Young Boat - Old Passengers

March 30/10.....7:24 p.m.

To be honest - the other way around I would prefer, even better - young boat and young people. Since we are not youngsters anymore ourselves, I prefer to encounter younger folks when I travel, this trip had a bit of a touch of an old age home. We have been travelling the river Rhine from Cologne to Bale, Switzerland and there is nothing to be said about the scenery, enjoyable, even if we have seen it times and times before. We lived at the rhineside in Oberlahnstein for two years and all major errands had to be done at Koblenz, but going ashore in Koblenz for a little sightseeing, it must have been another Koblenz we had been living close to, I did not recognize a damned corner, no deja-vu, and where I walked around it had been the old part of town,which sits there unchanged more or less for centuries. I also took a bustour to Strassburg, unknown to me up to then, I liked it very much and what really amazed me had been the nesting storks by the dozens if not more, our guide told us,they do not migrate south any more, beeing fed with chickens during wintertime,they have adapted to the easier way of life. Easy way of life you have also aboard, lots of good food, and since all servings are buffet style, you have to be careful of the ellbows of the hungry masses, must be an extended pleasure of old age..eating. I took part in one board game, called Jakkolo, a wooden board with little gates at the end, where you have to shoot kind of pucks into. And I won right away, my rivals were pissed off, especially a couple, where the wife had been the champ up to then. I had a laugh and made a big show, throwing up my arms and making the V-sign , that showed them, they took it so badly. -

The weather had been nice too, except for Bale, where we checked into a hotel and took part in the christening of the ship in the afternoon. It had been quite a spectacular affair and fortunately by then the rain had stopped. The next day we took a trainride back home and before we could even put down our bags, our daughter No.2, having kept Herr Hund showed up with Herr Hund and mad Max and now I am dogsitter in return, bad bargain, since they are gone for a week and we only had been away for 5 days. -

That's the way, the ball bounces.