Categotry Archives: Research
The Tudors: Anne In The Way
We will be doing two Tudors this week as Anne slides into her dreaded fate, a short one today and a long one tomorrow. **** By February 1536 the bloom was off the lily. Anne was, as far as Henry was concerned, never going to produce a male heir. She also began to vent her notoriously nasty temper on Henry. Something she had tried to avoid during their courtship. She even objected, loudly and in public, to his recreational sex […]
Xunantunich III
The main pyramid is worth a post all by itself. It’s the only one I climbed. I didn’t realize how bad the sunburn on the back of my legs was until I reached the top then tried to come back down. Ouch! That’s why I didn’t climb the rest. From the top you can see the entire complex. See the white line at the bottom of the picture? That’s what I’m standing on. From the top of the […]
Xunantunich II
One of the most impressive aspects of our tour of Xunantunich was the casual way our Mayan- Mestizo guide pointed at rock structures and said it was made for one kind of blood letting or another. Ironically, what you find at the top of the biggest pyramid is not an alter, but the royal bedrooms. Actually, come to think of it, we didn’t see any alters in place anywhere. Here is where they do the circumcisions. I’m not sure if […]
Xunantunich I
Back to Belize. As long as we were in the neighborhood, we dropped by a Mayan ruin. This one is called Xunantunich. The owner of Banana Bank Lodge told us to pronounce it like Shoe-not-to-itch. Last time I posted a bunch of pictures caused all kinds of loading problems for people, so I’m going to break it up into parts. To get there you have to take the ferry. This is not your large, multi-vehicle carrier you might find […]
What Katherine Wanted
As promised, we continue with Mr. Al’s history of the Tudors. *** What Katherine wanted was a clear statement from the Pope that she was Henry’s lawful wife! She wanted it publicly acknowledged that she was the rightful Queen of England! Why was His Holiness being such a weenie about it? If Henry wouldn’t abide by the Pope’s decision, well, there was nothing she could do about that. At least the world would know that Henry’s actions were just plain […]
The Tudors – Henry and Anne Get It On.
Just so you know, I’m the one who comes up with the cheesy titles. Mr. Al never thinks to give me one. Anyway, when we left off Henry was about to discover something about his virginal queen-to-be not entirely to his liking. *** It turned out, or so Henry later claimed, that Anne had been “corrupted” while in France. That she had had sexual experiences that left her, technically, still a virgin. He did not elaborate on what the experiences […]
Travel in the Post-Nine Eleven Era
Although I’ve been flying since I was a little kid, I haven’t been in the air since 911. I had heard so much about how much harder it was to get through security that I was quite concerned. Perhaps it was the time of day we flew, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected. The set up was a little different from I remembered, but not bad. We started off in the line for the courtesy desk to […]
The Maya Breeze Inn
May Breeze Beach is on the peninsula leading to Placencia. It’s a little community of half a dozen resorts stretched out over a couple of miles. Except for right in front of the Maya Breeze Inn itself, it’s dirt road. In front of the Inn, it’s packed gravel. I suspected each segment of the road is paid for by the people fronting it. Although there was a heck of a lot of construction going on all up and down the peninsula, […]
Three Men and a Tudor.
Mr. Al has written a very long piece of Tudor history. I asked him to slice off a piece for me, and this was the result: *** In November of 1529, Henry was still in love with Anne. But the strain to her of keeping a guy like Henry at arms length for five years was taking its toll. Although she didn’t seem to mind making enemies among those who were outside her family faction, her increasingly short temper and […]
Belize City
All the pictures shown here were taken on Easter Monday, which apparently is a major holiday in Belize. The entire city felt as deserted as a ghost town. I only saw a few other tourists, and some police whose job it is to protect the tourists while wandering around all day long. When we found the natives, they were all desperately trying to catch a ferry out to the cayes. I wish I’d been less prudish about taking pictures of […]
Chateau Caribbean
I mention them so often that I think I should show you a bit more of the places where we stayed. First, as my mother planned the entire trip with the help of the Internet, you can find out about both Maya Breeze and Banana Bank through their web sites. I’ll be blogging on them separately. The first place we stayed was the Chateau Caribbean in Belize City. It’s a good thing we decided to stay in Belize City […]
The Animals of Belize – part 2 – not behind fences
Here’s a picture of the shark I mentioned before: I didn’t take it. The guide took it on my sister’s camera. The film from mine still hasn’t been developed yet, mostly because I haven’t used it up yet. Not much call for underwater cameras in Montana. We also saw manatees, or as much of them as anyone ever sees, and monkeys and various reptiles Yes, those reptiles are in doors. The lizard is inside a wall sconce […]
More Belizian Food Links
OK, I’m cheating again on the food thing, but my mother sent me this link http://www.belizenorth.com/belizean_recipes_text.htm And I gotta say this looks exactly like what we were eating . Except the conch. Every place we asked said they were out. The Monkey River Tour Guide told us Iguana was legal for natives to eat, but not allowed to be sold in restaurants because in the short time it was allowed they were nearly hunted to extinction. Makes me wonder about […]
The Animals of Belize – part 1 – the Zoo of Belize
Going to the Zoo was a funky experience. We loved it. I loved getting way too close to dangerous animals like this guy: They called him a jaguar. What you don’t see here is the middle when I had to wait for my digital camera to get ready for another picture. (You realize, of course, that “digital” is a swear word, right?) The jaguar was so close I could have touched him if I’d been stupid enough to […]
The Roads of Belize
It helps to remember that Belize is a small country, only three or four hundred miles in any given direction. It could fit in a corner of Montana. Yet it takes all day to get from one end to the other. This is mostly because of the speed bumps. I kid you not. This country puts speed bumps in the middle of their highways fairly often. Worse yet is the odd “cross walk” which is where pedestrians are supposed […]
