Reflections on...fish, forts, and the Star-Spangled Banner

This weekend Dave and I took some time off from wedding planning and work to hang out in Baltimore. I was at the end of Spring Break and he was at the end of his rope having worked two weeks straight through. So, looking for somewhere warmer than Syracuse (which really meant anywhere South). After we got off work on Friday, we jumped in Priscilla (Dave's Empreza) and jetted down the freeway to Maryland. We had a great time watching the snowy landscape disappear while watching Spy Game on the in-dash DVD player. After some long detours and delays we made it into Baltimore very late and crashed, ready for the next day full of adventures.


First stop: Inner Harbor. Sadly for us, it wasn't as warm as we had hoped. The forecast had put both weekend days in the low 50's but with the onset of rain and low clouds it was very humid and still chilly. Not desperately, bitterly cold like Syracuse, but chilly.

Complete with touristy shops and restaurants, this section of town was recommended as one of the most interesting. Here Dave is educating me on the different types of devices to keep boats from drifting away. This is called a "cleet".


A beautiful lighthouse that once guided colonial ships into Baltimore's busy commercial port is now surrounded by a growing skyscraper skyline.


The USS Taney, one of the survivors from the Pearl Harbor attacks. We had planned on touring it with the rest of our Maritime Museum tickets but, arriving at 4:30 they had already closed the ship (it was supposed to be open to 5!!)


It was still an impressive ship to see in the harbor.


After buying tickets to go to the aquarium, we ambled around the Inner Harbor trails and then headed into the USS Constitution museum and on to the ship. This is a replica cannon out in the plaza, ready for photo opps.


On board the USS Constitution, we had a brief demonstration of the ship's cannons. Once used as an antislaving ship, it was the last all-wood ship built in the Navy's fleet. It caught slaving ships leading up to the Civil War and was in commission for various purposes for over 100 years. This is the third deck (I forget all the names) where the crew would sleep. They said it would be extremely damp and hot on this deck and the crew would stay away as long as possible until forced to retire for the night. I don't blame them.


This is the second deck almost even with the water where the guns were fired. They would require 9 pounds of gunpowder to fire!! The ship had 20 of these cannons as well as 2 rifle-style guns on the top deck for longer-distance firing. It's amazing to relive the toil and effort and time that went into protecting our country. Not to mention the amount of people involved in just running a ship like this!!


On the upper deck, pretending to steer the ship


Dave's learning the ropes. Great lesson in history, but we both realized that the sailor's life was NOT for us! It was amazing to walk through the different compartments and think about being sent out to sea for months and years at a time. It truly was a different lifestyle, complete with jargon for all the working parts of the ship, the different roles of the men and boys aboard, and the utter unpredictability of being at war on a wooden ship. They had done a fantastic job of describing the life aboard the ship including a display on the different foods they would dry and store, the contraptions for keeping light in the belly of the ship without exposing the gunpowder to flame, the variety of thick and thin ropes, and of course the weapons of the ship with cutlasses (pirate swords) and cannons.



Then, we were off to the National Aquarium. I'm not much of a fish person and honestly I'm glad to see them walled off behind glass where they don't stink as much, but the aquarium was very well-done and had exhibits from the Atlantic, Pacific, Rain Forest, Australia, and more. These are some rays that swam around with the sharks.

One of my favorite lurking sea creatures...an octupus!


Waiting for the dolphin show to start, making fish faces...


Not sure the inspiration for the piano fish, but I had to snag a picture!!


We then went back to tour more ships. This is touring the USS Torsk, a submarine that served in the Pacific during WWII. Dave admires the torpedos and torpedo tubes...


Atop the USS Torsk. It was cool to see how compactly and efficiently the space in the submarine was used. Everything had its place and its label. It's no wonder that the armed forces are required to display a high degree of discipline...there's no room to be messy or disorderly!! Surprisingly, though, as we were touring the bunks, a group of rowdy and disrespectful teenagers that hinted of being in ROTC bounced through tapping the tanks and laughing as they joked about falling onto their bunkmates. I waited with Dave to let them pass through before continuing on because it really bothered me how disrespectful they were being.

Personally, it was inspiring to think of the amount of manpower required to keep that ship operating, the sacrifice of thousands of bright-eyed boys and men heading out to serve their country, never knowing if their names would later be etched onto memorial lists of those that didn't make it back. And, I thought of the mothers waiting at home and receiving letters of their boys operating the ships that would cruise enemy waters, hardly knowing what the inside of the ship or the conditions their sons were living in. Hardly the subject of joking. I'm very grateful for reminders such as this submarine that teach me how blessed I am thanks to the sacrifice of generations before me.

Finishing the submarine tour and prevented from touring the USS Taney, we headed back for a nap and then dinner in Little Italy (sorry no pictures...). We had GREAT food and finished the night cuddling up to a movie.


Sunday was a drizzly, rainy day. Not heavy enough to keep us from going outside though!! We headed to tour Fort McHenry, famous for its role in the War of 1812 and the site of inspiration for Francis Scott Key's words of the Star Spangled Banner.

We began the tour watching a movie on the fort's history that ended by looking out towards the flagpole and hearing the National Anthem in a rousing and beautifully strong arrangment by the Naval Academy Choir. Dave and I then headed into the fort itself.


A cool picture of the replica barrels of supplies inside the fort.

These cannons were part of a later era than the famous War of 1812...the Fort was used as a detention camp for Confederate prisoners during the Civil War, then as a hospital following WWI into WWII and was functional until declared a national monument and historic site in the 1980s. These cannons were amazingly heavy (listed as upward of 50,000 lbs) and moved around on tracks at the base, installed during the Civil War and shortly thereafter. Luckily, the fort itself only saw action during the War of 1812 and didn't come under fire any time afterwards.

This is the famous flagpole in the same spot that it was during Key's days. While captured and forced to remain on an American Truce Ship during a British advance on Baltimore, Francis Scott Key saw the fort come under fire and listened to the bombardment through an antagonizing 3 days of warfare. On the final morning, the guns silenced, and a gigantic 30' by 42' American flag rose triumphant over the smoke, inspiring him to pen his poem that would later accompany an English drinking song to make our National Anthem. What a cool piece of history!!


Standing at the gates to the main courtyard inside the fort.


A statue dedicated to Key


The main gates of the fort.

We finsihed the day as we drove to visit Dave's parents and then head back to Syracuse. It turns out that the weekend had been unusually pleasant in Syracuse and Spring had sprung during our absence.

We were glad for a break, though, and now head into the second half of the semester busy with wedding plans, school work, work work, callings, and personal lives in full swing!! Wish us luck.

Reflections on…a night at the opera and the beginning of Spring Break!

That’s right, in addition to being freed from the depths of the winter chill, I am officially freed from a week of classes! Much of the city has emptied as people head off to beach destinations or other trips, but I am sticking around to work on grading papers, working on my internship search for the Fall, wedding plans, and hopefully getting ahead in my research papers due at the end of the semester. While that may not sound exciting, the fact that I don’t have to sit through multiple hours of class means that I have TONS of free time! I’m so excited to get to eat at my own house, clean my room, organize myself, and otherwise relax with no deadlines, no meetings, no need to be anywhere “on time.” It’s a great feeling!

To kick it all off, when I got off work yesterday, Dave texted me that we were going to meet his sister Nikki and her kids for dinner. We went to a wonderful little family-run Vietnamese place and I LOVED everything we ordered from sweet-and-sour pork to beef tamarind to soybean milk. Meg (Nikki’s almost-20-year-old daughter, Dave’s niece) came down and is off for Spring Break too so hopefully we’ll get some more time to hang out during the week. It was great to relax with them and Nikki has been so welcoming and inviting as my future sister-in-law.
Then, Dave and I headed out for a night at the opera. The Syracuse Opera only performs 3 operas a season, and tonight was their big opener with Romeo and Juliet. Neither of us had sat through a full opera though we had been to different samplers and I had studied operatic form in my past humanities classes. We met up with another girl from the Branch majoring in music education and were lucky enough to get seats on the orchestra level! Both the Symphony and the Opera offer student specials for whatever seats don’t sell that you can get a half hour before the show begins. But, you never know where you’ll end up. The seats were close to the back but a perfect view for catching the English translations projected overhead.

It was the first time we’d been back to the Symphony since Dave and I got engaged there on Valentine’s Day, so, naturally, we were both admittedly sentimental. It may just be another civic center, but it will always be a special place for us where we shared our love of music, our love of fine arts, and our love for each other. I’m very blessed to have a great man who loves me in my life and it was sweetly humbling to cuddle up next to him while robust music filled the dark concert hall. We talked about how, unlike popular media with skeleton-skinny drug-addicted and moral-less models parade around on screen, the opera singers were larger, robust, and confident people who, with nothing beyond their own lungs could fill an entire hall with rich tones and harmonies. Yes, there was elaborate costuming and stage props and the backdrop of the set of visual enhancement, but their real beauty lay in their love of music and the recognition of their God-given talents strengthened by years of practice and polishing. Needless to say, I love the performing arts and it’s been AWESOME to attend so many high-caliber shows...and share them with my sweetheart.

Reflections on…a morning jog. AND…spring?

Wow. I cannot begin to describe how energized and wonderful I feel this morning. I got up to birds (other than crows!) chirping outside my window, a bright and cheery sun bold against a clear blue sky, and the most beautifully warm weather we’ve had since the onset of winter back in October. It may only be 50 degrees, but it feels like it’s 80! Armed with a light jacket and warm running pants, I laced up my running shoes and went for a jog down the street to a nearby park where I admired a flock of lazy ducks happily sploshing around in the ponds. Muscles I had forgotten about began to wake up and my entire body strained at having lacked attention for so long. My thighs are already thanking me but my mind and my heart feel so much lighter.
The whole town of Syracuse seemed to have come out of a deep sleep. People were out walking their dogs, some accompanied by strollers or toddlers trotting to keep up, a few couples walking arm-in-arm aimlessly ambling down the now-dry and clear sidewalks. Others were out clearing away the broken branches and debris of winter from their gardens. I couldn’t help but want to pinch myself and make sure I wasn’t dreaming!!

After longs week of crazy paper-writing, midterms, group presentations, and TERRIBLY COLD days with biting winds, constant snow storms, and dismally gray skies hiding the sun, it seems that Syracuse is finally beginning to thaw. In all honesty, I’m afraid to even publish this blog in fear that I’m going to jinx my new-found freedom from the lock-down of winter. All the warnings of bad weather and harsh winters somehow didn’t deter me from coming here (just as the warnings of brutal heat and the meltdown of Paraguay didn’t stop me either). And, it didn’t seem real until after I returned from Christmas break and lived the day-to-day drudgery of highs in the 20s alongside brutish winds and humidity that sent the cold straight to my bones. I started planning my day based on how long I would have to be outside—wearing my thermal pants or an extra layer if I had to go to the library because it would mean an additional 10 minutes exposed to the cold. I dreaded even the 10 steps from my front door to my car. That was all it took to shake up my body heat and flush the blood from my nose and tops of my ears. It may sound extreme, but yesterday was literally the first day that I’ve gone outside without gloves and maintained feeling in my fingertips!!!

So, on this momentous day I figured I would take some time to sit and write how good I feel and wonderful the simple pleasure of taking a morning jog can be. It could be that Spring is yet to arrive and this is just another teaser before we get hammered by the ominous Noreasters. But, I’m grateful for it nonetheless.