17 May Missing the Boat
Warning: Adult supervision needed.
The thought flashed through my head as my father and I stood on the dock in Cologne, shivering in the December dark and scanning the Rhine for a ship that no longer seemed to be present. In all my years of travel, I’ve rarely missed a plane, train or bus. I’m the person who shows up at the airport more than two hours in advance, the one who collects confirmation codes in a smartphone app. Could a night out with my dad – a pub crawl through the city that resulted in multiple rounds of beer and bitter-tasting schnapps with just-met Kölners – break my sensible streak?
© horstgerlach
I had no idea that an invitation to visit the European Christmas markets, extended to my mother several months earlier, would turn out this way. A lover of crafts, folk art and shopping, my mom seemed like the perfect person to accompany me on a river cruise from Switzerland to Amsterdam. A much-needed back operation, however, made her hesitant about uneven streets and unaccompanied travel. Before I hung up, my father came on the line.
“You know, there might be other people in this house who would like to go,” he said, in his characteristically blunt manner.
I paused. My dad and I are much alike, almost too much so. Our tempers flash, and dissipate fast; we charge into challenges before thinking through consequences; we laugh loud and cry often. The two of us sharing a ship cabin for a week sounded like a hurricane of emotion, cramped into a tiny space.
Yet I saw no one to get out of it gracefully. And I believe, with all that I have, that travel experiences are meant to be shared. Without a doubt, my best times on the road have been spent with friends and family, tackling new cultures, having adventures and learning about each other through the process. And with my dad now in his 70s, part of me wondered how many more chances we’d get to do something like this. Taking a chance was worth more than the risk of argument.
“Would you like to go with me, dad?” I asked. He accepted, eagerly. By the end of the week, he had memorized the entire itinerary.
As the trip grew closer, we swapped packing tips, compared reading lists. I educated him on currency issues, he told me about World War II sites. I rejoiced in my role as an expert. Maybe, I thought, this cruise would bring us closer together, and give my dad more insight into the amount of work that my job actually entails (many people believe travel writers just go on vacation for a living).
My first inkling that we might bring out the worst in each other occurred as we entered our cabin. Although spacious enough for two, the room’s design seemed marred by an extra chair and an oddly positioned nightstand. We’d have more room, I reasoned, if we removed it. I worried aloud where to put it.
“Just dump it next door,” my dad growled, intent on unpacking. As I obeyed, the chair in my arms, an angry steward stopped me in the hall. “What are you doing with that?” she said. “You can’t put that in there.”
Yep. The ship hadn’t set sail yet and already my dad got me into trouble.
Despite that inauspicious start, most of the trip proceeded normally. Until we reached Cologne, we blended in with the other passengers, which included several other families traveling together for the holidays. Dad kept up with my pace, and generally deferred to my decisions on the ground. And so it went until Germany, when we skipped the guided tour offered by our cruise company in favor of exploring Cologne’s beer pubs on our own.
With each glass of the famed Kolsch (brewed only in the environs), I grew more confident in my high school German, allowing the alcohol to loosen my tongue and deaden my inhibitions. We hung up with boisterous Kolners, communicating through a German-English mix – and the universal language of “more beer, please.” We stayed out late, believing that our ship wasn’t due to leave until 4 a.m.
Turns out, we were wrong. The ship cast off at 11 p.m., and we were well past that witching hour. I looked around and saw the ship, finally, turned around at a pier several hundred feet away. “That’s it!” I cried. We boarded happily, before we were informed that our mistake had held up departure by at least an hour. The next day, we apologized profusely to the ship’s hotel manager. He laughed it off, but alluded to how close we had come to being left behind. Embarrassed, we kept silent when our table mates at dinner wondered aloud about the “drunken idiots” who almost didn’t make it.
Of course, now the story is one of my father’s favorites, glossed over many times in the retelling. It breaks us up into laughter every time. Maybe I didn’t miss the boat after all.
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