Mittwoch, 8. Juni 2011

Life on the Ocean Wave

Time’s a tricky thing when you’re traveling. Same old story every time. Today it’s one week since I started my trip. Though it seems I’ve been on the road for much longer. My short visit to London is miles and miles away (nautical miles, that is). Theoretically and emotianally speaking. We are only 1 day and 720 nautical miles away from NY now. Having left Southampton through the English Channel, along Bishop Rock (which marks the traditional start of the Transatlantic Passage), through the Celtic Sea, the Mid Atlantic Ridge, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and into the Gulf of Maine. What a passage!

Today this Transatlantic Passage is a way for people to either skip flying because, let’s says, they prefer other ways of transport (like me). Maybe it’s also a way to start or end your vacation in a more relaxing way. Or maybe it’s just wanting to experience crossing the Atlantic on the ocean wave. Like so many other people before have done. Though I imagine, years and years ago, the reasons were slightly different. In times when thousands and thousands left Europe, dreaming of a new life, a better life with much more opportunities in this land of the free. And how must it have been when after days on sea, finally the skyscrapers of New York appeared on the horizon. A new, a brighter future in sight. I can only imagine how this must have felt.

The ride on Queen Mary from Southampton to NY only takes 6 days and 7 nights these days. Some must think you will get easily bored. But there is so much you can do on here. Apart from eating :) and dressing up nicely I am using this time to read a lot. See shows at night (like Shakespeare’s "Much Ado About Nothing"). Have a Manicure and Pedicure. Listen to music on my Ipod. Or just watch the waves.

Still, I am quite ready to hit land again. One day and we’ll be arriving in the Big Apple. Can’t wait to meet up with a friend to spend a few days in the Big Apple. And from there I’m only a train ride away from the "Windy City" (Chicago).

I’ll keep you up to date how my "City Adventures" have been :)


When the sea is everywhere from horizon to horizon …
When the salt and blue fill a circle of horizons I swear again how I know …
The sea is older than anything else and the sea younger than anything else
The sea gives all, and yet the sea keeps something back.

North Atlantic – by Carl Sandburg (1878 – 1967)

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