quite well to do) arrived and sat down. Then last but not least Bev and Alan from Melbourne joined us. They seemed to be in their late 60’s/early 70’s, and quite high brow – he being a lawyer and she being one of those “ladies” who spoke slowly with a very cultivated accent. A motley crew! Turns out, we have the best table in the dining room. Bernard and Giselle are extremely wealthy and travel the world, have some amazing tales and Bernard’s humour keeps us all in stitches. He looks a little like Victor Meldrew and his English with a German accent is such that when he says “unbelievable” it’s just like Victor. Bev and Alan also have a great sense of humour. Bev, in particular, cracks extremely funny jokes that you would miss if you didn’t listen carefully because they are spoken with “a plum in the mouth” but with a wicked twinkle in her eye. One evening, she told us she “liked it rough” referring to the sea of course. But of course it was her little play on words that has kept the conversation going many an evening. Jane and Peter complete the table of eight, nothing extraordinary about them except they are great company too.  And so we all look forward to eight o”clock every night and we are never disappointed. The conversation is always lively, interesting but most of all funny.

PS We have met quite a few others of our own age and catch up with them for drinks here and there so all is good on the social scene.

 

Magic Madeira

Lisbon was fairly typical of a European City – the old town and the new areas and as usual we took the open top bus tours there. From Lisbon we set sail for Funchal on the Portuguese Island of Madeira. Seas were a little rough – a five metre swell and I lost my dinner one night as a result. We had gone to the front of the ship for the late night show but the movement of the ship was too much and I just made it to the nearest bathroom. No problems after that.

Due to the terrain, we opted for  a “shore excursion” (a coach tour organised by Holland America) around Madeira the first day. Just amazing. We went to the second highest sea cliff in the world Cabo Girao and stood on the glass floor above the cliff (yes I did it!) and were treated to some amazing views. The coach followed the steep, narrow (no guard rails I might add) and winding road for many kilometres up into the mountains and down to amazing little fishing villages. Lunch at some spectacular rock pools at Porto Moniz, was a three course meal with the local wines before we headed back up to the hills and then down the very steep roads back to Funchal. The Coach Driver was amazing, working that coach around hairpin bends on narrow roads at reasonably fast speeds. Seven hours of amazing scenery. Very different to anything I have seen and well worth the extra expense.

 

 

Freezing France - 3 days with the "Internet Girlfriend"

It was freezing when Barbara Legrande picked us up at the Anzac Hotel in Amiens and I mean freezing. Europe is in a cold snap to say the least. The temperature was around zero. Her tour company True Blue Digger Tours is a self operated company taking Aussies around the battlefields of France. Barbara is a walking encyclopaedia on anything World War 1 in France (and probably anywhere).
 Day One we visited The Somme. It is hard to believe that everything that is there today has been totally reconstructed. The photos in the Museums we visited show a landscape that is decimated. Absolutely nothing left. Barbara told us that the German Government finished paying the reconstruction debt in 2010! The cemeteries are everywhere - a stark reminder of the thousands who lost their lives. Standing in these cemeteries on a freezing April day, you get the sense that the diggers must have been absolutely frozen solid both with fear and with the cold.

Barbara and Pete

Day Two and another 9am start. We travelled further afield to Villers Bretenaux and more interesting sites, cemeteries and museums to visit. I thought I would get bored as I am not really into War History but there was so much to see and so much to appreciate - the hardship and the futility.


Snow in the trenches at the Canadian Memorial

Day Three we ventured further afield to Fromelles.. On the way we returned to Pozieres to locate the graves of seven of the men of the 47th Battalion - Pete's Grandfathers Battalion. I really don't know how any of them survived. Charlie Arnall must have been one extraordinary soldier to have made it home! Later we went to the site of the Lost Diggers (Made into a TV series  from which Pete got in contact with Barbara - dubbed the Internet Girlfriend ). There were so many diggers in the mass grave and many  have been identified through DNA testing. There are however many who have not been identified including those that lay in the open fields for more than three years before their bodies were collected.
The 3 day tour ended with the Last Post at the Menen Gate in Ypres. A beautiful and moving ending to a fascinating and very freezing three days.
If you ever consider doing a tour of the battlefields of France, consider going with Barbara - a fabulous tour guide. www.trueblue-diggertours.com

The Lost Diggers



Fawlty Towers

The Anzac Hotel in Amiens looked great from the street - polished red door, marble floor in the entryway and then you step inside. You know when you see a brown carpet that was probably once blue that this is going to be one of those hotels. A small woman is seated at the concierge's desk and to the right is a dining room reminiscent of the 60's with the pine dining table and chairs and red checkered table cloth. I half expected to see Basil saunter down the wobbly staircase to my left. It seemed that a room on the ground floor was something to be very pleased about according to the concierge. A few steps along the corridor and around into another smaller corridor was room 6. You know when you see the brown quilt on the bed that was probably once blue, that you are going to have difficulty lying on top of it let alone under it. The floral wallpaper jumped out to meet you as you squeezed your suitcase (just fit) between the end of the bed and the wall. Standing room only. I will say though that it was clean enough and as we were out touring the countryside from 9am until 8pm, it probably didn't really matter how big the room was.  And it was warm. Too warm in fact. The one stained glass window in the room didn't open. You could see right through it and we didn't realise until the second day that you could roll down an awning outside the room so that passersby on the street could not see in. Oh well. C'est la vie.
PS They did a fantastic breakfast for 7 Euros though so it really wasn't such a bad place at all.

Ah - The French

Departed Singapore 9pm yesterday. Arrived Paris about 14 hours later including a 1 hour stop in Dubai. We knew we had to get to Amiens by train but were not sure how to book and where to go. At the ticket office, the conversation went like this.
Peter: Do you speak English
Station Attendant: A little
Peter: We want to catch the train to Amiens
Station Attendant: Jibbberish, jibberish, jibberish 11.55 or 12.26 Piccardie
Peter: No we want Amiens
Station Attendant: Jibberish jibberish jibberish Piccardie 11.55 or 12.26
Peter: I'm not sure what you mean
Station Attendant: Rolls eyes  I tell you once more jibberish jibberish jibberish Piccardie
Helen: OK Piccardie (gathering that we had to get to Piccardie and then somehow on to Amiens)
Station Attendant: 11.55 or 12.26
Helen: 11.55
Station Attendant: 110.80 Euros
We pay
Station Attendant: Go that way 3 or 5
And off we go, ticket in hand thinking we will need to catch a cab from Piccardie to Amiens not even knowing how far it was.
We look at our tickets. Not sure which is the carriage number, which is the seat number or the line number whatever. Finally Pete decides to go back to the information desk and discovers we have a ticket to Piccardie and a ticket on the shuttle bus to Amiens. What a drama.
At last we relaxed after working out that the train would leave from either station 3 or 5 and that our seats were in business class, one a window seat (thank goodness for senior French -venetre =window)
Decided to get coffee whilst waiting for the train. Conversation with girl at café went like this
Helen: 2 cappuccinos and 2 wraps
Girl: That will be 10.80 Euros.
I give her 20 Euros
Girl: Do you have any change
Helen: No
Girl: I have no change can you use card?
Helen: No I have no card
Girl: I have no change
Helen: Wait I will go and see if my husband has change
Girl: Where is he, I have customers waiting.
Helen: Just over there.
Girl: These people need to be served. (She has not made my coffees yet)
Helen: I have no change (give her 20 Euros  and she gives me change!!!!)
Ah - the French!.