Oceans Away...
Oct. 17th, 2008 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
susandennisThis 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.
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.
