April 24th

This morning we were all up early, as it was a "moving day". We had our final breakfast at the Nuremore Hotel and the porters had brought down our luggage and loaded it on to our coach. We headed north into the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Northern Ireland where not only the atmosphere changes but so does the currency. No more Euros for now, we are using the Sterling pound.
Once we cross the invisible border, we leave behind kilometers and we are back to miles. We arrived at the Ulster American Folk Museum in Omaha, Co. Tyrone situated on the original property of the Mellon family, as in Carnegie Mellon. Andrew Mellon left this homestead in 1721 and arrived in Pennsylvania with his family. They were poor farmers but his mother recognized his potential, packed him off to school and after becoming a lawyer, he eventually got into the banking business and you know the rest.
It was very interesting, we got to see re-enactments of blacksmiths in a forge, weavers making cloth, shop keepers selling the wares of the periods of the 18th and 19th centuries. At one point we boarded a ship bound for America, saw what the passenger quarters were like and then disembarked onto American soil to see what the Irish emigrants saw when they arrived in the New World. All of the little cottages and work shops had turf fires burning and as our weather was drizzling rain and damp, it could not have been more appreciated.
We had a nice lunch in the museum's cafe and then headed further north into the City of Derry, the second largest city in N. Ireland. We are staying at the City Hotel on the bank of the river Foyle which flows through the city out into the North Atlantic Ocean. The river divides the city and the two communities of Catholics on one side and Protestants on the other. The city has suffered through the "Troubles" which boiled over in the North in the 1960's until th Good Friday Peace Agreement in 1993. There still remains the spectre of sectarianism in the North and we can only hope peace will prevail.
We checked into the hotel and wouldn't you know I was given the Presidential Suite. Finally my state in life has been recognized! We had a nice dinner this evening and about twelve of us went to a local pub to listen to Irish traditional music. I stayed about an hour and came back to my palatial suite to write to you all. Another full day, and everyone has declared they are having a wonderful time.
Tomorrow we have a walking tour of Derry's Walls and some of the interesting and historical sites in the area before I plan a couple of surprises in the afternoon, weather permitting....see you later...time for my bath, massage and peeled grapes, yeh right...