Day 2 Embarkation

We strolled into a Passau cafe on the afternoon before we left for the Mozart. We encountered a rarity --an English speaking owner. He asked how we were going to tour the country, and we told him by river cruise. "Really? But you're not German or Austrian and in your 70s!" His words were portentous.

We walked onto the ship in the afternoon, and went to register. The hostess asked whether we'd like our own dinner table, of wished to share. D1, friendly like I am, said "Let's make new friends," so we chose to share.

The Mozart was very elegant, as one would expect of the former state ship of Austria. The cabins were spacious and lovely, and wherever you looked there was brass and rich wood paneling.

We unpacked and headed to dinner, where we met our table mates. Hans and Eva were 2 60 something German Americans, now living in Hawaii where they own an inn. Eva did most of the talking, and quickly announced that, despite their ancestry, they despised most Germans, which is why they asked to sit with English speakers.

Our other table mate was JAck, a 90 year old WW II vet with the Royal Navy, and a retured mechanical engineer. Jack's English accent was comically thick. All I managed to glean was that he was from Weymouth, on the southeastern English coast, had 2 daughters, grandkids, and one great grandchild. Jack travelled alone and lived alone.

Eva was still a part time flight attendant for United, but her glory days in the job were the 60s and 70s when she worked for Pan Am. Later in the trip, she showed us photos of herself from 1969 wearing go go boots and hot pants, and regaled us with tales of meeting the Beatles, Sinatra, and having Sammy Davis jr come on to her at a Honolulu hotel. "I vould have done it, but he vas so ugly!"

The balance of the passengers were precisely as the cafe keeper advised --old and mostly German and Austrian. And, here comes another stereotype, NOT possessed of sunny dispositions! I learned quickly that my happy "good morning!" greetings were met with icy stares, so I took to ignoring most of my fellow passengers, as they seemed to want it.

After dinner, the girls went to their cabin, and I went up on deck. Night was falling, and the hills on either side of the Danube were shrouded in fog. The forests were black, punctuated by the occasional light from a riverside cabin. Had Count Dracula stood on shore and waved to me, it wouldn't have seemed out of place. I thought of Frost's description of the woods as being lovely, dark, and deep, although this was Spring in Europe instead of Winter in New England. Still, like him, I eventually went to sleep.