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| Coming out of a lock |
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| See the wall of the lock outside my cabin window |
Just a word on the crew - the tour directors are Tauck employees but Tauck contracts the use of the boats from Swiss company Scylla & all the ships crew are Scylla employees, they are mainly eastern european, Romanian, Bulgarian etc & on the whole the waiting staff are Indonesian, from Bali, Lombok & Java. Anyone who has been to Bali will know how sweet they are, they are away from home for 8 months of the year & their wives - if they are married - are back home in Bali, it must be hard. The exception of the Scylla crew is Marina, the hotel manager, who is Dutch. She had very kindly organised a dental visit for me for today's stop in Regensberg, got the taxi & told him where to go. He delivered me to the suburbs to what appeared to be a medical hub & escorted me into the building, when I got to the 1st floor the door to the dentist (zahnazte) was closed & required the door bell to be rung for access...weird! Seemed very casual, all the girls on the front desk (& the dentist) were dressed casually in shorts. The dentist took a look & the same old story, side of my tooth had broken off, sharp edge was the filling, all that is left is the filling probably, long story short, he smoothed the sharp edge & did not charge me anything.... just leave a tip for the girls, he said!....can you believe it?
After the dentist I walked to the huge mall & wandered around for a bit, shops the same all over & lots of sales on here also. When I left the mall, in the carpark I asked a woman directions back to the bridge to get back to the river & turned out she & the kids had driven over from the Chezck Republic for the day to shop as it was so much cheaper here in Germany, fancy that. Anyway she did not give me a bum steer despite being a visitor & after 30 very pleasant minute walk found the boat again.
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| Waiting room at the dentist, introducing the dental staff |
Late lunch & then I walked into the town to look at the dom & surrounds, beautiful centre with little crooked streets going off the main square..... how unusual....only about the 10th town like that we have seen!
I had not bought the program with me on my walk, & at about 5 to 5, had a sudden thought ....the boat was sailing at 5!!!!!! Hightailed back & thank god it was 7, not 5, phew - as I am not sure what they do if you are missing, they will know as you have not returned the shore pass, hopefully they will send out the search party.
Dined with Terri & Randal from Memphis Tennessee, very pronounced accents, nice people. I am amazed at how well-travelled everybody on the boat is, well, everyone that I have spoken to at least, they've been everywhere, man & the yanks love this tour company Tauck. Note to anyone interested, don't go on Tauck if you have no wish to holiday with Americans!
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| Each meal started with an "amusement" which was not on the menu, this was tonights |
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| This was my fish main course, superb |
After dinner the Scylla staff put on the show for the passengers (or guests as they call us) A lot of fun, combined with trivia quiz.
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