By Bob Van Leer

  (TILBURY (LONDON), ENGLAND, Aug. 7, 1993) -  Our cruise ship, the Crown Odyssey, is sailing down the Thames River estuary heading into the English Channel for a short voyage to Amsterdam, Holland. We boarded the ship this afternoon after an hour bus ride from the Grosvenor Hotel in London. Our baggage, which had been missing since we left Portland, finally caught up with us on the ship for which we are thankful.

  Betty and I left Gold Beach the evening of Aug. 4 for a drive to Portland where we met up with our daughter, Amy Bornemeier, and her husband Doug, to take off on a long-planned cruise around the Baltic Sea. Aug. 5 we took a Horizon Air commuter plane for the 50 minute flight to Seattle where we boarded a British Airways Boeing 767 for 9 hour, 40 minute flight over the polar region to London. Doug and Amy's bags made the transfer to British Air but Betty's and mine didn't.

   Ours was a night flight to London but the plane went so far north there was only about a half-hour of darkness. At Heathrow Airport outside London we found our bags were missing and were assured they would come on the next day's flight. My Macintosh PowerBook notebook computer was in my suitcase and I'm lost without it.

  We took a taxi to our hotel, the Grosvenor House (pronounced as if the "s" was not in the word), an old but elegant hotel across from Hyde Park in a section of London known as Mayfair. After checking in, we walked to the Red Lion, a pub, for dinner. I tried an English staple, steak and kidney pie but the others settled for more conventional fare. The pie, incidentally, was quite good. Along the way we passed by James Purdey & Sons, Ltd., manufacturer of some of the finest sporting firearms ever built.

  At the Grosvenor House hotel employees wear formal dress. Those outside have on top hats. The rooms are spacious, with high ceilings and marble floored bathrooms as large as some motel rooms. The plumbing in the bathtubs is formidable. It looks as if you need an engineer's license to operate it. Fortunately, there is a simpler-to-operate modern set available for the shower.

Bus Tour of London

  This morning we got up early to take a bus tour of London which included visiting such landmarks as the Houses of Parliament and Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, St Paul's Cathedral, the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge.

  We also drove by Buckingham Palace. The palace was very much in the news in our short stay. Today is the first day ever the palace is open for public tours. Some people waited in line all night to be able to buy tickets for the tour. London is a city of 8 million people in a country with a population of 60 million. The municipal structure of London is unique. It is actually 34 self-governing municipalities according to our tour guide. The City of London is one square mile and is principally the financial district. Many of the most famous landmarks are actually in a part of London called Westminster. Westminster Abbey is just a description of where the church is located.

  An article in a London newspaper brought out an ironic development. Roses are going out of favor in England because of an increase in the many ills roses are prone to. And the reason for this increase? There is less sulphur in the air.

  Since the beginning of the industrial revolution the polluted English air has been bathing the roses with a 24 hour per day dose of pesticide. Anti-pollution laws are now cleaning up the air and, at the same time, making life more difficult for roses. The same damp climate that encouraged the roses also encourages some of the disorders that plague roses.

  Our ship got underway at 5 p.m. today and headed down the Thames. At 5:30 p.m. we had a lifeboat drill which went off reasonable well. How it would work in an actual crisis is another matter. The ship's capacity is 1054 passengers and the cruise director said there are 1020 passengers aboard. A sign at the purser's office says there are no more staterooms available. The ship carries a crew of 470. The engine output is 31,130 with a speed of 22 knots. (A knot is 1.15 miles.) The ship has 11 decks and our cabins are on the fifth deck up.

  The cruise ship is 614 feet long with a width of 92 feet. It has 527 staterooms. It is a new ship, built in 1988 and is quite comfortable. Our room is about the size of a small motel room, which is big for quarters on a ship. We are on the outside and have a large window. The ship is registered in the Bahamas and has a Greek crew.

Professional Host

  We are in the second of two seatings for dinner. One of the persons seated at our table, Victor, has an interesting occupation. He is a professional host, a feature of this cruise line. He said there are 250 single women on board. It is the job of Victor and a half dozen other men to entertain them, dance with them, go with them on shore excursions and just generally make them feel comfortable. Victor does four or five cruises a year and the cruises average a couple of weeks long. He said this is his 57th cruise. He said, "It's a tough job, but someone has to do it". Some of the qualifications for the job are to be over 55 and single.

  The time here is eight hours ahead of Gold Beach and tonight we have to set our time ahead still another hour. Tomorrow we will be in Amsterdam and plan to take a canal cruise.