I will be posting from time to time small segments stories of my life..you will be able to find them under the link..Aaltje's Verhaaltjes or Aalie's Stories.
My real name is Aaltje..I was named after my mother's oldest sister. This used to be the custom in the Netherlands for many years. My older two brothers were name after my grandfathers, and my two older sisters were named after my two grandmothers. My youngest brother was named after one of my dad's brothers.
The above picture is of the street where I was born.. in the province of Friesland.
In December of 1950 we left Rotterdam, Holland to board the ship Noordam to immigrate to the USA. I was 9 years old at the time.
It was a first class ship at that time, later was turned into a cruise ship. It was the first time we were ever on that large a ship.The first time I ever drank pop, rootbeer.
There was a movie star on board the ship my mother said it was Bette Davis. But I do not know as I never went to movies, and did not even know what a movie star was.
One time there were sirens and we were told to put on our life jackets and go on the deck of the ship. This scared me , because I thought maybe we were going to sink! I had heard about the Titanic, and this ship was like the Titanic. When we got to the deck, we were told that it had been a drill in case of a probable problem. I was glad about that because I never could get that life jacket on right and everybody was too busy worrying about their own that they thought mine was on OK.
I was sea sick most of the time while on board that ship. I was so thirsty and felt I could drink the ocean dry, but every time I would drink something I would get sick again. A few times though I did get to play on deck. It was fun to get to do some exploring. Everything was so fancy aboard the ship! There were ballrooms, a theater, fancy dining room, even a swimming pool. All around the deck there was lounge chairs placed for all the passengers where you could sit and relax to read a book or just watch the ocean. This I did a few times. But it being in December it was chilly at times at you needed to cover up to stay warm. One time I got to see some whales that followed the ship, I think they threw out garbage at times and the whales fed on this. Usually though all you could see was water and more water!! It was a long trip. We has a severe storm that lasted several days and kept us from going forward.
So it took us about 12 -14 days to get to the USA. When we did get to the USA the first thing we saw was the Statue of Liberty!! My little five year old brother asked if that was our uncle? 
We landed at Hoboken, New Jersey. My little brother wore his wooden shoes to the USA. We spent the night in New York City...in a hotel..we were so tired..but loved all the lights and glitter of New York. It was so beautiful in New York at that time of the year as they still had all their Christmas decorations and lights up.
Just click on the tag Aaltje's Verhaaltjes or Aalie's Stories if you happen to miss some...here at http://aalie.multiply.com
The reason I am adding the link is because I am also sending this story to Blogger and Facebook...as I do most of my posts here.
More to Come
