{"id":428,"date":"2016-07-02T06:13:53","date_gmt":"2016-07-02T10:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/?p=428"},"modified":"2016-07-11T16:18:16","modified_gmt":"2016-07-11T20:18:16","slug":"july-2-departure-from-holland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/2016\/07\/02\/july-2-departure-from-holland\/","title":{"rendered":"July 2: Departure from Holland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On July 12, 1960, I sailed on the <em>SS Rotterdam<\/em> from Rotterdam to New York with my mom.\u00a0 I was 14 years old.\u00a0 It was for only a summer visit to my dad in America. I emigrated later, in 1968.\u00a0 Yesterday, July 2, 2016, I sailed on the <em>MS Rotterdam <\/em>from Rotterdam to Boston\u2014 from the city where I was born and raised, to the city where I have spent my adult life so far.<\/p>\n<p>Holland America Line has had several generations of ships called the <em>Rotterdam<\/em>.\u00a0 But the one I sailed on in 1960 was revolutionary for its time.\u00a0 After Holland America sold it, the old <em>SS Rotterdam<\/em> sailed under a different name for a time: the <em>Rembrandt<\/em>.\u00a0 When she was finally about to be scrapped, she was rescued, restored, and turned into a museum, tourist attraction, and hotel. \u00a0She is now permanently docked in the city of Rotterdam, not far from our cruise terminal.<\/p>\n<p>When we sailed on the new <em>MS Rotterdam<\/em>, we passed right by the old <em>SS Rotterdam<\/em>.\u00a0 Our cruise ship greeted the old ship with three very loud blasts of its horn.\u00a0 To my surprise, the old <em>SS Rotterdam<\/em> responded with its ship\u2019s horn, and the two, almost playfully, went back and forth for a while, our ship even producing two-tone sounds somehow.<\/p>\n<p>I found this very moving.\u00a0 As if I (the new ship) was saying good-bye to my old country and to my youth, and my youth (the old ship) inexplicably responding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On July 12, 1960, I sailed on the SS Rotterdam from Rotterdam to New York with my mom.\u00a0 I was 14 years old.\u00a0 It was for only a summer visit to my dad in America. I emigrated later, in 1968.\u00a0 Yesterday, July 2, 2016, I sailed on the MS Rotterdam from Rotterdam to Boston\u2014 from &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/2016\/07\/02\/july-2-departure-from-holland\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;July 2: Departure from Holland&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","category-cruise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":429,"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428\/revisions\/429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pjgardner.com\/travel3\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}