Rostock, Hansestadt

Back in April we were cruising onboard the Viking Sky in the Mediterranean when our crew served Glenda some mint jelly with her lamb dinner. She swore it was the best mint jelly she had ever tasted. The server told her it was a German product which could be purchased at any grocery store in this country. Glenda vowed that as soon as we got to Germany again, she would run to the first grocery store she could find to buy some.

Today we arrived in Germany. Warnemunde is a quaint little jewel tucked here at the edge of the ocean. Hundreds of shiny sailboats run past its ancient lighthouse and its brightly painted vacation cottages every day. It is difficult to think that this lovely little town was a major target of the U. S. Air Force in World War II. This precious village on the seacoast is the port for the neighboring industrial town of Rostock. In the 1940’s the demonically destructive Heinkel fighter-bombers were manufactured here. Four different missions by the Royal Air Force attempted to destroy this place. One final intense mission by the U. S. Eighth Air Force ultimately did. In one deadly afternoon in 1944 hell descended upon Warnemunde, and this city ceased to exist.

But I digress. Our mission today was mint jelly. Once we got past the screaming parade of football fans, we walked along the sea-wall promenade to the local E-neukauf Grocery Store. At 11:30 am we arrived at a little patisserie located in the foyer, where a very kind German grandmother served pastries and coffee. She gently informed us that the grocery store would open precisely at noon, and that we were welcome to sit at a table and wait if we liked.

Glenda stepped outside to give me that message, and I was so impressed with the kindness of the older woman that I said, “Let’s go inside and get two pastries and two cups of coffee as we wait.”

Glenda said, “Let’s just get one pastry and one coffee and split it.”

I said, “I don’t need the coffee or the pastry. We have already eaten breakfast on the ship, but this lady is so kind, I just want to give her the business. Two coffees and two pastries.”

Glenda dug out our ziplock bag of euros and we went inside to order. As noon approached we saw a crowd gathering outside the store. A few people made their way through the door into the foyer where we sat with our pastries. The crowd got larger.

And larger.

I heard voices speaking Filipino about the time Glenda said, “Look! These people are all our crew members.” She pointed and named a few. I recognized one young woman I see often, a server in the World Cafe up on deck 7.

I called her name, and she flashed a big smile. “I didn’t recognize you without your Covid mask,” I laughed.

“I took off my mask. I’m traveling incognito,” she joked.

Precisely at noon the doors opened and a rush of humanity not seen since Pharaoh’s army plunged into the Red Sea poured through the door of the grocery store. We trailed in behind and quickly made our way to the shelf containing jams, jellies and syrup. The current of young crew members jostled me away from Glenda, who was intently scrutinizing the labels of preserves and marmalade.

“I’ll wait for you outside,” I yelled. The tide of humanity carried me over to the candy area where our crew was literally raking chocolate bars, M & M’s, Cheetos and Chips into their shopping carts. We were all laughing.

I asked one crew member I knew, “Are you going to eat all of this stuff yourself? It will make you as sick as a pig.”

“Oh, no, Mr. Chuck,” he said. “These are all presents.”

“I’ll bet!” I said. “How many friends do you have?”

He laughed. “I’ll have more when I get back to the ship with these Cheetos.”

As we returned to the ship we passed Captain Atle Knutsen and his wife Lara.

“Where are you headed?” we asked.

“We have a long stay in port today,” the Captain said, “and most of the passengers are away on an excursion into Berlin, so we just thought we would walk around town and maybe drift by the grocery store to pick up a few things.”

“Don’t bother,” we laughed. “The crew has descended upon the local market like a horde of locusts, and they have completely cleaned the place out.”Les mer