Italian Cruise 2021 - Day 3

Monday, 10/18

Shore Excursion on Palma

Having gone to bed so early, we were a bit surprised to wake up still tired, but we shuffled our way to the buffet and had some breakfast. I thought the scrambled eggs looked good, but as usual with buffet scrambled eggs, they were still a little runny. Not enjoyable. I don’t like food that isn’t well done. I got some other stuff, too, from potatoes to fruit, and some orange juice. What I really wanted was a cola, for my morning batch of caffeine, but I didn’t get any.

We went to the auditorium and waited for them to call our excursion. We got there about half an hour early, so it took them a while, but eventually, it happened. They sent us down a long black corridor and at the end of it, crew members put a sticker on our shirts that had a number on it, and we were sent down to the gangplank, where crew members scanned our room keys to note that we were leaving the ship.

Outside, there was a long line of buses waiting. A crew member took a final look at our tickets and said, “30. Your bus is at the end of the line. So we trotted off, taking him at his word, headed for the last bus. We had almost reached it when one of the tour guides stopped us. “Wait, wait, you just went past your bus,” and pointed to the sign sitting on the dashboard, instead of the sign at the top of the bus. Sure enough, the dashboard sign of the 4^th bus from the end said ‘30’, and the title of our excursion. So color me pink with embarrassment as we went back and presented our tickets. Then we climbed aboard and found seats. Before long, we were on our way.

I don’t remember the name of the port city, but the island was Palma. It’s part of Spain. While the tour guide pointed out some buildings for us to look at, and told us some of the city’s history, the bus driver weaved his way through narrow streets and up a hill to the castle at the top. After the bus was parked, we were given about 20 minutes to walk back to the front of the castle and take pictures. There was a long staircase to get from the road to the castle. I opted not to tax myself by climbing all of them, but John went up and took pictures. I started to get worried as the minutes ticked by, wondering if I would have to race up the stairs to find him and drag him back to the bus. But he showed up, and we got back more or less on time.

Then the drive back down the hill, and through some more narrow streets, past more homes and churches. Then the bus stopped at the corner of modern thoroughfare, and we all got off. We walked about a block and then crossed the busy street, paused to hear some history of the building in front of us. Then we walked for about 2 days, uphill, on cobblestone sidewalks to get to the center of town. Or if not the center, then a downtown section of the city. Many important government buildings were pointed out to us, which John dutifully took pictures of.

At one point, the tour guide pointed out an old olive tree in the square that was purported to be 800 years old. It had a very interesting shape, which I would have loved having pictures of, in case I ever felt inclined to paint a portrait of a strangely shaped tree. But John never thought of taking pictures of it, and by the time I thought of suggesting it, we were off and walking elsewhere.

A block or 2 later, we paused to compare architectural details of 2 buildings. One of them was under renovation, and we had to stand about the base of the scaffolding. When we started off again, one of our group stepped forward to go through the scaffolding, only to trip over a bracing bar. He got back up, and those of us around him wondered if he was okay, but he wasn’t bleeding. So we hurried on, sometimes sharing the half-lane street with vehicles or delivery trucks.

Eventually, we came to a building which the guide called a market. Think of a mall, only instead of store fronts, it was full of booths of all sizes, selling all sorts of things, including meat and produce. We were given half an hour to roam among the booths before we gathered back together. In that time, the man who had fallen and his wife had found a pharmacy and bought some antiseptic ointment and a couple bandages for his banged-up shins, so he was a little more inclined to shake off the experience.

Once we had all rejoined the group, the guide took us inside, up the escalator to the 2^nd floor, and to a special event restaurant, where they served us a traditional meal of Palma, complete with wine. It was very good, though the wine was a little too dry for my taste. (I like soda-pop wine.)

After a filling meal, I wasn’t looking forward to walking any great distance, but it turned out we only had to walk about 3 blocks to get to our bus, which had changed location and was waiting for us. A quick trip back to the pier, and we were boarding the ship.

John went to the hot tub. I laid down on the bed and rested. In years past, I would have fallen asleep, but not this time. I’m proud of myself. I may not have made it to the hot tub, but at least I didn’t fall asleep.

We had a reservation at the Japanese specialty restaurant that evening. The type of place where they cook the food on a big grill right in front of you. This place included making the fried garlic rice on that grill, which was a fun addition. They used about a pound of garlic butter making the fried rice. Our drinks package allowed us to get mixed drinks that were $15 or less, and this restaurant had 2 cocktails on their menu, so we each got one, and then tasted each others.

Anyway, I opted for the filet mignon, well done. I usually tell them to ‘burn it, stomp on it, and burn it again’, because I’ve had ‘well done’ meat that was still mooing. But John begged me not to add those instructions, for fear the chef might actually climb on the grill to stomp on it. So I quietly asked for it to be cooked well done, and wasn’t the only one to ask for that, so there!

When he got around to cooking the filet mignon, especially the well done portions, the chef added butter and soy sauce to the meat. So when I got to eat it, it was soft and tasty, not hard and cardboardy. I’ll have to remember that trick if I ever decide to cook meat at home.

After we ate, we went back to our room, took our evening pills, checked our tickets for the next day’s excursion, set our alarms, and went to bed.

Swords - Fantasy or Fact?

A Guest Entry by Ta’Yant bilora vi Grrrck (of Floya 4 - There are other Ta’Yant bilora vi Grrrcks, but they aren’t from Floya 4!)

A common occurrence in the genre ‘high fantasy’ or ‘epic fantasy’ is the use of swords, some of which had or are said to have had magical powers. Since many of these stories appear to be set on Old Earth and include other items that also appear in ancient Earth myths and legends - such as elves, dwarves, dragons, magic and the like, I decided to search the ancient texts from the Home Planet to determine how much of the legend of ‘swords’ might be purely imaginary.

First, let me say that it is very difficult to discern whether a particular text is truly factual. So many texts either gave no references or referred to texts that are no longer part of what records we still have, so cannot be verified. Since the chances of finding additional texts seems impossible, with Earth (and indeed, that entire system) in their current inhospitable state, I can only present what I found as a series of supposed truths, with the understanding that it might be completely contaminated with ‘facts’ that are nothing more than ‘beliefs’ of the time.

One source text came to be a wealth of knowledge to me, or would have, if the links to its sources had been intact, or if I had been able to verify anything it said from some other source. Even the title of this reference text was incomplete, consisting of “...ikipedia.org/wiki/Spath...”. Ancient historians (meaning those who study ancient history, who or may or may not be ancient in their own right) believe this title places it in the ‘wikipedia’ reference source of the 22nd century, which is either famous for being so large and all-inclusive, or infamous for having no basis in fact, depending on which historian is speaking. This article stated that a spatha was a long, straight sword, originally used by the ‘germanic’ people against the ‘romans’, who started with swords that were shorter. The ‘romans’, however, adopted the longer version so that they could stab opponents from a longer distance.

So, if this information is correct, swords were real, and came in different lengths. In my efforts to double-check everything, I could not find ‘germanic’ or ‘romans’ on any maps within the available wikipedia texts. I did find a map (circa 2100) that showed an area called Germany, and somewhat south of that, a city called Rome. If these are the areas of the peoples referenced, further study of even more texts indicate that Germany was a source of many huge wars involving the entire planet, and that the highly religious Rome people were led by a Grand Priest, alternately referred to as ‘The Pope’ and ‘Ceasar’. I personally have trouble with the thought of a ‘deeply religious’ people who carried and used weapons, but I am not versed in all types of religion. Perhaps their religion called on them to dominate others. In that case, I can not be surprised that they eventually came to blows with the war-faring germanics.

I ran across 2 ‘news articles’ from 2015 and 2016. As ‘news stories’, they had no links to any reference materials, but I include them here because I found them so interesting. In 2015, a ‘hiker’(?) found an ‘ancient viking’ sword on the side of the road in Norway, and a specialist from a local museum (?) stated the sword was from 750 AD, approximately 1200 years before it was found. (I can’t make any sense of their calendar! I thought these dates were in the same calendar era, but 750 plus 1200 equals 1950, not 2015!) The specialist went on to say that if given a new handle, the sword could be used ‘today’ (meaning 2015). 

In 2016, a local ‘couple’ found an ‘amazingly preserved’ sword in a ‘field’ near their home in Denmark. This sword, a museum representative stated, was 3,000 years old. Apparently, swords were in use for more than 3000 years, since one of these was that old, and the other only needed some minor repairs before it could be used again! And yes, Norway and Denmark were both on that map, Norway north of Denmark, with a strip of water between them. But research indicated that Norway was colonized by Denmark, so why would they be at war with each other?

My head is spinning, just trying to keep all these ‘facts’ straight and get them presented in a logical sequence. And I’ve just barely begun telling you all that I found in those old replicas! My time for this entry is up, but as soon as I can pick up two thoughts and put them together, I’ll see about writing another entry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spatha

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3284415/1-200-year-old-Viking-sword-lying-road-Norway-s-good-condition-used-today.html

archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2016/09/3000-year-old-sword-found-in-denmark.html#fykqDcC4bOGEvIbd.97

Hatra in History

As I put together my list of things to research for blogs (and my own edification), I put several of them in line to be done ‘soon’. I thought I had a fairly random method of choosing what to slap on that ‘soon’ list, yet here we are, looking (yet again) at what little is known about an ancient city.

Hatra was founded in the 2^nd or 3^rd century BC by the Seleucid Empire, which was established by a group of Greeks. But Hatra wasn’t in Greece, it was located in the northern part of modern Iraq. It was captured by the Parthian Empire (based in ancient Iran) probably in the 1^st century AD, and it then thrived as a religious and trading center. As an important fortified frontier city, Hatra resisted repeated attacks by the Roman Empire and others, but fell in 241 AD to invading Iranians.

Hatra had more than 160 towers and two walls - inner and outer - that circled an area 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) in diameter. It was a religious center, but it didn’t seem to care what god people wanted to worship; it adopted them all. The major temples were gathered together over 1.2 hectares in the middle of the city, dominated by The Great Temple, which at one time rose 30 meters (100 feet) into the air.

For many centuries, the Hatra ruins were the best preserved example of a Parthian city. Unfortunately, in2015 it was reported that ISIL was destroying the ruins. I did not find any report about how much – if any – of it might remain.

I did see some lovely pictures of the ruins, and they were impressive. I also found a list of rulers for this city, but I didn’t care about that. Archeologists studied the site at various times during the 20^th century, and there was some effort to preserve the site. But I have no clue about the topography of the city’s location, no idea where the people got their water and food, what they ate or wore. The only way I could possibly ‘use’ this information in a story would be as the ruins that Hatra has been for so long. And that seems like a crying shame.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatra

https://www.britannica.com/place/Hatra

Which Kish?

I started a list of things I had read or heard about that sounded interesting. I consult that list for ideas for blogs. Sometimes my list entry is a helpful short paragraph; other entries are a phrase or just a word. This time, the entry was “Kish, Iran”.

I googled “Kish, Iran” and came up with Kish Island, a duty-free giant shopping mall on an island, according to Wikipedia. What? I must have misunderstood or mis-wrote, because I have extremely little interest in giant shopping malls, duty-free or otherwise. I read the history section, and it mentioned some ancient info about the island, but it was all summed up in a couple sentences, with lots of references to other articles, and it didn’t sound all that interesting.

What a bummer. What do I do, cross off that entry and pick another?

I opened google again, and put in “Kish”. What came up concerned an ancient city in what is now Iraq. I always seem to confuse Iran and Iraq. I decided to take look at what Wikipedia had on this Kish.

Around 4000 BC, the Sumerian people appeared in the area between the Tigris and Euphrates River in Mesopotamia (modern southern Iraq). They all shared the same culture and language, but they settled in about a dozen different places, which eventually became walled cities.

Kish was a city that came into existence around 3100 BC, sitting on the Euphrates River. The Sumerians as a whole developed a system of writing that was adopted by many other cultures. They also invented the wheel, the plow, law codes, literature and brewing. They placed their cities on rivers so that they could irrigate crops.

Although the Sumerian cities all shared a culture and language, they were constantly at war with each other, which explains why their cities were walled. The contained area was almost always dominated by a ziggurat – a tiered, pyramid-like temple. Individual houses were built either of bundles of marsh reeds or mud bricks. Sumerians traveled long distances to trade with other peoples. They may have reached as far as Afghanistan and Ethiopia.

Kish was the first city to have kings after the deluge, according to the ancient Sumerian kings list. It had several dynasties. Two leaders from the 2nd dynasty, Enmebaragesi and his son, Aga of Kish, are said to be contemporaries of Gilgamesh of Uruk.

The third dynasty had an unusual beginning; the new king was Kubau, a female who had previously been a tavern keeper. She came to power at about 2500 BC. At some point, she was deified. The fourth dynasty consisted of Kubau’s (male) descendants.

Early in the 2^nd millennium BC, Sumer was invaded by the Amorites and Babylonians. The culture did not survive this invasion. By 1750 BC, their history, culture, language were all forgotten. Eventually, Kish was abandoned and also forgotten. Just like the people who had been living in this area when the Sumers arrived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_Island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kish_(Sumer)

http://www.history.com/news/history-lists/9-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-ancient-sumerians

An Atlan Journal, Entry 1

My name is Lacelia. I am an Atlan historian. Yesterday marked the end of my 12th year, and I received my first journal, quill and ink. No longer will I try to formulate my thoughts and observations on slate with chalk or charcoal; now I can keep them for years and years, and eventually, my journals will join our growing archive.

Knowing that what I commit to this parchment might well be read by future generations any number of times, I tried all night to decide what my first entry should be. This morning, Opaan, my mentor, asked why I had not written in my journal yet, and I told her of my difficulty in deciding on a topic. "I have not had any adventures. I have only the hum-drum chores of my life."

"This is a common complaint of young historians, for we seldom leave the village and those chores. But we are charged with recording history for all the Atlans, not just ourselves. When someone returns from the Outside, many of us will sit and listen to their tale, and commit it to our journals. But in the meantime, we hone our skills by recording what we see and know around us. This is how future generations will learn about us, and thus, where they came from."

"Surely they do not need to know we sweep our cottages and wash our clothes! Everybody does that!"

Opaan nodded. "Today, everybody does that. But I have read the first journal of Tolka, the first historian of this village. In it, she reports that the founding mothers of this village were refuges from some terrible disaster at the original Atlan home, which was an island. The total number of refuges that found their way here were six, and four of them were under the age of fifteen. She did her best to report the important facts about this disaster and how they came here, but she was a child of the youngest of the six, and the two who had arrived as grown women had become feeble with age."

"I certainly don't have anything as important as that to write about!"

"I should hope not. But that journal was well used, and obviously had been consulted many, many times, although, not the pages dealing with the disaster and its aftermath. Those pages were much cleaner and far less wrinkled." I wondered why anyone would have consulted a book without bothering with such an important story, and Opaan continued. "Tolka had also described such things as the local berries and fruits, where they could be found and when they were most likely to be ripe. How to plant certain grasses and harvest the seeds, then grind the seeds into flour and make bread. Noxious weeds that would cause distress to the livestock, and less noxious weeds that would dissuade wild creatures from invading the gardens."

"But the Plant Women and the Cooks would have that knowledge."

"They had none. And like Tolka, when the first of them were born into the village, they had no one to teach them these things. Without mentors, they would have had to start their learning process by trial and error. As you did, when you were learning to ride a horse. Luckily, somebody realized the knowledge Tolka had in her journal, and used those clues to help them find their own Power, like caring for plants and cooking."

"Yes, but that was then, Opaan. At last count, we had over 500 Atlans in this valley. Plenty of mentors for any of the 27 different Powers."

"Then consider this, young one. Tolka reported that the village had grown too large to shelter under the waterfall anymore, and had started to erect huts made of twigs and mud. You could follow her instructions and make one, if you wanted. They bathed in the river. These days, our sturdy cottages are of wood and stone. We have constructed a reservoir that is filled by the waterfall, and pipes to bring that water to each building. We bathe in tubs. Things have changed since then."

I thought maybe I understood. "And some day, our descendants might want to know about such things?"

"Exactly. So, make your first entry. And once the first page or two is written on, you will no longer hesitate to write more. Or, at least, I didn't."

I think she might be right. Unless something more interesting comes up, tomorrow I will write about my family.