Old Town, Albuquerque, New Mexico

New York Harbor

The New House

Ta Da!! The new house is well underway!
Expected completion date -- December 23rd.
It will be a happy day!




Inside the front door, in the living room.

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Atlantic Crossing

Reserve.

Cork, Ireland

Cork, Ireland is on the Southern coast of Ireland, and the harbor of Cobh (pronounced Cove) is one of the deepest harbors in the world. For some years, this port was the "jumping off" port for ships bound for America, but now, with more advanced ships, most ships leave from Southampton or Dover. Cobh has the distinction of being the last port for the Titanic, and the place where the Lusitania was sunk by U-boats during World War II.



The little port town of Cobh is beautiful, with its cathedral and its row of colored buildings.



Cork is the second largest city in Ireland, with a population of about 400,000 (of a total population in Ireland of about 4 million).
Cork was a busy town -- a very pretty downtown area of narrow shop-lined streets. (We have no photos of Cork.)


We were surprised to see palm trees in Cobh.





The bus ride was through countryside so green that it was truly the emerald isle. It was as beautiful as the photos show it.



The bus did not stop in Cork, but continued on to Blarney Castle.(BlarneyCastle) Although the weather was rainy, and a rain shower fell, we stood in line to walk up the narrow circular stairs to the top of Blarney Castle to kiss the Blarney Stone, where we were promised "eloquence", or "blarney" more accurately. It was cheesy but fun.

The Blarney Stone is located high at the top of the Blarney Castle (in the open space in the photo). We had to climb the stairs all the way to the top.
You have to lie on your back and kiss the Blarney Stone upside down. It can be reached in no other way. (We kissed the stone knowing that others had just kissed the stone ahead of us -- people with colds or flu or who knows what disease.)

Later, we visited the souvenier shops of Blarney Woollen Mills, just outside the castle. Blarney Woollen Mills (BlarneyMills) has an interesting history. A man named Kelleher was very, very poor, and worked as a laborer. Somehow, he saved enough money to buy a small souvenier stand outside Blarney Castle. When the woollen mills went bankrupt and was put up for sale, he took out a life insurance policy on himself, his wife, and each of his seven children, and then borrowed all the money he could against those policies. He was able to buy a half interest in the mills. Later he was able to buy out his partner. He did not use the mills, but used the building to sell souveniers. He began to upgrade the souveniers that he sold to higher priced, higher profit items, and he began to make money. Later he also opened a hotel on the site. Now the shop sells very expensive goods along with some cheap souveniers. Blarney Woollen Mills is still owned and operated by the Kelleher family.
Back in the town of Cobh, we took a walk before the ship sailed at 5:00 p.m., beginning its crossing of the Atlantic.










The ship was docked directly in the little town of Cobh, and it was the largest structure in the town.


The pilot is let off, and we sail into the Atlantic, past the final lighthouse.

Paris

What can I say about Paris? How can I describe such a beautiful city? On this cruise, the ship docked for one day at Le Havre, and we wanted to spend the day in Paris. The ship had excursions to Normandy, and Mont St. Michel, and several other places, but we wanted to go to Paris. The ship arranged busses to take people to Paris, a three hour bus ride. The drive was beautiful, passing picturesque farms along the way, with old farmhouses, all the same light brown color, the color of the stone in this area. Many of the oldest farmhouses still had thatched roofs. The fields were green and perfectly kept, very much like one picture postcard after another all along the way. Once we entered Paris, the trip was very quick to the Eiffel tower, the drop-off and pick-up point in Paris. The guide told everyone to return to the bus no later than 5:00 p.m. for the return trip to the ship, and we were off. The first stop was the public restrooms at the Eiffel tower. Americans are not accustomed to having to pay to enter public restrooms, but in Paris the charge is typically 40 cents. It was here that I got reacquainted with "ugly Americans". Even though we had been told that we must have Euros, some Americans on the ship had only American money, and they could not use it to enter the restrooms. Several Americans were irate and making a lot of noise. Would anyone from Europe have been able to use Euros in America? Of course not. I felt shame.The day was beautiful and we wanted to go to certain places, so we set out walking. After spending a few moments at the Eiffel tower, just to enjoy the majesty of it, we set off toward Les Invalides and the tomb of Napoleon. Immediately, we were was walking through neighborhoods so beautiful that we were overwhelmed. Again, we were struck by the beauty of Paris, as we have been before. The streets are clean and neat and lined with huge shade trees, and behind the trees are buildings, all constructed with beautiful architecture (see photo), with shops on the street level, and apartments above. Parisians were everywhere on the sidewalks -- school children dressed in their little smocks with white collars, people shopping, people on their way to or from work. After a 15 minute walk and a stop in a patisserie, we arrived at Les Invalides, with its huge dome. It was constructed in the 1600's by Louis IV, to house sick military men; later, it became the site of Napoleon's tomb. (Detailed descriptions of Les Invalides are available on the Internet.) The gardens of Les Invalides are beautiful and perfectly kept, and the tomb is impressive. After our visit to Les Invalides, we took a taxi to Notre Dame for a quick photo, and then we walked to nearby Ste. Chapelle, the beautiful 13th century church with walls of stained glass. It was wonderful again to sit inside in amazement as the sun streamed through the stained glass windows (see photo). What a wonderful, almost religious, experience to sit and admire the beauty.After Ste. Chapelle, we stopped for lunch at a nearby sidewalk cafe. Paris has thousands of wonderful sidewalk cafes, and Parisians seem to fill them constantly, at all hours. All of the tables and chairs are pointed out toward the sidewalks, to watch passersby. I had a ham and cheese sandwich on a long roll of french bread, and Rae had blank; then we shared a tri-scoop of ice creams with coffee. Sitting in the cafe and eating wonderful food was an incredible experience, as always.Then we began our walk back toward the Eiffel tower, to return to the bus. First, we walked along the Seine (photo), and then through St. Germaine on the left bank, with its narrow streets lined with shops, food markets, flower shops, and sidewalk cafes -- a feeling of truly being in Paris.Back at the Eiffel tower, the bus trip back to the ship was smooth and uneventful. Paris reminds me again how deeply I care about beauty. Napoleon decided that Paris would be beautiful, and he made it that way. But he did so much more than that, he developed a culture of beauty in an entire nation, a culture that extends to every aspect of society, and lasts until this day. All countries could be beautiful if they wanted to be, but they don't, and to me, that is a shame.

Belgium

On day three, the ship stopped in Zeebrugge, Belgium, the only port in Belgium (located on the North Sea). The ship docked at a pier in a remote industrial area, and the nearest town was Blankenberge, a seaside resort town of 17,000. The ship offered excursion tours to Brussels and Brugge, but we had already been to those places, and although we loved them -- especially Brugge -- we didn't really feel like going back at this time. In addition, we were still jetlagged, and the day was cloudy and threatening rain. So we chose to go into the little seaside town of Blankenberge, and that turned out to be an excellent choice. We spent four hours or so just wandering around, stopping to eat lunch at a wonderful little restaurant that had a covered area on the sidewalk. As we were eating lunch, suddenly there was a downpour. We stayed at the restaurant until the rain stopped, and then walked around a little more before returning to the ship. After Amsterdam, Blankenberge was a huge change. Everything was perfectly clean and neat, perfectly orderly; it was "picture perfect". As this is the only seaside access for the people in Belgium, high rise condominiums lined the coast for miles. Although we very much enjoyed our day in Blankenberge, and we were very happy that we decided to go there rather than make the two hour trip into Brussels, or go back to Brugge, we must tell you, Brugge is a FAR prettier and FAR more interesting place than Blankenberge. Brugge is WONDERFUL. The biggest event in Blankenberge each year is the annual International Sandsculpture Festival, at which huge sandcastles are built. Last year, 64 international sand sculptors participated in the festival; they carved 24,000 tons of sand in 3 weeks. The highest sculpture was 19.5 meters high and was the new European record for height. The Festival was open to the public July 11 to August 31, and last year over 320,000 visitors attended the festival.