Rain, rain, go away, come again another day—preferably after June 11…

(I'm a little late posting this, Serbia and Croatia have very poor internet)

We are cruising through the Iron Gate area of the Danube River. In the rain. Again. OK, I am officially tired of rain. Since we arrived in Istanbul on the 8^th of May, it has rained all but one day.

This is one of the few cruising-all-day days. We (meaning a good proportion of the population of the boat—uh, ship) are congregated in the Piano Bar trying valiantly to see what is advertised as the fantastic scenery of the gorges of the Iron Gate area of the Danube. At this moment it is raining so hard that we cannot see more than about 100 meters in front of the boat. There is also a FREE head and shoulder massage (yes, the boat does have a spa on board; only massages, no haircuts) going on in here so that also explains the large population of the room.

We just went through the Iron Gate locks that raised us about 35 meters. We fit easily into those locks—actually we could have fit two of us side by side with room left over in the front and back—but they will get progressively smaller until we just barely fit into the last locks. This boat is built to be the largest it can be and still fit in the smallest lock. Some of the other boats will be larger but they will only be able to sail in certain waters and definitely not the rivers we will be going into.

Randy and I and about 20 other intrepid souls were up on deck earlier to watch the entry into the locks. The Captain—who, by the way is only 37!—was up there as well as that is where the ship is steered from when going into and out of the locks and it is not, as it is on ocean-going ships, under cover. So he was up there with his umbrella just as we were. He told us a very bad joke that I cannot repeat if I want to publish this on Blogger! And we found out that his girlfriend is our cabin stewardess, Alexandra. He—and she—are very nice and I think my daughter-in-law will enjoy speaking Dutch with him.

Later, going through some particularly scenic areas (it’s still raining), we went back on deck so we could see the face in the mountain, akin to Mt. Rushmore but presumably with a Romanian accent.

Donji Milanovac was what they are calling a “technical stop” (no idea what that means). Randy and I got off the ship and wandered about the small town. There were several young teens hanging about and I gave them some of my University of Arizona “A” pins and they seemed to love them. The kids were really cute!

Just like an ocean-going cruise, the staff plans activities for the few times we are just cruising the river. Today was a Baklava cooking demonstration along with sweets for tea time. Even the doctor was there partaking of the multi-calories sweets that were available. There is a small library (where I have discovered a wonderful new author, Jo Jo Moyes, and read “Me Before You,” really great but a tear-jerker of a book) on the ship, an exercise facility (which we ought to use), coffee and cookies always available (we also have an espresso machine in our room and our “stewardess” [yes, that’s what they call her] puts cookies and fresh fruit in the room every day), and there is free internet (when it’s working—which it isn’t right now in Serbia) and a couple of computers available for the guests.

All in all this is a wonderful way to fritter away a few weeks!