Faneuil Hall, the true Cradle of Liberty

After our day at Harvard and our visit to JFK Museum, we had only one full day remaining to see the rest of a city that could easily occupy one for weeks.  I wanted to see the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, site of the largest art heist in US history in which fourteen valuable paintings, including a Vermeer and a Rembrandt valued in toto at a half billion dollars, were stolen in 1990, and have never been recovered.  The robbery was the inspiration for the novel The Goldfinch and the story has fascinated me ever since I read the book.  But there are two of us on this trip and the Gardner didn't make the cut.  Boston has several fine museums but we nixed them as well because we wanted to enjoy the beautiful weather and "experience the city."

Another possibility was Fenway Park, the oldest ball park in the US where one can visit for a taste of true Americana. We had been advised by an Uber driver to go there.  Since the Park is surrounded by unique restaurants and antique shops, we could visit the old stadium and then have yet another delicious Bostonian seafood lunch.  

But because time is so short, we decided to spend our last day at Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall, the true Cradle of Liberty.  The original Hall was built in 1741 and the site served as a market and meeting place for two hundred years.  This was where town meetings were presided over by Sam Adams and other patriots to protest "taxation without representation", the Boston Massacre, the tea tax and other outrages by the British which eventually led to the American Revolution. The building is now a historic site surrounded by the very lively Faneuil Marketplace, a sprawling complex of retail shops, cafes and restaurants; and Quincy Market, an enclosed arcade of mouth-watering food shops hawking every manner of delicacy from oysters and lobsters to sushi, delicatessen, delicious looking bacon-wrapped chicken, all types of pastries, cannoli, chocolates and ice cream.  There are ethnic stalls of various Middle Eastern specialties and at least one Mexican place interspersed among the seafood joints and Boston landmarks.  In the center of the arcade, a large seating area sits under a beautiful dome where you can take your chosen food to eat while passersby play the "Play Me I'm Yours" brightly painted piano.  We didn't eat there but we salivated at every stall.

Quincy Market 

We happened to be watching one dilettante pound these well-worn keys, and there was a young Chinese watching. When the player got up and left, I said to him, "Do you play?" He said, "Can anyone just play it?"  "Sure, go on," I told him. "But I'm not very good", he said.  I urged him to go ahead and play, which he did.  This young man should make his next stop Carnegie Hall!  He played two complex and intricate pieces with confidence and the skill of a seasoned pianist.  When he was through, I said to him "you lied to me, you said you didn't play very well."  He looked alarmed and I was so afraid that my misplaced attempt at humor had been lost in the translation, but when I laughed and told him how beautifully he played, he seemed re-assured.  In his halting English he told us he was a new student at Berklee in Boston, one of the finest music schools in the nation, and fourteen years old!  After seeing all of the Asian kids touring Harvard yesterday and speculating on their futures, I am wondering how many American14-years olds there are at Berklee. Traveling is all about the people you meet.

And then, serendipitously, we had lunch and then another unique experience.  After we salivated our way through Quincy Market and wandered the outdoor shopping mecca, it was lunchtime and we opted for a restaurant where we could sit outside, have a glass of wine with our freshly caught lunch, and people watch.  

We had lunch at Durgin Park, a long-time Boston oyster bar, and this is our personality-girl waitress, Richelle, named after her Dad Richie.  She could be the Poster Girl for Boston enthusiasm.   Tom and I had tried to guess her name as she hurried about--Tom said it had to be Angie, I opted for Wanda--but Richelle definitely fits.  Today, steamers, baked oysters and another round of fried calamari, not as good as the calamari in Little Italy, but good enough.

We had walked through Fanueil Hall when we first arrived, but after lunch we walked back that way and noticed large bouquets of red, white and blue balloons, and saw all these folks watching the door with cameras at the ready and excitement building.  I asked the gent next to me what was happening and he said that 370 people had just received their American citizenship and were exiting through the front door of Faneuil Hall. The folks outside were the family and friends waiting to congratulate them.  Some unbelievable hurdles had been overcome in order to arrive at this day and the joy was evident everywhere.

I had never seen a naturalization ceremony and was thrilled to be there.  I hope the pictures below convey a little bit of the happiness these immigrants from about 80 different countries felt at becoming citizens of our great land. 

The front door of Faneuil Hall with the emerging new citizens.

I 

This man, a former Aussie, was so excited.  His partner was waiting outside and I ran over to congratulate him.  He let me see the certificate up close with his picture, all pertinent identifying factors, his former country of citizenship, and all the associated stamps and signatures admitting him as a US citizen. They were headed out for a night of well-deserved celebration.

I did ask before I took the picture of these three happy ladies.  This is better than a college graduation!

Same here.

We even had the nerve to crash a small party being held down the street at the Armenian Heritage Park replete with refreshments (cider and sweets), entertainment (the Black Sea Salsa Band), salsa demos (Dance Caliente) and...

...speeches by a couple of politicians urging the new citizens to vote.  How predictable was that.  Before we left, we chatted up a darling young Panamanian woman there with her husband, three-year old daughter, and her citizenship certificate protectively clutched in her hand. 

And thus ends another wonderful sojourn, this time not so far from home, but as wonderful as the most far-flung places we've been.  We left for the airport Friday afternoon after yet another round of oysters (Malpeque from PEI) and fish n' chips (Boston scrod) in a popular Boston restaurant, Legal Seafood (slogan: if it ain't fresh, it ain't Legal).  Did I mention that Boston is a mecca for foodies?  We SHALL return! 

Thanks for joining us!

Boston, the Cradle of Liberty (or was that Philadelphia...)

Isn't this a pretty picture of the Boston Skyline.  I'm not even sure where I took it, so I won't say.  I love the way the shadows of the buildings hit the water.

Same with this picture.  The Boston Harbor is all around us.  We are staying at the Seaport Hotel--great location and beautiful facilities. Our room is on the 16th floor overlooking the Harbor and I could spend hours just looking at the view.  This isn't it, but it is just as interesting.  Logan Airport is just across the Harbor and we can see planes taking off and landing.  We could almost swim there.

Another picture of the fabulous Boston skyline.  

This is our second day in Boston, and by now I feel that I understand what all the excitement is about.  What a beautiful and fascinating city!  The history alone could occupy one for weeks, but since we don't have the time to absorb it all, we are sightseeing instead.  The weather is perfect and the only thing that prevents further walking is our aching feet.

Yesterday after we got settled into the hotel, we decided to take the Duck Tour, recommended by Mark and Martha from their visit to Boston a couple of years ago. The Duck Tour is kind of like the Hop On Hop Off Bus Tours that we have grown to love in various cities, but this one has the added advantage of being amphibious!  Yes, it drives around the city showing you the sights while a very funny guide adds his own amusing twists to the historical commentary (like: it's really Paul Revere on the Samuel Adams beer bottle because Paul was better looking than ugly Sam).  But then, using a special ramp built just for them, they drive right into the Charles River and show the folks water-based sights like Old Ironsides, i.e, the USS Constitution. They are truly amphibious!  The idea came from old WWII amphibious half boat/half truck DUKWs, or ducks as they were known, that were used to haul men and cargo from land-based sites right onto the beach and into the sea and onto ships when there were no dock facilities, or the docks had been blown up in the course of the war.  When the Duck Tours began the vehicles were actual WWII DUKWs, but now they are replicas--easier to maintain and operate.  The tour was a good way to get an overall feel for the city and the magnificent Harbor.  Before the Duck Tour, we wandered around the North End, Boston's "little Italy" loaded with authentic pizza joints and cannoli pastry shops.  We didn't have the cannoli, but we had a lunch of fried calamari and "frito misto", right out of Italy and then a Pizza Quattro Fromaggio--just a small bite to tide us over you know. 

And today we went to Harvard.

I have always wanted to see Harvard.  Not go there, just see it.  I had always believed Cambridge to be some distance from Boston, but it's right here!  In fact, Harvard is only 7 1/2 miles from the Seaport Hotel!  A mere 25 minute Uber ride from the hotel even while dealing with the rather hideous Boston traffic.

Our Uber driver, while not a Hahvahd man himself, was most knowledgeable about the campus and the town and dropped us off at the Harvard Museum of Natural History which the Duck tour guide had recommended.  We didn't want to necessarily go to it, but as long as we were there we went in and wended our way through a warren of rooms filled with dinosaur bones, human skulls, a working bee hive (the bees are lured into it somehow through a clear pipe that is vented to the outside), and an endless array of dead and formaldahyded creatures in jars or pinned onto boards that rather freaked me out.  Bats, mice, birds, insects large and small--they gave me the willies.

So we made fairly short shrift of the Museum and, on the advice of a very kind and loquacious docent type lady we left by the back door and walked straight down Quincy Street and into Harvard Yard which is the original part of the campus.  Surrounding the Yard is Harvard Square which is a bustling town within Cambridge filled with businesses, shops, restaurants, and of course churches, University buildings and historical sites.  If you kept walking you would reach the Charles River.  Harvard Business School sits on the other side, but we didn't make it that far.  

The campus is endlessly fascinating, beautiful, filled with interesting people, buildings and events.  There were several groups of well dressed and mannerly teenagers, all Asian, touring the campus, no doubt planning on attending in a few years.  There were kiosks dotted here and there where notices could be posted, a couple of which are posted below for your edification.  It ain't John Harvard's Harvard anymore. 

As we wandered through the Yahd, we saw excitement building and sure enough, our hopes were fulfilled: a demonstration was happening!  We had seen a few people carrying placards with vague statements like "support the strike", but no clue as to what the strike was about.   

Lovely fall colors and beautiful old buildings.  And the people weren't too weird, believe it or not.  Not like Berkeley...

No comment...

Ditto...

The magnificent Widener Library with determined Korean potential students in the foreground.  We walked up the wide steps and into the building but you couldn't enter the actual library without an ID card.  The next picture pays tribute to the Library's benefactor and namesake which was in the front lobby.  Such serendipity that we had just come from the Titanic graveyard in Halifax.  Widener wasn't buried in Halifax of course.

Below is a not-so-hot picture of the folks on the lawn gathered around in support of "the strike".  But no speech, no soapbox, no information.  So I walked up to a Hispanic couple sitting more to the back who were holding a sign, told them we were visitors and politely asked if they would tell us what was going on.  

 What was going on was a food services strike.  The dining room workers, dishwashers and cooks, cafeteria servers in the dining halls and dorms--all striking for better health care. The food services union had organized the strike. Tom asked the couple if Obama Care hadn't provided that and they gave him an emphatic no.  We talked for ten minutes or so--the couple was from Peru--and one interesting thing they said was that Harvard was careful to keep them both at 27 hours, i.e., part time, which is what many small private businesses are excoriated for as a ploy to keep people from getting their rightful insurance. But the amazing thing is that the woman expressed dismay about the students!  She said that they knew and loved their students, some of whom had food allergies or special dietary needs, and who would be providing for them now?  While I suspect that the starving Harvard students will still manage to eat, I wonder how these hard-working Peruvian immigrants will make ends meet.    

But on a more pleasant note, Tom and I did manage to eat, and here are the dozen (a whole dozen!) oysters that I had for lunch--after a bowl of the best clam chowder ever, crammed with clams, potatoes, vegetables and accompanied by home-made "saltines"--little crispy buttery oyster crackers bearing no resemblance to the hexogonal horrors we normally get.  There were some left and I am snacking on them with my glass of wine as I write this.  Life is good.

A mountain of the best French fries in the world--just like dear old Dad used to make.  Perspective makes that beautiful lobster roll look small but it was loaded with lumps of lobster, claw as well as tail, and Tom didn't even ask to share my oysters, although I had a couple of bites of the lobster.

We ended the day with a visit to the Kennedy Museum, making it the fourth presidential Museum I have visited.  The setting is gorgeous--behind this front facade is a spider web of steel rods which overlook the Harbor and the inside has all the expected interesting public and personal stuff about JFK that one would expect.  When we reached the small dark corridor that depicted the assassination and its aftermath on recurring tiny black and white TV screens, I couldn't help an overwhelming emotion and inexplicable tears recalling that terrible time. The face of the beautiful Jackie behind the dark veil but whose eyes radiated grief and despair chokes me up just thinking about it.  

There was one room devoted to presidential gifts, including a hideous gold and glass necklace given to Jackie by the Prime Minister of Sudan which she must have rolled her eyes over. Gaudy and cheap looking (though pure gold), it is unimaginable that Jackie would have ever worn it with her Chanel suits or Oleg Cassini ball gowns.  But the little evening bag above is quite beautiful--studded with diamonds, emeralds and rubies...but understated...  A gift from the King of Morocco.  Impeccable taste.  Of course, as we know presidential families aren't allowed to keep any of the gifts after leaving the White House so it's a moot point.

Have truer words ever been spoken?

The Best Laid Plans...

First, allow me to apologize to our Canadian friends and to all of Canada for failing to mention that yesterday was Canadian Thanksgiving Day!  We knew it was coming up and Diane, our guide for the day, talked about it and how she would celebrate later with her family, but I simply forgot to mention it in my eagerness to describe the wonderful sights of the day. And so, I wish a most happy, though belated, Thanksgiving, O Canada!   It is celebrated every year on the second Monday of October.

Today, we got up very early.  We were scheduled to dock in Bar Harbor, Maine and we had signed up for a 9:00 AM excursion out of Bar Harbor to Acadia National Park and Jordan Pond. After the excursion we would have time to walk around Bar Harbor and maybe have a lobster roll for lunch. But before we could board the tender to take us from the ship to the pier, we had been instructed to queue up for our face-to-face individual meetings with US immigration officials on the occasion of our re-entry into the United States.  I am sure we aren't the only ones who were a bit confused about how long all this would take.

Additionally, we had to change our clocks back or forward an hour, having entered and then left another time zone over the last two days.  It was written somewhere but we couldn't find it in the mountain of paperwork that we have accumulated. Combine that "untimely" confusion with a night spent rockin' and rollin' because of high seas and roaring winds and you have a bunch of bleary-eyed people who didn't get much sleep last night.  It never occurred to me that the weather could interfere with our plans.

And so by 8:00 AM, we were dressed, breakfast finished, and ready to go--a major feat especially for Beloved.  But instead of the announcement that Immigration had boarded the ship and was ready for us, the Captain announced that because of the inclement weather the ship would not be docking at Bar Harbor after all, that no tenders were available to transport the people and we would hear at a later time what Plan B would be.  Thus my dreams of finally seeing Maine will go yet again unrealized.  And I cannot begin to tell you what we might have seen in Acadia National Park and Jordan Pond.  

Here we sit, cooling our heels, in Seabourn Square, one of the public meeting places, drinking Cappucino--Tom going over the final bill with a microscope and me burdening you with all of this extraneous information.  The shop has just opened and I am going to pop in and see what they have.

Nada.  

It has been confirmed that we are on our way to Boston--Bar Harbor an unattainable ideal--but it's okay.  One could do worse than be stranded on the Seabourn Quest.  There is actually a lot to do aboard ship and the staff is scrambling to provide even more in the wake of our change of plans.  In a half hour we will wobble our way to the Grand Salon where our new friend Mei Trow will be lecturing about the history of Boston, how it all began with tea and snowballs (the title of his talk), which then escalated into "the shot heard round the world".  We had dinner a few nights ago with Mei and his wife Carol, delightful Welshmen who now live on the Isle of Wight and amuse themselves in their retirement by hiring on as historical lecturers on cruise ships like the Quest.  Mei is a true historian and we've attended a couple of his stimulating talks--one on the history of whaling and one about the first all-black regiment in the Civil War (the movie Glory was made about it)--but I believe he actually makes his living by writing crime novels.  I googled him briefly and he has written at least twenty of them.  

We learned on our first Seabourn cruise that you can sit at hosted dinner tables with various members of the staff and crew if you want to.  We let it be known that we like that, and so every evening we receive a written invitation to have dinner the next night with one or another of the crew, ranging from the Cruise Director, to the numerous entertainers on board.  Two nights ago we sat with Fred Klett, a stand-up comic who performed two shows during this cruise.  He markets his brand of humor as "clean comedy," an interesting concept to me.  I didn't know a comedian had to specify such a novel idea.  He truly made us laugh at both shows and we never missed the off-color or downright dirty references and filthy language which apparently is much more mainstream at comedy clubs.  At dinner he told us how difficult it is to "make it" as a clean comic in a world of f-word laced routines and sexual innuendoes.  The term "Late Night Comedy" apparently is code for just that brand of humor.  Fred's particular type of humor, on the other hand, revolves around growing up in a family with eight kids, traveling the world and interpreting the cultures of foreign lands (his imitations of Brits and Italians are priceless) and truly original wit and delivery.  

We've had dinner with the Cruise Director who we remember from our first Seabourn cruise, The Assistant Cruise Director, and even the Purser (or is it Bursar?).  He's the guy that handles the finances for the ship--a big job.  When Tom introduced himself, he said to the Purser "You must be the Count de Monnaie" (a reference of course to Mel Brooks' History of the World).  The Purser actually got the joke and laughed heartily at it.  Conversation was spirited throughout the rest of dinner.  Of course, in addition to the host, there are two or three other couples at the table which invariably makes for an interesting mix.

There are lots of ways to be entertained aboard ship, most of which we don't take advantage of.  Mere steps from our stateroom is the pool and patio bar (closed at the moment of course lest someone be blown overboard) where most evenings there is a 45 minute musical show featuring the multi-talented and enthusiastic entertainers on board.  After dinner there is another show which can be musical, or in Fred's case stand-up comedy, and one night they had a magician but we didn't go to that one.  There is a Club that features a trio before and after dinner where you can have a drink or just enjoy the music. Two of the trio are Darlene and Raleigh, a married couple that we befriended during our first cruise.  They have been entertaining on Seabourn for many years (eight months on, four off), and their home base is in Colorado Springs.  She is as blond and fair-skinned as a Norwegian and Raleigh is a Satchmo look-alike who sings with that same throaty rasp.  Together they are a devoted and beautiful as well as talented couple.

And now off we go to listen to Mei's talk...

It was entertaining and informative and for the first time I think I understand what the Boston Tea Party was all about and the part it played in the American Revolution. 

And now we are relaxing with a glass of wine in the room, having packed our bags (ugh) except for whatever we need for tonight and tomorrow morning.  We disembark no later than nine, wrapping up our third Seabourn cruise.  We are going directly from the ship to the Seaport Hotel on the Boston waterfront where we will stay until we come home on Friday.

Right now the sun is streaming through the window, the sea is fairly calm (although the ship was rocking and rolling all day), and we can expect fine weather from here on in I hope. The captain has just announced that we are presently waiting for our spot at the pier to be vacated by its previous occupant so that we can dock at Boston Harbor.  We weren't supposed to arrive after all until tomorrow morning.  The logistics of the whole process are mind-boggling. The Queen Mary II and the Viking Star were in Halifax Harbor with us and I assume they were diverted by the weather as well.  What in the world does one do when one is unexpectedly hosting the Queen Mary II?

See you in Boston!

Peggy's Cove near Halifax, Nova Scotia

Today we signed up for an excursion--we went by coach to Peggy's Cove, about an hour's drive from Halifax.  This meant we didn't get to see much of the city of Halifax, but it was a wise choice.  Years ago on our driving trip to Canada, Peggy's Cove was on the itinerary and we remembered it as a highlight.  As we approached it today, it actually looked beautifully familiar.   It seems that every attraction in the world gets bigger, more populous, and less desirable with time, but Peggy's Cove was exactly as we remembered it: quaint, isolated and perfect.  Peggy apparently was the mother of the tiny settlement's founder, Samuel de Champlain.  Settled in 1811, it looks almost like it must have looked two centuries ago. Its entire population is still a mere forty souls and you can count the buildings on two hands: a smattering of gift shops, a restaurant or two, the few houses that have withstood the wind and the waves for a hundred years, and the magnificent lighthouse holding court on a massive bed of rocks.  Here are a few pictures:

Our sweet guide, Diane, wearing her Nova Scotia Tartan skirt, was very concerned that someone would trip and fall on these quite treacherous rocks.  There are pathways, but of course people insist on tempting fate and apparently they lose a few to the sea from time to time.  Our group made it back intact.

The weather looks ominous, but it was actually perfect.  No wind, pleasantly cool and if you were a painter I'll bet you would kill for the way the shadows lit the rocks with the sun barely peeking through the clouds.

This old boat looks like It could have just dislodged a crew of Vikings off the coast of Norway.

An abandoned fishing boat or two, lobster pots on the dock, working sheds next to the pier--it all looks so authentically trashy.  I would hate to think some marketer staged this scene.

 I know this guy is a little touristy, but he's just so danged cute...

...and of course the parish church.  Ignore that condo looking structure on the right--should have cropped it out.

As we walked down the road from the lighthouse toward the church, we noticed a weathered old broad selling smoked mackerel and salmon out of the back of an ancient pick-up and couldn't resist.   After cajoling her out of a sample of the maple smoked salmon flavored with maple syrup and then a small bite of the mackerel fillet, we bought a fillet to share and ate it with our fingers out of a greasy plastic bag with one napkin to between us.  I can still smell it on my fingers as I write this.  The mackerel was so good we bought a salmon fillet to share for our walk back up the road.  I wish I had a picture--not just of the fish but of that great lady whose creviced face and blackened fingers were clearly camouflaging decades of fascinating stories of the sea...

After we left Peggy's Cove we drove back to Halifax by a different route.  The fall colors are in riotous array but it is so hard to get pictures through the coach window.  

Diane kept up a running commentary on the history of Halifax incorporating into her comments a fine introduction to our next stop: Fairview Lawn Cemetery where 150 of the victims of the Titanic disaster are laid to rest.  

Everyone knows the story of the ill-fated Unsinkable Titanic, and apparently most people think that Jack and Rose of the romanticized James Cameron movie were real people.  They were not, but there were 2,228 people on that ship who were very real and only 715 survivors.  The Titanic sank off the coast of Newfoundland in April of 1912 and because Halifax was the nearest large port, 150 of the victims who were taken there ended up never being returned to their homes.  Either they were never identified, or they were identified but their relatives couldn't afford, or didn't choose, to bring them home.  

In the very large Fairview Lawn Cemetery, there is a dedicated area where 121 of the Titanic victims are buried, some identified simply with the number they were assigned when recovered from the sea, and some whose actual identities were either immediately known or later discovered.  Someone had to pay for the tombstones which give their names, ages, and other identifying factors, and if no family member or benefactor stepped forward, their identities are forever lost.  One interesting grave is that of a small child with blond curly hair who was found floating in the ocean still wearing his pink shirt and tiny knickers. For years he was known simply as the Unknown Child, until DNA technology identified him many years later as little Sidney Leslie Goodwin, aged 18 months.  The original tombstone remains and little Sidney's identity added below it.  The number 4 indicates that he was the fourth body recovered. 

The next pictures show the three rows of graves where the 121 victims are buried; and two examples of graves where someone had not only the inclination but the money to identify the lost one with more than a number.  The second tombstone caught Tom's eye because the resident therein was from Clones, Ireland in County Monaghan which we visited on our genealogical quest there in 2008.  It was to the Village Hall in Clones that we went seeking information on the sainted ancestors.  

Diane told us that Halifax has several nicknames: The City of Trees (for obvious reasons), The Warden of the North (because the Canadian Navy is based there), and The City of Sorrows.  There are three reasons for this last designation.  First, because of its connection to the Titanic, a clear and sad legacy. 

The second event that makes Halifax the City of Sorrows is known simply as the Halifax Explosion and occurred in 1917.  A French cargo ship carrying a highly explosive load and a Norwegian vessel collided in Halifax Harbor igniting the explosives, killing 2,000 people and causing a tidal wave that destroyed much of the northern end of the city.  In addition to the massive loss of life, many more were injured and 16,000 were left homeless.  It took years to recover from the disaster.  At the time, the city of Boston was highly instrumental in Halifax's recovery and as a token of their appreciation, the "Haligonians" send a massive Christmas tree every year to Boston where it is erected and decorated in memory of the Explosion.

The third reason for the designation has to do with the catastrophe of September 11, 2001.  When the planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, no planes were allowed to land anywhere near New York and had to be diverted.  Forty-four jets were diverted to Halifax. Of course no one on those planes knew what had happened or why they were being diverted.   As information leaked out, people believed the layover would be brief, but the hours became an overnight and then almost a week. Between eight and eleven thousand people had to be accommodated on short notice. 

Diane told us about the logistics of dealing with all of those frightened, confused people who mostly had no idea what lay ahead and many of whom were from far away places like Italy and Greece.  She found herself one of the volunteers who organized places to stay (at first the arena, and then hotels and private homes); what to eat (all restaurants, amateur and professional chefs, and ordinary people were pressed into service); and ways to help them communicate with their loved ones.  The logistics were a nightmare but she talked about the relationships that were built, some of which are on-going all these years later.

We were back on board ship by 1:30 and left Halifax around 2:00.  I wish we had more time here--it's a fascinating a beautiful city.

Prince Edward Island, Home of the Sainted Ancestors

This picture is from the deck of the Quest where we docked at the seaport in Prince Edward Island, the smallest of the Canadian provinces and the place to which the sainted ancestors emigrated from Monaghan County, Ireland in the wake of the potato famine around 1840.  For years Tom has searched his family's roots using various sources from Ancestry.com to little newsletters published right here on PEI.

We were here so many years ago we can't remember when and it is certainly a different place now.  The sleepy little town of Charlottetown with its library housed in a temporary building and its genealogical records written on index cards has been metamorphised into a busy and modern harbor port with contemporary condos and sophisticated shops.  The old charm is still here though, with old Victorian gabled houses with deep porches and the beautiful Basilica towering over the town.

We decided to hire a taxi to take us to a few places that Tom wanted to see (based on his research as well as family lore), and Wayne, a local driver/tour guide hovering outside the port, was happy to do the honors.  First stop: the house of Edward Kelly, the sainted great-grandfather.  Yankee Ned, as he was known because of his later success as a land developer in and around Charlottetown, was an Irish immigrant, farmer and brickmaker whose grand house in the countryside was quite unusual for the day.  Tom had come across it in an article on PEI architecture.  Tom already knew stories of Grandfather Kelly, as he was called by the family, from his Dad who spoke nostalgically of the many cousins who would cross the frozen river by bobsled in the winter to visit the sprawling mansion sitting on 350 acres of land--a true paradise where all the cousins could play unsupervised.  Seeing the article about the house and Yankee Ned lent further credence to the legends that had grown up around them.

Wayne drove around Charlottetown for a little bit and then we left the city in search of the Kelly homestead, which Tom already knew from the article were, at best, in ruins.  Thirty minutes into the countryside and Wayne by now was involved in the quest and determined, despite the fact that we weren't having much luck in the now rolling farmland dotted with picturesque potato crops and dairy farms.

Not to be defeated, Wayne said that surely the people living around here would know and he drove right up into a driveway, stopped the car, jumped out (despite a snarling barking labrador on a nice long leash) and walked up to the door.  Then he gestured for Tom to follow.  I had already been warned not to open the back door where I was sitting because the latch was broken and was thus a prisoner in the back seat.  Not to worry...all in the name of genealogical research.  There were six cats in my field of vision, laying about the driveway, and they occupied my interest during what must have been an interesting conversation inside the small rural house.

They came back to the car, Wayne backed out (honking loudly lest there be a kitty cat lounging under the wheels) and I learned that sure enough the man knew the family and while the Kelly house was no more, the property itself was just down the road  and there was a family living next door at #854.  Again, he pulls into the driveway, knocks on the door and below you see the tree that is the only remaining vestige of the once magnificent home of Great-grandfather Yankee Ned.  While the tree on the left in the picture doesn't look like it could be more than a century old, It definitely looks exactly like the tree in the picture of the Kelly mansion.  Wayne was the one who noticed that.

And these are the McGuirks, the lovely folks that live next door and filled in a few of the blanks about how the house met its final demise, with one of their three rescued pooches, and Wayne, our enthusiastic and persistent guide, in the black tee shirt.

Back in Charlottetown we stopped in to visit St. Dunstan's Basilica where Tom's Dad and family went to Mass and Confession and school while growing up on PEI.

After a lovely four hours with Wayne we were starving and on his recommendation had oysters and PEI mussels in this great little lobster shack right in front of the ship.

This is the pint of the local craft beer--Beach Chair Beer that Tom enjoyed along with the shellfish, for those of you interested in such things... 

               And these are the unbelievably fresh and succulent mussels, half eaten by now because I forgot to take the picture in our starving frenzy, among the best we've had anywhere.  PEI mussels in PEI...we have surely died and gone to Mussel Heaven...

One more thing about Charlottetown.  One of the places Tom wanted to visit was the gravesite of his Dad's paternal grandfather, Michael McQuaid, for whom he had not only the name of the cemetery, but the plot number as well.  Wayne was only too happy to oblige gaily announcing that he visited both the Catholic and the Protestant cemeteries all the time and if he couldn't find the plot, there was an elderly gravetender there who not only knew everyone there but had probably buried them.  Alas, although we visited both cemeteries, the old guy was not around, the young one had no idea where to look, and in spite of walking the plots at length, no Michael was discovered.  Wayne even called St. Dunstan's to try to track him down and some other Bureau of Records, and though he talked to a couple of wonderfully interested and helpful people, they said unfortunately that Michael had been placed in the ground before the records had been computerized.  But here is the kicker: Wayne has promised to walk both cemeteries in his spare time and when he finds Great Grandfather Michael McQuaid, he will email a picture of the grave to Beloved himself!  I told him that was way above and beyond but he insisted!  We shall see what develops from that rash promise.

The Gaspe Peninsula and Perce Rock

We tendered from the ship into Gaspe for our yellow school bus to Le Rocher de Perce.  Don't feel bad...I never heard of it either...

Slow reception so I will just post some pictures of today's adventure, which was an hour's drive from the little town of Gaspe to the Rock of Perce, a stupendous natural formation millions of years old.  Along the way, the colors of the trees grew more and more spectacular, but from the bus I barely got a proper picture. We had a couple of hours in the town of Perce which consists of shops, a few restaurants and the majestic view of Le Rocher.  

Are we the only country in the world that doesn't have wonderful churches out in the middle of nowhere?  This one has soaring towers as you can see below, and in the middle of the center rose window, the Star of David.  Our guide, Benoit (call me Ben) explained that the architect was Jewish and thus the star.  Truly a lovely interior.

Impressive, eh?

This is our first view of the Rock which is massive, although it's hard to tell from this vantage point.

This is a little minor sight along the way called Indian Rock.  If pointed out, you can see the profile of an Indian peering the the right.  I missed it in the flesh, but here in the picture it is as clear as Ben said it was.

Half decent picture of me so I couldn't resist.

This is the rock from the beach in Perce.  The house up there on the left looked spooky but we didn't learn what it is.  Again, the scale is impossible to appreciate.  What a wonderful world God has wrought!

The Perils of Pauline (uh, I mean Sara)

Yesterday we had a minor tragedy: in spite of being ever conscious of my own ineptitude and clumsiness; never mind that I had checked and re-checked to be sure the strap was firmly attached to my wrist; scrupulous to a fault about taking care to keep a firm grip on it and never carelessly setting it down to be mindlessly left behind--

I NEVERTHELESS DROPPED MY $400 CAMERA ON A WOOD FLOOR IN A GALLERY IN THE TINY HAMLET OF SAGUENAY AND BROKE IT BEYOND REPAIR!

But of course at that point, ever the optimist, I held out hope that the problem was minor or better yet that it would magically fix itself, even though the lens would not retract and the message on the screen ominously said "System Error (Zoom)".  Although every single person we've met in Canada has been so friendly and helpful, the lone woman in the gallery was talking on her cell phone and barely registered my dismay, so we walked out and went next door to the Savonnerie to ask where the nearest camera shop was located.  No camera shop, we were told by the kindly soapmaker, but wait...he did know of a gentleman in a Librairie, a mere 20-minute walk, who was very technical and might be able to help. He wasn't sure what the English word for Librairie, was but we dug into our rusty French and decided it was something like a bookstore and decided to give it a try.  Following his directions, we walked and walked and eventually came to the little shop exactly at noon.  
Closed for lunch between twelve and one, said the sign on the door.  And darkness filled the shop. 

It is hard to describe the lack of facilities in Saguenay.  We had opted out of the ship-sponsored excursions which all started at the crack of dawn and involved either four-hour hikes or a two-hour zodiac adventure to the Saguenay Fjord with accompanying lecture about its "geological, biological and morphological" development.  Transportation to the site by local schoolbus.  It seemed more prudent to simply walk around the little town on our own.  There was a nice little church across from the scene of the camera tragedy, the ill-fated gallery, the soap shop, and that was about it.  The rest of the buildings were mostly residences.

Tom was ready to abandon the plan and go back to the ship before we missed lunch, but miraculously across the street was a little local restaurant called Lucerne--the only restaurant we had seen--and I prevailed by saying we'd walked all this way and maybe the bookstore man could actually fix the camera.  He was dubious but agreed.  

Inside, ten or twelve locals were sitting at the lunch counter or at one of the several booths and after giving us a few quizzical looks, ignored us.  Madame la proprieteur handed us a menu, we ordered a half carafe of wine and some ailes de poulet (chicken wings) and frites and I swear you could just as well be in the middle of France.  To say there is zero American influence is an understatement.  I don't know why that amazes me but it does.  Although not the gourmet Seabourn, the wings weren't bad, the fries crispy and the wine passably good.  We went across the street around 1:10 and there were already people monopolizing the time of the guru.  We passed the time talking to a portly gentleman in a chef's coat who said that he was the chef at the Auberge on the port, the lone hotel in town.  We of course had missed that on our walk. His son works for Cirque de Soleil and once he had spent six months rehearsing for the show in a small town in Texas whose name he couldn't remember.  

Finally, my turn came and the man examined the camera briefly, looked at me and said "la camera ne marche pas." "Oui, je sais," said I in response to the obvious.  "The camera does not work."  With a sad shake of his head, he handed the camera back to me.

On our long trek back to the ship, it occurred to me that if there was no one aboard the ship who could force the camera back into submission, perhaps I could continue to take pictures with my IPhone.  

If I could just figure out how to transfer them to the blog. 

As you can see, I have done so but pictures of the Saguenay Saga are lost forever inside La Camera and here are just a few of today's little town, Baie Comeau.

Here were are in front of another mural, this one in Baie Comeau.  A nice local took our picture together.

This is inside Claude Bonneau's gallery on the lone business street in Baie Comeau.   The gallery contains paintings by Claude but is also jam packed with junque like this room of Coke memorabilia, all charmingly displayed.  None of the stuff is for sale, only the paintings, but it's a fascinating collection.

 

More of the stuff...