The weather was mild and beautiful. It was a sad and happy Thanksgiving; sad for those not with us any longer, happy to be with those who love the departed.
Pelicans at PCB:
Finally, a year when both grandchildren could make it through the entire Nutcracker Ballet in Pensacola, and were utterly rapt. We want them to have this joyous experience!
For the first time, they were checking bags, and almost didn’t let me take my camera in. One person said “no photos” but the other said “you can take photos but no video and no flash” which is fine by me; my little Lumix does great in low light.
Maybe I’m not a kid anymore, but I have always loved the arrival of the pirate ship!
My favorite dance:
Hmmm . . . . well, maybe Nutcracker isn’t just for the grandchildren 🙂
We had the most wonderful Christmas day, family in the morning and afternoon, friends in the evening. We also decided not to go to New Orleans during the week between Christmas and New Years as we often do, and to go in February, after Lent starts on February 14 (what a dismal day for Lent to start! Valentine’s Day for Ash Wednesday!) I have some more items for our friends at Zito’s to clean and polish for me. The work they do gives us so much pleasure.
Christmas was also a little odd, because I was energetic and got the first step up – lights and greenery going up the staircase, and a thousand or so little silver stars – only to discover that our two new rescue cats, well, new since February, thought this was all for their delight. Ragnar, especially, loved untying the strings that tied up the greenery, and then – horrors! – chewed through the wires on the lights, in several places! I completely re-did the lights, twice, and just as quickly, he chewed through the strings and the lights. I finally figured out that green ribbon worked to keep the greenery up, but we had to forego the lights. We didn’t want a fire hazard, and we didn’t want the cats to be electrocuted. Uhtred pulled a star or two off every day, but they were easily replaced.
We have been hitting our favorite restaurants, and one new one we weren’t crazy about. At our absolute favorite restaurant, a Cajun/beach style restaurant, when we went to pay the bill, they told us as “frequent and highly valued customers,” our meal was on them. Wow. What is so funny is that we had just been talking about our Christmas experiences in Germany, where those restaurants you frequented would give you some small gift, like an Italian restaurant had gift Pannetones, and a German restaurant might gift you with a small schnapps. The Chinese restaurants would give you a small Plum wine. We were missing that, and then, we were stunned when they told us thank you for being such good customers and that it was their treat this time. It totally made my day, another small kindness, but even the smallest kindness packs a punch.
This morning, the last day of 2017, we hit the early service at Christ Church, visited with our friends and neighbors, then had breakfast at C.J.’s, as I needed to make a trip to the commissary and CJ’s is on the way. I like the one-egg breakfast, but today I also ordered a side of one beignet, and the waitress said that the order of 3 was a better deal; you pay $2 for one, and you get 3 for $3. Makes sense to me; I ordered the 3 and AdventureMan helped me out by eating one and we have one to warm up and split tomorrow on New Year’s morning. These beignets were so fresh and so good! We’ve had a little bit of New Orleans without going to New Orleans.
Mardi Gras starts here on January 5 with an all-Krewe party and parade downtown, big party. When all the partying is over, we’ll head back to New Orleans.
I am not Mormon. Yes, I say good things about the Mormons, and that is because the Mormon people I know are smart, savvy, and hard working. They make time in their life in a structured way, to take care of those around them. They feed the poor, they welcome the stranger, they clothe the naked, they visit the prisoner, they take care of the widow and the orphans – all the things we are told are important to do in order to show the world our love for God and our love for one another. The Mormons have made a science of it, including teaching and learning foreign languages, and sending their young out into the world to spread the word, but also giving them an opportunity to develop a broader perspective, another point of view, living in a foreign country.
AdventureMan and I have a food-truck-turned-settled restaurant we have recently found and love, Taqueria El Asador, on North Davis in a Shell station. You’ll know it by the cars parked all around it as people get to know just how good the food is. My favorite is a burrito Campechano, and AdventureMan loves the Pollo Platter.
It’s outdoors. Mostly we take out. While I was waiting for our order, I saw this among all the ads looking for people to frame, do masonry, or to clean:
We are surrounded by immigrants. Many of the workers are in paint stained clothing, many are in overalls, many in scrubs from the nearby hospital and clinics. The prices are reasonable, and it’s lunchtime. This “ad” is in Spanish, offering free English lessons to those who want to learn English, and how else are you going to get ahead, to fit into your new home, get a better job? The Mormon church is giving exactly the kind of hand-up that will help them find the better life for themselves and their families, and it is offering this tool for free.
Someone more cynical might think they are just trying to convert more Mormons, but anyone who is in the helping business knows that helping doesn’t mean you will get an anticipated response. I would be willing to bet, however, that the kindness doesn’t end there, that the Mormon church has structures in place to help the English learners with clothing, maybe with better jobs, maybe with people who can explain customs, take them to interviews, explain benefits, etc. I would be willing to bet that it isn’t the services offered, but the pure kindness behind those offers that can change hearts. I may not be Mormon, but I can admire the way they do God’s work.
(Women have been driving in Saudi Arabia for years. Brothers, fathers, take the women into the desert and teach them so that in an emergency they will have the skills. Saudi women drive outside the kingdom. Now, they will – legally – be allowed to drive in their own country. Hallejujia!
What an irony, that women are gaining rights under repressive regimes, and losing rights in the USA under our current regime)
Saudi government says it will allow women to drive
Saudi Arabia plans to lift ban on women driving
The change aligns Saudi Arabia with virtually every other country in the world, including other conservative monarchies in the Persian Gulf. (The Washington Post)
Women in Saudi Arabia will be permitted to drive in the kingdom for the first time, according to a royal decree issued in Riyadh on Tuesday that overturned one of the most widely criticized restrictions on human rights.
The change may be the most visible sign yet of a modernizing Saudi Arabia, with reforms implemented by the heir apparent to the Saudi throne, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Signed by his father, King Salman, and broadcast on state television, the decree said that the “majority of senior scholars” had deemed the change legitimate under Islamic law and ordered the government ministries concerned to make whatever legal adjustments are required to implement it by June 24.
For much of the rest of the world, the prohibition on women driving has long symbolized the many restrictions on individual freedoms in Saudi Arabia, particularly those applying to women.
The Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Khaled bin Salman, who spoke at a news conference in Washington, hailed the development as a “historic, big day in our kingdom.” He said that female drivers would not need to travel with male “guardians” or seek permission to obtain driver’s licenses, and that women’s licenses from other countries in the region would be recognized.
The change aligns Saudi Arabia with other conservative monarchies in the Persian Gulf that have long allowed women to drive. It was unclear whether the lifting of requirements that male relatives accompany women or give permission for them to leave their homes, still implemented in much of the country, would apply to activities other than driving.
Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud speaks at a ceremony on Sept. 20, 2017. (Bandar Al-Jaloud/AFP/Getty Images)
The Saudi government, which has long endured negative publicity over its restrictive domestic policies, was eager to broadcast the change. In addition to the news conference at the embassy in Washington, the Foreign Ministry contacted reporters offering to arrange calls with selected Saudi women to comment on the policy.
The ambassador said the decision was not based on religion but on social and economic considerations, and was part of the modernization reforms being implemented by the crown prince.
“There is no wrong time to do the right thing,” the ebullient ambassador said. With more women entering the workplace, “they need to drive themselves to work.” He said the implementation delay was needed to ensure that the legal and logistical environment was prepared for the change. “We have to make sure our streets are ready” for a potential doubling in traffic, he said.
Actually, it isn’t a Bad Moon Rising, it’s my blood pressure.
We’ve not paid any attention to the news for almost three weeks. We would catch a glimpse here and there, but we had other things to hold our attention.
I usually watch news while waiting for our grandson to arrive after school. It’s like an addiction. I can feel myself getting angry and tense, I don’t really think my blood pressure is really going up, but I no longer feel relaxed and content.
I can’t speak for AdventureMan, but together we spent years in Germany and in the Middle East, at military posts and in Embassies, fighting totalitarian regimes who cannot tolerate and who suppress all dissension.
I saw a news story yesterday, about an 88 year old WWII veteran who posted a photo of himself, a white man, bending the knee in support of those who are using the bent knee as a non-violent, respectful way of drawing attention to recent increased racial inequality and injustice in our great nation. His courage brought tears to my eyes. He says “I am a warrior, and I stand for all the good things that our nation stands for. We stand together for justice and equality.” He expressed solidarity with those bending their knees.
I don’t see bending the knee as disrespectful. It’s not turning one’s back. It’s not disrespectful to our country in any real way. It’s an expression that all is not well with the current direction of our leadership. It’s a First Amendment right, peaceful dissension.
I wonder if I bend the knee in support, will someone help me get back up? 🙂
It is another beautiful, soft morning as we dock in Montreal. This is the first time we haven’t been scrambling for the airport at o-dark-thirty; today we have time for a leisurely breakfast on our balcony before we have to vacate our room.
Exactly when we asked for it, breakfast arrives in our room; lovely fresh croissants, eggs, bacon, orange juice to pump up the Vitamin C for AdventureMan. We bask in the luxury of having breakfast made for us and delivered.
The roller coaster across the channel starts running early!
We finish our breakfast, we dress, we vacate, we wait for our ride to the airport. The airport is quiet, even serene, on this Saturday morning, even with all the cruisers coming through to head home.
We get to Pensacola in the early evening, and we barely stop to brush our teeth before we head for bed. It was a wonderful trip, and it’s also wonderful to be home.
It is a joyful morning. The air is soft, the sky is blue, and Quebec shines like a jewel in the harbor.
The sun is gleaming off a smaller white boat – a tug?
The tug starts shooting off water. This is interesting! What is he doing? Is the tug able to use seawater to form the chute of water? Is it also a fireboat?
The boat starts toward our boat, and one chute of the water is grazing the bow! Oh no! Is he going to spray all the cruise ship guests? Is this a security risk?
No! He veers away, just in time to keep from giving us a soaking, but bouncing port to starboard, starboard to port, dancing for us, dancing with us. One of the crew members waves seeing me shooting this segment. AdventureMan joins me, he waves back.
What a delightful and lovely way to start the day. It just keeps getting better!
He is having so much fun. We are having so much fun! The water sparkles off his joyful waterspouts!
He almost disappears in a spray of water. He goes around the back to welcome the other side of the ship.
It doesn’t take much to thrill our hearts. This joyful welcome does the trick.
As we dock, the World Cafe is full of people and their cameras; we are docking in the heart of the old city, and views present themselves for the taking. You couldn’t ask for a lovelier day in Quebec; the temperatures will be in the high 70’s F.
The tug boat harbor:
“Oh look, the local Vikings are coming,” I said to AdventureMan, and looking right at them, he asked “where?”
“That’s them, the local Viking crew, coming to help get people onto their tours and hand out water,” I pointed out.
“Oh, I thought you meant REAL Vikings,” he grumbled.
Hmmm. When I attended the Bayeux Tapestry lecture, the speaker said that the Battle of Hastings in 1066 is considered the end of the Viking Era, meaning exploration, pillage, plunder and settlement. But really, the Battle of Hastings was Norman (Norseman) against Northman, Viking fighting Viking, and perhaps . . . perhaps . . . the Viking Era goes on, hidden under a thin veneer of civilization.
Don’t you like that idea?
We have a tour late into the afternoon, then final goodbyes, dinner, and making sure our bags are out in the hall and ready to go by ten tonight. The good part about a cruise is unpacking and not having to pack and unpack again. The bad part is that a reckoning always comes, and we are stuffing our suitcases, and throwing out old underwear to make room for the few souvenirs we picked up along the way. The Viking Sky leaves Quebec City tonight for Montreal, and from our landing we head to the airport, en route back to Pensacola. I don’t believe I will be able to post again until we are there, and perhaps not right away, as you know what it is like, the deluge of things that must be done, when you get home . . .
We awaken to a beautiful morning on the Saguenay river. As I am fixing my hair, there are dolphins – or porpoises (is there a difference?) playing just outside the open window, and whale spouts and tails from time to time. It is a glorious morning, and AdventureMan is feeling better, but not better enough to take the Zodiac ride in the park which we had scheduled.
It doesn’t matter. It is a glorious day, we have some fog as we pass along the river, but the day is beautiful. Blue skies and whales! AdventureMan snoozes after breakfast, building up energy, and I leave him alone so he can recuperate.
We have to go very slowly; Canadian Maritime law is humane, and protects the migrating whales.
Around noon, we dock in Saguenay:
This boat is not us, it is one of the French Soleal line. Only one boat can dock, so this time they have to use the tenders.
AdventureMan and I exit the boat to walk through Saguenay and find a bite of non-ship food to eat. Viking Ocean cruises has a lot of nice food, and most of it is lightly seasoned so as not to offend anyone. They do a great job of taking care of a lot of people, but sometimes there are slips. We ate mussels one night, and they were delicious – but served tepid! Almost cool!
We are blown away by the Saguenay welcome. We have been told these are all volunteers, they dress in old time costumes and greet the arriving passengers with welcomes, photos, flags, free little blueberry juices, free blueberry pie, a small musical group playing local music – oh, it is a total party on the dock! Many of them don’t speak English, but they understand my French and I feel terrific. They understand my French! I’ve lost so much because I so rarely get an opportunity to use it, but the fluency comes back and I feel exhilarated.
Here is the man handing out Saguenay flags to all arrivals. AdventureMan tells me that the green signifies forestry and wildlife, the yellow is for agriculture which is a mainstay of their economy and he can’t remember what the silver stands for; you would think it is white, but it is really silver and as it is the cross, he believes it has to do with faith.
These people are so much fun, and are having such a great time. So are we!
They get one of the passengers to try the saw – it’s harder than it looks!
This man was flipping his son all around, and they were both really having fun with this local greeting party.
Yes! Yes! a “bluet” is a blueberry! I have a new word in my French vocabulary!
They are making natural maple sugar candy here, on a bed of ice, and giving it out. I get to show our grandson this; we were reading that American children’s classic, “Little House on the Prairie” and the author, Laura Ingalls Wilder described perfectly how this is done.
You know what I love about this? This is pure generosity of spirit. There really isn’t that much going on in Saguenay that would make it a draw, but these good people with their slices of blueberry pie, their costumes, their music, and their warm welcome, have created something worth traveling to see. They have their heritage. They are proud of it, and they are happy to share it with visitors. It’s just all win-win.
I love the juxtaposition here, the First Nation representatives against the background of the Viking invaders 😉
We asked one of the guides if they could recommend a good restaurant and they recommended one I had seen on TripAdvisor, just a short walk down the bicycle path. And Big Bravo for AdventureMan, the person I asked didn’t speak English, and we were trying to find the bicycle path and AdventureMan remembered “piste” from when we lived in Tunisia, and as soon as he said it, the person’s face lit up and he pointed us in the right direction.
It’s a perfect day. I am in short sleeves; temperatures are in the 70’s F. and the local young folk are in short shorts, halter tops and summer dresses. It is probably a wonderful late summer day to them. We dine outside at La Grange aux Hiboux.
It reminds us of places we used to eat lunch when we would get up early early on cold mornings to go to the big flea market in Metz.
We took the long way back to the ship, and passed this church.
I have to tell you something funny. Or at least it strikes me funny; I guess there are times when I am still silly and seven years old in my heart. The bay that Saguenay is situated along is called the Bay of Ha! Ha! There is a hop-on hop-off bus for cruise passengers, called, the Ho Ho. The HoHo is right next to the Bay of Ha! Ha!
Well, I think it is funny.
What I love, too, about Viking is their willingness to accommodate religious observances. (Did I already say this?) Tonight they are having a special dinner for those celebrating Rosh Hoshhana. How cool is that?
AdventureMan went to bed as soon as we got back from the spa; he had been chilled and had warmed up in the hot pool and sauna, but he was tired – and sick.
The night before he had been fine. We had gone to dinner with a couple we met at breakfast in Oslo, the day we were all traveling to Bergen. Within three minutes we had a lot in common – as happens in Expat world. They have been to many wonderful places overseas in their academic careers, and especially loved their time in Beirut, Damascus and a wonderful wedding in Amman, Jordan.
How often do you come across people like that? How do you find out so quickly those shared points of enthusiasm?
At dinner, it was more of the same; there are some people that no matter how many topics come up, you know there are still so many to cover.
And they remind me very much of a couple we met last year on Empires of the Mediterranean, outside the Archaeology Museum in Zadar. None of us could believe that there was NO mention of this fabulous museum in the Port Talk or in the City Tours. One thing led to another, but you know me – all roads lead to books. We are still in touch with this couple; she and I are active in book clubs and avid in our e-mails about our latest finds. They are coming to visit us next month!
It’s the same with our new friends from Las Cruces, they are widely read and have a wide range of interests. We laugh a lot. We can’t stop talking.
But the next morning, as we went into L’Anse Aux Meadows, Adventureman said he was tired, and he was coughing a lot, and he had a headache. He slept and slept, only getting up for a little soup at dinner, then going right back to bed.
Today is a day at sea, and started out a little bleak.
I went upstairs to the Explorer Lounge, my favorite quiet place, and had my oatmeal with blueberries and raspberries. Around nine, I went down to the spa pool, and, for a while, had it all to myself. I came back to the room to spend some time with AdventureMan, but when he is sick all my suggestions (“do you think you might want to see the doctor? Can I make you some mint tea?”) just annoy him, so I am quiet until we go to lunch. After lunch, I go back upstairs to read and to leave him in peace, coming back to the room for a couple hours, then heading out for a lecture on the Bayeux Tapestry. The weather has greatly improved, and way way off in the distance, we can even see land.
On our way to Saguenay on the Saint Lawrence River:
Look at this beautiful weather! It hit 70 degrees F. today, first time we have seen a temperature like that since leaving Pensacola. I am taking it as an omen that AdventureMan is about to make a rapid and full recovery so he can enjoy the end of the trip with me.
At the lecture about the Bayeux Tapestry, our Las Cruces friend asked if I had written about them in my blog, and said he was trying to find it. Aargh. You know, I don’t talk about the blog, in Pensacola maybe one person other that AdventureMan and our son even know about it. I have my faithful friends from Doha and Kuwait who keep up with me here, but honestly, who else really cares? There are so many blogs about exciting things like politics and sex and fashion and they get millions of visitors. I am just trying to remember places I have been and events and experiences, sometimes I am just thinking out loud, or venting therapeutically, and some of you are kind enough to come along for the ride. I am humbled, and thankful, that you are still there.
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.
AdventureMan pokes me awake, he’s hungry. “I felt like I was falling out of the bed a couple times last night!” he told me.
I am sympathetic. I don’t have motion sickness, but the other day, after a massage, in the spa at the bottom of the boat, I felt queasy. I’m pretty sure it was the moisturizing lotion; there was something about the smell of it, but once I had showered it off, I was OK again. I can imagine what it must be like to have that feeling every time the boat rocks and rolls.
The sun is coming up; it may be a little rocky but it is a beautiful day. We even see some gulls.
After breakfast, we grab our reading material and head up to the Explorer’s Lounge, where we have a 180 degree view facing forward. There is a rainbow, ending almost on our ship, and a shadow rainbow with it. Surely, that is the best of luck!
Midmorning, we still have beautiful skies, even some blue, lots of sunshine. A little rocky but people are getting used to it.
I love the way the wind blows the spray off the top of the waves and leaves a ghostly mist.
We had a wonderful dinner in the Italian restaurant, Manfredi’s, last night. I had a cold tomato soup, very tasty, even some peppery heat, and the seafood platter, AdventureMan had Caprese Insalata and the Seafood Platter. It was a lovely evening altogether, great food, attentive service and very interesting dining companions from the Carolinas.
Every day the Captain comes on at noon to give us a location and conditions update. “Ladies and Yentlemen” he begins and then brings us up to speed on what we can expect, ending with “From the bridge, all is well.” We love that ending. All is well.
Here There and Everywhere 