May 9, 1934 On board SS Manhattan.

On board SS Manhattan. Wednesday, May 9, 1934.

My Dear Goldkinder,

To start with I want to apologize for my handwriting. It is now 4:00 p.m. and I am sitting on deck in a lightweight sweater in bright sunshine in a beach chair. The boat is shaking slightly from one side to the other on a rather quiet and beautiful ocean.

I found already nice company. We found each other even before the ship left Hamburg yesterday. Doddo can tell you much about it.

It is really wonderful here. After departure we visited for a little while, had a glass of beer and sandwiches until we retired about 11:30 p.m. I slept wonderful until 5:00 a.m. when the sun shone one me so invitingly that I first looked out the porthole for a little while, went back to sleep until 7:30 a.m.

We all met before breakfast until we were seated. The nice guy who tried to flirt with me last night and I are sitting at a table together. He is from Budapest and already fifteen years in New York. He reminds me of some other friends. Two girls sit alone because they eat kosher. The others are spread around. After a very large breakfast we went for a walk, then we rented chairs and are resting from doing nothing.

We are always in groups of four or six or more. This morning I also played ping pong to improve my appetite! In between they served consomme and crackers. After dinner we played catch, etc. before resting in our chairs again, three hours except for taking a few snapshots. It is good that my table mate is American. He can read the menu And tell me what it is. Just now we got tea and cookies.

I am getting lazier by the minute. Your know what corns on a certain place are? Well I think I am getting them.

On the Deck of the SS Manhattan May 9, 1934

There are several people on board who have given me regards from friends but I am not very interested in most of them.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, a few of us want to walk a bit around LeHavre. Now I want to take a nap before dinner. Hope you can read this o.k.

Love, Trudel

The next letter is May 17. I will try to post more photos from the ship before then.

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