Maine 2015 - Day 2 - Icons

6/28/15, “Icons”

New York, New York

I suppose that I need to go to Katz’s Deli for either lunch or dinner tomorrow.  When I decided to take this trip to Maine, which would mark the third year in a row that I have gone to Maine for the first weekend of the summer.  I see no reason why this will not be an ongoing annual tradition.  When I began to plan the trip, I literally had no idea what I wanted to see.  I just knew I wanted to be in Maine this weekend.  Probably at the top of my list was visiting my old friend.  I wound up planning the trip around visiting him.  Then I remembered that checklist I was trying to complete of the most iconic restaurant in each state.  Well, I knew that I could easily check off New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts on this trip.  That became the focus of my trip.

One thing led to another and I put everything together Thursday night after I got back from the movies.  In other words, from the time I planned the trip to the time I left, I did nothing but sleep and work (and eat).  I did not chart out any itineraries or print any directions or anything.  I just found the three restaurants and came up with the order in which I needed to do everything, no schedule.  This is in complete contrast to the way I usually travel.  The restaurant in New Hampshire was part of an inn, the oldest inn in New Hampshire.  The restaurant in Maine was a lobster shack near Portland.  The restaurant in Massachusetts, the oldest restaurant in America, was in Boston.  Hmm, how did I put that all together?

I believe my reader has already witnessed most of the voyage, but I will recap.  I drove up to Augusta after work on Friday, saw the State House in the morning, met my friend in the afternoon, and went to the hotel in New Hampshire for dinner, and that was where I spent the night.  Today, I would jet back across, having lunch at the Lobster Shack, get my brochure in Saugus, visit my Aunt, have dinner at the Oyster House in Boston, drive back to New York, stop at Sleepy Hollow, drop my travelling companion off at a subway station in the Bronx, drop off the car at the rental station, and be back at my apartment by midnight, if all went well.  Of course, all did not get well, and I suppose some details are in order.

The thing about this list of “most iconic” restaurants is that it’s not the list of the restaurant that serves the best food.  It’s something more.  I knew going on, the goal wasn’t to find the best lobster in Maine, the best oysters in Massachusetts or the best steak in New Hampshire.  No, it had more to do with the atmosphere and the history.  Each restaurant succeeded there, more than making up for what they may have lacked in food quality, not that that the food was bad.  Last night’s dinner was delicious portions of meat, and the breakfast was even better.  High quality breakfast meats and eggs, including sausage that tasted better than any breakfast sausage I’d ever had, complimented a perfect blueberry pancake.  It was everything that breakfast should have been, and doubt it had changed in the past 200+ years.  Why bother changing it?  Bacon and eggs are the perfect breakfast foods.  Why mess with it?

We hit the road, heading straight across to Portland, where I would be getting lunch at the Lobster Shack on Cape Elizabeth.  It was touted as Maine’s best lobster roll.  Reader, if you have ever been to Maine, you should know that any place that claims or is claimed to have the state’s best lobster does not.  You know where you get the best lobster roll in the state?  The little roadside shack with no more than two people in front of you in line, where there are picnic tables out front and garbage tables in the back.  They serve the best ice cream in the state, too.  They don’t brag about having the best lobster rolls or the best ice cream in Maine.  Why not?  Because the shack 30 miles down the road also has the best lobster rolls in the state, and the shack 50 miles down the road also has the best ice cream in the state.  Why don’t they say they have the best?  Because the locals know where to find these shacks without checking a list put out by an internet magazine.  They just drive until they get hungry and stop at the next one, and it is always amazing.  That’s the way life should be.  An overcrowded and overpriced touristy spot does not have the best anything.  It is, however, the most iconic.

It had been raining all morning, and I knew it was the kind of rain that doesn’t stop anytime soon.  I smoked another Las Calaveras as we drove, listening to the soundtrack albums from Tangled, Hercules, and Mulan, and I was starving by the time we arrived.  Of course it was still raining, which meant that sitting outside was not advisable, and the inside was extremely crowded.  As soon as I set foot outside of the car, I could smell the ocean.  I ordered far more food than was necessary, but it was all delicious, and the interior seating area certainly lead to the iconic description.  I got a lobster roll, of course, along with fries, a clam cake, a Diet Coke, and a blueberry pie.  Maine at its most iconic.  It was good, but something called the best lobster roll in Maine should not just be good.  It should be great.  It was not great.  Breakfast was great.  The lobster rolls and ice cream I’ve had at roadside shacks were great.  This was just good.

After lunch, I lit up a VSG and got back on the road.  I had told my aunt I would be there at 4 PM.  We had gotten a late start, and my GPS was now showing an arrival time at Saugus Iron Works at 4 PM, which meant that I would not get to her place until close to 5 PM.  We hit traffic, and it was 4:30 PM by the time we arrived at Saugus.  Saugus Iron Works NHS has been my white whale, the last NPS in New England that I needed to hit.  It is only open during the summer season, as I learned the first time we (my parents and I) attempted to visit it.  My mother and I returned last summer, but they didn’t have any brochures.  They still didn’t have the brochures when I went to Maine last October.  I was half expecting them to still not have them.  They had them, and I went to stamp my brochure.  The stamp did not come out right.  Well, fortunately, they had plenty of brochures.  I got another one and stamped it right this time.  I took a few pictures and lit up a Cohiba before returning to the parking lot, announcing, “New England Complete, for real this time.”

It was close to 5 PM, and my aunt would only be able to host us until 6 PM.  I made a wrong turn, and it was 5:30 PM by the time I got to my aunt’s place.  My cousin, my favorite cousin, a girl I’ve loved for practically as long as I’ve known her, was not there, and I was quite disappointed, as I had not seen her since a year ago, during my last June Maine trip.  Fortunately, I’d be seeing her and most of the extended family at my brother’s wedding in five weeks.  With not much time to spare, my aunt and I got down to business, discussing the recent family feud.  I will not air my family’s dirty laundry in public, but, as always, she provided good insight.  I did not agree with the advice she was offering, but it was good insight.  She spoke in code at times to avoid keying in my travelling partner to the details, not that I minded if he knew, but my aunt and I are both smart enough that we had no trouble instantly catching each other’s hidden meanings and the concrete facts behind her abstractions.

During a recent trip, I wrote about how I consider myself a servant of truth, so it should be clear how much I hate being lied to.  It should be even clearer that, at the top of the list of lies I hate the most are lies that people tell me to spare my feelings.  I can handle the truth.  Don’t lie to me because you don’t want to hurt my feelings.  She instead tried to get me to see the nobility in someone lying to spare your feelings.  Bullshit.  Truth comes first.  My feelings are secondary to that.  I understand that not everyone feels that way.

We said our goodbyes, and then I went to McDonald’s, where my travelling companion got his dinner.  I had realized that my original plan for the return journey simply would not work, so I decided instead that we would go straight from Boston to the car rental place in North White Plains and take the train home directly from there.  I drove into Boston, again making a wrong turn, the GPS, as always, being so unclear in Boston.  I was starving when I got there, but I saw a familiar plaque.

Wait, this was a National Historic Landmark?  Just a year ago, my mother and I went on a quest to visit a large quantity of NHLs in Boston in one day.  We did it by neighborhood, and this was in one of the neighborhoods we hit, just a couple of blocks away from other NHLs we hit.  How did we not include this?  No matter, it was better this way, since now I could eat here, though we could have had lunch there during our quest last year.  This place, the Union Oyster House, touted itself as the oldest restaurant in America.  It did not advertise, “The best oysters in Boston,” though Daniel Webster used to eat massive quantities of oysters here.  I went inside and asked for a table.  I was told that the wait for a table was over an hour.  Seriously?  I started to walk out.  She said that if I wanted lighter fare I could eat downstairs.

Well, wasn’t the downstairs the more iconic part?  It was.  I looked at the menu.  All the most iconic foods were on that menu.  Perfect.  I saw down at a table and looked at the menu.  I ordered a clam chowder, grilled oysters, and clams casino.  Again, it was good, not great.  However, it was about the atmosphere, and I was not disappointed.  After my meal, I hit up the gift shop.  I bought two beer glasses (one for myself, one for my friend, the only friend I regularly buy travel gifts for anymore, the friend I love the most), a keychain, and a replica of the restaurant.  Yes, they had a little ceramic model of the building.  Well, it’s an NHL, and a replica of an NHL is an automatic buy for me.

I then went outside, to take my pictures.  However, my phone was at 5%, and it needs to be at 6% to take a picture.  Charging it back up was a process.  Also, since this was an NHL, it means that it needs a cigar for an Official picture.  I wanted to just smoke one cigar for the whole drive, so I lit up my biggest cigar, a Canones, which I knew would last two hours or more.  I took my pictures, and we hit the road.  I was dead tired with about an hour left to the destination, and Sleepy Hollow no longer became advisable.  Again, no music.  It got to the point where I lost confidence in my driving abilities, that’s how I tired I was, so we stopped at the next rest station, even though we were only 45 minutes from our destination.  I got some coffee and a donut, and I rested my eyes before I gassed up and cleaned the car.  I didn’t light up another cigar, opting instead to air out the car for the last segment of the drive.

The train was at 11:59 PM, and we got there with more than half an hour to spare.  The train was late, but an express train came around 12:05 AM, getting us to Grand Central around 12:45 AM.  I was at my apartment before 1 AM, where I cracked open one of the blueberry beers I had bought in Maine, which is quite an interesting beer, lit up my Sunday Dunhill Nightcap, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close along with closing this trip.  It was a good trip, and it is one I am eager to repeat, though perhaps with a different travelling companion.  Next stop: Salt Lake City whence my mother and I will embark on our big summer trip to Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Parks before I explore the Canadian Prairie.

Maine 2015 - Day 1 - Old Friends

6/27/15, “Old Friends”

Hancock, New Hampshire

Here I am sitting outside at New Hampshire’s oldest inn.  It was established in 1789, the same year that George Washington became the first President of the United States, the same year the Constitution took effect.  Yesterday’s entry focused a lot on my political views and very little on my travels.  Today will be the opposite.  I made this trip to relax in Maine and to eat at three of New England’s most iconic restaurants, not to debate same-sex marriage.  However, sitting here at this historic inn, I cannot help but think how the Framers of the Constitution would have thought.

There was no debate on same-sex marriage in 1789.  Gays were considered evil or diseased or whatever.  However, I firmly believe that if John Hancock lived today, he would support same-sex marriage.  He would laud the decision of any state legislature that allowed same-sex marriages.  I do not, however, believe he would have allowed it as a right guaranteed by the Federal Constitution.  That said, there would have been rational debate on the issue.  If our framers were alive today and allowed to make a ruling, I'm inclined to believe that they would have overwhelming supported same-sex marriage as a legal right.  I'm inclined to believe that they would have dismissed the religious zealots who call homosexuality a sin.  I'm inclined to believe that they would have understood the science of today and made the right decision.

Times change, and views can change with it.  New facts come to light, the general views change, and society evolves.  People reexamine their beliefs and look at things in new ways.  If that was not the case, rational debate would not be the profitable activity it is.  My views on the issue have certainly changed over time.  They changed when I went to NYU and encountered gay men for the first time in my life.  They changed when I engaged in open discussions about sexuality.  They changed when I realized that homosexuality was not a joke to be made in a high school cafeteria.  They changed again when I fell in love with a lesbian, when I realized that, even if we could never date, she was the most wonderful person in the world, when I realized that she was someone I would do anything for.  They changed again yesterday morning when I read Kennedy’s Opinion.  People are entitled to make these changes, and John Hancock would think differently about these issues in 2015 than he would have in 1789.

This kind of rational debate is what was missing from this issue, and that was what so bothered me.  A fervent defense of same-sex marriage became the hottest issue on the liberal agenda, while condemnation of it became the backbone of the Christian Right.  Where was the middle ground?  Surely there were people who felt the middle ground and were too afraid to express that viewpoint without being attacked by both sides.  Not everyone can express their thoughts and feelings as eloquently as I.  Instead, they chose to remain silent, leading to a lack of debate, causing the issue to be decided by fiat instead of legislative reform.

It bothered me from the first federal court case where a district court ruled a Florida state law unconstitutional, and it bothered me as same-sex marriage became legalized in an additional 17 states in the same fashion.  It bothered me to such an extent that I could segregate my views on this lack of proper jurisprudence from my opinions on the merit of same-sex marriage.  It bothered me so much that I found myself opposed to same-sex marriage, hoping that the Supreme Court would overturn the federal court decisions that legalized same-sex marriage in 18 states.  That all changed when I read Kennedy’s Opinion.  How many other people changed their mind when they read his Opinion?  Too few I’m inclined to say because too few people examined this issue from a rational perspective, and that is a very unfortunate thing.

Alright, enough of this, and I have had a very interesting day of travel.  This is a Travelogue, and I will return my focus to my travels, but it is cold out here, and my laptop is dying, so I will head back inside before I continue.

Okay, I woke this morning slightly before 8 AM to a familiar chirp from my phone, indicating I had received a text message.  I knew who it was without having to look.  She is the only person who would text me before 8 AM on a Saturday and, more importantly, the only person whose texts I would answer before 8 AM on a Saturday.  The content of the discussion (the new Pixar movie) is not important.  What is important is that she is an old friend.  That is what the theme of this entry will be.  The thing about old friends is, friendships fade for a variety of reasons, but, when you reconnect with an old friend, it is like the lost years never happened.  Why does that happen?  Well, it’s quite simple, the friendship works now for all the reasons it worked before it faded away.

This particular friendship faded because of geography.  We reconnected over lunch nine months ago when we found ourselves in the city on the same day for the first time since we parted ways three years ago.  We instantly bonded at that lunch, and we have now been in constant communication, about our favorite movies, music, travels, whatever we find that bonds us.  It is a friendship that works.  That’s the key thing about any friendship, any relationship.  It doesn’t matter why it works.  It’s just important that it works.

One such text exchange we had yesterday was a few texts about the same-sex marriage ruling.  I had held off texting her about it, even though I was reading every word because, to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t sure how she felt about it.  I know she comes from a religious upbringing and has deeply set conservative political values.  I also knew that she has libertarian leanings, that she is one of the most compassionate people I know, and that I could not her imagine feeling hatred towards any group of people for who they are.

I got my answer in the form of an excited text with several rainbow emojis.  Oh, did I mention she’s also one of the biggest Harry Potter I know, that she practically worships J.K. Rowling?  I’m not sure if my reader is familiar with Rowling’s political views, but when it comes to equality and LGBTQ rights and same-sex marriage, there is no greater ally in the world than Rowling.  I began to wonder if perhaps my friend had once been opposed to same-sex marriage, only to be swayed by Rowling’s impassioned defense of it.

I began to wonder how many people Rowling had influenced, how many people Rowling had turned from prejudice to acceptance.  It’s probably a very large number, and, if my friend was in that group, it made me very happy.  I could be wrong.  She might have always been a supporter of same-sex marriage, but I guarantee there are plenty of people who have been swayed by Rowling.  In fact, I’d wager Rowling has changed more minds on the issue than anyone else in recent history.  Isn’t that a wonderful thing?  That a celebrity who is loved by her fans would use that to steer her fans away from prejudice and towards tolerance, acceptance, or even support.  It was a happy thought.

After I finished getting ready this morning, we headed down for a disappointing breakfast spread at the Hampton Inn, lacking compared to what I am used to seeing when I stay at a Hampton Inn.  The coffee was good, though.  We finished getting ready and headed to the State House and Museum.  I was pleasantly surprised to find a gift shop, where I procured a flag pin and a couple of keychains, before we headed to the State House to take our pictures.

I then lit up a Four Kicks, and we made our way from Augusta to Norway where my old friend was awaiting our arrival.  It had been at least a year since I had seen him, and we instantly reconnected.  It is funny how many of my old friends I met through the autograph collecting.  The friend who texted me this morning, the friend we were visiting, my travelling companion, the guy I have been constantly messaging about Game of Thrones theories, all of them I met through autographing.  All of them, I formed a bond when we met, lost touch with for a while, and was easily able to reconnect for the same reasons we had a bond when we first met.

He was renting a house and old dairy farm, the combined size of which was approximately 10,000 times the size of my apartment.  His rent was less than mine.  He gave us the scenic tour, and it was like I literally stepped into a different era.  Rustic, that’s the best word to describe it.  It looked like such a peaceful place to live.  “The Way Life Should Be” is Maine’s motto.  I have always felt that way, possibly never more so than this afternoon.  We then headed to lunch to a new restaurant he wanted to try.  From his description, it seemed like a chic new Italian place, but it just had traditional American food, burgers, chicken tenders, steaks, etc.  The portions were big, and we couldn’t finish everything.

Afterwards, we headed across the street to the waterfront, where we sat in a gazebo and enjoyed the scenery.  I lit up an Hoyo de Monterrey, which I had been saving for this occasion.  After the cigar was done, we went to the ice cream shack, since no trip to Maine could be complete without blueberry ice cream.  We had gotten so lost enjoying each other’s company, discussing celebrities and autographs, that the time had gotten away from us.  It was now becoming a tight schedule to get to hotel by 8 PM for the last seating at the restaurant.

Having dinner at the restaurant was the main reason I had chosen this hotel.  There is a list of the most iconic restaurant in each state.  I am trying to dine at each of those 51 restaurants.  If it were not for that list, we would have been staying in Portland tonight, instead of driving three hours to New Hampshire.  We returned to the house, and my friend told me that his wife should be home by then.  It occurred to me I had never even seen a picture of her.  Apparently, she does not like him to post pictures of her on Facebook.  She was there when we arrived, but it was hello and goodbye, since we needed to head to the hotel with all due speed.

As we drove, my travelling companion said that he could never live here, that it was too boring.  It was ironic, since I was having the exact opposite thought, how wonderful it would be to live here.  This was, quite literally, the way life should be.  I was so exhausted from the heat that I couldn’t even think about a cigar.  It was a three-hour drive, and I only smoked one cigar the entire drive, a Cabaiguan.  We got to the hotel with time to spare, and this was very much the historic inn I imagined.  In fact, they didn’t even have a free table at the restaurant, so they told us we could get settled in and come down at 8:15 PM for dinner.

The restaurant was certainly iconic, even if the menu was not, but I did my best to order what I imagined would pass for colonial fare.  I got a charcuterie appetizer, along with a local beer, and beef and lamb for my main course, both of which were too fatty.  I was too hungry to care, and I imagined that meat in colonial times was just as fatty.  I got a dessert for later and then went upstairs.  I soon went outside, enjoying the summer New England atmosphere, along with the historic Colonial feel of the neighborhood.  I responded to the email chain I had started with my father and his friends about the same-sex marriage decision and lit up an Avo.  I then proceeded to write this entry.  After my cigar, I headed up to the room, where I finished the entry which I will now close, as it is close to midnight, and I have long day of driving ahead of me tomorrow.

Maine 2015 - Day 0 - For the Children

6/26/15, “For the Children”

Augusta, Maine

I typically do not use this Travelogue to write about political issues, instead preferring to focus on philosophical themes that transcend the political issues of our day.  However, to ignore the events of today would be to ignore the very Zeitgeist.  In possibly its most significant ruling in years, the Supreme Court ruled this morning that State Legislatures cannot restrict marriage to being between a man and a woman.

I have worded that sentence in a very careful way, in contrast to the wording most news outlets have used.  Why?  Because, to me, that was the issue at hand.  The Tenth Amendment clearly states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”  The wording is unambiguous.  Nowhere in the constitution does it give the federal government any powers in marriage laws, nor does it prohibit the States from passing laws defining marriage, as they have for over 200 years.  Marriage is clearly in the realm of the States.  Right?

The obvious challenge to that is the Fourteenth Amendment.  The relevant passage goes, “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”  It is the equal protection clause that is at play.  Are same-sex couples being denied their equal right to marry?  Well, um, see, the thing is, couples don’t have rights.  Individuals have rights.  The question needs to be rephrased.  Are gays and lesbians being denied their right to marry?  No, of course not.  If laws were passed forbidding gays and lesbians from marrying, then it would be very different.

Okay, let’s ask a different question.  Are gays and lesbians being denied their right to marry the person they love?  Um, what right to marry the person you love?  I’m not sure that’s a right.  If an adult brother and sister were in love, they would not be legally allowed to marry.  Are they being denied their right to marry the person they love?  The same logic could be used to answer that question.  Is that the next step?  To allow adult incestuous couples to marry seems the next logical step, yes?  To be clear, I am not supporting the Rick Santorum argument, “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.   Whether it's polygamy, whether it's adultery, whether it's sodomy, all of those things, are antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family.”  I am arguing from the opposite direction.

Note that, at this point, I have very carefully avoided giving my opinion on any of this.  I am simply presenting the relevant arguments, as I see it.  See, the problem is, there is no debate on these issues.  On one side are the mostly conservative religious extremists who believe homosexuality is a sin and oppose gay marriage for that reason.  On the other side are the mostly liberal gay rights supporters who attempt to ostracize anyone who says anything that might be construed as slightly homophobic.  There is practically no middle ground, and there is no debate, just both sides ranting and raving.  Any policy issue, and same-sex marriage is absolutely a policy issue, needs to be debated in an open and constructive environment.  That debate has never happened on this issue, and with today’s ruling, the Supreme Court has prevented the possibility of debate on this issue.  Still haven’t given my opinion yet, intentionally so.

As I see it, there are actually three questions here.  The first, should same-sex couples get married?  The second, should same-sex couples have a legal right to get married?  The third, do same-sex couples have a constitutional right to get married?  (I am condensing language here, meaning “individuals in a same-sex relationship” where I write “same-sex couples.”)  Okay, so, the problem is, those are three very distinct questions, which people should answer differently.  Why, then, would almost everyone answer each of those three questions either all yes or all no.  Where are the people who say, “Same-sex marriage sickens me, it is a sin against god, but, unfortunately, the constitution says same-sex couples have the right to get married”?  Where are the people who say, “I’m gay, and I love my boyfriend, but I just can’t see anything in the constitution that says the State Legislatures can’t define marriage as between a man and a woman.”  You never hear those positions presented, and you don’t hear it because there really is no debate on the issue.  All you hear is the two sides shouting their answers to the first question, calling the other side sinners or bigots, and letting their answers to the second two questions being defined by their answer to the first question.

Reader, have I made it clear at this point how I see the issue?  Now, what is my stance?  How do I answer those three questions?  The first two questions are easy.  I have two female friends who are romantically interested in women, coincidentally both have the same name.  One has a girlfriend, whom I recently had the pleasure of meeting.  How could I possibly say in good conscience that, if they decide they want to spend the rest of their lives together, that they shouldn’t get married?  To do so would be to say, “I don’t approve of your relationship,” which, in turn, means, “I don’t approve of you.”  The two friends I mentioned, I love them both very dearly, and I love them for who they are.  To say that I don’t approve of them would in turn mean that I don’t love them, and that is completely opposite to what I just said.  So, my answer to the first question is that same-sex couples, who choose to get married, should absolutely do so.  The second question is even easier.  I am a staunch libertarian.  I do not want the government telling people who they can and cannot marry.  In fact, I don’t want the government to have anything to do with marriage.  Marriage should be a private contract between two individuals, and it should not need to be sanctioned by the government.

Now, the third question is so much more complicated.  Do same-sex couples have a constitutional right to get married?  I have always favored a strict interpretation of the Constitution, and I think I have explained in the opening of this entry why a strict interpretation of the Constitution does not support a constitutional right for same-sex marriage.  This entry, as I have just written it, is exactly how I would have written it when I woke up this morning.  When the Supreme Court issued its Opinion this morning, I was not sure what to think.  My immediate reaction was that it was a great victory for gay rights at the expense of the destruction of our Constitution, but I knew that I had to read the whole Opinion before I could figure out what my opinion was.  As I read it, I was basically thinking to myself, “Alright, Kennedy, give me a reason why your interpretation of the Constitution is correct and mine is wrong.”  He did not.

However, he did one better.  He gave me a reason to favor a liberal interpretation of the Constitution.  “Without the recognition, stability, and predictability marriage offers, children suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser,” he wrote.  “The laws at issue thus harm and humiliate the children of same-sex couples.”  Oh, crap.  I never thought about it that way.  How could we possibly tell a child that the reason his parents can’t get married is because a document written over 200 years ago does not prevent a State from defining marriage as being between a man and a women.  Tell that to a child with two moms.  Go ahead.  That was a serious thing.  Reader, if you are continuing to oppose same-sex marriage go explain to a child of a same-sex couple why his parents can’t get married.  No?  You don’t want to.  Or are you in the civil union camp?  Allow civil unions with equal rights as marriages?  Okay, go tell a child why parents are only allowed to have something called a “civil union,” but his friends’ parents have a “marriage.”  How is that not a stigma to the child?  So, what’s my opinion on all of this?  We must allow same sex-couples the legal right to get married.  Not, they should have the legal right.  They must have that right.  Why?  For the children.

Alright, why have a spent so much writing about same-sex marriage in a Travelogue.  Not because it is the defining issue of our time.  No, because it was the biggest news story of the day, so much so that it dominated all of my social media feeds today.  While I communicated privately with a few people about it, I carefully avoided posting anything about to social media, instead opting to save my thoughts for this entry.  I had to wake up early since I wanted to leave early.  I quickly packed and rushed to make it to work by 7:37 AM.  I went for my traditional pre-departure lunch at Hop Won, bought some cigars for the trip, and finished up at work, heading down to meet Pablo.  We got our tickets and took the train up to North White Plains.  I had reserved a full-size car, which is called by the car industry a mid-size, and it felt like the smallest car I had ever driven.

I put on Red and lit up my Nic Toro, which I hadn’t smoked in quite some time, maybe not in over two months, since this was the first time I have driven in over two months, I have realized.  Of course, we got stuck in traffic, and a trip to McDonald’s proved quite a detour.  All in all, we lost well over an hour, showing an arrival time past midnight.  After dinner, I switched to Taylor’s eponymous 2006 album and lit up an Aging Room, which also lasted into much of Fearless.  I smoked a Las Calaveras for Speak Now.

It was a long and boring drive, 11 PM by the time we got to the all-too-familiar border sign to Maine.  I rounded out the Taylor collection by listening to 1989 without a cigar, and I finished up the drive with an Avo, listening to the first half of Les Miz.  It was not long before we got to the hotel, checked in, got coffee, and headed upstairs, where I lit up a Prensado and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can publish and get to sleep.

The Baltic - Day 4 - Homeward Bound

5/26/15, “Homeward Bound”

Helsinki Airport, Finland (HEL)

It is a little past 11 PM in New York, most of the people I know and love back on the East Coast are still awake or have just gone to sleep.  Me?  I am homeward bound.  All good things must come to an end, and, here in an airport smoking lounge at Helsinki Airport, my trip draws to its close.  I have been awake for close to two hours now, since past 4 AM local time.  I did not get to sleep until almost 1 AM.  If I did in fact get three full hours of sleep I would consider myself lucky, the 24-hour daylight still messing with my sleep schedule.  It was 9 PM in New York when I woke up, and I do not know when I will get to sleep again.  Perhaps not again until 9 PM New York time.  I wrote previously about how wonderfully simple traveling eastward is start the trip.  Now, it is time to pay the piper, to do the opposite, to deal with the miserable westward return journey.

I have written on my themes of love and beauty ad nauseam, and there is not much left to be said on the matter.  Okay, that’s a lie.  Ignoring the unprovable/incontrovertible metaphysical topics of god, freedom, and immortality, love and beauty are probably the two deepest topics in philosophy.  There is so much to be said about beauty and aesthetics, and even to describe only my own aesthetical tastes would extend far beyond the space I allocate to this Travelogue.  Both last year and this year, I have dedicated a great deal of space to that topic, and I believe my reader is beginning to understand my stance on these issues, but I will recap.

To me, beauty is simplicity.  Beauty is that which does not distract.  That model of beauty from my high school?  She is extremely simple, and I mean that in a good way.  I see her as the ideal and anything that deviates from that ideal as a distraction, as a lesser form of beauty.  That is why I know with absolute certainty that she will always be the most beautiful woman in the world to me, for the rest of my life.  If I think of the people in my life I find most physically attractive (I am recalling two friends in particular), they have that in common, the simplicity.

Beauty, to me, is a deductive process, not an additive one.  Nothing can add to someone’s physical attraction (other than like personality traits or intelligence, which I find a very attractive quality, even manifesting itself in my interpretation of physical beauty).  I don’t understand when people say that someone has an “exotic beauty.”  To me, that exoticism is a distraction.  I will give a specific example from a little over a year ago.  One of my philosophy friends was describing my now-current philosophy professor, saying she didn’t find her attractive, that she was “Too white” or “Too Katy Perry.”  Granted, I don’t find Katy Perry attractive, there is too much there that distracts.  2002-era Avril Lavigne, yes, of course.  There is nothing there that distracts, just pure cuteness.  Likewise, my philosophy professor, the piercings, the tattoos all over her arms, the odd haircut, there is too much that distracts.  That is her style.  That is what she herself finds attractive, and I would never advocate someone changing herself out of what she perceives others want.  Beauty is subservient to self.  You cannot be beautiful if you are pretending to be someone else, and, yes, this is an Avril Lavigne “Complicated” reference.

Again, to me, the most beautiful people are the ones were are simply and plainly beautiful without even trying.  That girl in high school?  I like to think that she woke up that way every morning.  For all the girls I fancied myself in love with in high school, I never once thought that I loved her.  Yes, this my transitioning to my final discourse on beauty.  I have ten minutes.  I just wrote that beauty is subservient to self.  Likewise love is subservient to self.  (Going to plagiarize Ayn Rand here.)  In order to say “I love you,” you must first learn to say “I.”  Love is a value, and, in order to have values, to love anyone or anything, you need to value yourself.

Every single person in the world I love, I love because they make me happy.  They make me happy because of the decades we have shared together, because of all the times we have hung out, because of fond memories, because of the times they have cured me of depression, because they can brighten the darkest of days with a single text, because they make me smile every time I see their name in my Facebook feed.  Different people in my life fall into different ones of those qualities I just mentioned, but, reader do you see where I’m going?

Love is a selfish thing.  I love these people because they make ME happy, not out of some misguided sense of duty or demand.  To love is to value, and I choose whom I love, just as I choose my values.  This is a very simplistic view of love, and it only addresses rational love.  I have mentioned previously how we also feel irrational love and how it would be irrational to dismiss irrational love.  There is so much more to be said on that topic, and I’m not even sure where to go with it, so I will leave it there.

After I closed last night, I packed and went to sleep, having trouble sleeping with daylight still coming into the room.  I woke up at 4 AM from a text and was unable to get back to sleep, I don’t think, my alarm going off at 4:30 AM.  I hurried to get ready and took the taxi to the airport.  The Duty-Free did not have any cigars, but I got a bottle of Finlandia vodka.  I then got some yoghurt, seltzer, and espresso for breakfast.  After breakfast, I went to the smoking lounge, where I lit up a Montecristo and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can head to my gate, as my flight to Oslo is about to board.

Oslo Airport, Norway (OSL)

I don’t have much new to report, certainly no more insights into love or beauty.  It is that word above that starts with an N that is the reason for me writing now.  When I set out to see the world, I had already been to 7 countries (USA, Canada, Mexico, Norway, UK, France, and Greece).  My travels would take me back to all of those countries, except one: Norway.  I have detailed my remaining international travel for the next two years.  I visited USA (obviously), Canada, UK, and France in 2014, and I was in Mexico in March and am going back in September and more times, too.  Greece, I mentioned for Athens and Rhodes.

However, Norway?  No need.  I will eventually go to Norway again.  After all it has seven WHS waiting for me to visit, but there is no pressing need.  I did not expect an Official visit to be part of the trip, not until I booked it and the OSL connection turned out to make the most sense.  I actually considered going into Oslo, getting a quick breakfast, having a cigar, taking a picture at Parliament, and buying a flag pin.  I decided against it.  Instead, I got breakfast at the airport and bought more cigars, unable to smoke any of them without leaving the airport.

After I closed at HEL, I went to my gate, where I slept fitfully on the plane, if at all.  After I was done with my business at the aiport, I had to proceed through EU/Schengen exit procedures, since this flight would take me outside the Schengen Area.  It was the first time I had to show my passport since I arrived at ARN.  The gate for the EWR flight was closed off from the rest of the airport, and I sat on the floor between a cute Norwegian girl on the bench to my left and an outlet above me to the right.  It is a good spot.  I there proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, as boarding is about to begin.  I guess I’ll sleep until like 9-10 AM New York time and then work for the rest of the flight.  That will leave me rested enough for the day and also allow me to get as much work done as my laptop’s battery will allow if there is outlet at my seat.

Aboard SAS 907, En route OSL-EWR

I suppose there is one topic left to discuss before I close out the trip, one more item of Northern culture to explore: food.  While I have recalled almost every meal I have eaten, I have not gone into detail about my interpretation of the cuisine.  Again, why should there be more similarities between Alaskan and Swedish cuisine than Swedish and French cuisine?  That one is simpler to answer.

Different animals and plants live above the 60^th Parallel than below it, and that is often unaffected by longitude.  The vegetables that can be raised at arctic conditions, the animals that can survive there, and the berries that grow, all of them more similar than different around the North.  Something like game meat, root vegetables, and berry sauce would seem the ideal meal to me, with a berry cobbler for dessert.  It just so happens that that is the speciality of Northern cuisine.  Whether it was venison or reindeer, carrots or onions, lingonberries or blueberries, that was mostly what I ate.  Fish, too, also plays a role, and I prefer the fish that is found in the North to that that is found south of the 60^th Parallel.

Oh, and the coffee and desserts, the experience of fika, is absolutely sublime.  Even the bad coffee there was good.  Excluding coffee that came from a dispenser instead of a pot, I did not have a bad cup of coffee.  There is a coffee shop in Manhattan called Fika.  It is terribly overpriced, but it is the best coffee in the city.  Yes, it’s a Swedish or Finnish place.  Reader, every single cup of brewed coffee that I had my entire trip was just as good as, if not better than, the coffee there.  Perhaps it was the fact that coffee was practically coursing through my veins that I had so much trouble sleeping?  I don’t think so.  I was fine sleeping in Sweden, and I drank plenty of coffee my first day.  Maybe it took a few days for the caffeine to become so permeated in my bloodstream?  Whatever it is, the Swedes and the Finns sure knew how to do coffee right.  Alright, that is all I have to say.

After I closed at OSL, I boarded the plane, and I was pleasantly surprised that the seat I had chosen, in an empty row of four, remained an empty row of four.  In other words, I had four pillows and four seats to myself.  I slept better than I did either night in Helsinki.  I got about four and a half hours of sleep before I realized that I needed to wake up, it being around 11 AM in New York.  I then asked to have my meal brought, it being my usual lunchtime in New York and me having slept through what I guess was lunch service.  They just brought a snack, but I have no appetite, so I’ll probably bring it back to the office with me or eat it on the bus.  I will need to work until at least 6:30 PM tonight, maybe later.  After I had my meal and wrote a couple of proposals, I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can get back to work.

New York, New York

My watch, which is still on Stockholm/Oslo time, says it’s past 1:30 AM.  Helsinki is even an hour after that.  It was 9 PM New York time when I got the text that woke me up.  I will probably be up for at least another three or four hours, not getting to sleep until past 11 PM New York time.  I have one last idea to share about love.  There are the people we love because of who they are, and there are people we love because of what they have done for us.  I argue that both types of love are equally valid, and there are people in my life in both categories.  The interesting question that becomes what it would take for me to stop loving them.

If I love someone for who they are, what would it take for me to stop loving them?  Three things.  One, I realize I was wrong about who they were.  Two, I change and become someone else.  Three, they change and become someone else.  This is the Objectivist view of love.  Now, the other view?  Someone does something that benefits me so greatly, that makes my life a little bit better, to the point that I might say, “For that, I will always love you,” could I ever unlove them?  Well, it would take them doing something so cruel, so mean, that it negates the good act that caused them to gain my love.

If you examine family ties, and I think my readers know me enough that I will never say I love a member of my family simply because they are my family.  “Tell grandma you love her” is common thing parents tell their children.  I think my parents know better than to try and tell me that.  Did grandma (being generic here) do anything, other than giving birth to my parent, that causes me to love her?  Is there anything about her that makes me love her?  These are rhetorical questions.  I am not answering them.  I just encourage my readers to dig a little deeper, to try to avoid causeless love, to say, “I love her because of everything she has done for me” or “I love her because of who she is” and to never say, “I can’t explain why I love her.”  That is my final word on this topic.

Anyway, after I closed we soon landed, and I breezed through border control with Global Entry, gladly bypassing the long line.  I took the bus back to the city, working en route.  I had a fairly productive afternoon at the office and then went to the cigar shop right before they closed.  I lit up an Hoyo from the box I bought in Oslo and walked home, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close, along with closing out the trip.  Next stop: Taylor Swift concert in Philadelphia, though if I don’t stay overnight it might not count as a trip.  Otherwise, it’s the big summer trip with my mother, Grand Teton, Yellowstone, and Glacier National Parks to say “Mainland US Complete” and Canada to say “Canadian Prairie Complete.”

The Baltic - Day 3 - Helsinki 1952

5/25/15, “Helsinki 1952”

Helsinki, Finland

From the photo here, it is quite obvious that I can declare the trip a success.  Here I am inside the 1952 Olympic Stadium, and I didn’t even have to sneak in (my ass muscle is still hurting from hopping that fence in Stockholm).  What was going on 63 years ago, in 1952, when the Games of the XV Olympiad were held?  My father was still in high school, getting into the same kind of trouble I got into in grade school.  My mother was not even born yet, her parents having just been married, I think.  The Korean War, was underway, I believe, and Dwight Eisenhower was running against Adali Stevenson with the pledge that he would “go to Korea and end the war.”  It is now 63 years later, Eisenhower is long dead, the war is still not over, and our troops are still stationed there.

However, what does any of this have to do with Helsinki?  The Cold War was in full bloom, and Finland had, I believe resisted the sway of the Soviet Empire, instead remaining independent as the Republic of Finland (Sweden, Denmark, and Norway are kingdoms, are they not?).  It was joked that when someone in Leningrad wanted good Russian food they had to go to Helsinki.  Mayhaps I will go to one of those restaurants for dinner tonight.

I said the definition of success of this trip was going inside both Olympic Stadiums.  I have now been inside both Stadiums.  I will not be back in New York for at least 32 hours, though.  Despite my late start (it is now close to 1 PM), I have plenty of time.  I want to see the fort and then go to Senate Square, that’s it.  I can be done with all of that by 6 PM, easily, get a quick bite, be asleep by 9 PM, and wake up early for my flight.  I’m sure my reader knows that there is zero chance I will be asleep before midnight tonight.  I will enjoy every last minute I have in Finland.

After I closed last night, I managed to upload my entry and photos just before the power went out.  It was still light.  I tried falling asleep, but no dice.  At some point, it must have been half an hour later, I realized that I was not going to fall asleep at all.  There was still too much light coming into the room, and I didn’t want to use the blackout shades, without the electricity I couldn’t use my sleep machines.  However, I slept fine in the plane with light and no sleep machine, why then did I lay in bed for three hours?  Finally, I realized that I needed to get out of bed.  It was 4 AM.  Had I seriously being lying awake for three hours?  It didn’t feel that way.  The electricity soon came back on, and I used the blackout shades, falling asleep quickly, waking up all too soon for breakfast.

I rushed down, had a nice meal but not much of an appetite, and came back upstairs to nap for another hour or so.  I’m still a little groggy.  In all, the Stadium (and everything else) opened at 10 AM, and I will be done here around 1 PM, so I really only lost a couple of hours, but leaving my hotel room past noon just felt wrong on so many levels.  I can now triumphantly walk back to the harbor, getting my souvenirs on the way, and head to the fort.

Right, so I left my hotel, the Tower clearly visible from the sidewalk, and I found the entrance to the Tower.  I asked if I could go inside the Stadium?  He said that I could sit in the stands but not run on the tracks.  Perfect.  “The middle door is open.”  No admission fee?  Apparently, the admission fee was just for the tower.  Maybe I’ll come back later to visit the tower, since they’re open until 8 PM.  I went inside and found a nice place to sit on the wooden benches, probably original from 1952, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can explore the rest of Helsinki.

Suomenlinna, Finland

In its prime, Suomenlinna, originally known as Sveaborg, was the premiere fortress in the Baltic.  I am sitting on 250 years of history.  Today, it is one of Finland’s most popular summer tourist destinations.  I do not want to write about 250 years of history.  I want to write about a very simple moment that happened on the boat to the island.  “Where are you from?”  It’s such a simple question, one I have been asked dozens, maybe half a hundred times in my travels.  Why then have I never been the one to initiate that question, that simple conversation starter?

I guess my extreme introversion would be the root cause of it, the reason why, it took me a solid ten minutes of constantly reminding myself that I would never see her again and thinking what the worse that could happen was.  It was the same feeling I had at the Tony’s three years ago and in philosophy class three weeks ago.  I am quite pleased that I found the courage those two times in New York, just as I am pleased that I found the courage.  Nothing came out of this, no new best friend from the Tony’s, no potential new girlfriend from philosophy class, nothing other than a tiny little bit of self-improvement, and maybe that’s more important than anything else this trip, except the Olympic Stadiums of course.

I have a theory, and it might be one of my most important theories.  It goes like this: “The more I do things that are hard for me when the results don’t matter, the easier it will be to do them when the results do matter.”  It is such a simple bit of philosophy, and it was a life-changing revelation when I first realized it.  It was what gave me the courage to talk to the cute girl on the boat.  Okay, I suppose my reader would like more details.  “I left the stadium, got on a boat to the island, talked to a cute girl on the boat, and walked to the top of the fortress, where I proceeded to write this entry” makes for a boring entry, but I will need to pause to light up a pipe before I continue.

After I closed, I headed towards the ferry, stopping for ice cream and souvenirs (just a pin and t-shirt) along the way.  The ferry was at a placed called “Market Square,” an apt name with all the food and souvenir vendors there.  I also stopped at the theatre along the way, since Mamma Mia! Is playing tonight, and I am considering seeing it.  The show is in Swedish, but I know the plot well enough that I have no doubt I will be able to follow along.  It’s a little pricey, but it might be worthwhile.  Not for the first time, someone has just taken a picture of me writing my entry, smoking a cigar or a pipe, and I am always happy to oblige.  The Travelling Philosopher needs his image spread across the globe.

Alright, the ferry boat to Suomenlinna.  I sat down, and there a group of three very good looking girls.  They had the Northern look, but they were speaking English with an accent.  The girl on the far right was gorgeous, absolutely stunning.  I did not catch a glimpse of the girl in the middle.  The girl on the far left was, quite simply, adorable, the way she conducted herself more than anything else.  She kept smiling at me.  It took me a solid five minutes to work up the courage to meekly say “Hey,” a greeting she cheerfully returned.  All I had to do was ask her that simple question, the one I have always been asked but never ask.  It took me another five minutes to work up the courage to ask her that.

Reader, the boat ride was only fifteen minutes, and I spent ten of them overcoming my introversion.  “Scotland,” she gladly offered.  Ah, that explained it, the Northern look, the accent, the English-speaking.  I should have guessed.  We chatted until the boat pulled in, and I got off feeling quite triumphant.  When I was in Scotland, the opposite happened.  I could not find my courage to talk to a gorgeous girl at the hotel, one of the most gorgeous (top ten, for sure) girls I had ever seen.  Now, a year later, I have managed to do so.  It could be said that my travels have given me the opportunity to overcome my introversion, knowing that these people I meet are strangers and that I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Suomenlinna was not exactly what I expected, but it was not disappointing either.  I got my first fika in Finland, and then I lit up a Partagas for a walk through the fortified city.  The gift shop was disappointing.  I made my way up the hill and took a seat in front of a cannon, where I proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close so that I can finish my Ardor and make my way to the end of the island, where I will catch the boat back to Helsinki.  I can see the Cathedral, the most famous landmark in Helsinki, from where I sit, and that will be my next destination.  After I take my pictures there and buy my souvenirs, I will head back to the hotel, where I will decide how I want to spend my final evening in Helsinki.  On that note, I close.

Helsinki, Finland

The sun is setting over Helsinki, and that means that my time here is coming to an end.  “A moment like this.”  Sometimes one special moment, one unforgettable experience is the difference between a good trip, and a great trip.  I just came back from seeing Mamma Mia! in Swedish.  It was truly a magical experience.  I have been on many great trips and however I choose to rank them, it rarely these magic moments that bring something into the top ten.  It’s trips like my Eurotrip with a 100 little magic moments.  It’s so often the aggregate that matters rather than individual.  To say that I loved every minute of this trip would be a lie, but I have certainly not done anything that I didn’t enjoy.

It was merely 60 hours ago when I got on the boat to Birka, and I have now seen everything I want to see in both Stockholm.  I will do the Fenno-Scandia Complete trip and, when I do, I will not need to set foot within the city limits of Stockholm or Helsinki.  I will do a proper Baltic trip, three nights, Tallinn, Riga, and Vilnius.  Those are future trips, and I am sure I will love each of those trips.  I think the most significant part is that I can effortless rattle off the Olympic Stadiums that are remaining to me: Beijing 2008, Athens 2004, Sydney 2000, Seoul 1988, Rome 1960, Melbourne 1956, plus possibly revisit London 2012 and Antwerp 1920 to set foot inside.  That’s it.

What else do I have left on my agenda outside North America?  Machu Picchu (Peru), Christ the Redeemer and the Harbour of Rio (will have to visit for the 2016 Games anyway), the Great Barrier Reef (same country as Sydney and Melbourne), the Great Wall of China (near Beijing), the Coliseum (in Rome), Rhodes (same country as Athens), Victoria Falls (going for my birthday this year), the Pyramids and Alexandria in Egypt (might go for Thanksgiving this year), and the ruins of Babylon.  It is that last one that will be most difficult due to the current geopolitical situation, but a lot can change in two years.  When I was at Grantley Adams, I outlined what remained to me in North America.  There is slightly more than two years left in my mission, and I am well on track to complete all 17 of my goals.  Enough about this.

After I closed at the Stadium, I headed down to the harbor, picking up just a t-shirt and flag pin along the way.  All the other souvenirs featured the Helsinki Cathedral, and I refused to buy anything with an image of the Cathedral until I had taken a picture of it.  I walked through Market Square right next to the harbor, which had all the food and souvenir vendors.  Again, I hadn’t seen the Cathedral yet, so no point.  Wait, hold on, didn’t I write an entry at Suomenlinna?  Oh right, I spent that entry talking about the cute stranger I chatted up, something that took me 27 years and 52 countries to figure out how to do.

Alright, after I closed at Suomenlinna, I walked to the ferry terminal at the other end of the island from where we had first landed.  I was running low on water and battery in my phone, so I had to limit the number of photos I’d take.  I got off the boat at Market Square, seeing the food and souvenir vendors starting to pack up.  It was not yet 5 PM, but I guess people had boarded the cruise ship, so there was no point for them sticking around.  I walked up to a food vendor that had interesting choices, but I had no appetite.  I had a meager enough breakfast, and all I had had since then was a fika at Suomenlinna.  Where was my appetite?  I then walked towards the cathedral, finally getting my souvenirs, including a replica of the Cathedral.  I took my pictures, and I started to have a bit of an appetite, but the vendors were all packed up.

Then I saw it, a big grill with lots of meat.  I was about to ask for a sampler plate or something, but she seemed to have read my thoughts.  She put a paper plate down and offered, alright, I avoid using specific monetary amounts for a few reasons.  First, I don’t want people to know exactly how much I spend on these trips.  Second, I want these entries to be timeless, and including dollar amounts or other currencies, which fluctuate based on exchange rates and inflation, makes it specific to a certain time.  I hate when I read books and find myself having to constantly convert to modern dollar amounts, so I avoid my future readers having that issue.  However, I will include the quote, and a reference.  She announced, “Big plate of food, five euros.”  That was outrageously cheap, less than half of what I would have expected to play for a much smaller plate, but she just wanted to get rid of the food, so she didn’t have to throw it out.  It was reindeer, venison, and fish, crisped up in various forms.  It was so good, but I couldn’t finish it, not having a full appetite yet.

I headed back to the hotel, needing to charge my phone, lighting up a Heisenberg for the walk.  When I got upstairs, I had a very limited amount of time (only thirty minutes, tops), so I couldn’t get a full charge on my phone.  I lit up an Undercrown, not finishing it and having to let it go out so that I could bring the rest of it with me on the walk to the theatre.  The tickets were actually kind of pricy, especially for the seats, about twice what I might pay for student tickets on Broadway.  I got a piece of cheesecake (either raspberry or lingonberry) before the show.  I knew the show would be in Swedish, but I guess I had expected the songs to be in English.  I was wrong.  I didn’t have much trouble following along, and it was truly a magical experience.

I had my last fika (blueberry cake and coffee) of the trip during the intermission, and the second half was even more magical.  After the show, I walked back to my hotel, arranged everything for the morning, went up to my room, put on the Mamma Mia! movie soundtrack, lit up my Ser Jacopo, and proceeded to write this entry, which I will now close.