Gene and Leslie's Adventures, 2011 and Beyond

Boston, Ireland, Poland, and French wine country.

Well we are off again heading east.

We arrived Boston on May 2nd and visited the Boston Marathon Memorial site the following day prior to our flight to Dublin.

The photos (memorial photos of the victims, running shoes, hats, CNN news set, bomb site and finish line) give you a sense of the breadth of the memorial. The silence was quite profound and moving. Lots of people milling through Copley Square in silence and you could truly hear a pin drop.

Left for Dublin May 3rd, 6:15 pm and arrived a quick 5:50 hour flight just south of Labrador and Iceland to DUB. And yes, it was raining--- big drops. It was quite exciting to enter the European Union using my new Irish passport. We chuckled as Leslie enter through the non-EU line. But given the hour, there was no wait.

Headed to Dundalk (110 k north of Dublin) about 6:30 pm on the quiet M1 freeway (only trucks and early risers) to visit our cousins and spend the next six days in the family cottage and eating "cakes" drinking tea, and lots of "craic-chat". My family has lived in this area since 1582....My cousin Oliver is a lobster fisherman who has his lobster boat in the family moorage ( since 1825).

On Sunday we went to the Drogeda Seafair where the "tall ships" moored for the weekend. Here are a few family photos.

Leslie, Celli (my cousin who was Dundalk port manager), Olive his wife, Mary (my cousin who was a hospital receptionist, Olive's sister Nellie and ......

Osain, Connor and Niall--- second cousins

And then there is crazy Niall.... all of 9 years old and great Irish football player. Scored two goals the next day.

And a few sailboats

And my cousin (Oliver---lobster fisherman and his wife, Marie--- fresh from hip surgery)

And Leslie and all the girls... after a night for "craic (chat)", tea and Jameson.

Leslie, Pauline, Mary and Bridg

We also had time to walk the seashore by the old homestead and travel north to Belfast to see the Titanic exhibit. It was quite an amazing feat of technological "wizardry". The exhibit takes you through four floors of sensory adventures. You begin on the first floor with an orientation to the early twentieth century in Belfast, including straightforward and honest information about the religious and sectarian prejudices against the catholics. Moving to the fourth floor, you experience the construction of the Titanic and "ride through" the construction site and boiler rooms. From there, you move to the third floor and have a virtual tour of the ship from the first class parlor and famous staircase through the third class/steerage accommodations. On the second floor you experience the disaster and learn about the survivors' stories and inquests into the disaster. Arriving back on the first floor, you learn about the current status of underwater exploration.... All in all quite the experience. Check out the website and associated video... Enjoy.

http://www.titanicbelfast.com/Navigation/The-Titanic-Experience.aspx

Headed to DUB and flight to Warsaw. Arriving Warsaw, was able to again us my Irish passport and let Leslie have cuts in the EU line... She could enter Poland with me and her US passport.

Flagged a taxi and off to Matt's apartment house. Below are photos of the apartment entry, Polish street sign our major means of transportation... the street trams.

After settling in to Matt's two bedroom apartment, we headed out and thought we would try our luck with the Warsaw transportation system (which is quite amazing--- trams, buses and Metro---- 30 zlotys or 10 dollars for three days.

Ok... you pronounce it.... Ws are Vs and Vs are Ws and l with line through it is Wa sound.... That's only the beginning of the language adventure.... dzien dobry (Hello--- jenn dob rey ).

On our first outing we headed for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Memorial and the new Museum of Jewish History in Poland (just completed two weeks ago).