My ship

It is 5 o'clock in the morning and the Viking Gefjon feels like my ship. Not only is the ship asleep but the German town of Dusseldorf is sleeping too. The early trains are running across the bridge overhead as my ship glides silently underneath. There are lights on but no signs of habitation. Everything is peacefully quiet.

I've gone out onto a sheltered deck on the third level to watch the town pass. It is still cool to my Phoenix blood but the deck blocks the wind and it feels wonderfully comfortable.

Dusseldorf seems to have a little bit of an ego.  The classical residential buildings are built right up against the road beside the river and each is illuminated so that people on the river can see the houses in all their splendor. There are some high rise buildings in the background but for the most part the town seems at a very human scale.

As we get to the outskirts of town I can see part of the infrastructure of a community. A huge, well lite electrical generating plant has a very prominent place beside the river which has changed to the Rhine. I missed if the transition was by passing through a lock or if it was just turning a corner. Sometimes it is hard to keep track of where we are going as the sun is still not up and the Rhine snakes it's way through the countryside.

By the way, even though we have been in German waters for many hours, the software still reads in Dutch. Not that it really matters.