New York   Lower Manhattan and Battery Park City are continuing to recover. I walked by Ground Zero again the other day, and the tourists are still coming. Building plans keep changing. For the cultural contingent they agreed to invite several small theater, art, and dance companies. My personal favorite was to have the New York City Opera come down from Lincoln Center. It wasn't chosen. South End Avenue continues to thrive. We had our condominium meeting last night, and then went out to dinner at the sidewalk cafe across from our building. It was a pleasant summer evening outside, and you had to know what the street looked like four years ago this September to be able to appreciate the difference. There were some interesting statistics about our bulding, the Regatta. Since Nine Eleven we've had a 40% turnover in unit ownership. That may seem high, but it's apparently much, much lower than the other buildings in Battery Park City. It was also very interesting to find out that the Regatta is much more of a community than some of the others. We have 90% owner-occupied units (the rest are rentals), whereas the other buildings have only 40-50%. It's a nice building in an exceptional location.

Two Queens on the Hudson   I had heard for the better part of a year that we were going to have a spectacular weekend in New York with the QM2 and QE2 built around Sunday, April 25, 2004. I also read that the last time two Cunard Queens were in New York at the same time it was the original Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, and the year was 1940. That's 64 years ago. I'm 64 years old, so you really can say this was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. If you want to nit-pick, since I was born at the end of 1939 I suppose it really is twice in a lifetime, but I didn't get to see the ships in 1940.

This apartment is 810 square feet, but that's spread out over two levels. We'd never had the whole family over at once before. Including us, it came to nine adults, plus the five young grandnieces, who hadn't even ever been to the apartment before. But we shoehorned everyone in just fine.

Adults who visit us are usually interested in some pecular features we've put in to this apartment, such the murphy bed in the entrance hall, the sprial staircase, and the window from the bathroom into the bedroom that goes opaque by flipping a switch. But as I toured with the five girls, using my elementary/junior high teacher's voice ("Now everybody hold on with two hands going up the spiral staircase!") I knew there was more they'd like to see. In the lobby I took them into the mailbox room ("Oh, cool! Where's your mailbox?"), and of course I took them down the hall to the garbage chute, where they regretted I had already thrown out all the garbage before they came.

With the five girls seated up the spiral staircase I gave them a history of the ships, told them about the regular use of foghorns and fireboats, and how they can be used for fun as well.

The ships would have normally sailed late in the afternoon, but delayed their sailing since fireworks were scheduled over the Statue of Liberty in the early evening. So it was dusk as they slowly sailed down the river (from our view, right to left).

It was a very Mutt-and-Jeff experience. It has always been impressive to see the QE2 sail by our building, but here comes the VERY BIG QM2 trailed by what seemed like a much smaller QE2.

The Mary, aside from being large, is set up with many balconies. It doesn't have the traditional look of a funnel over a main deck. It looks like a row of apartment buildings over the deck. Especially as it got darker and the skyline of Jersey City (which has grown tremendously over the last years) started to light up, the Mary looked like a strip of Jersey City skyscrapers had started to float down the river. Also the Mary is very well illuminated, including its very readable illuminated name on the top.

The Elizabeth followed, largely in darkness. As a matter of fact, it appeared as a silhouette in front of the skline. We kept on asking each other where the Elizabeth was.

Ellis Island and the Statue are at about a 10 o'clock angle from our windows and small balcony. The ships stopped there for the fireworks. All five nieces were out on our balconette, and started a chant:

When the fireworks were over, the Elizabeth led the way out of the harbor under the Verazzano Narrows Bridge to our left out to sea.

Our Trip   As to travel planning of current and future trips, let me say that the upcoming trip is now wound up like a Swiss watch and ready to go. Of course, that doesn't say that something can't go wrong, and I'll refer to the Paris-Rome overnight Artesia trains in both directions last summer as prime examples. [Note: The trip went well, but what went wrong was that it was Beverly’s last.]

I continue to be amazed at how easy it is now to do so much trip planning online. I remember in the past writing many, many letters to hotels. On one extensive trip through Spain in the mid '80's I remember once writing to over two dozen hotels. Now it's Travelocity, Expedia, or Orbitz, also rail and car rental sites, and so much is done so much more easily. We have a confirmation from each hotel that they know we have a wheelchair, although that took phone calls to Antwerp and Budapest (in English) to finalize. I also called London for a special hotel for one night. [Note: I’m glad I did, because that was the last room Beverly and I ever lived in together.] Finally, RailEurope was able to get most of my tickets, but for the German handicapped sleeper they said I had to call Germany. Out of curiosity I asked the lady rail official in Schwerin if she spoke English (no) so that conversation was in German.

This year it will be a double destination like it’s been the last two years. It's hard to categorize where we're going, so I’m giving the two destinations, one covering three countries and the other two, these very odd names:

The Ghost Country: Old Austria-Hungary: Prague/Praha, Vienna/Wien, Budapest

Dutch-Land: Amsterdam, Antwerp/Antwerpen, Brussels/Brussel/Bruxelles, Ghent/Gent Bruges/Brugge

We will then travel back to London for one night from Rijssel. I'm leaving that name in Dutch and not mentioning its perhaps more familiar name in order to keep up with the theme of Dutch-Land. It will be explained at the time.

Preparation   Yorkville, especially East 86th Street in New York, used to be as German as Chinatown is Chinese. We used to take German Club kids to see a German movie at the Casino Theater and then eat in a German restaurant. It's almost all gone now. It's a beautiful, upscale neighborhood, but with almost no ethnicity left.

Just south, there used to be Hungarian, and especially Czech restaurants. (Why these two in a German neighborhood? Follow the theme on Austria-Hungary.) The Czech restaurants were numerous. We once went to Ruc, a couple of times to Vašata and many times to the Praha. They're all gone now. I don't know of any in Manhattan. So last week, for Czech food, we went over the river to Astoria in Queens to the Zlatá Praha (Golden Prague) to have a preview of our trip. That name, by the way, is very common and often used. [Note: on our return to New York, when Bev was in the nursing home, the first night I went out on my own to dinner was to the Zlatá Praha. The waitress remembered us.]

Nearer, in the West Village of Greenwich Village, is Wallsé, an upscale Austrian restaurant where we've gone often and went again Monday. The chef comes from the town of Wallsee, and seems to enjoy spelling the name as though it were French.

For our final preparation, we rented the movie The Third Man, which I had never seen. It dates from 1949, plays famously in the sewers of postwar Vienna, with Orson Welles. Vienna seems to be very proud of this film noir classic. I've read that, just like you can tour the sewers of Paris, you can take a Third Man tour of the Vienna sewers. The film includes the incomparable zither player Anton Karas playing the Third Man Theme. Here's the theme on YouTube: Anton Karas: The Third Man Theme