Maine coastline pictured as we leave the US

The north American coast from Arcadia

20/9/2012Portland, Maine was our last port of call in the United States of America. I was beginning to see a difference in lifestyle and accent in the people of the American east coast. New Yorkers talk fast, most of the time. The life-style is busy, busy, busy, but they do like to chat to English visitors. And particularly, they like it, if those English visitors don't use the same expressions as they do, but present their own form of the English language. The pace of life in Newport was slow, the people we chatted to, had more time and spoke a little slower. In Boston, there is a distinctive almost Anglicized drawl and again, a slower and more deliberate way of speaking. In Portland, as I have mentioned before, I came across the most carefully articulated American accent, a pleasure to listen to. Before we made for St John, New Brunswick, in Canada, we took the remainder of our American dollars out of our purses and replaced them with Canadian. I was very excited about my first steps on Canadian soil.

Memorable visit to Longfellow's House

Outside the Longfellow house in Portland, Maine, above
and the garden in the rain, left.

30.9.2012.
Of all the poems written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the bit in Hiawatha's childhood about the gloves the native American child made for himself, has always stayed in my memory, especially when I put on a pair of mittens or help a child put on a pair of mittens. I now know it is typical of this giant among English language poets in that the imagery, the strong rhythm and the use of language combine to create something which echoes a native American's use of the English language. "Of the skin he made him mittens, Made them with the fur side inside, Made them with the skin side outside. He, to get the warm side inside, Put the cold side skin side outside. He, to get the cold side outside, Put the warm side fur side inside. That's why he put the fur side inside, Why he put the skin side outside, Why he turned them inside outside." When we took a guided tour of the Longfellow family home, where the poet spent his childhood, I enjoyed seeing inside a house which had retained so many features and artifacts belonging to that family. Our guide was able to create for me, a picture of their family life. She was a retired teacher and spoke with the clear articulation I was beginning to expect in the Massachusetts and Maine coastal areas. It was a delight to imagine the poet, his mother and other members of his family living there and using some of the furniture which had been placed as if the family had only just left the house. I could almost have been in England, in Kiplings house. I also found out for the first time that Longfellow was a linguist and had travelled and studied widely in Europe. Although it may have been pouring with rain outside. Inside the Longfellow house we were treated to a taste of Longfellow family life which, for me, will be as memorable as the few verses of his Hiawatha poem which have stayed in my memory since my own childhood.

Refuge from the rain in a Portland railway carriage

30/9/2012

Inside the quaint little railway carriages at Portland,
where we took refuge from the rain. 

I am looking at pictures of places I visited just over four weeks ago on the TV news and find it hard to believe them. Hurricane Sandy has transformed the places I visited. It seems amazing to me that it is only just four weeks ago, Arcadia berthed in Portland, Maine. The weather was colder in Portland and also extremely wet, so we wore waterproofs and took umbrellas. We made for the little narrow gauge railway which went a little way along the coast. Being very wet, we caught the first train out, which was pulled by a little diesel engine which looked like an adapted tractor. it had an upright exhaust pipe with a little round hinged cover which popped up and down to release the fumes. The carriages were equally quaint, with old fashioned hinged seats you could turn to face the other way. We joined the local families for the trip up and back and then looked round the small museum on the site. The rain looked set in for the day, so we went in search of a coffee and found a Starbucks, where our wet clothes gently steamed and we warmed our hands on the steaming cups. The poet Longfellow was born and brought up in Portland and we went to look for his house.

Bunker Hill, Boston is on the "Freedom Trail"

29.9.2012.

The monument to those who died at Bunker Hill

Our day in Boston included a trip across the Charles River by ferry to Charlestown, where we took the freedom trail from the USS Constitution to Winthrop Square and Bunker Hill. It was a strange experience to view the British as the 'enemy', although most Bostonians we met were immensely proud of their British and English roots. The Freedom Trail in Charlestown took us through streets with old weatherboard houses. On the opposite side of the river in Boston were more modern street scenes and high rise buildings, with a few historic sites interspersed. We followed the Freedom Trail through Boston as well tracing the final resting place of some of the state's original settlers. We were weary when we got back to the ship. Our last port of call in the United States would be Portland the following day.

English connections in Boston discovered

One of the memorials to the first governor of
Massachussetts, John Winthrop from Suffolk, England.

29.9.2-12. WE bought 'charlie' tickets for the Boston subway at Aquarium station. Like everything else in Boston, the subway system was clean and efficient. It was strange looking at the destination boards and seeing we could take a train to places like Braintree. We went to Government Centre (sorry Center) where we picked up the Freedom trail to find the end of the my 'Winthrop Trail' which started in Suffolk England. One of my friends had bought me a "Freedom Trail" booklet from the USS Constitution Museum shop. It is easy to trace the sights and attractions of the city by following the Freedom Trail, which is clearly marked out with coloured bricks in the pavement (sidewalk). It was therefore easy to find the Burying ground next to King's Chapel and the grave of the Winthrops. I had found the end of the trail which started in Suffolk, England. We also found the grave of Mary Chiltern, a child, who was one of the first to step off the Mayflower onto American soil in 1621. We enjoyed browsing in the Boston shops and Quincey Market. We were in search of refreshments and found out way into a sweetie and ice-cream shop, with bar stools and chairs and tables. Here we treated ourselves to ice-creams. A small ice-cream IS small in England. In America, it is enormous, enough for two and although delicious, they were nearly melted when we finally finished them! Two boston police came into the ice cream and sweetie shop carrying coffees from another cafe and sat on the bar stools. I was a bit surprised about this, until I realised one was the boyfriend of the girl behind the counter. One peculiarity about Boston is that it is the city which originated "Dunkin Donuts". I'm not sure what this fact says about the city, but it is not an image which fits well in my mind with the high ideals of the puritans who founded it. It's lucky the city has many other claims to fame. We took a bus back to Arcadia and the route took us past that tea party ship.

We join American tourists on the US Constitution

29.9.2012. Much to my delight we had a whole day in Boston and intended to make the most of it. One of my friends had given me a guide book to the city as a Birthday present, so we were well informed and well prepared. I had also picked up a leaflet in Groton Church, Suffolk, England, which I had brought with me. Those puritans who emigrated from England in the early 17th century had high ideals about running a new community. The ideals laid down then, conformity of worship, diligence and hard work have resulted in a clean and prosperous modern city. It was the descendants of these same puritans who refused to pay taxes to England and, dressed as native Americans, stormed a ship with a cargo of tea and chucked the lot into the water. The "Boston Tea Party".

Here is "Old Ironsides" otherwise known as the US Constitution
which withstood British bombardment in 1775 

We took the ferry from Boston, over the Charles River to Charlestown to see the USS Constitution. We explored the ship, which was built in Boston and first sailed in 1778. She withstood British cannon in 1812 so successfully, she earned the nickname of "Old Ironsides". After exploring all over the ship, we visited the museum and shop, where I bought some chocolate drops in tins with pictures of the USS Constitution on them for my grandsons. Charlestown has some old weatherboard houses in it and some of these border a square called Winthrop Square and are in a road called Winthrop Road. We also visited the memorial on Bunker Hill. This obelisk commemorates a battle between the Americans and the British in 1775, in which there were many casualties on both sides. Charlestown has many reminders of those puritans who came across the Atlantic from England to start a "New World" and the battles their descendants fought for independence.

Newport a place founded to end religious contention in the New World

This monarch butterfly was in the synagogue gardens, Newport.

28.9.2012. It was in Newport I saw a Monarch or Milkweed butterfly. It was fluttering about in the garden of the synagogue. I had been assured by my friends I would see plenty of these large butterflies on the East Coast of America, but this one proved to be the only one I saw except for the one in New York. One memory of New York I have not yet shared on this blog was an incident on the way back to Arcadia from the Chrysler building along 42nd Street. It was the rush hour and there were a lot of people about, when suddenly, a small oriental woman darted towards a rubbish bin (it's called trash over there) and started ferreting around in it feverishly. After she had added to her bag of empty cans, she dashed to the next one and crossed the street with us. Unfortunately her bag of cans got wrapped around a lamp post on the other side of the street and entangled with the camera bag of one of us, also wrapped around the lamp post. I was slightly behind and saw the tussle between the two of them, she thinking her booty was being lifted off her and the other thinking the bag was being snatched. After the tussle, both succeeded in saving their bags and the little oriental scavenger beetled down the street to the next bin as fast as she could. We arrived back on Arcadia about afternoon tea time. One of our little treats on the ship was to go to Cafe Vivo and have cappuccinos or a pot of tea and a snack. As we were to dine at 6.30, Cafe Vivo was ideal for a little something to tide us over until our evening meal. The friendly staff got to know us and our regular order. We left Newport for Boston. I had looked forward to the trip to Boston for months. As a tour guide I take regular tours in Lavenham in Suffolk, where the Winthrop family built a large timber-framed house when they had become prosperous as skilled fullers in the Lavenham Blue Cloth trade. As a master fuller, Adam Winthrop became a member of the Fuller's Guild in the City of London and was prosperous enough to afford legal training for his son Adam, who also bought the manor of Groton in Suffolk. Adam Winthrop married into the family which owned the Manor of Edwardstone and had a son, John Winthrop, who founded the Massachusetts Bay Company, the Massachusetts Bay colony and was first governor of Massachusetts. I take a walk in Suffolk, England, from Boxford to Groton and back every year, from where the Winthrops and most of the village of Groton left for the New World on the Arbella in 1630. John Winthrop and other puritans took 800 people to found a Calvinist/puritan community in the New World. Their doctrine of a well ordered society and hard work laid the foundations for the prosperous city of Boston. I know well the place they left in the 1630s, I was excited by the prospect of seeing the place they emigrated to.