Santo Domingo   We've flown many times to Puerto Plata on the north shore of the Dominican Republic to visit Eden Bay Resort but had never been to the capital, Santo Domingo, on the south shore. Since the Deutschland was sailing from (and returning) here for thirteen nights, I felt an arrival two days earlier would allow me to see the city.

Staying at the Hotel Santo Domingo on the western outskirts was, I think, the right thing to do. It's a tranquil, large building in the Dominican style I'd gotten used to from the layout of Eden House at the resort, archways open to outside, large patios covered with terra cotta tile; very sedate and Caribbean, and not like so many of the glitzy hotels on the drive out. One side faces the Malecón. That term is used in the Caribbean to describe the main seaside boulevard. We've seen the ones in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and in Puerto Plata, and have heard of the famous one in Havana.

It is odd, but expected, to see the Christmas decorations so typical of the far north. There's a huge (fake) tree in the lobby decorated with poinsettias, which makes sense, since they're a tropical flower, but then also with fake snowflakes. In the patios and on the lawns are wire figures of reindeer, painted white. Reindeer are such northern creatures, like elk, cariboo, and moose, that they make little sense even in the northern US or in central Europe, but in the tropics they really do seem out of place. Many of these here, about two feet tall, have mechanized heads that go left, right, left, right, giving the impression that the deer are thinking What am I doing here? What's with the palm trees?

I took a taxi tour (very inexpensive) of the old city, including the tomb of the national hero, Duarte, and the Zona Colonial, where most of the buildings date to the early 1500's. The Cathedral is called Primada de América, meaning it was the first built here. The oldest street in the New World, the Calle de las Damas, is lined with structures from the earliest period, including the (considerably restored) Alcázar de Colón, Columbus's Castle, where his son Diego held court as governor, and actually received at court the people connected to all the explorers, Cortez, Ponce de León, Balboa. It's heady stuff, and the whole Zona Colonial is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Santo Domingo is pleasant, but it still has a very laid-back Third World atmosphere. A lot of it is a bit scruffy, and driving up none other than Calle de las Damas, I actually saw a scrawny rooster dart across the road in front of the taxi. And the whole country has power troubles, causing hotels to have back-up generators. The first night in my room the lights went out for a couple of minutes, and the second night, when I was in the restaurant, it happened again.

Considering that, it's amazing that the government built the Faro a Colón, the Columbus Lighthouse. With the Old City perched on the west bank of the Ozama River, this structure has a prominent place on the east bank. It's a huge museum in the shape of a cross, finally built in 1992 after many delays to commemorate the half-millenium since the discovery in 1492. It's called a lighthouse because its main feature are the searchlights on the roof that project a column of light up into the sky, which they say is visible even in Puerto Rico. I did not see this happen. Considering the electricity problems here, they rarely turn it on. You'd almost wonder if the rest of the country might dim when they do.

The dictator Trujillo ran the country from 1930, which one is tempted to call the Era of Dictators, to 1961. For much of that time, he renamed the city Ciudad Trujillo ("Trujillo City"), a name that was pointed out to me still written on a manhole cover. Consider the effrontery of a personality who would change the name of the oldest city in the Americas to his own name. What if Mussolini had renamed Rome Città Mussolini? Stalin didn't rename the capital, but he did take the city of Tsarytsyn (named for the Tsars) and called it Stalingrad, which is nothing more than "Stalinville". It is now Volgograd.

Bev and I had first made plans to see Santo Domingo maybe ten or twelve years ago, when we first started visiting our resort on the north shore, and we never did. To commemorate my visit the second and last night in Santo Domingo, I did a champagne toast to the Empty Chair at the table.

The Deutschland   It couldn't have been more perfect how we first found out about the Deutschland. In 1999, sister Pat and John and Bev and I took the Nordic Empress to Bermuda for a week. This was the ocean voyage that made me decide that maybe we could just start European travel again after a decade, and going by sea at that would make it easier for Bev and more enjoyable for both of us. Back at the New York pier from Bermuda we were waiting for our luggage when I looked out the window. Over the roof of the building on the next pier I could just see the very top of the ship that was there, and it said "Deutschland". That was curious. After Germany was such a major player at the turn of the century in passenger shipping, strongly competing with Cunard, there was now virtually nothing left. At home I researched that Peter Deilmann cruises, which does mostly river cruises all over Europe, had just launched the previous year (May 1998) a new ocean-going vessel. It interested me.

The following year, 2000, was our first return to Europe since 1990 in Spain. We went on the Queen Elizabeth 2 (our first time ever), visited Germany, especially Berlin, and came back on the Deutschland, sailing from Cuxhaven, Germany. The ship doesn't normally do crossings, but it was on a world cruise, and we did the segment to New York, stopping first in Plymouth (England) and Waterford (Ireland). It was then strange to cross the Atlantic in only three days, because we were crossing at one of its narrowest points, between Ireland and Newfoundland. We made four stops in Canada, St John's (Newfoundland), Charlottetown (Prince Edward Island), and then in Nova Scotia both Sydney and Halifax. When we got to New York, my mother called and asked if we'd heard about the fatal crash of the Concorde in Paris. It turns out that Deilmann had chartered that particular Concorde to bring the next batch of passengers to go from New York to Panama. They would have replaced us in our cabins and at our dinner tables.

The Deutschland is a jewel of a ship. It is outfitted in 1920's Art Deco. There is brass and woodwork everywhere, etched glass and mirrors, gold picture frames. Cabin windows are large. I remember it larger than it is, maybe because it just seems large. The Caronia, that we went around South America with, holds 668 passengers, and I thought that was small. The Deutschland holds 513. (QE2: 1,971, QM2: 2,620).

From the hotel I took a taxi to the pier, and got on I think as the first of the new guests at 4 PM, while others were still getting off, because the flights from Frankfurt hadn't arrived yet. It really was great fun speaking Spanish to the taxi driver and then switching to German at the gangway. The first evening there was a lecture on the Caribbean, and there, and also at dinner, I got into a few interesting conversations. It's a heady feeling to be in this German atmosphere. The food is five-star. In my opinion, this ship gives the QM2 a run for its money, and is only 1/5 the size.

The German theme is everywhere. I found large busts in the halls and lobbies of Dürer, Heine, Beethoven, Wagner, Bach, Goethe. The salon is the Kaisersaal (Imperial Ballroom), the dining room is the Berlin Restaurant, the lounge is the Lili Marleen Salon (with the text and music of the song hanging in a frame) the little bar is Alter Fritz (Old Fritz, the nickname of Frederick the Great).

The ship is close to full, mostly with German speakers from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. There are 1-2 each from Luxemburg, Italy, Spain, Belgium. The English speakers are only 2 Brits and 9 Americans. All announcements are still in both German and English, and English is still widely spoken. I would estimate that up to 15% of the passengers on our earlier Deutschland trip from Germany to New York were American, but that may have to do with New York having been the destination.

We sailed today from Santo Domingo for the longest haul, a direct shoot south to Curaçao tomorrow, which is right off the coast of South America. After that it will be short hops between islands coming back in a route looking like a backwards C. This afternoon I went to the Elegante englische Teestunde (Elegant English Teatime) in one of the nicest of the lounges. I'm not normally a tea drinker, but they have an outstanding selection of very interesting teas. A piano/violin duo played for the hour, with the violinist changing off occasionally to play the pipes (of Pan) instead.

There will be three Gala Evenings over the 13 nights. It's tux night tonight for us all to go to meet Kapitän Andreas Jungblut at the Captain's Cocktail party in the Kaisersaal, before the Gala Dinner.

Willemstad, Curaçao, Nederlandse Antillen   Antillen (There's a little Dutch for you.) The Netherlands Antilles are three islands just off northern South America, sometimes referred to as the ABC Islands, Aruba, Bonaire, Curaçao (rhymes with "how"). A number of years ago, during a week's winter vacation, we flew down to Curaçao for a couple of days, took a day flight to Bonaire, and then ended in Aruba. Most of it was beach and sun, but I think you may suspect that we were happiest in Willemstad, the capital of both Curaçao and the Nederlandse Antillen.

It's, not surprisingly, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. It's a beautiful small town, with a fantastic setting. All the houses are in the traditional Dutch style, with typical Dutch gables, just as we had seen in Amsterdam in July. The twist here is the bright colors. Picture one Dutch house after another, one bright yellow, then bright blue, then bright red, and so on. Willemstad has the oldest synagog in continuous use in the New World. Pieter Stuyvesant had been governor here, in 1644, before coming to Nieuw Amsterdam/New York. I remember having a great rijstafel here all those years ago. The island is of course known for the orange-flavored liqueur of the same name.

But the setting adds immeasurably. Willemstad has one of the greatest natural harbors in the world. Picture this: a natural channel going north through the town, then spreading out to a huge inland bay. And this trip it was really fun to enter up the channel. From the Deutschland going right through town, you could look down on all the bright Dutch buildings. Then the ship turned around in the bay, came back into the channel, and docked right in town. We docked on the opposite side from the old town, so I took the free ferry. The channel is narrow, so it took about two minutes to cross.

A landmark in town is the Koningin Emma Brug/Queen Emma Bridge, which is a (floating) pontoon bridge that keeps opening and closing for traffic. It swings in an arc to lodge against the side of the channel. When I was coming back to the ship, I really wanted to walk across the Emma, so I had to wait quite a while until it closed.

Of course, I can't leave the topic without a language comment. The local language is Papiamento, and Dutch is of course the official language. English and Spanish (Venezuela is very close) are widespread. Most street signs are in Papiamento first and Dutch second.

Now I'm sure many are thinking what on earth is Papiamento. I'd heard about it, but never saw it written (I still haven't heard it spoken). It's a local patois, a pidgin. It is very clearly a mixture of Spanish and Dutch. If you know some Spanish, you can recognize many words. If you know Dutch, too, it's quite readable.

Waiting for the Emma to swing open again, I took a look at a sign written in four languages, Papiamento (first), Dutch, Spanish, English. It was boring stuff giving safety instructions on the bridge, and what various flag signals and lights mean, but it's the kind of stuff I like to read for language analysis. I was amazed that I looked at the Papiamento, a language I'd never seen before, and got the gist of it. Now of course, just realizing what the topic is is going to make it easier, but I checked with the other languages, and yes, the Papiamento did mean what I had thought.

A Full Morning   On any ship, it's only dinner that I appreciate at a large round table in the main dining room, here the Berlin dining room. Otherwise I like to eat at the buffet in the Lido, which has a great selection. Another thing one finds at good hotels in Germany today, as well as on the Deutschland, is that champagne, actually sparkling wine, is always offered at breakfast. Here they're offering an Italian sparkling wine, Prosecco. A couple of flutes of it go well with breakfast. I just have to keep chasing away waiters bearing coffee pots, today six different waiters. The service is so good, they don't want to see me going without coffee. Little do they know how satisfied I already am, I suppose.

I had received an invitation though for this morning at 10:15 for English-speaking guests in the Adlon Lounge. Here the lounge is essentially a library. The Adlon is the name of a very famous hotel in Berlin, right next to the Brandenburg Gate. It was built in the early 20th Century right next to Pariser Platz with all the embassies. It was the model for the Berlin hotel in the film "Grand Hotel", in which Greta Garbo said her "I vant to go home" line. Not only was the Adlon bombed flat in the Second World War, the location of its site right near the Brandenburg Gate and therefore the Berlin Wall prevented its reconstruction until, I believe, sometime in the 1990's. During our 2000 visit to Berlin, when we stayed at the Westin Grand around the corner on Friedrichstrasse (five nights free on Starwood points), Bev and I went into the Adlon to at least look at the lobby. I still remember where the wheelchair entrance is. I'm considering staying at the Adlon next summer. Anyway, the hotel is famous enough that they give its name here to the Adlon Lounge.

There were maybe seven Americans there, with a few of the ship's staff. Champagne was served. We all chatted a bit in English, and then Kapitän Jungblut showed up. He's got a very good sense of humor, and introduced himself at the door saying in English that our "chauffeur" had arrived. Fortunately he sat down next to me, and as the chatting started up again in English, I had him all to myself for a nice ten-minute conversation in German. He's from Hamburg, but lives now in Paris. We chatted about Beverly, and I mentioned that she was gone just two months today. He was interested that we were Germanists and appreciated my comment about being invited to a reception for English-speaking guests--and yet being German-speaking. He had to leave before it was over in order to get back to work, and when he was at the door and turned to say goodbye, I said in English "Goodbye, Chauffeur", he laughed, and gave a comic salute to the group.

This did not end this more-than-average busy morning. At 11:00 today was Frühschoppen around the pool. A Schoppen is a beer glass, früh means early, and the custom of a late-morning glass of beer, an "Early Glass", is what a Frühschoppen is all about. This was a "Karibischer Frühschoppen mit Freibier", and Free Beer always tastes better. I was talking to someone when the band started to play the samba "Brazil", which is the best samba around. I did a few steps in place, and before I knew it, the ship's hostess, who was nearby, whisked me out on the floor, so she and I finished the whole samba out in the blazing sun, the only ones on the floor. It was fun, and there was only one thing missing, on two levels: first, there was no wheelchair nearby with Bev watching, and second, to go back a few years further, Bev wasn't samba-ing with me. She did a mean samba, when she was still able to.