"The weather is never like this here"

We heard that a lot during our cruise, as we apparently rode a fine jet of globally warmed air throughout Canada and New England. No rain, a little fog, and a lot of sun (too much in Boston).

I've already posted 360-some photos, so I won't go too detail-crazy here, but I thought I'd post a little about each of the ports and the cruise itself.

Portland, Maine

My parents had already been here several times and they really like it. Our tour started with Victoria Mansion, which I don't have any photos of because nearly everything inside is antique or a painstakingly done reproduction, but this crazy-ornate mansion was really interesting to see.

The rest of the tour was totally disorganized, although kind of hilarious. It consisted primarily of the woman who was our tour guide trying to decide where to go next, and then telling the bus driver when it was almost too late for him to do anything about it. She was all, "Turn here! Wait, no, turn left there!" We kept waiting for the driver to turn down a street and get stuck, thus having to back out. That didn't happen, but he did run a red light, and at another point the tour guide actually shushed my sister, who was not talking loudly at all. The whole thing did beg the question — hadn't they done this tour before? And if not, why didn't they plan it out in advance.

Portland, though, was very nice, despite our chaotic route through it. After the tour, we walked around and did some shopping. I bought blueberry wine, which I've yet to drink, but I find very intriguing. One thing that was really cool about Portland is that most of the shops and even the restaurants allow dogs. As a result, there are dogs EVERYWHERE. Most of them were very quiet and well-behaved. It's too bad we didn't have Rex for this portion of the trip. I told my Mom she'd just have to bring him back.

Bar Harbor, Maine

There had been a little bit of fog heading in to Portland, but nothing like what we woke up to heading in to Bar Harbor. It was solid fog, and the ship was sounding the fog horn regularly. The fog was so bad that when we got there, they had to delay the ship's tenders (Bar Harbor was the only port where the ship couldn't dock). We had an early tour and it was canceled because no one could get to shore. No, I don't have any idea why they didn't just delay it.

Because we still had tour tickets, we were able to take the first tender once they started running them, and got on an Ollie's Trolley tour of Acadia National Park. The Park was really beautiful, and we were lucky that the fog lifted enough for us to go to the top of Cadillac Mountain (which is really more of a hill, but is still apparently the tallest point on the east coast) and see.

After the tour, we went to a little sandwich stand for lobster rolls. I believe it's called the Lobster Claw, but I could be wrong on that one. If you're ever in Bar Harbor, definitely go. It's not much in the line of space or decor, but it reinforces that theory that the best seafood is in the the places that look like a hole. We got the rolls that are just fresh lobster on lettuce and bread, with some butter on the side to drizzle over it. Definitely the best lobster I've ever had.

Fortified for shopping, we did just that. Bar Harbor is a small but really charming town. It reminds me of a cross between Key West and Put-in-Bay.

Saint John, Canada

So, in hindsight, an error in strategy. My Dad, sister and I, as the family beer drinkers, had pegged the city highlights and Moosehead beer tasting tour as something we wanted to do. Tour + beer = good.

So the tour starts with us going over to the Reversing Falls. Now, the Reversing Falls is a really interesting phenomenon, caused by huge tide changes, but you apparently have to see it several times in one day (at high tide and low tide) to really get the impact. When we went, it was slack tide, which means we just saw a big boring body of water. Also, what we didn't realize about the Reversing Falls is that on the opposite side of the river from the viewing platform is a giant factory, which was dumping something into the river. I have no idea what that something is and if it's okay or bad for the environment, but the whole thing is not very picturesque. Does Canada have an EPA?

After the Reversing Falls, we drove around some and then the tour dropped us off at the market. The market is extremely old and was built by a wooden shipbuilder (the ceiling is just like an upside-down ship). It was bigger than Eastern Market in DC and definitely bustling.

Then it was time for the beer tasting. I'm all for beer tasting, but I think we all agreed by this time that we would have been better off just skipping the tour and going to a bar and drinking Moosehead. Perhaps with a trip to the market or some more fresh lobster.

Halifax, Canada

We did a hop-on, hop-off British double decker bus tour here. I originally thought this was going to be on British-style double-decker buses. But they actually turned out to be old London buses, complete with Transport for London stickers and the driver (and exits, somewhat dangerously) on the wrong side for Canada. Awesome.

I like hop-on, hop-off better than standard tours, because if you like things, you can stay as long as you want, and if they're lame, you're not stuck there. Our first stop was the Citadel, and it was actually the best one. The Citadel is a fort on the top of a hill, and it vaguely reminded me of a smaller Tower of London, except with no crown jewels. There were "soldiers" (all of them were actually civilians) drilling in kilts, and a series of mini-museums in the walls of the fort on various aspects of Canadian and British warfare. It was very well-done.

Our next hop-off was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which had a lot more hype — maybe more than anything could have stood up to. It was still nice, though. There was a signal ship, the CSS Acadia, that you could walk through, and a series of exhibits. One of the exhibits was on the Titanic (Halifax was instrumental in the rescue effort, and many of the dead are buried there). People were quick to point out that none of the items in the museum were pulled up from the ship — they're all things that were found floating during the rescue effort. I personally was hoping there'd be a little more of a British bent to things. Maybe I'll have to go to Greenwich some day for that.

We finished our day shopping at Pier 21, which was where the cruise ship docked. It was a major immigration center for Canada.

Boston, Massachusetts

It was HOT in Boston — we heard it got up to 100 degrees, and I'd believe it. If it hadn't been so hot, I'd say that the tour we took was not the way to go. Boston, like any major city, has major traffic, and our tour bus spent a lot of time navigating that traffic and not actually covering a lot of ground. But it was air-conditioned, which was a major bonus.

Our first stop was a Trinity Church, but only briefly. The tour guide said that if you'd seen any of the major churches in England, it wouldn't be very impressive, and he was right. After last year's London trip, I felt pretty eh about it.

The tour went over to Cambridge to the Harvard campus. The campus itself, at least the old portion, wasn't as expansive as I thought it was going to be. My sister wondered why it looked so much bigger than the movies. Memorial Hall, though, was very impressive — it looks like a church, but was built as a memorial to alumni who died in the Civil War. In addition to the memorial, it houses more pedestrian things like a cafeteria.

The next stop was at Old North Church, where the church sexton hung a lantern on the night of Paul Revere's ride to warn everyone that the British were coming. At that point it was the highest place in Boston. The inside of the church is still much as it was then, and although it's not as large or grand as even Trinity Church, I enjoyed it because it had such a role in history and was so well-preserved.

We got a glimpse of the USS Constitution before the tour dropped those who wanted to get off at Quincy Market. We opted to get off there, and grabbed some lunch. There was going to be some definite shopping involved after lunch by my mom and sister, but as I'm a ship nerd, I wasn't about to pass up a chance to see the Constitution, so I walked over to see the ship. It was HOT, but it actually felt really good to walk on land.

The Constitution was hands down my favorite thing from the trip. It is the oldest floating commissioned ship in the world, at 209 years old, and it is just amazing to me that something that old not only floats, but actually goes out for the occasional sail, and even has her guns fired occasionally. I did the guided tour, which meant we got to go down to the gun deck and the berth deck.

Seeing "Old Ironsides" is probably the most literary geeky thing I've ever done, but I am so glad I went. The ship is contemporary to, and even part of one of Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin novels, and to actually stand in it and get an idea of the perspective of the ships already so well described by O'Brian was awesome. That aside, it's a huge part of United States history, and really a miracle of preservation.

The cruise ship

We were on the Grandeur of the Seas again. We previously sailed on that ship two years ago to go to the Caribbean (it sails out of Baltimore, so it was convenient then, and was even more convenient now).

This time, though, I actually got seasick for the first time in six cruises. It was on the day I was walking around in the heat in Boston, which may have been a contributing factor, but my sister got sick as well. We were both sitting "backwards" at dinner, and the more the ship moved and the more I ate the more I felt like I might throw up. Generally I have no problem with rough seas -- I didn't get sick at all on the Century when we went through a storm with pretty big waves for a cruise ship to handle. But in this not-very-rough sea, the ship had this weird side-to-side vibration thing going. Normally the thing to do if you're getting seasick is to look at the waves and the horizon, but the waves and horizon weren't in synch with the motion of the ship. Ugh.

Although I've had a lot of fun during the cruise portion of our previous cruises, I think this was the one that reinforced that land-based vacations are really more my thing. Royal Caribbean, at least on this ship, is a little light on entertainment, particularly decent music performers. Unlike on land, you can't just go to a bar and drink. You can just go to a bar and drink on a cruise ship, but you'll have to listen to the easy-listening duo cover "I'm just a gigolo" for the 405th time. Uh, pass on that. I don't know why more cruise ships don't do what the S/S Norway did, which is to create an actual club and play actual good music during hours that make sense. The Norway's club didn't have any windows, and it actually looked like a club — you really felt like you were in a real land-based club.

The food was generally good, but there's always a certain point in a cruise where I actually get tired of eating. Except dessert. Heh. This is actually one of the things that amuses me about Royal Caribbean, though. You see their commercials and it's all, "You're exercising! You're jet-skiing! You're climbing a rock wall! You're walking on glaciers! You're not a normal cruiser!" And then you get on the actual cruise and people are all like, "What time is the midnight buffet?" This is actually a legitimate question, although cruise directors never fail to make fun of it, because the midnight buffet NEVER ACTUALLY STARTS AT MIDNIGHT. Anyway, maybe the people on Alaskan cruises are more active or something.

There were definitely some enjoyable things on the cruise itself. The Grandeur had a very good Beatles cover band (I think they make a loop on the Royal Caribbean ships in the area) the last time we were on the ship, and they played again. A Beatles cover band is a great idea. There should be more. But only if they don't suck. I didn't read quite as many books as I'd brought, but I got through quite a few, often in the "Solarium," a very nice enclosed pool, or in a lounge chair on the lower side deck.

So, all in all, a great trip. Now I need to start planning a new one. At this time last year I still had London to look forward to. Guess I need to get back to work on learning to speak Italian.

Massive update

So it has been a very long time since have blogged, and that is primarily because June was crazy. I suppose it is time for an update.

1. Eileen and Jeff came out to visit over Memorial Day weekend, and much fun was had. I finally got to meet Melissa in person, which was v. cool, and Melvin joined us for our Baltimore adventure. The Orioles and seafood were involved. That's all of us there in the picture. Photos on Flickr

2. Not long after that, it was time for the second round of visitors. My parents brought my grandfather out to see the World War II memorial and the rest of the city. We did Tourmobile, and my dad and I got off at the Vietnam memorial. I hadn't been there since I moved out here, and had only been there once in 8th grade. It definitely has a different emotional resonance at my age than it did in 8th grade. If you are like me and haven't seen it as an adult, I definitely recommend it, but be prepared to cry. We caught up with my mom and grandfather at the World War II memorial. All in all a good trip, and my grandfather said he really enjoyed himself. Photos on Flickr

3. Pretty much immediately after they left it was time to turn around for another visitor — my friend Tanya, this time. It is amazing, despite having so many visitors in such a short time, I really did almost entirely different things with everyone. Tanya and I hit a ton of museums, including some I hadn't yet been to, so another v. fun visit. Photos on Flickr

4. Now it is time for ME to travel (although my parents are in town again at the end of next week because my dad has a work thing). Up this weekend — San Francisco, for Eileen's transcontinental birthday bash. Then at the end of July it's time for the annual family cruise. This time to Canada/New England, which should be fun. I'll get to go to both San Francisco and Boston for the first time this year, and...

5. I am going to see Underworld!!! They are playing in Central Park on Sept. 14, and Melvin, Katherine, Eric and I all have tickets already. I am crazy excited for this. I have never seen them live and have always wanted to so so much. And, oddly enough, I have never been to New York, either (which is really inexcusable now that I am a 2-hour train ride away), so that'll be another major U.S. city crossed off the to-visit list.

6. Putting a slight damper on San Francisco is a mystery leg problem I seem to have developed. Last week I looked down at my calf and there was a giant bruise that I couldn't remember getting. No, I hadn't been drinking. Much. The bruise kept going down in size but over the last couple days I have been experiencing odd random pains, tingling and numbness in my leg. Sometimes it feels like a shin splint. Sometimes my knee (this is, of course, the leg with my bad knee) hurts. So today I went to the doctor and he wasn't too alarmed, which I took as a good sign. I did have to get x-rays but they won't send them to the doctor until I'm already in SF. So hopefully I will not get a call on Monday telling me that a legkillerapede has burrowed into my calf or something. Fortunately, I can walk on it pretty well. It's actually sitting and standing that it hurts the most.

7. The good news that came out of the visit to the doctor today is that my cholesterol, which had come back as absurdly high for someone my at my age and fitness level, has dropped 90 points. Or they screwed up the test in the first place. Being that I've done little different except eat less meat and more blueberries, and I'm taking a B vitamin, I'm going to go with the screwup. Either that or Trader Joe's B vitamins are miraculous.

8. Is anything from China not contaminated with dangerous things?

Poor old 'Lady'

This is a prodigiously long blog post, but it's something I've been meaning to write about for awhile.

So, my family likes to cruise. It's been our family vacation every year for many years now, and as a result I've cruised on four different lines — Norwegian, Celebrity, Carnival (blech) and Royal Caribbean. We've largely gone to different areas of the Caribbean, although last year we went to Bermuda, and this year we're doing a New England/Canada thing.

When I mention this to people, they often ask what my favorite cruise was, or what was my favorite place to go. Favorite cruise, hands down, was our first, on the SS Norway:


Doesn't look like your usual McMegaCruiseShip, does it? That's because the Norway was built as the SS France, one of the last (along with the Queen Elizabeth 2) Transatlantic ocean liners.

The France, which for a long time was the longest ship in the world, didn't have a very long career as an ocean liner. By the time she came out, flights had become a more popular way to cross the Atlantic. By the mid-70s, the ship was mothballed, until it was resurrected by Norwegian Cruise Lines to serve as a Caribbean cruise ship, and rechristened the SS Norway.

While the ship doesn't look like one of those giant floating plastic things that run laps around the Caribbean now, it was HUGE for a cruise ship in the 1980s, and pioneered those mega ships. It was built super long so that it could sit on the crest of three ocean waves at once, and the photo above was taken, I believe by my mom, from a tender, a smaller boat used to get from the ship to shore at many of the Caribbean islands. The ship needs a deep water port to dock — think New York, not St. Thomas — and it was so big it carried two boats that were oceanworthyin themselves.

While the ship had undergone a lot of renovation, and had even had decks added, to make it more suitable for cruising, there were still lots of places where you could still see that ocean liner — in the dining rooms, certain lounges, and its glassed-in promenade (nobody spent much time outdoors crossing the Atlantic). I love old things and ocean liners, so I thought it was super cool.

When we cruised on the Norway, in 2002, despite her age and lack of rock-climbing walls and ice skating arenas and other such things in the newer mega ships, she was still the second most popular ship in NCL's fleet. In 2001, she went on what was supposed to be her farewell voyage, a last Transatlantic trip, including a last stop in New York, in early September. The ship was at sea on September 11, and not long after, NCL decided to keep her in service in the Caribbean.

But in 2003, one of her old steam boilers exploded as the ship came into the port of Miami, killing eight crew members. After the tragedy, NCL had the ship towed to Germany, to assess whether it could be repaired. Repairs were deemed too expensive, and NCL announced that the ship would never sail again.

I think it's really sad that they didn't make an effort to keep one of the last ocean liners going — replacing the old boiler with something more safe, to prevent another tragedy. But what happened to the Norway is even worse.

The ship was built at a time (1960) when asbestos was a commonly used material, and it is full of it, and other toxic materials. The ship should never have left Germany for the purpose of being scrapped, because the toxic materials, under European law, should not have been exported.

The ship was towed out, though — possibly under the auspices of being turned into a floating casino somewhere. Instead, though, she was towed around the world until she ended up at Alang, India, to be scrapped. Prior to that, there was a stop in Bangladesh, which wouldn't let the ship enter its waters to be scrapped due to the toxic materials.

Improperly dismantling a ship full of toxic materials isn't legal in India, either, and the ship, now rechristened the SS Blue Lady, is now part of a battle in the Indian Supreme Court over whether she can be scrapped there. She has been beached, and much of the hull has been out of the water. Even if the Supreme Court rules that it can't be scrapped, it may have to be, if it can't be moved without expensive dredging. And because the ship has been out of the water so long, the hull may be compromised, so that she can't float.

The ship could have been properly scrapped in Germany, which is equipped to handle the materials. But it would have cost far more to do it there, and safely, with no impact to the environment.

This site shows pictures of the ship as the France, and the Norway, and finally as the Blue Lady, beached at Alang. Apparently there are some groups out there looking to buy the ship, saving it and turning it into a floating hotel. NCL could have done right by history and the environment and pushed to find a buyer that wanted to see the ship preserved in the first place. Now, even if someone comes up with financing and the breakers sell the ship, it may not be able to float.

So all in all, a terrible story. The last great CGT ocean liner, the former flagship of the French Line, left rusting away in Alang, on Greenpeace's watch list.

I know she's just a ship, but she's also a piece of history, and I think the poor old "Blue Lady" deserved more than this.