Morocco Malta and the Med: Thank God, A Day at Sea
Actually, the “day” in Rome did not end as expected. After the lecture, we ate dinner, and the captain announced we would be departing early (thank goodness we didn’t plan on dinner in Rome, as the first departure time was 10 pm) due to upcoming bad weather. Other cruise ships were also departing, trying to get out of Dodge (so to speak) before the heavy winds and tumultuous sea hit.
Sea day means time to do laundry, and realizing there would be a lot of people wanting to do laundry, I grabbed our bag right after dinner and was able to find a washing machine that was free. Another woman was actually quicker than I was, and had two washers, but even with my one, there was still one left. The instructions appeared simple, lots of pictures, but I still had a problem figuring out how the detergent works (you have to press a button in another place). When I got back, just in time, there was one dryer and zero washers, and people waiting for my washer, so I felt really good about my timing, and getting it done. Now my Sea Day is all mine!
And, of course, on the first morning in a week that I could sleep in, I have adjusted to local time and I am wide awake at 5 a.m. when I normally get up to swim. There is NO ONE else up at 5 a.m. except the people who make coffee, thank God, and are busy getting breakfast ready. I had the Explorer Lounge all to myself for the first hour while I caught up on my Lectionary readings, my e-mails, and the news. And captured the rising sun 😊.
I truly need a sea day. While my normal life is active, it is not as quickly paced as this week of travel days has been, and I need time for absorption, for processing what I observe, what I see, and what I experience.
I have found an old book about Malta, The Sword and the Scimitar, by David Ball, which has tiny print, but oh, I loved reading this book which starts in Malta with two Maltese children and the Knights of Malta, and takes us from there to the slave markets of Algiers, and the Ottoman Empire in Constantinople, Pirate ships, and the great battle for Malta! I am a fast reader, and this book took me weeks to finish, but I found it memorable and addictive. My husband is reading it now, equally addicted. At last, I have time to read, and to nap!
We have also signed up for the tour of the Bayeux Tapestry murals aboard the Viking Saturn with resident historian Knut Nesse, which was fascinating, and we all learned so much from him because it was limited to eight people who asked excellent questions. I had read David Howarth’s book 1066 which covers the eventful year from beginning to eventful end and refers to the tapestry, among many sources, as he sketches out how narrowly William the Conqueror achieved his 1066 victory.
And with no time at all to lose, we had another lecture at 3:00 with Professor David Rohl discussing “The Bones of Saint Peter and Saint Paul.” You know you are on a Viking ship when you have such great lectures that you can’t resist attending, and, in fact, the lecture hall was packed for Doctor Rohl’s presentation.
Have I told you about the Viking Spa? It’s our favorite luxury on board, this highly heated pool with bubble massagers and waves and an attached hot tub? It is surrounded by flat lounge beds with thick warm thirsty towels, cold water in nice glasses, a snow room, a moist steam room, and a water wall that creates a white nose to lull you into sleep. So relaxing.
The sea is rolling. Not all passengers are feeling well. We didn’t entirely escape the rough weather. As we prepared for this trip, we kept seeing projections for rain, but we haven’t seen any rain until today, just droplets, not a storm.
I’ve never been to “Tea” on a Viking ship, so I talk my husband into going with me – only to discover that it’s too late, every table is taken, every chair occupied. I think this is God’s way of telling me I didn’t need tea today, LOL, so we head for the bar and a quick espresso to celebrate our day at sea. Tomorrow we start two days in Malta; we are excited.
Sunset over the Tyrrhenian Sea
Tauck Treats: A Day of Amazement in Paris
Sunrise over the Seine, and yes, that is the Eifel Tower and it is another glorious (and hot) day. We are still jet lagging, which means getting up early is easy.
It is wonderful to have a grandson who has a good eye with a camera.
The area where we are docked is modern, with businesses, apartment blocks, a little industrial, and – we are right by a beautiful park with an air balloon, convenient to a train station just steps away on a major line that can take us anywhere we want to go (K discovered this yesterday and shares with us) and we are sleeping on the Seine with a view of the Eifel tower. For me, it just never fails to thrill.
Tauck Treats. Today is a day like no other, for me. Today, I just do what I’m told, go where I am taken and I don’t have to make things happen, just be fully present. I love it. Tauck doesn’t tell you everything you’re going to do; it is a mystery, a treat when it happens. One of today’s treats is that they are giving us Euros to find where we want to eat. The amount is generous, and some are choosing to eat street food and spend the rest on souvenirs.
One surprise is that we are on a smaller, private Bateau Mouche. This is really fun! We are doing the same trip, only one way; we board right next to our ship and will get off at Ile de la Cite’.
I love his bird’s eye view – I wonder if he has to walk up all those flights carrying his groceries? Maybe they have retrofitted an elevator?
We arrive; the normal toilets are blocked off with the upcoming Olympics, so Tauck makes a deal with a local store to let us use their restroom – a familiar store on the Left Bank (Subway.)
It’s a long line, but serendipitous – we start to meet our cruising mates. Here is one of the unexpected blessings. The cruise is full of families of all shapes and kinds. Some are celebrating, and some are grieving and overcoming losses. Some are traditional and some are not. The families are formulated all different ways with one thing in common – they love their children and grandchildren, and the trip is a wonderful way to spend time together. We all have a lot in common, no matter what our differences might be.
We are in the group that starts with the Citroyen Tour, and we have to be a party of three so we ask to take N with us – she is a lot of fun.
We arrived back at the meeting point to discover our other three family members had not been able to go, they were one car short! We agreed to take N on the next activity, and then split up for lunch, agreeing to meet in an hour.
We walked a short way into the Left Bank and found a place to eat that sang to our souls.
Our time in Paris is short; we are happy to make the most of it!
Pork with sauce, frites, and salad
Steak frites and salad
I forgot to take pictures of the chocolate mousse!
Across the street was a very beautiful small church, Sainte Severin. As we stood outside looking at it, the waiter ran after us carrying my husband’s “go bag” with our maps and water jugs. He was so kind and went to a lot of trouble to catch us.
We meet up with our family, grab N and head for our group meet-up.
We love Paris. We’ve spent a lot of time in Paris. AdventureMan and I agree that our next experience blows us out of the water. It is thrilling, and it brings history to life in an intense way – you are a participant!
It is called Eternelle Notre Dame.
If someone told you that you would experience the history of Notre Dame Cathedral, you might go ho-hum. I did.
We were guided downstairs to what I am told used to be an underground parking lot, now a museum and virtual reality area. N went with a couple of her friends, and we were right behind her. You only “see” the persons in your group, but others appear, and we always know which one was N, so we felt comfortable that she was safe.
We were suited up with a backpack thing and helmet, including goggles that covered our entire upper faces. It felt a little creepy but I was curious enough to endure it.
And then the adventure begins! Your medieval guide appears and gives you instructions. You see a path and you follow it, or if you do not, you wait for instruction. Sounds simple enough, right? At the beginning, it is.
You are surrounded by medieval Paris. You meet the craftsmen and watch them work. They are just beginning to build the cathedral.
Now I will stop telling you about the experience or I may tell you too much. Perhaps I am too suggestible. My husband said I nearly gripped his hand off! There were times I could NOT move forward, I was so afraid. I knew this was make-believe, but my lying eyes told me otherwise. Once, I groaned aloud!
It was one of the most memorable, intense Paris experiences I have ever had, and I feel like I was there, all the many years they spent building the cathedral. I had no idea! When I can re-visit the real Notre Dame of Paris, it will be with new eyes and new appreciation!
(I screenshotted these images off TripAdvisor, which sells tickets for this visit.)
N had a great time, too. We met up with her parents and then parted company. Here is the truth – sometimes we are bad examples to our grandchildren. We skipped the walk. We told the guide we knew how to return to the ship, and we went to a cafe to sit and talk about our Eternelle Notre Dame experience. What was really fun was that the walking group went by and we waved at our family from our cafe’ table.
We had an iced lemon drink, leisurely found our way to the metro/train station, and caught the train to Javel. It was a short walk to the ship, where we met up for a lively dinner.
Dinner at Cafe de Paris
Sounds mighty fancy, doesn’t it? The truth is the Cafe de Paris is a lively restaurant just across the street from our hotel. It is full – a mix of tourists and locals stopping by after work. I am running on fumes; we’ve hit 17,000 steps, and I am tired. I am almost too tired to eat, but if we don’t eat, we’ll be awake and starving in the middle of the night, so we step into the Cafe de Paris, and the very kind waitperson seats us immediately in a little alcove, a lovely, comfortable, private table for two right by a wall with a window that seems to have disappeared. We are inside, but we have a great breeze and a view of the Arch.
I order a duck confit, just because I can, because I am in France and not in Pensacola, and duck is on the menu. We were so tired, we can’t even remember what my husband had. We think we remember he had a charcuterie board. First, we had wine, a rich red complicated Bordeaux that might also be why we can’t remember. We know whatever we had was just great.
We were happily surprised by the bill at the end of the meal. It was all very reasonable, especially drinking a good wine. Happy, appetite satisfied, and exhausted, we staggered across the street to the Napoleon and had a great night’s sleep.
The Ute Tribal Museum in Montrose, Colorado
Our next stop was the Ute Tribal Museum in Montrose, a two-hour stop in a museum full of meaningful information on Ute daily life, the long history of the Utes on this continent, and the shameful treatment they received at the hand of our government, cynically breaking treaties and steadily eroding Ute territorial holdings.
There are all kinds of educational segments using materials to give a hands-on understanding of how teepees were raised, for example, and how beading was accomplished.
There were weaponry displays and best of all, there were many short visual film segments on a variety of topics, including a 22-minute film on the Bear Dance, which was absolutely fascinating. They had a gift shop full of wonderful jewelry and art pieces, as well as the usual books and souvenirs.
The Ute Museum was one of the highlights of our trip. It came at just the right time, as we were still at the beginning of our trip, and could relate much of what we learned to what we saw along the way.
At Sea: We Need to Talk About Ashok
Those of you who know AdventureMan and I personally know that we are relentlessly self-reliant. With all our years of moving and living in a variety of countries, we have needed to be, but in truth, we are wired that way. You will laugh when I say I am uncomfortable even introducing this topic.
Our beautiful room comes with a butler.
It has been an awkward dance, but Ashok, our butler, is a pro at assessing people and working with their preferences. We don’t need a lot of service, and he has found ways to make himself useful to us anyway. Discovering I like Ginger Beer, he scoured the bars, alerted his contacts, and made sure our little refrigerator was well stocked with AdventureMan’s Coca Cola, and my Ginger Beer. He was always polite and pleasant.
The night we had decided to have dinner on the balcony after our day in Taormina and had saved parts of our sandwiches from lunch, we also found a generous tray of hors d’oeuvres waiting for us when we arrived late back to the ship. We had to admit, it was really nice, he had intuited well what we might like.
When we got tired of dressing for dinner and asked to have dinner in our room (part of the perks), he served us with elegance and grace, and made it so much fun that we indulged every few nights.
When AdventureMan wanted his laundry done professionally, Ashok made sure it came back very quickly.
In spite of our self-reliance, Ashok learned how to make himself invaluable to us. And, in truth, we really liked him, and loved our discussions with him. We were impressed with his resourcefulness, and his delight in making things happen. He seemed to delight in delighting us.
We are at sea for two days, en route from Messina to Haifa, Israel.
I was wide awake by five, so I got up quietly and dressed, grabbed my computer, found a cup of coffee at Barista’s, and headed up to Horizon’s, the forward observation lounge to check e-mails. Over 300 e-mails, horrors! I spent a while just deleting, then responding to the few requiring attention – requests from Air France for rating how I liked my flights, and a couple e-mails from friends. Most of the time, in this large lounge, it was just me and one or two others. I did get a nice photo of the sun coming up; it looks a lot like the day before.
When I headed back to our cabin, AdventureMan was just getting up, so we went together to breakfast where I am so delighted to find marinated herring and smoked salmon, two of my favorite things in the world. (It’s my Swedish blood talking.) AdventureMan finds herring abhorrent, and so does the Indonesian lady dishing it up; when I say a bright cheery “thank you!” her response was meant to be a smile, but it was a little twisted by disgust. I also had my virtuous oatmeal, with virtuous fresh blueberries – so much temptation, but my blood sugar is well within normal and I want to keep it there.
After breakfast I introduced AdventureMan to a new thrill – the spa pool at the front of the ship. It is just below the Horizons Lounge, and we had noticed that if you enter the pool by the stairs, you are visible to the people in the lounge. It doesn’t bother AdventureMan, but I figured out how to enter from the side, so as to remain unseen. The spa is very warm to hot, and can be made to bubble, so we had a wonderful twenty minutes in the hot tub in the fresh air, then we headed back to our room.
This early morning trip to the spa, having it all to ourselves, became another guilty pleasure. So lovely, so indulgent.
This quiet sea day, I napped a lot. I meant to read. I meant to update this journal. I napped. I don’t even feel guilty, it felt so good.
Our cabin as all shades of grayish green, sea colors. The walls look almost gray, but there are streaks of green in the wall paper. The upholstered headboard is a very pale shade of sea-green. The furniture and pillows a little bit darker shade of green, and the two pashmina throws to keep us warm are almost an exact match to the furniture. It’s all very soothing.
There is a little “couch,” really more of a love-seat, where I can fall asleep very easily.
Space is smartly allocated so that there is plenty of closet space, with doors that open so you can see everything, and enough hangers. (Enough hangers! I didn’t have to ask for more!) There are enough drawers to stow things in neatly. The bathroom has two upper-side cupboards, and two lower cupboards with shelves, too. There is more cupboard space in the bathroom than we need; we can keep everything in cupboards, out of sight. (This is a first.)
The ship is very silent. We don’t hear the motors, or the anchors dropping or lifting. We feel little sways and jerks now and then. At one point the weather changed briefly, we had rain. At night the ship swayed enough to cause some to have problems with balance, but it wasn’t much. We can feel the boat rock side to side, just a little, now and then. It is like being a baby again, held against your Mama as she walks about, feeling safe and secure. I napped a lot.
Dinner this night at sea was an Italian Market special, and we ate once again in the casual restaurant but dressed up a little. As it was a little cold and windy, we ate inside instead of at our usual table on the back terrace. It was one of my favorite meals – grilled Italian vegetables (mostly eggplant and peppers) and a big bowl of an Italian kind of Bouillabaisse, a fish stew, and it was wonderful.
In the restaurant, I could overhear a conversation I longed to join, two tables away, about Amor Towles and A Gentleman in Moscow. I tried to see who the people were, an assortment of six, but I am not sure I would recognize them again. Another woman, seated nearby, was very blonde with a bright red pashmina wrapped around her shoulders – I’ve always envied that drama, and know it isn’t really my style.
Even though I napped a lot during the day, I slept well this night for the first time since Barcelona.
We slept fairly well through the night, awakening around five but getting back to sleep again for another day at sea. Nice breakfast on the Terrace (my virtuous oatmeal, this time with fresh raspberries), followed by another early visit to the spa, where at that early hour, we have it all to ourselves. We were out in time to get ready for the Veteran’s Day/ Remembrance Day Ceremony at 9:15 in the Nautica Lounge. It was simple, short and sweet.
We were back at the Nautica Lounge just a short while later for another enrichment lecture on the Knights Hospitaler and Knights Templar, which helps put everything in context for our upcoming trip to Acre while we stop in Haifa.
We nap and read through the quiet afternoon as we pass south of Crete and Greece, never seeing a speck of land. Tonight is dinner at Toscana, the ship’s specialty Italian restaurant; we have dinner reservations at seven. We know a waiter who works there, Buti, and he has been waiting for us to come see him.
The problem, for us, is that by late afternoon we are already closing down. We’ve always been this way, but when we were younger, we really didn’t know it. We dress, I wear the one little black dress I have brought for special evenings, with a red scarf, my own toast to a little drama. When we get to Toscana, there is a line, the restaurant isn’t open yet so we go into the library. Shortly, the Jewish Shabbat began, and we left to give them privacy, got in the line, and very shortly got in and asked to be seated in Buti’s section.
Buti treated us like gold. We felt so special. When I ordered, he insisted I add a small dish of pasta, angel hair aglio oglio, and when he brought it, it was perfect. He also brought a small bowl of sambol oelek sauce, which I know from Kuwait and Qatar, spicy hot peppers in a little vinegar, absolutely divine. I also had Veal Marsala, and AdventureMan had a Caprese Salad and Linguini Cioppiono. Altogether, it was a lovely meal. All around us people were laughing and talking, a single man at the next table was reading Saul Bellow, and as nice as it all was, it was slowly elegant and we got restless. We skipped dessert, which is a really good thing, because my blood sugar was 123 the next day, which gave me a good wake-up call.
I loved the sambol oelek, and I loved the angel hair pasta. It’s hard for me to be gracious after five at night. When we got home, we were exhausted. Everyone is so kind, wanting to make us feel so special, and I just feel tired and happy to be back in my room getting ready for bed.
Insh’allah
One of today’s readings in the Lectionary always brings a smile to my face. I can hear my teacher at the Qatar Center for the Presentation of Islam (where I was studying Arabic in Doha, Qatar) saying to me “don’t you know your own book? It tells you never to say you are going to do something without adding Insh’allah (God willing) because we never know even what the next minute will bring.”
James 4: 13-17
Boasting About Tomorrow
13 Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” 14 Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. 15 Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 16 As it is, you boast in your arrogant schemes. All such boasting is evil. 17 If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.
It’s a perfect reading for the last day of a troubled year, preparing for a year in which we have no idea what joys or troubles are in store for us.
Today, I look back with gratitude to that whole period in my life where I lived in the Middle East and was forced to confront my own ignorance. I was not only ignorant about my Muslim neighbors, I was equally ignorant about my own religion. My years among the Muslims motivated me to learn more about what I believed, and why.
This month, my religious mentor died. She had an enormous influence on my life, on bringing me to where I am today. When I returned to the United States, understanding how little I knew about my own religion, I enrolled in a four-year seminar in theology through an Episcopal Church program called Education for Ministry. It was life-changing. The first-year students read Old Testament, the second-year students read New Testament, the third-year students read Diarmaid MacCulloch’s book Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years, and the fourth-year students read a variety of theological perspectives.
(MacCulloch’s book is thick and intimidating – and surprised us all with how much fun it was to read.)
My mentor was a skilled counselor and guide; she led us through all-year discussions of our weekly readings, so in the four-year program, we not only were reading our own year but giving input on the other’s readings. The discussions were lively and provocative. Slowly, even without realizing it, the students bonded closely with one another. We learned a very important lesson – how to disagree with people, especially when you felt strongly about an issue, and remain respectful.
It has served me well, living as I do in another alien culture. Although I was raised in a hunting culture (Alaska), when I lived there people kept their weapons locked away when not in use. There was no open-carry. As kids, we were lined up at school and given vaccinations, which we accepted as being necessary for our own well-being and the well-being of the community. I don’t believe we had a single black person in town, but we had the original inhabitants, Inuit, Haida, Tlingket and we all went to school together peaceably. My father worked for the government, he served. Service to country is a tradition in my family. I am aghast at elected officials who mistake staging political drama for good governance. I struggle to achieve civil discourse about issues about which I feel strongly.
And so I am thankful for all the years living among others; among the vanquished in Germany, among the desert people of Tunisia, and among the people of Abraham’s other son, Ishmael. Their patience with me taught me so much about myself, and that even my strongly-held convictions may not be nuanced enough to capture what passes for truth. It serves me well to this day, and, I hope, will continue to humble me as we enter this coming new year, Insh’allah.
Record High STD Rates Go Hand in Hand With Rising Ignorance
CDC says STD cases in U.S. rose to record high in 2018 as funding lags
“The resurgence of syphilis, and particularly congenital syphilis, is not an arbitrary event, but rather a symptom of a deteriorating public health infrastructure and lack of access to health care,” Gail Bolan, the CDC’s director of STD Prevention, said in the report.
Antibiotics can cure chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis, but many people fail to get screened and treated for the diseases.
The CDC’s annual STD prevention budget decreased in purchasing power by 40% from 2003 to 2018, according to data released by the National Coalition of STD Directors, an association of local health officials. The CDC’s financial data was first consolidated into the U.s. Health and Human Services financial reports in 2003.
Half of STD cases occur in people between the ages of 15 and 24 years old and can lead to health complications including infertility and increased risk of contracting HIV.
In 2018, the CDC received reports of nearly 1.8 million cases of chlamydia, some 580,000 cases of gonorrhea and more than 115,000 cases of syphilis. Of the 1,306 cases of congenital syphilis in 2018, 78 resulted in stillbirths and 16 in infant death.
(Reporting by Gabriella Borter in New York; Editing by Frank McGurty and Bill Berkrot)
My comment: This is what happens when we rely on “abstinence” and fail to fund Planned Parenthood AND other community sources of reliable information for young people. Oh yes, it would be so nice if teen-agers and young adults went to their parents for advice on keeping sex safe – is that what YOU did? What teenager does??
Teenagers and sex go hand in hand, young adults and sex go hand in hand. If we want to prevent STD’s, we have to give them accurate information as to what they are and how they can be prevented.
Do I sound exasperated????
Some of the things out there these days are increasingly drug-resistant. It is a DISGRACE that we are not preparing our children for the realities of the world, preparing them to live responsible lives and funding sources of accurate information (and yes, even birth control products) to keep them SAFE.
Exasperated?? Yes! Thanks for letting me vent.
Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum
“She shows us the same things,” you might complain, and again I say “I write this blog for myself and for the love of writing about the things I love. You are welcome, all are welcome, and if you are not happy, you are welcome to go elsewhere!”
I’ve lived an odd life, a life I would’t trade with anyone. I grew up in Alaska, on an island with a lot of native Americans as my fellow students in my little elementary school. I grew up with Alaskan art, Indian artifacts, masks, baskets, and the hand made costumes, red and black images, sparked with trimming of white shirt buttons. I went to high school in Germany, traveling far and wide with my family or with friends through that continent, visiting more than a few churches and museums, even making special trips to see an exhibit or two.
Then a big change, life in the Middle East and Africa, where I learned to see things through a very different set of eyes and experiences, but something strange started happening, as I noted the differences, I could also see amazing similarities.
I love women’s handwork. I love the nomadic textiles, often made on very narrow looms that could be mostly a couple sticks and yarn from sheep or goats you’ve raised and slaughtered, died with whatever you could get your hands on. And, oddly, the weavings and patterns from Native American baskets and weavings have a lot in common with weavings from the Middle East, West Asia (the ‘Stans) and Africa. There is a love of working with black, white and red, for example, and a similarity to the structure of the animals, even when the animals themselves differ.
If you are interested in the work women do with their hands, you never lack for conversation wherever you go. There are always groups where women are teaching one another new techniques. I’ve met wonderful, creative women in Germany and in Kuwait and in Tunisia, all finding new and innovative ways to create, and also exploring preservation of early and ancient techniques.
So this Museum, the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and Museum was richly rewarding for both AdventureMan and myself; it was rich in history, in interviews and movies showing early salmon runs, for example, and interviews with early Native Oregonians. It was also rich in exploring the techniques of early basket making and cooking techniques, preservation of salmon by drying and salting, etc. We spent hours in this museum, and we heartily recommend that you do, too 🙂 It is also a very gorgeous museum, rich in sensory impact, unforgettable.
I will show you pictures, and every now and then I will put in a little explanation.
Below is a dugout canoe, created from one very large cedar tree trunk, carved out by hand
There were really Direwolfs? GOT didn’t make them up?
Look at the motifs on these baskets! African? Azerbaijani? Kazakh? Kuwaiti?
For grinding chestnuts into paste, then the paste is cooked into a kind of meal like oatmeal. The morter and pestle is the same in so many places.
The round cooking stones, heated in fires, dropped into the meal, fished out once they start losing their heat, washed, reheated and put in again until the meal reaches a boil, all in this tightly woven basket.
Activity in the Children’s exploration area
We love the creativity and persistence of humans who preserve our heritage and traditions for future generations. It is particularly delightful when the preservation is in a museum conceived and manifested with beautiful elements and natural materials.
Wake of the Vikings: A Short Day in L’Anse Aux Meadows
We have a wake-up call for six o’clock; we are on the first tender headed into L’anse Aux Meadows and we are excited. Who wouldn’t be; just look at this gorgeous morning sky to greet us. I’m good with drama if it is a morning or evening sky.
We wait a long time to get clearance; there is one other boat in town, and it is the National Geographic Explorer. Canadian Customs officials have to go through our paperwork and interview a select few face-to-face. Our 0700 departure is more like 0830.
No rain, so we are thankful, because rain is predicted. We are hoping it will hold off until we have visited the L’anse Aux Meadows Viking Site. Or is it a Native American Camp? For many long years it was believed to be Native American, but a team of archaeologists did a re-look and determined it may well have been an early Norse settlement.
The people in L’anse Aux Meadows go all out to make this interesting for their visitors. They dress in Viking costume to welcome us, and the site we visit has people who are “in character” telling us about their challenging lives in the early settlement, which only lasted maybe ten years.
Below is the woman who organized the buses:
A beautiful statue of the Vikings reaching the new world:
Statue detail of the ship:
There are a series of rooms built together, covered with sod. At one end is an outbuilding with a lathe. This may be someone’s imagination rather than something they really found, like they may have found evidence of an out-building and someone thought “oh it might have been a place where people worked wood, which Vikings did, a lot.” 
These character actors really enjoy playing their roles. They were a hardy lot, and they work hard.
Decoration on entry to middle of houses:
Outside view of houses:
To the far end of the connected rooms is a multiple bedroom, with kinds of clothing they might have worn. The beds are small, the mattresses thin. It would appear this might be where a family might live, or a father keep his unmarried daughters, as it looks like the next room, much larger, is more of a lodge room where unattached men might sleep along the side of rooms or on the floor near the fire.
More clothing, and cooking tools. Sigh. I am guessing mostly women did the cooking, and that those are women’s clothes, and the corner where they speculate women might have worked preparing meals.
I love the room at the far end. I bet some old woman lived there, some old woman who loved fabrics and colors and textures, who would shear the sheep and clean and comb the wool, card the wool and make it into yarn, or thin threads that could be woven into serviceable clothing.
And I am speculating that old woman slept in this chaste little bed among all the supplies for spinning and weaving the wool into yarn and fabrics to clothe the inhabitants. Maybe she even made warm blankets 🙂
Outside the far end of the long house, with an opening for smoke to escape, and light to come in.
This was a forge. What it seems they might have made there was nails, using the most primitive tools and techniques.
We walked back to the center, where we were told to catch the bus, but we are told no, go to this bus-gathering place. Our meet-up seems to have been scheduled about the same time as the National Geographic Explorer meet-up, as their buses are there and . . . ours are not. It is starting to rain.
We wait a long time, and then our bus comes, to take us to another stop, a sort of re-creation of someone’s idea what things may have been like. AdventureMan and I look at each other. He is really tired. He wants to go back to the ship. When the others get off, we stay on, and one other couple asks if the bus can take us to the ship. More and more people figure out that this bus might be going back to the ship, and hop on.
It is really raining now. A tender has just arrived, and a lot of people get off, more people than I would have thought possible. We get on. I learn that a tender can hold a total of 234 people. We head back to the ship. On our way to the elevator, we ask the spa lady if the spa pool is open and she says “YES!” We run upstairs and take off all our clothes and jump into our swim clothes and head down to the hot pool. There is no one else there, just us, rolling around, warming our chilled bodies in the relaxing hot pool and the “ya-kut-zee.” We have a quick lunch, AdventureMan sacks out, and the ship is making rumbles like we are leaving L’anse aux Meadows any minute now. Life is sweet, or as the Captain ends all of his daily announcements from the bridge – All is Well.
World War II Museum Re-Visit
Ah! What a difference a day makes! We do not have the museum all to ourselves, but we have room to breathe. The lines are short, there is no huge din of voices in the cavernous spaces. We are so glad to be here!
There is something very special about this museum, something we are finding in our visits around the United States, and that is the vision of the volunteers. There is something so lovely and so meaningful about how these generous souls are leaving the workplace, and then working, free, because they believe in something. The World War II Museum couldn’t function without it’s cadre of volunteers, and these volunteers are treasure troves of first hand knowledge about the displays and equipment. Bravo! Brava! to all the Valiant Volunteers at the World War II Museum!
See all those people? This is nothing compared to the day before!
We hurried to the Nazi Propaganda display. It was terrifying. A “Strong Man” takes over using simple, strong phrases, telling the voters that only he can solve the problems, and blaming foreigners and “the other” for the nation’s problems. He wins, and chaos ensues.
Oh? Pardon me, my politics are showing.
AdventureMan has a ball. I poke around, but WWII is not my era, and I have some reading I really want to get done. I find a bench in the ship displays, and have a quiet couple of hours to read while AdventureMan pursues his bliss. Hey, it works for us.
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