Oceans Away...

[susandennis]

This morning's paper had a small bit about the final voyage of the QEII.

The Summer I was 16, my parents took us to Europe. The plan was to take an ocean liner over, tour for two months and fly back. I was humiliated. I went to school with rich kids so I knew that ocean liners, in the 60's were very 50's. Old people - older than grandparents - took ocean liners. Cool people took airplanes. Yet another bullet on the Why I Was Not Cool list.

I cannot remember the name of the ship we took. It was Norwegian. It was not a cruise ship. It was a vessel for getting from New York to Bremerhaven. (And, that was another thing. The cool people went to England and France. We were going to Germany, Austria, Switzerland and England. Geesh.)

There was elegant food and it was non stop. And it was fancy. My brother, at age 12, spent most of the trip whining about the lack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

There was no swimming pool. No bowling alley. No casino (godforbid!). There was a movie theater and they had a couple of movies. One I remember distinctly. Bob Hope in a box office boffo called Boy, Did I Get A Wrong Number.

Every morning, they would slip the daily calendar of events under the door. Mainly it was a listing of what time the 43 meals du jour were going to be served. But, also included were the times of the movie. The same move... And the title was too long for the piece of paper. So every day, they listed the movie as "Boy, Did I Get A Wrong".

Best I can recall the sailing took about 10 days. I do remember about halfway there, we saw another ocean liner passing us. They told us it was the QEII on her maiden voyage. She was the fastest ocean liner of her day. 7 days to cross the Atlantic.

I remember my Mom telling me that the rich people went on the QEII.

Comments

[machupicchu.livejournal.com]

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Interesting. When I was 16, going to Europe at all -- regardless of the mode of transportation -- made you pretty cool; traveling to any country other than Canada at the time was a pipe dream for me.

Funny how things look different depending on your perspective. I must have grown up in a much poorer neighborhood than you did.
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[susandennis]

My irony kind of got lost. I grew up in a neighborhood that was very upper middle class or higher. My perspective was one where everyone I knew seemed to have more and do more. I know now that was not true. We were all very lucky and privileged. I was an ungrateful sheltered princess. Not to mention clueless.

[machupicchu.livejournal.com]

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Hey, at least you're down to earth -- not to mention consistently funny -- and incredibly self-aware now, and that's all that matters!
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[susandennis]

Thank you. I did kind of turn out ok in spite of myself.

[alice-q.livejournal.com]

My father had an extra two weeks of vacation in 1961, so we went to Europe, by ocean liner. I was 9 and my sister was 7. At that point, I don't think any of my friends had been to Europe (though some had been to Disneyland!). We went on French ships both ways. To Europe, we were on the Liberté, and we returned on the Flandres. The Liberté had better stabilizers, and they provided an elegant cake for my sister's 7th birthday. though whatever possessed them to think that serving a rum cake in the children's dining room was a good idea I couldn't say. I felt so grown-up asking the waiters to give the cake to my parents for their dinner.

Both liners had great playrooms, as I recall. I don't remember what else we did on board, though I vaguely recall some game of people betting on how many miles the ship went in each 24 hour period.

[susandennis]

Oh! I had forgotten about the betting on miles.

And, I forgot to whine that I never ever ever got to go to Disneyland. And everybody in my class had been at least once, I swore to my Mother who was totally unmoved. To this day, I've never been to Disney anything.