fauxklore

From 29 February through 2 March, I was at RootsTech, which is a huge annual genealogy convention. It’s hard to tell how many people participate because they sell millions of tickets for the on-line event, which I’ve done the past couple of years. The problem with going on-line is that there is so much stuff that it’s hard to decide which presentations are worth watching, but there are also all the distractions of home, so I end up not watching a lot. Buying an in-person ticket includes access to all of the on-line presentations for an entire year. There’s also a huge exhibit hall, with all of the major genealogy companies (and many I’d never heard of) contributing. And there were a couple of hundred in-person presentations to attend.

Anyway, I flew in the day before (Wednesday) and my flight to Salt Lake City (via Los Angeles) went smoothly enough, though my arrival gate and departing gate were pretty much as far apart as any two United gates at LAX could be. United uses Terminal B at SLC and, to get out of the airport, you have to walk half the length of that terminal, walk through a half mile long tunnel, and then walk much of the length of terminal A. The signage to get to TRAX (the SLC light rail system) wasn’t great, but I found where I needed to go and was quite pleased to learn that the system was free for people attending RootsTech. It was also a bit of a hike to my hotel from the nearest station. In short, it was going to prove easy to get plenty of steps in during the convention. For what it’s worth, I stayed at the Residence Inn, which was okay, though the bed was too soft, so my back was aching after a couple of days. There are several hotels closer to the convention center, by the way. If I went again, I might consider one of the hotels right across the street.

There were three or four classes I was interested in during every time slot of the event. I marked all of them on my schedule and chose during the time between the sessions. I also spent time visiting the exhibit hall, but won’t really discuss that since I didn’t take notes there. But I will note that several (all?) of the major companies did have mini-seminars about using their products. And I did learn about a few products that could be useful, e.g. some of the archiving materials.

The first session I went to on Thursday was The Quest for Hidden Ancestors - Genealogy Tips from Nancy Drew by Ellen Kowitt. This wasn’t really focused on things I didn’t already know, but I like Nancy Drew and I’ve found Ellen to be an entertaining speaker before. Basically, she pulled out examples from the Nancy Drew novels that are relevant to genealogy research and listed plenty of resources. And that did include a few I had not been aware of previously, e.g. interment.net for burial records and Deep L for translation. She also had a particularly good list of resources for historical maps. Entertaining and informative was a good way to start the day.

The next session I went to was What’s the History in Your Family History? by Rachel and Matt Trotter. This was described as adding historical context to your family history and covered sources like oral histories, oral traditions, diaries, and timelines. While there were a couple of example, It wasn’t really what I was looking for, since it was largely U.S. focused and somewhat more recent history for the most part.

The hottest subject in genealogy these days seems to be artificial intelligence, so (after a mediocre and overpriced lunch in the exhibit hall), I went to a session on Using AI Tools to Expand Your Research Universe Part 1: Chat and Search Tools. by James Tanner. He described the goal as to help organize, analyze, and get insight from data to solve novel problems. He listed several subfields of AI, including cognitive computing, computer vision, machine learning, neural networks, deep learning, natural language processing, fuzzy logic, expert systems, and robotics. He also talked about practical uses of AI, including detecting illegal activity, business apps (e.g. digital personal assistants), generative AI, and data processing. He noted that large language models are what has changed recently and mentioned a few general purpose products, e.g. Microsoft Copilot. I found his talk way too general and would have liked some actual examples of using AI in genealogy. I had considered going to one or more of the talks in his series of presentations, but decided that they were unlikely to be worth my time based on this one.

The next top talk I went to was History, Family History, and Families From the Global to the Personal by Dr. Wanda Wyporska. Her main point was that genealogists are historians. She talked about geography as a genealogist’s worst friend, primarily in the context of forced and voluntary migrations. Her ethnicity is a mixture of Eastern European and Caribbean, which led to an interesting twist on this. The main point was that people connect with communities in various ways. Unfortunately, most of the discussion was centered on race, which is not of much interest to me. So, while her talk was reasonably interesting, I didn’t find much of it of any practical relevance.

The last talk I went to on Thursday was Squeezing all the Info Out of Your Matches by Kate Penny Howard. This was a fairly basic presentation on DNA and was focused on finding the Most Recent Common Ancestor (MRCA) with a match. She talked about things like searching across as many platforms as possible ad then building out descendants of the MRCA. She also recommended using DNA Painter. Since her major emphasis was on things like looking for who an unknown parent is (either because of adoption or unexpected DNA results), I didn’t find this particularly relevant.

Overall, I thought that only one of the five talks I went to on Thursday was notable. Fortunately, I had somewhat better success with finding useful sessions the next two days.

The first talk I went to on Friday was Researching the Canadian Census and Early Census Substitutes by David Allen Lambert. Most of this was a review of what information censuses (some federal, some by province) contained in each year. For example, the 1901 census included complete birth date (not just year), year of immigration, and year of naturalization. He also listed where each census can be found, including Family Search, Ancestry, and Library and Archives Canada. The most recent one on Ancestry is 1931. This is useful for me, because of a great-uncle who I know went to Canada (and, later, entered the U.S. via Buffalo. There is a note on another immigration record (for someone who is almost certainly another member of that part of my family) involving an inquiry in Toronto. So, it looks like it may be possible to get more insight into that situation.

The next talk I went to was The High Five - Key Documents for Successful Records Retrieval at NARA by Cecilia McFadden. She talked about record locations and finding record set numbers. But I wish she had traced through some actual examples in detail, as I got rather lost in some other dry information.

One of the highlights of the conference was What’s New and Exciting at My Heritage by Gilad Japhet. He started out with an example of artifact DNA. In particular, he was able to have DNA extracted from stamps, which led to finding half siblings of his great-grandfather. I thought this was completely mind-blowing. Of course, it’s not yet ready for commercialization and is probably too expensive for people who aren’t the CEO of a genealogy company, but the potential is amazing. I definitely have postcards with stamps I assume were licked by my grand-mother and I probably have envelopes sealed by various other deceased ancestors.

He also talked about recent (AI-based) features that have been added to My Heritage. Photo Dater, which estimates when historical photos were taken, looks likely to be useful. AI Biographer, which converts facts into a narrative holds no interest for me, since I know how to write, but at least it includes sources. There’s also an AI Record Finder, which uses an AI chat to search historical records. I think that is probably most useful for beginners. OldNews.com is focused on historical newspapers. Unfortunately, it only covers eight countries initially and, other than the U.S. (and possibly Canada) has limited utility for me. There were several other things he mentioned, which were of less interest to me, but it was a very good presentation.

My most disappointing talk of the day was Why Should I Map My Chromosomes by Tim Janzen. The goal is to determine which portion of your DNA comes from which ancestor. It really only works for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th cousins. And, more importantly for Ashkenazi Jews like me, endogamy is a problem. Aside from that, his presentation was hard to follow because he did things like referring to the 4th column in a dense chart on a slide, but really meant what was actually, say, the 8th column. Overall, this was pretty much useless for me.

The last talk I went to on Friday was Are You an Ethical Genealogist? by Dr, Penny Walters. This was interesting, but I’d have preferred a panel discussion to a lecture. She mostly focused on situations with genuine reasons pointing to two different sets of actions. For example, approximately 12% of DNA tests result in someone finding an NPE (which stands for either “not parent expected” or “non-parental event” depending on which you prefer.) An adoptee can obviously have good reasons for trying to find a birth parent, e.g. understanding their medical history, but there is also potential to hurt a parent who raised them who may not have known of the situation. There are also cases involving an individual vs. their community, truth vs. loyalty, individuals vs. the community, and justice vs. virtue. Any decision you make about privacy and confidentiality vs. transparency has consequences. Each person has to decide for him or herself what information to disclose about their family tree. (Since there are a few people on my tree with readily findable criminal records, this is of direct interest to me. On the plus side, those people are easy to research.)


I started Saturday with a presentation by Jarrett Ross on Success With Jewish DNA: How to Overcome Issues with Endogamy. This was probably the single most immediately useful session I went to at the conference. He also talked about double cousins and 3/4 siblings, e.g. the result of marriage to a sibling of a deceased spouse. He noted that as you get further back, the differences between endogamy and non-endogamy are greater. More importantly, he had several practical suggestions re: dealing with DNA results in endogamous communities. I already knew some of what he suggested about what level of centimorgan matches to investigate. But he had other tips I hadn’t really thought of before. For example, you can try to build out the tree of a potential match to a specific level. He also suggested looking for connections to towns within 30 miles. Overall, I came away with actionable information, which is always a good thing.


The next presentation I went to was AI-Assisted Genealogy: The Family History of the Future by Daniel Horowitz (from My Heritage). Some of the uses of AI he discussed were language translation, market research, key word research, and customization. Applying those to genealogy tasks, he talked about tombstone translations, summarizing and extracting information from documents, transcribing handwritten records , extracting information from newspapers (including locating OCR text). Within MyHeritage, some tools include an AI Record Finder (which lets people find data without filling in a form), Photo Tagger (which looks useful, but he did warn of its addictive potential), He also talked about some other tools I can’t imagine any reason I’d want to use (e.g. one to turn yourself into a historical figure). Still, it’s good to know what’s out there, even if you want to use only some of it.

After that, I went to Research Planning for Efficiency and Accuracy by Mindy Taylor. Most of her focus was on setting up research logs, including citations. That’s the sort of thing I know in theory but don’t do well with in practice, as I have found myself repeating searches multiple times. Something as simple as noting the date a particular search was made could be very helpful, especially since new sources become available frequently. Er, yes, I do need to get organized.

The final presentation I went to was Working with WATO (What Are the Odds) by Leah Larkin. WATO is a tool from DNA Painter and is intended to help identify an unknown parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent. Anything further back is beyond the limits of autosomal DNA. That means it is fairly unlikely to be of any significant help for me, since I know who all my ancestors in that range are. In addition, it doesn’t work well with endogamy. There’s a newer tool called Banyan DNA which might be more useful, so that’s something to keep in the back of my mind.

It had started snowing in the late morning and I had a nasty slushy walk back to my hotel. In the morning, I got a Lyft to the airport. My flight was delayed first because it was overbooked and they needed to get some volunteers to switch flights. And then it was delayed further for de-icing. Fortunately, United held my connecting flight at DEN long enough for me to sprint to that gate and I made it home on time.

Overall, I thought the conference was reasonably valuable. I came home with a fair amount of stuff to follow up on. And, of course, there are lots of on-line sessions I should try to find some time to watch.

Continuing last week’s New York trip…

Aside from some random walking around, most of Wednesday was spent going to the theatre.

Harmony: I had been a little hesitant to see this musical, because I generally prefer musical comedy to musical tragedy. And, while I don’t hate Barry Manilow (who wrote the music, with book and lyrics by Bruce Sussman, who is his long-time writing partner), he wouldn’t make my top ten list of songwriters. The reviews had been mixed but a couple of friends who had seen it did recommend it. And it was closing just a few days after my trip, so I decided it was worth trying.

The show starred Chip Zien, who does look his age (he’s in his late 70’s) but can still sing. He is looking back on his youth as part of a group called The Comedian Harmonists, who achieved success in Germany in the early 1930’s and toured the world. But three of their members were Jewish and the group had to disband due to the rise of Hitler. This is based on a true story, but several critics complained that it wasn’t very accurate. I don’t actually care about factual accuracy when it comes to musical adaptations. I’m looking for emotional truths and I felt that it worked at that level, for the most part.

The title song was lovely and something of an ear worm, as is “Stars in the Night,” which closes the show. Some of the songs the group sings are very entertaining, e.g. “How Can I Serve You, , Madame.” There are two beautiful love songs - “Every Single Day” and (especially) “Where You Go.” There’s a shocking moment in the first act, following a double wedding. While I understand why it didn’t end the act, it made the emotional arc a bit strange to go on from that to Carnegie Hall.

Neither of the female characters is fully developed. Mary fares better than the rabble-rousing Ruth. The latter was played by the other big star of the show (Julie Benko) who did fine with what she was given, but her character was not fully developed.

Anyway, I thought it was worth seeing, but I wish they’d handed out packets of tissues with the Playbills.

Once Upon a Mattress: This production was part of the Encores series at City Center, which puts on concert versions “forgotten” musicals. I’m not sure Once Upon a Mattress really qualifies, since it’s popular for schools and summer camps and other amateur groups. But it’s a fun show, with a lively score and a humorous book, and they always get great performers. For anyone not familiar with the show, it is loosely based on the fairy tale of “The Princess and the Pea.” I should also note that this was more fully staged than some of the other shows I’ve seen in the series.

The key here is that the show is a real star turn for the actress playing Princess Winifred the Woebegone (“Fred”). That was the role that launched Carol Burnett to stardom, of course. I don’t normally think of Sutton Foster as being that sort of performer, though she’s a solid dancer. So I was impressed by her willingness to go all out on the physical comedy. That was especially true in the scene where she tries to get to sleep on the stack of mattresses.

As for the rest of the cast, Michael Urie had great chemistry with Sutton Foster in his role as Prince Dauntless the Drab. Both J. Harrison Ghee and Harriet Harris were spot on as the Jester and the Queen respectively. Overall, while the show is somewhat dated and very silly, it’s also very entertaining. I am still humming several of the songs a week and a half later.

Fabric Flowers: I mentioned that I’d found something to do via the newsletter of the New York Adventure Club. This is a wonderful organization that has both virtual tours and in-person tours and I have done several of their events in the past. They periodically do a tour of M&S Schmalberg, the last remaining custom fabric flower factory in New York. I love crafts and I love factory tours, so this was right up my alley. Adam, the owner of the company is the 4th generation of the family business. First, we had time to browse the showroom. There are flowers of every description and every color, with some elaborately beaded examples. And, also, lots of butterflies. Here are a couple of the displays:





Adam told us some of the history of the company before explaining the process of making the flowers. Basically, fabric is starched and folded to create layers, then cut. The cut fabric is pressed into molds (which are surprisingly heavy). The pieces are then put together with things like brooch pins, lapel pins, or hair clips.

We went into the factory and watched all the steps of the process. I was amused that a salad spinner is used to get the moisture out after fabric is starched. Here’s Adam cutting out flowers, which will then be put into molds to be shaped.



At the end of the tour, he put out an assortment of small flowers and we each got to choose one to take home. Here's my selection.



That was followed by time to shop. The prices start at about $20. In addition to their etsy shop, they make custom flowers. I didn’t buy anything, but I will almost certainly buy a few things from them in the future, most likely for decorating hats. Anyway, this was an excellent way to spend part of an afternoon.

The Connector: The final show of my theatre binge was this new musical with a music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown and book by Jonathan Marc Sherman. It was conceived and directed by Daisy Prince, who is the daughter of the late Hal Prince. The story involves a news magazine, celebrating its 50th anniversary. The Connector has been taken over by a large corporation but it appears that, aside from data analysis, all they’ve done is paint the offices. The editor-in-chief, Conrad O’Brien (ably played by Scott Bakula - yes, the guy from Quantum Leap) hires a kid named Ethan Dobson (played by Ben Levi Ross), who is fresh out of Princeton and who he views as a younger version of himself. In the meantime, Conrad ignores a copy editor, named Robin Martinez (played by Hannah Cruz), who wants to become a feature writer. Ethan’s story about a Scrabble shark in Greenwich Village makes him an instant success, but what is he going to do to follow that? And will anybody ever read Robin’s work?

If you’ve ever seen the play The Lifespan of a Fact there are some natural comparisons, particularly with respect to the question of what is truth and what is sufficient proof. There are two other characters who play major roles in addressing this question - Muriel, a legendary fact checker, and Mona Bland, who writes letters to the magazine correcting minor details, leading her to be regarded as a crank. However, there are also other issues here, especially the sexism that Robin faces, even in 1996. I was surprised that potential racism (given her obviously Latina name) wasn’t suggested. After all, Linda Wolfe had been writing for New York magazine since the 1970’s. (I still remember her piece about the deaths of the twin gynecologists.)

As it stands now, the show is about an hour and 40 minutes long, with no intermission. I’d have liked to see it expanded a bit (with an intermission added) so some of the characters could be fleshed out more. In particular, I’d like to know more about Robin’s past beyond her singing “Everyone in Texas is an asshole” in a song titled “So I Came to New York.” There’s also a hint (in the form of a phone call to his brother) that there’s more to Ethan’s background than his time at Princeton. The bottom line is that this was funny and provocative, with an enjoyable jazzy score, though not entirely satisfying. Note that I saw it in previews, however, I hope that the creative team continues to develop it further. And I also definitely want there to be a recording of the music.

By the way, I read a couple of reviews which compare this to the real-life story of Stephen Glass. There is apparently a movie about him, titled “Shattered Glass,” which I should try to get around to seeing.

A Quick Note About Amtrak: The train I took home on Friday morning was the Carolinian, rather than a Northeast Regional. For future reference, this is a bad idea. For one thing, it was very crowded. But, more importantly, it doesn’t have a quiet car.

The weekend before the one that just passed, I was home and fairly sociable.

tick. tick . . . BOOM1 On Friday night, I went to see this musical, which was part of the Broadway Center Stage series at the Kennedy Center. That means that the staging is fairly minimal, but they still had a video screen, providing parts of the setting. For those unfamiliar with this show, it was originally a semi-autobiographical monologue by Jonathan Larson and, after his death, was turned into a three person musical. This version (which was directed by Neil Patrick Harris) also had several other characters, with one of them who seemed to deserve as much credit as the three principals.

The plot involves the main character, Jon (ably played by Brandon Uranowitz) , turning 30 and debating whether he should abandon his goal of writing a musical in favor of making money in advertising. His girlfriend, Susan, thinks they should move to Cape Cod. As he says / sings “Johnny Can’t Decide.”

I mostly enjoyed the show, but some of the songs don’t do much to advance either the story or character development. For example, “Green Green Dress” is a fairly generic song Jon sings about Susan. On the other hand, “Sunday” is a brilliant pastiche of the Sondheim song of the same name (from Sunday in the Park With George) and was worth the price of admission alone. And “Why,” effectively summarizes the whole point of the show.

Loser Post-Holiday Party: Saturday afternoon was the annual Loser post-holiday party. My contribution to the pot luck was a mushroom quiche and, since I got requests for the recipe, I’ll include it below. Then there were some awards for people who’d reached certain invitational milestones. And, finally, the singing of various parody songs, mostly with political themes. Plus, of course, lots of interesting conversation, including some discoveries of mutual connections I hadn’t known of before.

Mushroom Quiche Recipe: Since I had requests for the recipe…

Ingredients:
1 deep dish pie crust (I admit I used a frozen one.) Bake in a pie pan according to package directions or recipe if you're less lazy than I was.

8 oz. white button mushrooms
half an onion, chopped
2 T. butter
8 oz. gruyere cheese, shredded (or you can buy cubed gruyere). Do not use smoked gouda.
1 c. heavy cream
4 large eggs
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
a pinch of nutmeg
2 T. grated parmesan cheese, divided

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Salute the onions and mushrooms until browned.
3. Sprinkle the mushrooms and cheese into the bottom of the baked pie crust.
4. Whisk the eggs. Add the cream, seasonings and 1 T. of the parmesan cheese and beat together. Pour the mixture over the mushrooms and cheese.
5. Sprinkle the remaining parmesan cheese over the top.
6. Bake until the top is light brown and the center of the quiche is set, roughly 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool about 10 minutes before serving.


TCC Meeting: Finally, there was a lunch meeting of the Travelers’ Century Club DC chapter on Sunday. Lots of good conversation about travel, of course. It also looks like several of us will be in the Azores together.

The next island we called at was Ua Pou. There were a few options there. I chose to do a four-wheel drive tour. This cost extra, but was worth it in my opinion. The scenery was spectacular.






We stopped at a typical site with a marae (temple enclosure) complete with tiki.



Then we drove down to a beach to look for what are called “flower stones.” These are garnet phonolites and are apparently found only on Ua Pou and in Brazil. You can look for yourself in this photo. (Hint: I didn’t find any, but our driver gave me one. If you like this sort of thing, you can buy jewelry made out of polished ones. I’m a sapphire gal myself.)



Then we went to the cultural center where we saw a show of ukulele music and drumming, with school children dancing.







We had lunch at a local restaurant, followed by free time to explore the village. (Or take another optional tour, which I skipped.)



I thought the beach there was one of the more attractive ones during the trip.



There was also a good opportunity to watch some of the freight operations, which are always interesting.



Our next stop was Hiva Oa, where we went to the village of Atuona. This was of particular interest to many of the passengers because of two European men who spent their final years there and are buried in the cemetery, which we took a bus to. Jacques Brel was a Belgian cabaret singer and actor, whose songs were translated into several languages. The one that is probably most familiar to Americans is, alas, “Seasons in the Sun” (based on “Le Moribund”) which infested the pop music charts in 1974. Anyway, his grave proves that Jacques Brel is NOT alive and Well and Living in Paris.



The more famous person, buried right by Brel, is Paul Gauguin.



I heard someone comment that the two men never knew each other. Since Gauguin died in 1903 and Brel was born in 1929, that’s hardly profound.

Anyway, it was an easy walk from the cemetery down to the village, passing by a house that Gauguin rented.




In the village, there are a few shops, as well as museums to both men. The main attraction of the Jacques Brel museum was his airplane, which he used to fly back and forth to Tahiti and to transport food and supplies from Hiva Oa to neighboring islands.



The Gauguin Museum doesn’t have any original works, just reproductions. They are honest about that, identifying where each of the actual paintings hangs. If you want to see the real thing, I suggest the Musee d’Orsay in Paris, though there are also several of his paintings at the Glypoteket in Copenhagen, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, the National Gallery of Art in D.C., the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.





You can also walk through pleasant gardens. And a reproduction of Gauguin’s “pleasure house.”



Overall, Atuona (including the museum) made for a pleasant couple of hours.

The next day, the Aranui called on two islands - Puamau and Vaitahu. However, there was a cold spreading throughout the passengers and, feeling a bit sniffly, I opted to take it easy, so I have nothing to say about those stops. I did go to Keao Nesmith’s second lecture, which was focused mostly on Polynesian gods and was, again, interesting.

Having a rest day proved to have been a good decision and I was feeling fine for our call on Fatu Hiva, which was probably my favorite stop of the cruise. Aside from being particularly scenic, we were at higher elevations much of the day, making for cooler temperatures. But first we went from the pier to a gathering place in Omoa.



We had time to shop for handicrafts before watching a demonstration of pounding trees into tapa (bark cloth) and another having to do with umuhei (aromatic flowers wreaths). Then those of us who were doing an optional 4WD tour got sorted out rather chaotically into vehicles. (There were other, crazier people, who had set off earlier on a hike across part of the island.)

The actual tour was spectacular, Here are some pictures:





I always love the contrast of clouds and mountains.






We finished up at Hanavae, where we boarded the barges back to the Aranui.



I should also note that: 1) we’d had a stop for a lovely picnic lunch (a baguette with tuna salad, which is one of the key elements of what I like to refer to as Purina Miriam Chow) and 2) the vehicle I was in had an especially good driver / guide, who spoke excellent English and told us about the issues of younger people leaving the island to get more education or to marry. He also mentioned that one of his sisters has a female partner and that that same sex relationships were gaining increasing acceptance. Overall, this was a wonderful day.

Our final stop in the Marquesas was on Ua Huka, where we anchored in Vaupaee Bay. There were several stops on the island, all reached via 4WD vehicles. We started out at the arboretum, which has an interesting tiki. (The other sides show the rest of the family, by the way. So it's not as sexist as you might think at first glance.)



One of the more unusual things at the arboretum is a wood museum. As the song goes, “they took all the trees and put them in a tree museum.” (Actually, there are plenty of trees outside the museum, though not, in general, ones native to the region.)



We had a few other stops, including a viewpoint from Hokatu village, followed by a couple of handicrafts places, a small petroglyphs museum, and a sea museum.



Our lunch stop was at a complex which included the Te Tumu handicraft center and museum. This was one of the better museums we stopped at, with informative labels on many of the exhibits.





After lunch we returned to the ship and, in the late afternoon, departed the Marquesas.
We’d have a day at sea (on Christmas Eve - apparently the bigger deal than Christmas Day in these parts) on our way to Rangiroa (in the Tuamotu Archipelago). I don’t know about you, but I found some cognitive dissonance at the sight of Polynesians wearing Santa hats, We also had a recap lecture about the trip (mostly photos from a few passengers and one guide) by Keao Nesmith and a talk about our final stop.

Rangiroa had what I would describe as another disappointing beach - rocky, rather than sandy. I never thought I’d say this when I was growing up, but I dream of being able to get on my bike and ride to Point Lookout.

Fortunately, I had thought ahead and had booked the (optional) glass bottom boat ride. This was delayed a little bit, due to a strong downpour, but it was well worth waiting for. I’ve done glass bottom boats before and they are a great thing for those of us who wear glasses. We mostly saw red snapper and surgeon fish, some parrot fish. At least one reef shark. They do chum, with the boat captain (a woman, by the way), snorkeling around throwing bread. I don’t really approve of that, but it does mean that one sees a lot of fish. Have a look.





Back on board, we headed back to Tahiti. I had done fairly minimal shopping, so there was no problem fitting everything back in my luggage. I managed to finish the long mystery I’d been reading, which I left behind. (You can drop things off at the reception desk, to donate to the library.)

There were no real issues getting back to the Intercontinental Hotel (and, from there, to the airport for my Air Tahiti Nui flight back to Los Angeles). I’d swung for premium economy, which was definitely worth the extra money, though the pizza they served for a snack / dinner was the blandest food I’ve been served on a plane in many years and their entertainment system is unimpressive. I had a long layover in Los Angeles, which provided some drama as three policemen escorted a guy out of the United terminal for reasons that were not entirely clear to me. Still, I got home fine and it only took me three days to gather up enough energy to fully unpack and do laundry.

Overall, I’d say the Marquesas were an interesting destination, with a good mix of things to see. The major downsides were heat, humidity, and voracious biting insects. The Austral Islands (or, at least, Tubuai) were less so, largely because of Fort George and the museum being closed. Many of the other passengers were well-traveled and had wide-ranging interests. And the islands, themselves, had a wide range of things to see. The Aranui, while not luxurious, was comfortable enough and a good way to see the Marquesas and learn about the region. However, things were not always as well organized as they might be, e.g. daily programs didn’t always have the correct locations for some events and other things (e.g. a ukulele class) never actually happened. If you go in with an open mind, it’s a great way to spend a couple of weeks.

Here is a part 1 of a brief summary of my trip to the Austral and Marquesa Islands in December. This trip came about back in May, when Sherri, who I know from the Travelers’ Century Club (TCC), asked me if I was interested in joining her to check off a couple of the more obscure parts of the South Pacific. The idea was to take the Aranui (a combined freighter and passenger ship, which I had been wanting to do for 20 odd years) to the Marquesas during the semi-annual Marquesas Arts Festival, with a few days on the island of Tubuai in the Austral Islands beforehand. For TCC purposes, these count as two countries / regions, while in the more usual world they’re both just part of French Polynesia. For logistical reasons, the arrangement other than my flights to and from Tahiti (via Los Angeles) were handled by Sherri’s travel agent. While things went okay, I was reminded why I prefer doing things myself.

Anyway, flying to Los Angeles on United was routine and I stayed at the Residence Inn near LAX, which was fine, though that brand has declined somewhat in the post-COVID era, particularly with respect to breakfast. No waffle maker, for example. And for some ungodly reason the toaster was on the opposite side of the room from where the bread was. Really, I’m fine with yogurt and an English muffin for breakfast, but the breadbox with the latter should be next to the toaster.

I flew from LAX to PPT on Air Tahiti Nui, booked via American. For some incomprehensible reason, the only seat I could select was an exit row window seat. Which should be fine, but the fuselage curved inwards, cutting off a lot of the room for my left leg. I once had a similar situation on Aerolineas Argentina where I remarked that only a one-legged person could be comfortable in a particular exit row seat. But one-legged people are not exit row eligible. (And I am, thank G-d, two-legged.) It was not a restful overnight flight.

Anyway, my transfer to the Intercontinental Hotel was there, but, of course, I couldn’t check into my room so early. They do have changing rooms where you can shower and change clothes, which was welcome. For lack of anything better to do, I took a tour around the island. (I had been to Tahiti before, but had stayed in central Papeete and just explored on foot.)

The first stop was Point Venus. There was an observatory that was built to observe the Transit of Venus in 1769 and a lighthouse was constructed in 1867.



There are also several monuments, including one re: the Bounty.



We were supposed to stop at a waterfall, but the road to it was closed due to a landslide. We did stop at a blowhole, but my photo / video doesn’t quite do it justice. The real highlight was the botanical gardens we went to.







The final stop was a grotto.



By the time we got back, my room was ready and I pretty much collapsed.

Sherri had arrived late at night and we met up for breakfast in the morning. In the early afternoon, we headed back to the airport for our flight (on Air Tahiti, which is NOT the same as Air Tahiti Nui) to Tubuai. Air Tahiti has really cool livery, based on local tattoo patterns. Everyone had to get off during a stop at the very windy airport on the island of Rurutu on the way. Note that I do not count an airport stop as having been somewhere.



Refueling done, we reboarded and went on to our actual destination of Tubuai.



Once there, we stayed three nights at the Pension Taitaa, which was comfortable enough. Our hosts, Narii and Nathalie, were friendly and we booked a tour around the island for the next day. Note,, however, that very little English is spoken. (I can handle tourist basics in French, but can’t carry on a conversation with anyone over the age of about 5.) The food was reasonably good, with homemade yogurt and brioche at breakfast and three course dinners, of which the desserts were notable. Note that breakfast was included but dinner was not and that only cash (XPF only) was accepted.

The Mutiny on the Bounty is a recurring theme in this part of the world. The mutineers spent a little time on Tubuai at what is now called either Bloody Bay or Bounty Bay depending on what source you believe.



The closest thing to a tourist attraction is Fort Georges, where there is also a museum. Unfortunately, it was closed because the owner was on vacation in France.




Beyond that, there are more beaches and, at some times of year, you can take a boat out to various motus (small islets). It was also not the right time of year for whale watching. We ate lunch at Chez Nani, where the food was good (thought pricy) and the large portions meant we had enough food for lunch for two days.

The next day we walked into town, though we started out by walking a ways in the wrong direction. There’s a bank, a post office, and a municipal building with a war memorial in front of it and a tiki inside.





There’s also a ferry pier, a beach, and a couple of food trucks. On the way back to the pension, we saw some nice gardens.



Our flight back to Tahiti was via Ravavae, which I had passed close to on my 2019 eclipse cruise. Here are a couple of pictures from the plane.






We got back to Tahiti and to the Intercontinental with no problems. The next day, we would board the Aranui, which I will write about in a separate post.

When it turns to autumn, I want to be in New England. So I flew up to Boston the Saturday before last (i.e. the 21st). I’d been a bit concerned about stormy weather that day. But my flight was fine, albeit a bit more turbulent than is optimal. (And I actually like turbulence.) Prices were high and hotel availability was low, presumably due to it being Head of the Charles weekend. (This is a huge regatta.) So I ended up staying at The Row Hotel on Assembly Row. This is on the Orange Line, and it’s a short walk both from the T and from lots of restaurants (and outlet stores) so it was reasonably convenient. The hotel is actually quite nice. By the way, the “assembly” in the name of the area refers to the former Ford assembly plant, where they built Edsels.


MIT Museum: MIT moved their museum from Mass Ave to Kendall Square (adjacent to campus) about a year ago. Being an MIT alum gets one free admission, which is nice. I started with the MIT Collection, which has roughly a hundred objects from throughout the history of the Institute. Each item has a number and you can type it into a terminal and look up info about it.Here, for example, are some prototypes for the Boston arm. This was one of the earliest robotic prostheses that was controlled by the body's nervous system. It’s significant because it was what got me interested in majoring in mechanical engineering.



Another fun set of objects is the Women of NASA lego kit.



There were a lot of exhibits about various hacks at MIT, like the police car on the roof of the Great Dome and the balloon reading “MIT” that was inflated at the Harvard-Yale football game, but I didn’t get pictures there.

Another large area had to do with AI and included several interactive exhibits. One that I spent some time with showed video clips and asked you to guess whether or not they were altered. I found that a lot of them went by too fast for me to look closely at the hands and the lighting to tell.

The other area on the top floor had sculptures by two artists. I didn’t get a good picture of “Whale” by Andy Cavaatorta. But here’s “Machine With Abandoned Doll” by Arthur Ganson:



This kinetic sculpture was even more fun, at least if you like automata (as I do). You may have to click through to flickr to see the video.



Much of the second floor had to do with genetics. My favorite exhibit there was on a “Mermaid De-extinction Project,” complete with a video from a company called Siren Genomics. There was another fun one that had to with a vending machine for angels, so you could figure out for yourself how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. These reminded me of the Museum of Jurassic Technology in Los Angeles, which is one of my favorite places in the world.

All in all, I spent about 5 hours at the museum.


Jonathan Richman at the Somerville Theatre: The major excuse for the trip had been going with my friend, Ron, to see Jonathan Richman perform at the Somerville Theatre on Sunday night. We had dinner beforehand at a Tibetan restaurant up the street. The venue is pretty nice and, most importantly, the sound quality was excellent. He did a mixture of old and new material. Some of the older material included “Pablo Picasso,” “New England,” “Dancing in the Lesbian Bar,” and “The Fenway.” Newer pieces included “Me and Her and the Beach” and “Cold Pizza.” There were, of course, songs in various languages, a journey into Rumi and Kabir, and a dash of reggaeton. He’s always fun to watch and he’s a performer who is very much himself, with digressions and dance breaks and all. I’ve seen him live four times now and I never get tired of him. By the way, Ron had not seen him live before, though he was somewhat familiar with his music. He also enjoyed the show.

Arnold Arboretum: On Monday, Ron and I went to the Arnold Arboretum, expecting to see lots of fall color. Another part of my motivation for going there was that I hadn’t been there since some time in the late 1970’s. There was some color, but it wasn’t quite as brilliant as I’d hoped for. But, see for yourself.



This was my favorite photo of the day, because of the reflections in the water.



The brightest colors were found with what is apparently staghorn sumac. I have to trust other people’s identification of plants, since I can just barely tell a weeping willow from a rosebush.



Dinner at Nostos: All in all, it was a good trip. I flew back early on Tuesday, which gave me plenty of time for a long nap before going out to dinner at Nostos, a Greek restaurant in Tyson’s Corner, with a group of people form Flyertalk, The food was good (I got moussaka) and the conversation was lively.

I have more catching up to do, but housework beckons.

The Loser community is an outgrowth of the (Washington Post) Style Invitational humor contest and Loser activities include periodic brunches and parties and the more or less annual excursion known as Loserfest. This year’s event was in Philadelphia, which is a city I’ve been to many times, but there were still things I hadn’t done before. In fact, I think there were only two things I had done before - and one of them was something I’d suggested.

I made things less stressful for myself by taking the train up late Thursday afternoon. While most of the attendees were staying at the Marriott Downtown, I opted for the significantly less expensive Fairfield Inn about 5 blocks south, in the heart of what is referred to as the Gayborhood. This sign (for a pizza place) lends new meaning to Philadelphia as “the city of brotherly love.”




I might have done something in the morning, but the power and water at my hotel went out, apparently due to a cable problem. This was inconvenient, but it did give me an excuse to sleep in for a while. (Everything came back about 8:30 ish.) I think everybody else traveled up on Friday morning and we connected for lunch at the Hilltown Inn, which was just okay in my opinion. After eating, we walked over to the Eastern State Penitentiary. This was built in 1829 and, until 1913, all prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, which was thought to give them an opportunity to reflect on their lives and be penitent for their crimes. It was closed as a prison in 1971 and became a museum in 1994. Your ticket includes a very informative audio tour.

Here’s the yard:



Here’s a long hallway of cells. These hallways radiate out from a central circle.



One of the most famous prisoners who was incarcerated there was Al Capone. This was his cell:



Overall, I thought it was interesting and worth a couple of hours.

Our next stop was the Mutter Museum, which is a museum of medical history. They have a huge collection of anatomical specimens - all the bones and preserved organs you’d want to see, along with was models and antique medical instruments. They don’t allow photos inside - and, frankly, it would feel disrespectful to take any. It’s somewhat macabre, though there are so many specimens that, to some extent, I felt the impact of them was diluted by the sheer number. It was also rather more crowded than I’d have preferred. I thought the most interesting items they had were slides of sections of Einstein’s brain, a cast of Chang and Eng (the Siamese twins), and an iron lung.

In the early evening, we reconvened at La Scala’s Fire, a very good Italian restaurant. That was followed by the Dark Philly History walking tour. Our tour guide, Ted, was fairly entertaining, though we didn’t think he needed to cuss quite so much as he did. There was a certain amount of normal history, mixed with stories about prostitution, vampires, and ghosts. I can’t speak to the accuracy of all of it, but I did catch a fairly major error. Bram Stoker did not invent the idea of the vampire as a nobleman nor did he invent the blood-sucking concept. John Polidori did - nearly 80 years earlier. But Bram Stoker did do some of his writing in Philadelphia, so the guide can be forgiven for not knowing about “The Vampyre.” (Polidori wrote his story at the Villa Diodati, while Mary Shelley was writing Frankenstein.) A bigger problem was that there were supposed to be two groups, with two guides, but one of them apparently had an emergency. So the tour group was much larger than it should have been, which slowed things down and, sometimes, made it hard to get close enough to the guide to hear him. Overall, we enjoyed it, but it could have been better.

We started Saturday by meeting up at Reading Terminal Market. Most of the group had breakfast at Down Home Diner, but I really like the Dutch Kitchen and I knew it was closed on Sunday, so I opted for that. (I did go to the Down Home Diner on Sunday, along with a few of the other Losers.) Our first tourism stop was the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Of course, we had to visit the Rocky statue and go up the stairs there. But, since I have been to that museum many times, I didn’t take a lot of pictures. The one that I did make sure to take was Whistler’s Mother, (okay, the real name is “Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1”), which is on loan from the Musee d’Orsay in Paris.



They cleverly displayed it surrounded by other paintings about mothers. I should also note that it was not at all crowded.

We had lots of time to wander around the rest of the museum. I did drag a few people off to see my favorite painting there. (Duchamp’s “Nude Descending a Staircase”) but I’ve photographed that before. And, of course, they have Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.” It’s still an excellent museum and worth a couple of hours.

Our next stop was a brief one at the Rodin Museum, where we contemplated just what this guy is thinking about. My theory is that he was worrying about whether or not Rodin would ever pay him for posing.



Then we headed over to the Masonic Temple for their tour. The tour was enhanced quite a bit by one of the attendees being a Mason who was eager to talk about his beliefs and experiences. We visited several of the meeting rooms. which are used by different Masonic Lodges, and decorated in different styles (Gothic, Corinthian, Ionic, Egyptian, etc.) We also saw the Grand Ballroom. The architecture and decor are spectacular and well worth seeing.











And, of course, everywhere you go in Philadelphia, you run into Benjamin Franklin.



In the evening, we went to The Dinner Detective, an over-the-top interactive murder mystery show. Basically, there was a murder at the beginning of the evening and various people (some plants, some ordinary members of the audience) were interrogated in between the dinner courses and you got various clues to figure out whodunnit. I think most people figured it out. Let’s just say that Agatha Christie wouldn’t have been losing any sleep over the plot if she were still alive. Overall, it was reasonably amusing.


On Sunday morning, we reassembled at the Reading Terminal Market. We rearranged our planned schedule because of the weather forecast and went first to Philadelphia’s Magic Gardens. This is one of my favorite places and I’ve been there a few times before. (It was the place I’d recommended.) Most of it is a large and wild set of mosaic installations.







There was also a temporary exhibit, combining Mexican ceramics with the Chinese zodiac. This is exactly the sort of weird fusiony sort of stuff I love.





You might as well throw in a statue that's vaguely reminiscent of an Indian god.



Overall, this remains a place I love.

Our final stop was the Franklin Institute. I did say that Ben Franklin was everywhere. Seriously, this is a science museum that is really designed for children and I didn’t find it particularly engaging. My favorite part of it was the section on the brain, where they asked various people to create models of how they thought about their brains.





All in all, it was a good weekend, with a nice mix of activities. And it was fun spending time with the other attendees.

I did two day trips from London. The first one was to Ipswich, to visit my friend, Diana. While we were planning, she asked me if I was interested in Sutton Hoo. Amusingly, I had just been thinking about asking her how hard it would be to get there. Obviously, it was meant to be.

Trains from London to Ipswich go from Liverpool Street Station. I am fairly sure that I’d never been there before. It’s not exciting as train stations go, but it does have a small sculpture commemorating the Kindertransport that brought Jewish children to England during World War II.



Diana met me at the station in Ipswich and took me on a long walk around the town, which is not particularly distinguished architecturally for the most part. There are lots of modern buildings, a football (i.e. soccer) stadium, a typical pedestrianized shopping area, and an attempt at making what had been a working waterfront area into a tourist attraction. I thought the Ancient House, which goes back to the 15th century, was the most interesting building. The pargeting (decorative plasterwork) in this picture represents Asia. There are other panels representing Europe, Africa, and America.



We had coffee at a place on the waterfront, along with lots of conversation about life in general. Diana has an interesting background, with a particularly varied career, but it’s not my place to tell her story.

Anyway, we made our way back to the train station, where we caught a train to Melton. It was a little over a mile walk to Sutton Hoo from there. For those of you who don’t recognize this, Sutton Hoo was the site of a major archaeological find in 1939 - the ship burial of a 7th century Anglo-Saxon king (probably Raedwald). The actual treasures that were dug up are in the British Museum, but there’s a fair amount to see at the site. We started with the house, which has lots of pictures of the dig and a film about the find. By the way, there is still archaeological work there and I was amused by this sign on the door of one room of the house.



We walked out to the burial mounds. The weather got a bit sporty (wind and rain) so we didn’t attempt to explore very much of that area. But we saw the mound, so we can say we did it.



We walked back towards the site entrance, where there’s a museum. Outside it, there’s a reproduction of what they think the frame of the burial ship looked like. It’s huge.



We briefly browsed the gift shop and got some coffee. I hadn’t realized it, but Diana had not actually been to Sutton Hoo before, despite having lived in Ipswich for ten years. To be fair, there are plenty of tourist attractions I have only made it to when I had someone visiting from out of town.

Finally, we went through the museum. The objects in it are reproductions, with the actual artifacts in the British Museum. The most famous is this beautiful helmet.



We walked back to the Melton train station and headed back to Ipswich, where Diana left me to wait for a train back to London. It was an excellent excursion and I’d recommend it to anyone interested in archaeology.


The other day trip I did was to Canterbury. I walked from Canterbury West Station through the West Gate.



I decided to start with the boat tour on the River Stour. The boat leaves from near the Old Weavers’ House, goes under the King’s Bridge, and up to Greyfriars’ Island before returning downstream, past the Marlowe Theatre, the old Blackfriars’ Monastery, and the King’s School. Note that you have to duck low as the boat passes under the various bridges along the way. Anyway, it’s a peaceful and interesting 45 minute excursion.



There were a couple of authors who were kind of a big deal in Canterbury. Geoffrey Chaucer was one of them and there’s a statue of him more or less in the center of town.



I really should read The Canterbury Tales some day.

Christopher Marlowe is also closely associated with Canterbury. There’s a theatre in town named after him and it has this bizarre rendition of his head.



But the biggest draw of Canterbury is the cathedral. There is the inevitable renovation work going on. There is always scaffolding. Everywhere.



Fortunately, the interior is free of that blight.



The biggest draw is, of course, the site of the martyrdom of Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered by followers of King Henry II in 1170. It is not, in general, a good idea to piss off a king.



The Cathedral offers a number of mini tours, given by volunteers, and I took one of the Miracle Windows, a series of stained glass windows that depict miracles that follow the same pattern. Someone is gravely ill or injured and a mixture of the blood of Saint Thomas and holy water is used as a cure. This example involves a hunting accident, but it apparently worked for everything from dropsy (i.e. congestive heart failure) to having been blinded as a punishment for a crime.



I did some other general meandering around before returning to London. It was a pleasant excursion but I didn’t really need more than a day there.

Stay tuned for the final part of my time in England.

After a night at an airport hotel, I headed to the Dublin airport for the short flight to Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man. I’d have preferred taking the ferry over, but the schedule didn’t work. Why go to IOM? Well, mostly because I’d never been there before. And then there’s a well-known Irish song “The Crack Was 90 in the Isle of Man” (which was actually written by Barney Rushe, but Christy Moore’s version of it is the best known.) “Crack” should really be “craic” which is Irish for fun. And “up to 90” is Irish slang for going to extremes. In other words, some Irish sailors had too much fun in Douglas (and got themselves deported.)

I was also intrigued by the island’s unique political status, as a self-governing Crown Dependency. Finally, I have a long standing interest in endangered languages so was interested in Manx being one of the few that seems to be making something of a successful comeback. That said, I had only a vague idea of what I was going to do there, which included going to the Manx Museum, strolling the Promenade in Douglas, and checking out some of what they refer to as “heritage transportation.”

Arrival at the airport was a bit confusing, because there were signs saying that people who weren’t UK or EU citizens have to register with immigration, but there did not appear to be anywhere to do that. I asked at the tourist information desk and was told not to worry about it. I got a bus to Douglas and had no trouble finding my hotel. I got a light lunch and then set off to the Manx Museum. This is up a steep hill from the Promenade, but there’s an elevator in a parking garage across from it which leads to a bridge, saving some of the effort. By the way, on the walk up, I passed this church with a large yarn bombed pride decoration.



The museum is free and has several sections. There’s a lot of local history going through early settlers, Celtic life, and the Vikings.



Then came the English, leading up to the rule of the Dukes of Athol. The revolution (i.e. Cromwell and the restoration of Charles II) shook things up and led to the current status as a crown dependency. The Tynwald, which dates back to the Vikings is said to be the oldest continually operating Parliament in the world. They still do an annual outdoors ceremony at the historic site on Tynwald Day. They have a short video about that, which was interesting to watch.

I looked only briefly at the natural history section, the most interesting part of which was about the Manx cat. I did not, alas, see any Manx cats during my trip.

The most interesting section to my tastes was the one on the Manx language. They had several examples of sayings and stories about the efforts to Anglicize the population and the more recent efforts to revive the language. In fact, I met a man there who was studying in a one week language class. There were also several sections about customs and superstitions, particularly beliefs held by Manx sailors.

I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention the triskelos, the three-legged symbol of the Isle of Man. This may have been brought from Sicily by Viking traders. One interpretation is that wherever you throw it, it will stand. At any rate, you see it all over the island and it is quite striking.



I strolled back down hill and walked around on the main shopping street (the Strand, which is fairly disappointing, with a lot of closed stores.) I would probably have bought something at the yarn shop there, but it closed at 4. During some additional meandering downtown, I saw a sign in the window of the library for the Manx Scrabble Club. I was disappointed to see that they apparently play in English.

My second day had me exploring further afield. You can buy a transit pass for 19 pounds, which is very good value since a regular train ticket is 18 pounds. I started with a walk to the steam railroad terminal, where I took a steam train to Port Erin. Because there was something of a heritage railroad festival, the train was fairly crowded, with several rail fans from the UK. When I got to Port Erin, I walked around the town and looked around the harbor for a while.



Then I walked back to the train station, where I took a couple of pictures of the steam trains.





I got on a train going back towards Douglas, and got off in Castletown. This is the former capital of the Isle of Man and has a number of historic buildings in the town center. I found a walking tour on-line and used it to see the outsides of some of them. I also had a very tasty cheese and onion pasty and some tea for lunch.

Here is Castle Rushen, which was built in the 13th century for a Norse king and later used as a residence for the Kings and Lords of Mann, as well as serving as a prison.



And here is the Old House of Keys, which used to be where the lower house of Tynwald met.



I didn’t have nearly enough time to spend in Castletown and I think it would be worth staying there a night or two as it felt more charming than Douglas was. But, touring as much as possible beckoned and I took the steam train back to Douglas. I then took a bus to Laxey, where there is a famous waterwheel. I didn’t get any particularly good pictures of it, alas. I’d intended to take the Manchester Electric Railway to Ramsey, but it was getting latish, so I decided to take the MER back to Douglas instead.



This is, essentially, what I would call a trolley, powered by overhead cables. It is also fairly uncomfortable.

Then there was a short ride on the Horse Tram, which is actually slightly more comfortable.



None of the historic transit systems are really practical for day to day use, so everyone except tourists takes buses (or drives themselves). Anyway, from the horse tram terminus, it’s a short walk down to the Villa Marina, which is an entertainment complex.



From there I just did more walking along the promenade back to my hotel. I also had to get a photo of the statue of the most famous people from the Isle of Man, namely the Bee Gees. Hopefully this little island keeps staying alive! (Actually, there is some sort of campaign for them to double their population. Presumably the intent is immigration, not breeding.)



While the ferry schedule had not worked for me to arrive on the Isle of Man, it did work for me to leave. In the morning, I took the steam packet Manannan from Douglas to Liverpool. Here’s a picture at the Liverpool side.





It was reasonably comfortable and was definitely more interesting than flying. Again, there were no immigration formalities. I ended up walking roughly a mile from the port to the train station and, despite a train strike, there was still pretty much hourly service to London. I spent a relaxing late afternoon and evening (during which I somehow managed to lose my wristwatch) before setting off to the IAJGS conference the next morning. Which I will, of course, write about separately.

I was home from Montreal for all of two days - just enough time to unpack, do laundry, and pack - before heading off to to Ireland.

Why Ireland? Well, the International Association of Jewish Genealogical Societies (IAJGS) annual conference was back to being in person this year and was in London. So I decided to leverage off that to go to a couple of places I hadn’t been to before. I planned a trip to Ireland (including a day trip to Belfast, Northern Ireland) and the Isle of Man before the conference, as well as a couple of things to do in England after the conference. I used Alaska Air miles for a flight on Aer Lingus to Dublin, where I planned to stay 4 days. I also booked a tour to southwestern Ireland. This entry will cover just the first part - Dublin and my day trip to Belfast.

My flight on Aer Lingus was overnight. Their service was just adequate, but it’s not all that long a flight. Immigration was quick and I got the Dublin Express bus from the airport to the city center. I left my bag at the hotel and set out to explore some. My general approach to dealing with the time zone difference when traveling is to keep myself moving the first day and try to go to bed earlyish. So, after raising my blood caffeine level to an acceptable figure, I spent several hours walking around the Georgian core of Dublin, i.e. the area north of the Liffey. That includes the General Post Office, which was the site of the 1916 Easter Rebellion, which, while unsuccessful, was a key event on the path towards Irish independence. If you look closely, you can still see bullet holes in the building.



Further north, there’s the Ambassador Theatre, the Rotunda and St. George’s Church.



But the single best thing I saw in my meandering that day was this sign in a used book store. (Where I also found a book I needed to read for my book club, though I ended up being too tired to stay up to go to book club via zoom.)




The Irish Famine Memorial is right along the river and would be hard to miss. Like many similar tragedies, this was an event that had as much to do with mismanagement of resources as with the potato crop failure itself.




After a reasonably good night’s sleep, I was ready to tackle the sites south of the river. The highest priority was seeing The Book of Kells at the Old Library at Trinity College. You can get there without a long wait by buying a combined ticket with the tour of Trinity College itself.



The most interesting part of that (in my opinion) had to do with Bram Stoker who: a) managed to head both college debating societies at the same time and b) stole Oscar Wilde’s girlfriend.

You can’t take pictures of the Book of Kells itself, though you can take pictures in the area leading up to it. That includes lots of info about scribal techniques and materials.



Also, the scribes complained about their work a lot. As for the book, it’s kept in a darkish room, in a climate-controlled glass case. You get to see two open pages, changed every 6 weeks. And, for the benefit of people who were as ignorant as I was, Kells ia a place, originally a royal residence and later a monastery. The Book is, essentially, a Bible in Latin, and was probably written on the island of Iona, in Scotland, and moved to protect it from a Viking raid. The calligraphy is exquisite.

You then get to go upstairs to the Old Library. This is currently in the early stages of a renovation, so most of the books have been taken off the shelves to be catalogued and fitted with RFID tags. It’s still architecturally impressive.



It also contains several national treasures, e.g. the original copy of the declaration of the Irish republic.



There are also busts of famous people around the hall. The first four women commemorated there are Mary Wollstonecraft, Augusta Gregory (a folklorist), Rosalind Franklin, and Ada Lovelace.

My other big sightseeing venture (the next, i.e. third, day) was over to Dublin Castle. It was crowded enough that I opted not to pay to go inside the castle itself, so have a photo from the courtyard.



I did, however, go into the Chester Beatty Library, which is a free museum of manuscripts. As you may have figured out if you’ve been reading me for any amount of time, this is very much my sort of thing. There’s a wide assortment of manuscripts, including both eastern and western religious ones. Here, for example, is a Torah scroll.



One of the more interesting exhibits was a temporary one of fragments of Biblical papyri.



I also walked over to Saint Patrick’s Cathedral. Because they charge 9 euros admission (which you could circumvent by going during a religious service, of course, but my schedule didn’t work for that), you get a picture of the outside only.



I went to two entertainment events in Dublin. The first was An Evening of Irish Folklore and Fairies, which was an enjoyable storytelling show held at a pub. I knew a few of the stories already, but that’s hardly surprising. The other was the 25th Anniversary show of Riverdance, which I thought was a bit longer than it needed to be. But that was probably because I I was still somewhat jet lagged.

I should also note that other than the bookstore visit I mentioned earlier, the only actual shopping I did was a trip to a yarn store, where I bought a couple of skeins of hand-dyed yarn. Remember: yarn bought in other countries is not stash. It’s souvenir.

Finally, I did a day trip to Belfast. There are any number of organized tours one could take, but it looked easy enough to do on my own. I would have preferred the train, but it’s a bit more expensive and (more significantly) less frequent, so I took a bus instead. Which, if you buy your ticket on-line, is actually cheaper than the express bus from the airport had been. The border with Northern Ireland is not particularly well marked, by the way. You do quickly know you’re in a different country as soon as you get the essence of life (namely, coffee) since the Republic of Ireland uses euros and Northern Ireland uses the pound. However, they have their own pound coinage, which isn’t accepted in the rest of the UK.

I figured that the easiest thing to do with my limited time was to take a hop-on hop-off bus tour. (By the way, why does one “hop” on and off these bus tours? I rarely hop in normal life.) It was a short walk from the bus station to the starting point (next to Belfast City Hall.

The most popular tourist attraction in Belfast is the Titanic Museum. The Titanic was built by Harland & Wolff and the museum is adjacent to what had been the offices where it was designed, which are now inside the Titanic Hotel. The museum building is in the shape of a star, representing White Star Lines.



Had I planned better, I’d have realized that tickets would be heavily booked up on a Saturday and bought one in advance. Instead, all that was available was the tour of the outside (which includes the Harland and Wolff offices, as well as the slipway). That was actually very informative and I didn’t really feel like I missed out much. One fun bit of trivia - Harland and Wolff was later acquired by Aristotle Onassis.

Incidentally, there’s a monument to the Titanic on the grounds of Belfast City Hall, which includes a plaque listing the names of everyone who died in the tragedy.



I got back on the bus and continued around the tour route. I’d have liked to stop at Queens University and visit the Ulster Museum and the Botanical Gardens, but it was raining fairly heavily and I didn’t think I had enough time to do it justice. The tour did go around Falls Road and Shankill Road and allow one to see the various political murals (and the walls that still divide Unionist, i.e. Protestant, and Republican, i.e. Catholic, parts of Belfast). For example, here’s the Bobby Sands Mural:



And here is a Unionist anti-IRA mural:



Anyway, it was a fairly quick overview of Belfast, but I thought it was worth the quick trip. It would, however, be better to spend another day or two in Northern Ireland and see sites like the Giant’s Causeway. Some other time.

I took the bus back to Dublin and repacked my luggage to set off on a four day tour to southwestern Ireland the next day. I’ll write about that in a separate post.