SSS BLOG

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“The Great Escape” — Our Evening with the IRA

For two people who are basically fairly conservative (personally, not necessarily politically), cautious, risk-averse, middle-of-the-road folks, Suzie and I often find ourselves in unusually odd, slightly dangerous-seeming places during our travels sometimes.   Last night was one of those, when we found ourselves in a hot, packed gymnasium in West Belfast with 300 or 400 highly partisan supporters of what was (and maybe is, I’m still learning this) the Irish […]

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Hunkering Down on a Cold Rainy Day

Our streak of no-rain days since we came to the U.K. ended today at nine — an amazing run, I think. But today is not just rain, it’s a full-fledged storm — cold, windy, and raw. Fortunately, the worst of it didn’t hit until about 3 this afternoon, so we were able to get out a bit this morning, and it’s kind of nice being forced into some down-time, sitting […]

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Why We are Up until Midnight

We have routinely been going to bed well after 11 p.m., which is unusual for us (we are usually early-to-bed and early-to-rise). The reason … we are way, way north, so the days here are incredibly long, particularly since today is the summer equinox, the longest day of the year. The map below shows how far north we are in relation to Santa Rosa (the latitude of this point is […]

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Almost Back from Weird Delirium

It’s 7 p.m. in Belfast (Greenisland, actually, pronounced “Green-island” not “Green-is-land” as we were corrected shortly after arriving) and I actually feel partly OK for the first time in a couple of days. Last night was about the sickest I can remember being for a few years — a horrible cold followed by uncontrollable chills followed by a fever. As is often the case with a fever, my mind was […]

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Half Dead

We are finally in Belfast. I am feeling half dead. I got Suzie’s cold or flu or whatever and there’s nothing worse than traveling while very sick. Plus, even though we had planned to take a bus and cab from Dublin to Belfast, we got a deal on a rental car that made the trip cheaper, so I had to have my first experience driving on the left side of […]

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London Odds and Ends No. 1 — Stockwell Station Shooting Memorial

Shortly after the subway and bus bombings in London in the summer of 2005, the police shot and killed an unarmed Brazilian named Jean Charles de Menezes, a 24-year-old electrician, at the Stockwell underground station.  Although original press reports said the victim was killed in a terrorist operation, it soon became apparent that the dead man was innocent, and that his death was the result of mistaken identity. Stockwell is […]

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Last Day in London

Our last day in London was not half bad.  Suzie was mostly over her flu, but we decided to take it pretty easy to make sure she didn’t get overtired and make herself sick again.  Our two predetermined destinations were the British Library (to see the collection of rare books on display) and the court area of London (for obvious reasons). Everything went pretty much as planned, a bit boring […]

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Every Trip has at Least One: A Real Stinker of a Day

You know your vacation day is not up to par when the funnest thing you did was videotaping your 13-year-old stakeboarding. But that was my day today. Suzie got the flu late yesterday, and was as sick last night and this morning as I’ve ever seen her. So our planned activity for the day (watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the new Globe Theatre) was shot.  Setting off without a […]

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The Kids are Alright

After the British Museum, I went to Trafalgar Square to visit the National Museum, which contains paintings from the 1500s to the 1900s. After the British Museum, it was a letdown; you can only take so stylized paintings of Jesus, Mary, and various saints in a short period of time, and after the grandeur of the objects in the other museum, the paintings seemed lame. Some of the newer impressionist […]

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British Museum Pictures and Comments

As promised, here are some pictures from the British Museum, to give you a sense of its scale. If you are ever in London, the museum is a must. One of the more extraordinary rooms contained enormous Assyrian rock carvings depicting a lion hunt. The realism and detail of the work stand out. The sheer age of some of the artifacts is amazing. Here’s one that’s 6,000 years old. It […]

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