Liverpool = Mirror Halifax

 Liverpool (Sabbatical 2, Week 1)

It's probably more accurate to say that Halifax is mirror Liverpool, since the latter is older and larger.  Generally, the "feel" of the two cities is similar - a little rough, a little run-down, perhaps the denizens drink too much (this is a bank holiday, and clearly the Scoucers get started early - several groups Craig passed on the walk home from the University were..... boisterous).

There are also lots of specific similarities.  Both cities are tied through seagoing trade.  Liverpool's Emigration Museum pairs with Halifax's Immigration Museum at Pier 21.  Both cities have ties to the Titanic, they were opposite ends of the convoy routes in WWII, the waterfronts have working sets of docks, etc.  Liverpool even has a "Canada Dock"!   So Liverpool's maritime museums will be the theme for this post.

"Lion": a steam engine built in 1838

First up: the actual Maritime Museum, home of exhibits on the Titanic, Lusitania, emigration, and the International Slavery Museum.  There are several interesting exhibits, but editorially, the Slavery Museum is not nearly as harrowing as it perhaps should be, nor was the Titanic exhibit as haunting as the one in Cherbourg.  On the other hand, others might applaud the choices of the curators in emphasizing the beauty and diversity of African culture (and the beauty of the Titanic, if not the diversity).  Down the road is a "Titanic Memorial" (actually a memorial to the 244 engine room staff who went down with the ship as "heroes of the marine engine room"), a Battle of the Atlantic memorial, statues of various VC winners, etc.  And, of course, a bunch of statues of the Beatles and other musical acts, but we'll get to that in a later post.

Next: the Museum of Liverpool, a nice airy new space with a surprising number of artifacts.  In keeping with the military city theme, there's sets of uniforms and equipment of Liverpool-raised regiments through the years.  In addition there are, of course. lots of other "people's history" kinds of things on the Beatles, music, and movies filmed in Liverpool.

The Big Board!

Finally: the Western Approaches HQ museum, a restoration of the titular WWII headquarters that tracked convoys, escorts, and U-boats as they crossed the Atlantic.  This was Craig's favorite (and also the most expensive, being the only one with an admission fee).  You could get a feel for the claustrophobic intensity of the life-and-death proxy chess match being played out between 2000 and 2 miles away.  The various rooms held a few "easter eggs" like a newspaper account of Dieppe published the day after the raid ("...our combined forces smashed through the Nazi defense") and an "Official Football Program" for the 23 November 1940 match between Liverpool and Manchester United sitting on an officer's desk.

P.S. I appears Craig is still not good at selfies.

Sabbatical #2, not quite in France

Liverpool (Sabb 2 Week 1)

It has been some time, and we're not exactly in France, but Craig's next sabbatical has arrived so in the interest of keeping the sabbatical travelogue together, we'll resurrect this and see how it goes!

Will replace with real pic when I have it!

Craig is doing some crystallography at the University of Liverpool with a collaborator, and poking around town on the weekends.  Pretty much all he's done so far is crystallography and attend a variety of chemistry social functions - they seem to have a lot here!  Here's a picture of one of the structures we solved.  Unfortunately, it's already been published by someone else (i.e. it isn't what Craig's student wanted!), but you'll have to wait for the actual publications to see the new structures! =)

P.S. You'll see a lot of selfies for a few posts since Craig is alone on this particular leg of travels

'Son,' he said, 'grab your things I've come to take you home'

luggage for 7 months in France

Paris (week 36)

We did not do too badly, only requiring one more suitcase than we came with, and managing to keep them all under the 23kg mass limit.  The trip out to CDG airport (by metro and RER) was uneventful, our only delay before boarding the plane arising from a malfunction at the Air Canada baggage check-in (the conveyor belt to the luggage collection broke down).  We landed essentially on time in Toronto and our flight to Thunder Bay arrived on time as well, where Muumu met us.

The highlight for the boys was being able to eat at A&W in the Toronto airport.  It's not like we don't have one in Thunder Bay, but it's their favourite fast-food burger so they'd been looking forward to having it for a while.

Last day!

Paris (week 36)

We were up early to make sure we'd be able to get up the Tour Eiffel - we tried to buy tickets online a month ago, but they were already sold out.  Luckily, most of the spaces are still available for walk-ins, and we were "lucky" to have a hazy day, so we only had to wait 15 minutes to get to the second stage (they suggested the 3rd (top) stage had worse visibility, so we didn't pay the extra €20).

We then moved along the river to the Musée d'Orsay, the museum holding the Louvre's modern art collection.  It is a manageable size, and the boys (and parents) enjoyed it more than the Louvre because there is a greater concentration of famous artists.  At least, famous in that the boys have heard of them because many of the Impressionists spent time along the Riviera and in the Pays d'Aix.  Cézanne lived in Aix, van Gogh in Arles with Gauguin, etc.  There were many examples from these three artists, as well as numerous Monets, Manets, Renoirs, and Degases.  Interestingly, there is a museum-wide prohibition on photography in the d'Orsay, while the Louvre proper allows photos (even with flash) everywhere including in the Mona Lisa room.

Le fabuleux destin des MacKinnons

the red arrow is Yolanda on our balcony

Paris (week 36)

We dropped the car off and took the train into Paris for our final 2 days in France.  We decided to get a hotel in the heart of it all, and found a reasonable Aparthotel literally a stone's throw from the Moulin Rouge.  Obviously the area was bustling late into the night, and not all of the surrounding shops and watering holes are kid-friendly, but it's a neat area full of boulangeries and little restaurants.  It's also lived-in with lots of schoolchildren in the morning and laundromats and grocery stores dotted around.

David with a David, "Pierre Sériziat"

The night we arrived we entered the first reasonable restaurant we saw.  We discovered we were in the Deux Moulins, the location of Amélie's workplace in the film of the same name.  The next day we went to the Louvre (standing in line for 45 minutes, directly behind a school group from Thunder Bay's Hammarskjold High School - Yolanda recognised one of the chaperones).  David and Andrew could only last an hour, although they did manage to see the Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa, and the Winged Victory of Samothrace, among others.  Yolanda continued for another couple of hours in the Louvre while the (three) boys moved on to Cinéaqua, the Paris aquarium.  It was similar to the other large aquariums we saw (including reef sharks!) in Barcelona and Toronto, but it was still interesting and contained some new things we hadn't seen before.

So, our (final) updated aquarium list is as follows:

1, 2. Canada (Ripley's Toronto & Lunenburg Fisheries Museum)
3, 4. USA (Clearwater & Duluth)
5, 6, 7. France (Cité de la Mer Cherbourg, Limoges, & Cinéaqua Paris)
8. Spain (Barcelona)
9. Monaco
10. Italy (Genoa)
11. Belgium (Brussels Public)

Operation Jubilee

Andrew celebrating that he managed to scramble up the rocks

Dieppe (week 36)

On 19 August 1942, Canadian (and some British) soldiers attempted an amphibious attack on the Channel Port of Dieppe.  The raid went very badly and most of the soldiers ending up killed or captured.  It took us about 5 seconds on the beach to see why: deep rows of small rocks stretch the length of the beach, making it difficult to walk on and impossible to drive a truck or tank on.  In addition, high chalk cliffs command the port, with the old town's fortifications and chateau atop, perfect locations for laying down enfilading fire.

The day was cool and windy as we looked over the memorials in Canada Park and strolled the beach.  We didn't get the chance to see the relatively new 19 August Museum, as it is closed in the winter.

Pvt Cecil Alvernon MacKinon (sic)

Essex Farm ADS

Ypres and Vimy (week 35)

Our day started in Flanders Fields.  Ypres is a central town, around which battles raged throughout the Great War, some of which featured Canadians.  Here was the site of the first large-scale gas attack on the Western Front (2nd Ypres), the Battle of Passchendaele, Hill 60, etc.  Like at Verdun, there is too much to take in during one day, so we limited ourselves to two sites.  The Memorial Museum Passchendaele 1917 bills itself as an "experience", which is pretty accurate since it has two large-scale recreations - one of the underground dugouts and the other a trench system.  You can also pick up a real rifle and wear a German coalscuttle helmet and trench armour.  We then traveled down to Essex Farm, site of a cemetery and the remains of an advanced dressing station (ADS).  It was at this station during the 2nd Battle of Ypres that Dr. John McCrae, surgeon in the Canadian Artillery, wrote "In Flanders Fields".  Since Yolanda had lived just a few blocks away from McCrae's family home in Guelph, it was almost like a homecoming.

Great Uncle Cecil

Driving back into France, we detoured to Vimy to look for Great Uncle Cecil again.  The first time we were there, we only had the Canadian Book of Remembrance to go by, which was ambiguous as to his location.  The search is further complicated by our family's history - Cecil's birth certificate has him as "McKinnon", but his enlistment record is "MacKinnon", and his father (or grandfather, I forget which) went by "McKenna", so we needed to check them all.  Finally, after some searching on the Commonwealth War Graves British website, Craig discovered yet another spelling: "Cecil Alvernon MacKinon, born Charleston N.S."  Presumably this is a typo, but as you can see, this is how his name is inscribed on the Vimy memorial.