Family News

VACATION IN NEW ENGLAND / PART IV - EXCURSIONS

                                                        Mystic Seaport

We didn’t do a lot of traveling while we were in Newport. There was so much to do and see in our immediate vicinity that we saw no need to go any further, especially since there were six of us and any outing involved using both cars. While it would have been nice to visit other parts of New England it would have been at the cost of missing something much closer to home. We’ll return some day and see Maine and Vermont.

We did make two trips though. The first one was to Mystic Seaport, a museum village begun in 1929, and which now has over one million visitors a year. (Another time to be glad that we weren’t there in the peak season.)

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
It is about an hour from Newport and is where Kathy works as a librarian, bringing some order to the thousands of documents that are available there. She commutes there four days a week, so when the drive seemed long I just reminded myself of her and tried not to be such a wimp. (Every time we go to the States I am surprised anew at the long distances. I have become very much used to kilometers and the proximity of most places we are interested in.) Kathy was kind enough to supply us with passes to visit the Seaport, which was an added incentive, but we would have gone there in any case.

                                                                              
                                                                              
Frank and I had been to Mystic Seaport many years ago when we were visiting Jenny’s exchange family in Connecticut and we knew the others would enjoy it. It’s a former seaport and shipbuilding town that has been turned into a museum for the public and a place of research for historians.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
Like most American museums it’s very efficiently run and there are wheelchairs available (free, of course) for those who have difficulty walking a lot.


                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
There are a number of old ships that can be boarded and explored, which is always fun.

                                                                              
                                                                              
Captain Ulf and his hardy crew

                                                                              
                                                                              
                                     There is even a lot of ship building that goes on here and of course maintenance of the fleet of old whaling ships.

                                                      
                                                                              
                                       Those little dots on the first mast are sailors who are furling the sails and singing.

                                                                              
There is a lot more to see in addition to the ships, which was a good thing because it was COLD the day we were there. It was especially welcoming in the printing office because it was so nice and warm. In each of the workshops there was someone actually doing the work as it would have been done in the 19th century and talking about life back then.

                                                                              
                                                                              
Main Street - you can see it wasn't very crowded!

                                                                              
There was a very interesting exhibition about the role of women in the shipping industry, which we spent quite a while looking at. We had decided it was about time to head for home when Frank and Ulf disappeared into one of the houses to see what was going on. After quite a while Daddy went in, not to be seen either for a long time.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
Then Jenny and I decided to see if they had all been abducted and we entered a dark room with a little old woman sitting in the corner, telling the tale of her life as the wife of the captain of a whaling ship, with our menfolk sitting there mesmerized by her.

She often accompanied her husband on whaling expeditions and had many interesting tales to tell about their adventures. We finally tore ourselves away and then had to disillusion Frank and Ulf who thought the woman was authentic. (They never took the time to consider how old that would have made her.) I have to admit she was very convincing.

                                                                              
                                                                              
KING OF THE WORLD (but what happened to Kate Winslet?)
                                                                              

                                                                              
                                                              Boston

We also made a trip to Boston, or rather we stayed in Boston the day before we had to fly home, after taking Daddy and Lanie to the airport in Providence for their flight back to Savannah. Again, Frank and I had visited Boston many years ago and I really hadn’t enjoyed it at all. It was bitterly cold and Frank had a fever and couldn’t talk, but he insisted on walking through Boston nevertheless. I remember it as being a forlorn place, uninviting and basically uninteresting except for the aquarium which I thought was fascinating. I never imagined there were so many different kinds of jellyfish.

                                                                                                               
This time it was a beautiful day, probably the warmest we experienced there, and everything seemed to be bathed in a golden light. And the four of us were in a good mood (and healthy!). We all followed the Freedom Trail through Boston that takes you past all the historic sights and explains their significance.

                         
                           
                           
                         
                           
                           
Oh dear, which building was this?

                           
                           
                           
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
The American presidential election was only a few days away and Ulf wanted to spur the Democrats on and maybe it helped a little, but alas not enough.

                                                                                                             
                                                                              
                                                                              
Donkeys are just stubborn, I guess.

We also had plenty to eat from Quincy Market where the variety is very impressive and there was plenty to drink of course. Jenny and I became addicted to Smoothies.

                                                                              
                                     Frank isn't being a glutton; he's being nice and holding my drink.
Wish I had one of those right now.

                                                                              
One of the best sights in Boston was the building where Ally McBeal and her cohorts practiced law for about five years. There is even a pub on the ground floor which Jenny and I peaked into, but it didn’t look like Vonda Shephard was anywhere around. Too bad the practice folded, although things had gotten so silly towards the end it wasn’t as sad as it might have been.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
MEP, aren't you jealous?

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                             
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
Jenny wanted to go shopping and the men weren’t too interested in joining us. Ulf was more interested in other things.

                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
                           
Notice the matching cap!

                                                                              
So Jenny and I headed towards Newbury Street (the Rodeo Drive of Boston) through Boston Common and Public Garden.


                            There were hundreds of squirrels in the parks and of course they were nice and fat from all the food tossed their way.

                                                                              
                                                                              
"If I pose really nice for her, maybe she'll throw me a peanut."

                                                                              
The highlight of the day for Ulf and Frank was a shop that specialized in massage equipment, especially reclining armchairs that are designed to give you a full massage at the touch of a button. Everything was in working order and you could try them all out for as long as you wanted. Ulf spent so much time there we decided we had to get him out before they started charging him rent. I think the price for the one that Ulf and Frank finally decided was right for them was about $3,000 plus shipping from the States because they have no outlets in Europe. I expect both of them are hoping that on Christmas Eve Santa will bring them one. (Too bad but I’m afraid Santa needs the room in his sleigh for other things.)

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
"Has she finally finished going on and on about New England?!? It's about time!"

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                   The End

VACATION IN NEW ENGLAND / PART III - LIVING IN NEWPORT

Newport is a lovely little town, especially in October when the masses of tourists have left for the time being, promising to return in the spring. The smaller mansions were all closed for the winter. I think many of the “cottages” were built without effective heating systems because after all they were only occupied during a few weeks in the summer. Also the tram service is cut back quite a bit at the end of September. We got a taste of what it must be like in the summer when we went to the Tourist Information Center to book a trolley tour of the town and everything was booked solid for that day because a huge cruise ship had anchored in the harbor. We booked for the next morning and had the entire trolley almost to ourselves.

                                                                              
                                                                              
When the weather was nice it was really, really nice.

                                                                              
Still the effects of the summer were to be felt even in the Fall. I have never seen so many t-shirt / sweatshirt shops in one town before and every t-shirt, every sweatshirt had Newport emblazoned across it. Nothing more, nothing less, just different colors. I guess that’s what everyone wants who goes there, maybe a little of the prestige of the Vanderbuilts for the price of a t-shirt. So Newport is not a shopping El Dorado, which is just as well since Frank and I just had one suitcase. Four of us had to travel from Boston to Newport in a car with our luggage and I was afraid not everything would fit if we each took a suitcase. A good thing too, because we just managed to squeeze everything in.

                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
Daddy and Lanie arrived from Savannah on Sunday morning and Jenny and I drove to the Providence Airport to pick them up. It was good to be together again. It was almost a year to the day since the four of us had enjoyed Tallahassee and a little over two years since the six of us had stayed together near Roanoke, Virginia. Daddy has lost some weight and is looking great.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
Aren't they purrrty?!?

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
This was our sixth house exchange since we began in October 2001 and we have always had such wonderful luck with our exchange partners and their homes. Kathy and Bruce came to Germany the day before we flew to Boston so we had a chance to get to know them in person. After corresponding with someone for several months you really get a good impression of what the person is like, so it was no surprise that we enjoyed our time together with them, short as it was. We also met again at the Boston airport for a good hour just before our flight left and it was fun to exchange stories of our experiences in each others’ homes.

                                                                              
                                                                              
It's really hard to take a good picture of their house because the trees and hedges are in the way.

                                                                         We were very conveniently located as it was close to the Cliff Walk and a pleasant walk away from the center of Newport. The local grocery store was only about two blocks down the main road, so if we only needed a few things we could walk there too.

    
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
This was the way we took from town back to the house.
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
                                                       Eating in, eating out

One of the fun things to do while on vacation is to eat. For the first week we took turns cooking and had a lot of delicious meals, although I had a very hard time finding dried lentils for my famous lentil soup. In the end they finally got some in at the local health food store. Don’t Americans eat lentils? We had lunch a couple of times at Panera Bread, a bakery / café that we liked. They had very good sandwiches and a wonderful broccoli cheese soup. It was worth going there just for that. We also had lunch once at Mudville’s Pub and we were all very satisfied with the food.

                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
Ummm, what shall we have?

                                                                              
However, by the end of the week we were ready for something special, especially since our experiment in Chinese take-out was borderline disastrous. Jenny is a big fan of lobster so she couldn’t leave New England without trying the local fare. We did some research and took Kathy and Bruce’s advice and made reservations at The Mooring . Jenny was pleased with her meal and we had some mixed feelings about ours. (The rest of us all ordered the same thing, a fish dish that sounded like it would be very good but wasn’t anything special.) However, my clam chowder was very good, the deserts were yummy and they served very good California wine. We had a bottle of white and one of red and they were both excellent. Unfortunately I didn’t take a picture of Jenny’s lobster, but Jenny took one of the rest of us.

                                                                              
Too bad you can't read the label on the wine bottle. It was good though.

                                                                              
By far our favorite place to eat, however, was Brick Alley Pub. It came very highly recommended by Kathy and Bruce and we were sorry we didn’t check it out until the second week of our stay, since we only managed to eat there twice. The first time we went for lunch and had the most amazing waitress, a tall, slender, nice-looking blonde. First, she took our order – remember there were six of us – without writing down a thing. I was skeptical since some waitresses, and waiters too of course, don’t get everything right even after taking copious notes. Well, then she returned after a while carrying our order, all of it – on one huge tray. Wow, I thought, but it got better. She balanced the tray on one hand while opening up a little folding table to place the tray on and then proceeded to give everyone exactly what was ordered without a single question. Now I know WONDER WOMAN’S secret identity!

                                                                              
I stole this from their website. I don't think they will mind. The soup and salad bar was included.

                                                                              
The food was very good and it was a fun place to be. They had all sorts of interesting things hanging from the ceiling and on the walls. (I really do need a camera with a better flash.) And the deserts were amazing. Lanie ordered some sort of chocolate thingy (I’ve forgotten what it was called) that wasn’t any more expensive than any of the other deserts, but when it came our eyes nearly popped out!

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
She's already eaten about half of this!

                                                                                                             
Lanie did the best she could. Ulf did the best he could.

                           
                                                                                                               
Of course, Ulf had already shared a strawberry cheese cake with Jenny.
He really had to work at this second desert.

                                                                                                               
We all did the best we could, but we still didn’t manage to finish it!


                                                                                                                                                                                                    
                                                 Wild Life Adventures

Kathy and Bruce have a cat, Ginger, who graciously allowed us to care for her while we were living in her house. She’s not actually a house cat, although she did come in regularly for some petting by Daddy or Frank. Normally the garage is where she hangs out, so Daddy insisted on leaving the garage door open for her so she could go in and out freely. I noticed the food was disappearing pretty fast, but what do I know about how big an appetite a cat has? One evening Daddy came into the kitchen and said there was an animal in the garage and it wasn’t Ginger. I assumed it was another cat and went out there with him – you can enter the garage from the kitchen, there’s a very practical little mudroom in between. Anyway, I went with him to have a look, but when we got there he mentioned that it definitely wasn’t a cat because it had a long pointed snout. The first thing I thought of was a fox, but then he said it was black and white and he assumed it was a SKUNK! Well, complete coward that I am, I hightailed it out of there back to the safety of the house and Lanie the Indomitable and Daddy the Fearless had to shoo the skunk out of the garage. Not me, I’m not stupid.

A few nights later Jenny and Ulf came home from the pub where they had watched a Red Sox game and it was quite late. When they got close to the front door they noticed an animal, a black and white animal. Ulf was all for investigating and Jenny threatened instantaneous divorce and banishment from the house if he got sprayed. Undaunted, (or maybe just stupid – Sorry, Ulf) he tried to take some pictures of the beast. They didn’t turn out very well because of course it’s difficult to shoot a black animal at night, but the eyes are impressive.

                                                                              
Actually, Lanie thought it might have been a pet skunk that had had the stink glands removed because there was no smell at all, but where’s the adventure in that?

VACATION IN NEW ENGLAND / PART II - THE CLIFF WALK

Newport is located on an island and one of the delights of vacationing there is the option of doing the Cliff Walk. This is a 3.5 (5.6 km) path along the coast which at times is over a rocky beach but at other times deserves the name as the cliffs rise above the Atlantic Ocean and the waves break against the rocks spewing spray in the air.
The weather gods were not overly kind to us during our stay but the first full day was Monday and the weather couldn’t have been more gorgeous. The beginning of the Cliff Walk was just down the street from where we were staying.

                                                                              
                                                                              
                                                                              
Just down the road and to the right.
                                                                            
So we rather naively decided to start out after lunch – after a nap. Jenny and Ulf were smarter as they left right after eating. We said that if they turned around after a couple of miles we would meet them, but that didn’t happen. We also did the walk together on the last day of our stay when the weather once again turned back to what we had envisaged all along.

The beginning of the walk is completely innocuous and I almost expected to see a sign “Wheelchair accessible”.

                                                                              
                                    Not quite warm enough to think of bathing.
                                                                              
                                   We even talked about my father walking part of the way with us the next time, but as it turned out that was a little too ambitious.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
The view was fantastic, especially on such a pretty day.

                           
                           
                           
The first mile or so continued to be an easy walk and we spent a lot of time oohing and ahhing and taking pictures. We didn’t realize how far we still had to go.


The path is lined along the right side with houses, or maybe the word palace would better describe many of them. Here are also the famous “summer cottages” of the super-rich, most notably the Vanderbuilts, who constructed them in order to spend a few weeks each year during the summer season there. Most were built at the end of the 19th century and in some cases almost everything including the marble was imported from Europe. Whole rooms were designed and constructed in France, taken apart, shipped to Newport and re-constructed there.

                                                                              
                                                                              
The Marble House and every bit of it from Italy.                                                                            
We visited four of the houses during our stay in Newport and I think that in many ways the Marble House is the most memorable. First of all, instead of a guided tour there was an audio tour that was excellent, with extra options in almost every room, so that it took us about an hour and a half to go through the house. In that time we really got acquainted with the mistress of the house, Mrs. Alva Vanderbuilt, who ruled her realm with an iron hand. The house was a show-case made primarily of marble from Sienna and her daughter Consuelo was not allowed to have any personal objects in her own room that could have detracted from the overall impression. She was also more or less coerced by her mother into marrying an English Duke, but the marriage was an unhappy one and ended in divorce. Alva does not come over as a very likable person, but she was a suffragist and raised a lot of money for the movement to give women the vote. It’s easy to imagine how she felt about being denied her say in the running of the country!

She later divorced her husband and married Mr. Belcourt, who had a house just across the street. The Marble House still belonged to her though and she used it for political gatherings and sent everything there to be laundered because it had better facilities than Belcourt. She also had a tea house built right on the cliffs and it is one of the strangest sights along the Cliff Walk. It certainly stands out.

                                                                              
                                     Darjeeling? First flush?

                                                                              
                                                                              
Of course the best known of the “summer cottages” is The Breakers, built by Cornelius Vanderbuilt II, with its 70 rooms, 33 of which were for staff.

                                                                              
                                                                              
Room enough for us all!


                                                                              
Here we had a guided tour and at least caught a glimpse of what life must have been like for the owners. Mrs. Alice Vanderbuilt, mistress of the house, was a completely different person from her sister-in-law, Alva. It’s quite noticeable in the furnishings, which are much more comfortable and less imposing than at Marble House. It is even rumored that she let her nieces and nephews slide down the center staircase on silver platters. I wonder how the two sisters-in-law got along!

The Elms , built by the Berwinds whose fortune was made in the coal industry, is not directly on the coast but on the other side of the street, aptly named Bellevue. The gardens are more elaborate than at the other houses, maybe to make up for the lack of view to the sea.

                                                                              
I loved this tree. Actually it's several trees and a perfect place to play or have a picnic.
It's like a tent under the branches.

Here we also had an audio tour which we enjoyed very much. We were told however that there would probably never be an audio tour at The Breakers because it would be too difficult to control the crowds. I think we were lucky to be there late in October and not during the summer when evidently hoards of tourists descend on Newport and make their way to The Breakers.

The last house we visited was Rosecliff, built by the Oelrichs, whose money came from her father, who was one of the four men who discovered the Comstock Lode in Nevada in 1859, the richest deposit of silver ever found. This is a beautiful house, full of light and constructed to be used for entertaining. It had the largest ballroom in Newport and parts of The Great Gatsby were filmed here.

                                                                              
Of course, everything looks better when the sun is shining.

                                                                              
                                  The gardens are very well known and the name Rosecliff comes from the rose garden where the former owner developed the famous American Beauty rose.

                                                                              
                                                                              
I can picture the guests all in white strolling here in the gardens.

                                                                                                              It’s easy to imagine the balls and parties that took place in these houses and part of the fun of visiting is to wonder how it would have felt to live there at the turn of the last century. I don’t think I’d want to take a trip in back time to that era though. Having heard how many servants were required to keep everything running, I fear I would reappear as a scullery maid, not a Vanderbuilt.

Now back to our walk. After about one and a half miles things began to get a little rough. It wasn’t always easy to recognize a path and the only way we knew we were going in the right direction was that there was water to the left of us and a fence to the right.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
Do you see a path?

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
At other times it was difficult to decide whether to take the high road or the low road.

                                                                              
Frank wasn't happy about some of the balancing we had to do. He's not fond of heights.

It is obvious that the Cliff Walk is not particularly popular with the house owners along the coast. I can understand why they wouldn’t want masses of tourists in what is for all practical purposes their front yards. However, the town of Newport seems to be very proud of its Cliff Walk even if they don’t seem to expect many people to finish it.


                                                                              
                                                                              
There are no signs to let you know you are on the right path. There is no path for much of the second half of the walk. There is a warning, though I missed it both times at the beginning of the one and a half miles they are referring to and only saw it at the end.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
This is embedded in the rock and very easy to miss.

                                                                                                               
The first time we did the walk we were completely unprepared. We had no map with us, nothing to drink or eat and no idea how long it would take us. We were proud of ourselves when we reached the end of the walk but we discovered we were at least three miles from home and when we checked the bus schedule at the first bus stop we came to it said that the buses stopped running at the end of September. So we walked about a mile along Bellevue and an angel in the form of a trolley driver stopped and asked us if we wanted a ride. YES, we wanted one. So we rode about two miles on the trolley and got off not too far from where we were staying. It was dark by the time we got home.

The second time we went we decided to be clever and park one of the cars at the end of the walk. Ulf and I drove to the end of Bellevue and started looking for a parking place. NO PARKING!!! ANYWHERE!!! AT ANY TIME!!! THE POLICE WILL COME AND TOW YOU AWAY IF YOU DARE TO PARK HERE!!! At least that was pretty much what the signs implied. We finally found a street nearby with a sign that said YOU MAY ONLY PARK HERE IF YOU ARE A RESIDENT!!! EVERYONE ELSE GO AWAY!!! Again I’m not quoting verbatim but you get the idea. However….. luckily our car had a Newport resident sticker and we decided that it allowed us to park there. So the second walk was a lot more comfortable.


                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
Frank has a little picnic. Those are grapes in his right hand.
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
In the end we were happy that we had done the Cliff Walk twice and lived to tell about it.

                                                                              
                                                                              
The survivors.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
And Jenny of course.  She survived too.

VACATION IN NEW ENGLAND (OCTOBER 16-31, 2004 ) PART I

We just returned Saturday from two weeks in New England. This was a historic time to be there and the excitement was evident everywhere. You could buy stickers and caps and flags at almost every corner. People gathered in the evenings to share their hopes and dreams of a better future and to support the ones they hoped would be the winners in the end. You think I’m referring to the national elections that take place tomorrow? No way!

If we hadn’t known that the elections were taking place we would never have guessed. I saw a few Kerry / Edwards bumper stickers and not a single Bush / Cheney one, but we were in Kerry country and the battle is being waged in the states that could go either way, the so-called swing states.

Mary Ellen’s daughter Annika is in Ohio now and I imagine her experience is quite a different one. There may have been a lot of politics on TV but during the day the only thing we watched was the weather channel and in the evening we watched DVDs. (More on that in a later entry.)

No, I am talking about the World Series, which for my German readers is the annual baseball championship series of the best of seven games between the top team in the American League and the top team in the National League. You ask why World Series? Well, aside from the obvious reason that America is the world to many Americans (Bush has to get his support from somewhere), when the World Series began in 1903 it did encompass the baseball world. And anyway no one is going to change the name now.


                                                                                                               
                                                                                                             
This is the pub where Jenny and Ulf watched the Red Sox play.
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
So this year the Boston Red Sox beat their arch rivals the New York Yankees for the American League pennant. And they did it in the most dramatic way possible by losing the first three games. Then in the fourth game, which would have been the last game if the Yankees had won, the game was tied at the end of the nine innings that a normal game lasts. (During an inning both teams get a chance to hit the ball and score points.) It wasn’t until the 12th inning that the Red Sox finally scored and won the game. They still had to win three more, but suddenly they were HOT. And they won the next three games and then went on to win four straight games against the St. Louis Cardinals to become baseball world champions.
To grasp the epic proportions of this event you need a little background in Red Sox history. In 1918 the Boston Red Sox won their fifth World Series in baseball and were the most successful team of all time at that point.

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
              1918!
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                 
One of the sources of their success was their pitcher (that’s the guy who throws the ball) whose name was George Herman Ruth. Great baseball players and even the not so great always have nicknames and Ruth was known as “The Babe” or “The Bambino" and he was one of the most popular idols in America for decades. In fact I was astonished to learn that he died in 1948, when I was just two years old. I grew up hearing about Babe Ruth and if you had asked me I would have guessed that he was just a generation older than me at most.

Anyway in 1920 for nefarious reasons evidently having to do with his current girlfriend, the owner of the Boston Red Sox sold Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees. Since then the Yankees have won the World Series 26 times. And the Boston Red Sox? They have played in four World Series since then and how many have they won? 0 That’s ZERO. Since 1918 the Sox have not won a World Series. And the reason is obvious: The Curse of the Bambino!!!

Every year the loyal Sox fans hoped and prayed that the curse would finally be lifted and this was the year. And we were there. Well, at least we weren’t too many miles from the action of the first two games but quite a ways from St. Louis where the second two games were played. But we were in front of the TV - until we got so tired we had to go to bed. The first question in the mornings was did the Sox win last night. But on the final night even my 83-year-old father stayed up to the very end. The heavenly signs were favourable. In fact between the innings we went outside to observe the total lunar eclipse. If that wasn’t portentous I don’t know what is.

                                                                                                               
This picture is from the NASA website and it's exactly how the moon looked.
                                                                                                             
                                                                                                             
                                                                                                               
                                                                   We spent the day in Boston on Friday and the joy was visible.

                                                                              
                                                                              
That is supposedly real gold on the State House dome.

                                                                                                             
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
The Town Hall - Of course the City of Boston also had to congratulate the World Champions.

                                                                              
                                                                              
On Saturday there was a parade in Boston called the “Rolling Rally” and again we were there although not actually present. Our flight from Boston airport was at 4:25 pm and we briefly considered joining the 3.2 million fans who descended on Boston from all over the U.S. to take part.

Actually it was Ulf who considered it but our priority was to catch our flight so I guess you can argue that we aren’t true blue Red Sox fans. Still it was an exciting time to be in New England and we all enjoyed it.

                                                                                                               

                                                                                                               
                                                                                                               
At least Jenny and Ulf had the correct paraphernalia.