PERSPECTIVE FROM THE 19^TH HOLE: This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus use an image from my favorite sport, golf. Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all of my professional positions, including as a Congressional press secretary in Washington, D.C., an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and a private sector lobbyist. This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.

Having recently returned from a river cruise down the Danube from Nuremberg to Budapest, impressions from the trip still arrive in my thoughts every day.

The most dominant one revolves around the incredible, hard-to-describe crimes of Adolph Hitler as he led Germany to try to conquer the world – or at least part of Europe — as well as try to exterminate an entire race of people, the Jews.

The huge, negative impression of Hitler was underlined at the start of our trip when my wife Nancy and I toured the Documentation Center and Zeppellin Field in Nuremberg where Hitler rallied Germans to follow his cause. The Center, which documents the rise and fall of Nazism (the last exhibit in the center chronicles the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials), is preserved to this day, at least in part, we were told by our tour guide, so the Germans of today remember the past and avoid falling into the Nazi trap again.

Good for them, I say.

The Nazi atrocities also was called to mind as we left Budapest for the U.S. on June 6, the 75^th anniversary of D Day. We weren’t there for the events to commemorate the events of the Day in 1944, but the events recalled to our minds our previous trip to Normandy where we stood on the bluff looking down at the Omaha Beach – as German soldiers did in 1944 – where 90 per cent of the first wave of Americans were either killed or maimed.

Still, the landings at Omaha and other beaches were successful – if war can ever be termed “successful” – and signaled the end of Hitler’s Germany. Unfortunately, Hitler killed himself in his bunker as the end drew near, which meant he would not stand trail for his war crimes.

Well, on to a few other random impressions of our Danube River Trip – impressions that, thankfully, don’t revolve around war.

Smoking/Nearly half of the population smokes as they walk down a street. Plus, if you sit outside in a restaurant, often worth doing in America, you contend with smoke all of the time in Europe. Tobacco companies must love Europe!

Topography/In and around the Danube, the land looks and feels much like Oregon, with rolling hills and, on occasion, the Alps in the background.

Vineyards/In many areas, grape crops are built on hills, but in contrast to some areas of France, the rows run in a horizontal direction. In France, they often run vertically up and down steep slopes.

Communism vs. freedom of thought and enterprise/Our tour guide in Prague – before we boarded our ship in Nuremberg – said she loves the fact that the Czech Republic threw off communism. A democracy-of-sorts in the Republic allows her, she said, to think on her own, talk on her own and be creative. By contrast, her mother, now 73 years of age and still living in Prague, wants a return to Communism so “she can be taken care of in her advancing years.”

Number of river ships/The numbers we heard sounded crazy. Ten years ago, there were about 240 ships. Nor there are about 1,200. And the total has contributed to tourism along the Danube and other rivers.

Thoughts on the boat accident on the Danube in Budapest/The number of ships also holds the potential for accidents on a heavily traveled river like the Danube. About a week before we arrived in Budapest, a daily-tour boat collided with a river cruise ship and the smaller boat went down quickly, with the loss of life numbering nearly 30. Still, we were allowed to dock in Budapest, which made for a good last day in Hungary.

Car speeds in Bavaria and Germany/On major highways, there is no limit on speed. Go as fast as you want.

Type of trucks in Europe/Most commercial hauling trucks in Europe have straight fronts, not the bulbous noses of American 18-wheelers. Better, I guess, to play their way around often-narrow roads. American truck drivers might not survive in Europe.

Trucks not allowed on the road on weekends and on “bank holiday”/We also learned that truck are not allowed – at least usually – on roads on weekends. For that reason, there were often a huge number of trucks parked on what we could call “truck stops” in the U.S.

Different sequence of stop-lights (yellow, green, red)/If we were driving in Europe, we would have to get used to a different lighting sequence. For us in the U.S., a yellow light indicates that red is next. In Europe, yellow shows up as lead for a green light. Not a big deal, but interesting that, as in the case of many other things, the U.S. wanted to be different than Europe.