My views do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer.
February 18 to 25, 2025
As I was leaving Gouda the last Tuesday in January, I posted on Facebook that I was having a very Gouda day, and my friend Peter commented that he was in a show IN GOUDA that evening!
Peter and I met in 2012 when we toured Italy with Theatrino – a company that did interactive theater to help Italian kids learn English. There were about 30 of us who rehearsed in San Remo for three weeks, before being split into groups of four and sent off on our separate ways throughout the country. Sometimes our groups would cross paths with each other, but I don’t think my group crossed paths with Peter’s group, so I didn’t see him again until everyone came together at the end of the tour. I didn’t really interact that much with Peter (I mean, we were a big group) but I remember thinking that he was just lovely.
In 2018, I went to visit Rose (who I also met in Theatrino) in London. Louise (also in Theatrino) was in a play the night I arrived. We went to see it and Peter happened to also be in the audience.
Peter is making a face in all of the photos.
There is not one good picture of him, but I think it was worth the laughter – we were clearly happy to see each other again.
That was the last time I had seen Peter, aside from a few messages exchanged when we were on the same continent, but hadn’t managed to get together.
I sent him a message – what was he doing? I was in Rotterdam every Tuesday – maybe we could actually get together this time! I told him what I was doing on the ship, and he said he had almost booked a cruise on my ship in December. I would have been there! He was touring at the moment, but he would need a vacation when the tour finished. He said he would look into pricing to come on my ship for a week. I thought about it and told him – if he was comfortable, he could come stay in my cabin as my guest – for free. I wouldn’t extend this offer to just anyone – but we were theater people. And not just any theater people. With Theatrino we would spend every waking moment with our group – hours in the van driving to the school, working together all day, climbing back in the van, compromising on where we would stop to eat and how we would spend our free time and then, more often than not, would all end up sleeping in the same hotel room. There was no privacy except when you it was your turn to get a single room (which didn’t happen very often). I had a feeling that Peter would be a perfectly good roommate for a week – and he took me up on the offer!
Tuesday in Rotterdam
I met Peter across the street from the terminal with his partner, Marcel (who had driven Peter in from where they lived about an hour away).
We started talking a mile a minute – we only had seven days to catch up on the last 13 years!
Wednesday in Belgium
The ship had recently changed my ‘lounge’ hours. The first part of my contract, I was scheduled to sit in my lounge from 8-9pm between the shows and the rest of the time I was free to use my time as I saw most effectively (and a few more hours on Sea Days along with other events). Now on port days I had an hour in the morning, an hour in the afternoon and two hours in the evening. I was frustrated because the increase in hours had not increased the number of Americans I was able to connect with. So anyway – Peter and I had less time than I’d previously had to get out in the port before I had to return to the ship. Peter was much more easy going about this situation than I was. After all, we were basically in his neighborhood and he was coming off an intense tour schedule. I’d been wanting to visit the oldest brewery in Brugge for a while, and I thought it would be the perfect thing to do with Peter.
We took the tram to the bus (which dropped us off closer to the town center than the train). Peter said that he lives so close to Brugge but he hadn’t been in many years (Where he lives in the Netherlands is actually closer to Brugge than we were docked in Zeebrugge). It reminded me of how I’d only do the touristy things when people came to visit when I lived in New York.
We stopped and admired these pastries:
We decided we would stop and get some to take back to the ship on our way back, but after lunch we were so satisfied that we decided a picture would be sufficient.
Google Maps led us to Huisbrouwerij De Halve Maan:
Peter was delighted with the choice – he said it wasn’t a place he would’ve found on his own.
The waiter came by three times before we stopped talking long enough to look at the menu and decide what to order.
I learned that Peter had been on tour with his own company (which I hadn’t realized)! He’d put together educational theater workshops for kids in the Netherlands similar in ways to what we had done with Theatrino. But with Gigglemug (the name of his company) he wrote, produced, directed, starred in and managed the whole thing. It had been quite a project putting it together, but now having just finished his first full season, he was at a point where the initial work was done and now he could just reproduce it in the future.
In the evenings, Peter would sit with me in my lounge while I waited for the Americans to come talk to me. And then we would go see the show in the theater. There was a big group of Brits who were from the same place where Peter grew up, so he often had more luck talking to the Brits than I had with the Americans.
Thursday in Le Havre, France
I considered taking Peter to Honfleur (the most charming place to go in my opinion), but after Peter helped me stuff the envelopes of invitations for my American Cocktail Party on Saturday, we decided to just take it easy and stay local. We went to The Architect – my favorite spot in town, where we shared (a little more than) a bottle of wine, ate some French cheese and went back to the ship to take a nap (we blame both the wine and the late nights we stayed up giggling at our nightly slumber party). Le Havre has turned out to be a place where I have fond memories of just hanging out and talking to great people.
Friday in Southampton
Peter is British, and while he has been all over England, he had never been to Southampton. He was very interested in Southampton’s connection to the Titanic so I retraced the steps of the Titanic walking tour I had gone on and told him what I remembered. We returned to a street that I had been to before, but hadn’t had have enough time to stay, and had a lovely brunch.
Saturday at Sea
Peter came to my cocktail party for American guests. He was very impressed with my little “emotional” speech and the way I worked the room. I was flattered – I didn’t really feel like I was doing anything special.
It was so fun to have a friend get a glimpse of what I had been doing on the ship. I have a group chat with the other US Ambassadors (there are two more on other ships) but it’s not the same as being able to talk about it with someone who was there in person.
Sunday in Hamburg
I knew we would have to plan ahead if we were going to take advantage of the limited time we had in Hamburg. When Peter arrived I listed the options so we could make reservations in advance: I hadn’t been to Miniature Wonderland yet, and I thought that would be more fun to do with a friend than on my own, so I had sort of been saving that one for Peter. I had done a one hour boat ride on the lake, but I’d heard from a couple of people that there was a two hour boat ride that went through the canals – I wanted to do THAT (as you know, I love canals)! And I also wanted to take Peter to the Dungeon. Can we do ALL of that? He asked me. I didn’t think we could fit it all in! When the guests would complain that there was nothing to do in Hamburg on a Sunday because everything was closed, I would tell them that when my friend Peter came to visit, there were more things that we wanted to do than we had time for! I tried to get the tickets for Miniature Wonderland, but after going around in circles on the website for a ridiculously long time, I gave up. Well that helped narrow things down. I booked a two hour boat ride for 10:30 and the Dungeon tour in the afternoon.
I sat in my lounge in the morning while Peter slept in, and when my hour was over we hit the street and headed for the Elbe Tunnel.
I’d discovered the stairs too late the last time I had taken the tunnel – I resolved to go DOWN the cool steps (I certainly wasn’t going to climb up them). I led the way and then suddenly realized that Peter has just a touch of a fear of heights. I was happy to hold his hand until we reached the bottom.
This was a big week for Peter. At the start of the cruise, Peter voiced a preference for taking the stairs rather than the elevator. He had been avoiding elevators for years after accidentally getting locked in a friend’s small bathroom. That evening, however, after a couple of negroni’s Peter volunteered to take the lift (in Australia I had to learn to say lift instead of elevator- which apparently is an American term). Soon he was hooked! He would suggest taking the lift and I would say, but Peter, we’re only going up one flight! Now here I was again throwing him right in the deep end of a fear that I didn’t know about. Sorry Peter!
We fortunately made it safely to the bottom and agreed not to talk about it until it was over.
On the other side, we found our boat and ordered some glühwein (obviously).
The guide only spoke German, but we didn’t care! I just wanted to see the canals.
We circled around a bunch of industrial stuff, which I did not find very interesting.
And then there was our ship!
We got right up close!
We might have been the only ones on the boat that were on the cruise!
MSC stands for Mediterranean Shipping Company.
There was an MSC Shipping ship!
After about an hour and forty-five minutes of our two-hour boat ride I was getting restless. I wanted to see some canals! I was getting ready to complain (I don’t know who I would complain to but I was getting very close to embodying the American stereotype) that this tour had been falsely advertised by putting the water castle as the photo in the advertisement! Where was the water castle? We were running out of time! Peter, who was perfectly delighted and not at all bothered, tried to talk me down.
And then we turned the corner into a canal.
It was so cool. I had been in this neighborhood on a bus and they had described how the boats would bring things right up to the doorways in the buildings and load things directly into the buildings from the water. And now we were on that water!
My attitude did a full 180. I went from pissed to blissed.
Some of the bridges were so low.
I touched all the ones I could reach. Peter had to duck.
And then look!
The water level was higher today.
And then we got to the water castle! I told Peter that this was a very famous building that is featured in a lot of Hamburg souvenirs. I had taken a picture of it from that bridge over there (see Hamburg in February), I had walked right up to the front of it (see Hamburg in January).
I explained to Peter that it was just a castle on the water and not a castle made of water. He appreciated the explanation.
And then we went by Miniatur Wunderland and the Dungeon!
We joked that we should try to stop the boat and get out here – but alas, we didn’t speak German.
That last part of the boat ride made it all worth it. It was the canal experience I had been hoping for.
The boat took us back to where we started and we power-walked back to the Dungeon. We had just enough time to get a snack before the tour. I saw some sandwiches on display and thought I ordered one of those, but that was not what they brought out. This was starting to become a theme in Germany.
We were a little nervous about going because Peter doesn’t like scary things. I had told other guests about the Dungeon who were worried that it would be too scary. It made me ponder – like, yeah, it’s trying to be scary but everyone knows it’s fake and everyone is giggling through the whole thing. I don’t like scary movies so when things start getting to scary I start telling myself how everything is made – that’s not really blood, it’s ketchup. No animals were actually harmed in the filming of this movie, etc. But it’s hard for me to tell what is too scary for someone else. So the Dungeon was a risky choice – I hoped he wouldn’t buy into it too much (or that the people who jump out at you in the dark and go BOO! wouldn’t do it to him). After all, I’d already taken him on an elevator and dragged him down a bunch of very steep stairs. But it was interactive theater, and we had met doing interactive theater, and Peter was now putting together workshops of historical interactive theater.
Peter ended up loving the Dungeon tour as much as I wanted him to. Yay!
Monday at Sea
On the last sea day I wrote my reports while Peter wandered around the ship and sometimes sat with me in my lounge. That night was formal night. My zipper had started doing something funky where I couldn’t get it up on my own without doing a bunch of weird yoga arm twists. I was pleased to have a roommate to zip me up.
Peter watched as I was introduced on stage and then we stayed to watch the show.
Tuesday: back to Rotterdam
Marcel and Gizmo picked us up!
They took me to Breda. After spending a week at my house, Peter wanted to show me where he lived. As I gushed about the old buildings over the last week, he knew I would love Breda and he was right!
Breda was setting up for a festival. I have to admit that I can see why Peter has settled down here. This looked like a town that I would definitely want to come to hang out in regularly.
I cannot say how incredible it was to get to reconnect with Peter. It was so fun to share my ship experience with an old friend. It was fun to talk business and analyze each others lives. I loved hearing about how his Theatrino experience both resembled and differed from mine. One night, after a couple of drinks we categorized everyone that we had toured with into categories – heart (the ones we loved), the ones we thought were murderers, WTF?! (the ones who were weird but probably not a murderer), and meh (the ones we didn’t think were strongly good or bad). We lost the list when we changed cabins, but if you were in Theatrino with us and you’re reading this you’re probably in the heart category.