My Ancestors Had Opinions and Acted on Them

Lord Douglas and the Harpist, Chatting up the Blacksmith

The Three Cousin Picture
BW Babe Opted to Remain Dry at the Visitor Center
We Saved Her a Seat at the Old World Pub

Lord Douglas and the Harpist
Old World Grocery Store

Word of the Day

Telebility - Having the ability to tell if a television is on by hearing a high pitched ringing in one's ear from around the corner, or anywhere in the house.

We are staying at the Tower Hotel in the walled city of Londonderry or, according to your political bend, Derry. Our tour guide, Batt, planned to walk with us around the walls of the city and tell us all about the history of Derry (Londonderry) and describe the "troubles" that the city suffered over the years. It wasn't until the late 70's when things started to cool down a bit. However, we noted today that many of the highway signs that say Londonderry have either had the London part of the sign whited out or blacked out. Interesting. We didn't take our walk and talk around the walls this morning because it was raining. Plans changed.

Instead we drove out to The Ulster American Folk Park where they have a wonderful living history museum along with a indoor museum describing the emigration of the Ulster Scots and Irish to The New World. It was interesting to see a living history museum here in Ireland versus the ones that I've seen in the states. On most aspects, the interpretation was quite well done. On other aspects, I'm not sure they worried too much. I saw a lot of flowering annuals that I'm pretty sure didn't exist during that time period...Black irises? And they were re-thatching one of the building in the exhibits using modern day scaffolding. And Lord Douglas spotted a very modern ladder hidden in back of one of the buildings. Plus, some of the spinning wheels looked a bit modern to me...if you can actually have a modern spinning wheel. However, the exhibits were very interesting. I did learn something that I hadn't heard or if I had heard it, I didn't grasp. Apparently, before the emigrants boarded the boat to leave for The New World, their names had to be entered into a log book. The man who wrote down their names, didn't always spell those names accurately. When they arrived at their final destination, if they didn't want any trouble, they had to maintain the spelling of the name written in the log book. No wonder there are so many different spellings for one name.

The Harpist, Lord Douglas, and I braved the rain to visit the outdoor exhibits at the park while Mr. D and BW Babe opted to remain inside where it was warm and cozy. I can't say that I blamed them really. I did have to resort to using my umbrella and both the Harpist and Lord Douglas were using rain gear. We had two and a half hours to explore the exhibits which took us from The Old World onto a ship heading for The New World and then our arrival in the New World. We got just to the point where we stepped onto the shores of the New World before we ran out of time and had to hasten back to Ireland once again or tempt the wrath of our fellow tourists and Batt.

BW Babe and I only had enough time to grab a sandwich to share on the bus ride back to our hotel. The rain continued so we were given the rest of the day to do what we wanted. BW Babe and I decided that we wanted to go take a look at the local shops here in Londonderry (Derry). We explored two grocery stores, purchased some candy that we've never seen in the states, stopped at a shop and purchased a "You are Now Entering Free Derry" t-shirt for Sarge or D Buddy, stopped into a Pet Charity Thrift Store to see if we could find something to support the charity...but didn't, and checked out the local Pounder. Everything in the Pounder costs a pound. Sound familiar?

BW and I hauled our tired feet up the hill back to our hotel, dumped our purchases and got ready for dinner...which was to be served down the hill at the other hotel. So...down the hill we went again. Dinner was delayed so...we all gathered in the lobby of the hotel for pre-dinner drinks and told each other what we'd been doing during our free time. Some of the tourists had taken walks around town like BW and I. Others took in The Tower Museum here in town. Still others decided to take the opportunity to catch up on some much needed sleep. A few of our tour members tend to stay out rather late. Some of our musicians didn't return from performing at the pub last night until the wee hours of the morning. And after dinner tonight...it looked like they planned on repeating their late night musical festivities. BW and I decided to give it a pass tonight and headed back UP THE HILL to our hotel along with another of our tour companions to repack and get ready for departure tomorrow morning.

Breakfast at 8 AM. Load up the luggage. Walk the wall with Batt as tour guide, rain or shine (and I'm betting on rain) and then it'll be off to our next adventure. We'll be staying at Letterkenny for two nights. Apparently, we'll be using Euros from now on so...BW Babe and I will have to find a bank to exchange our pounds into Euros...tomorrow.

Random Quote of the Day

The journey is difficult, immerse. We will travel as far as we can, but we cannot in one lifetime see all that we would like to see or to learn all that we hunger to know.

Loren Eiseley