Last weekend we were in Plymouth, Massachusetts for a wedding which was lovely and the day after we decided to take a wander around Plymouth with Kim’s parents.
My family is part American on both sides but down my mother’s father’s line (I’m a genealogy lover) we’re descended from this pilgrim chap below who’s my 8th great grandfather. I’d say we don’t look like him but then I’m supposing whoever built this statue of him had never seen him either.
This is the famed Plymouth Rock, it’s in a cage because people keep chipping bits off of it apparently. Supposedly it was the first thing the pilgrims stepped on coming off the ship but who the hell steers their ship into rocks? Seems unlikely to me.
It was quite misty out that day but but the gift shops were in full swing. There was a nice walk along the harbour.
They had a few artsy bits to look at… not pictured is the smelly crazy man who kept approaching tourists asking them to wish him a happy birthday.
We all tossed pennies in the pilgrim lady fountain and wished for my poor father in law’s back to get better as he’d been hobbling about that weekend with ice on his back after he threw it out.
And then we had a pleasant walk back to the car past a cool Indian statue which a bossy lady walking her dog angrily told my father in law was actually an ‘indigenous people statue’… I get being culturally sensitive is nice but I don’t see what’s so insulting about the word Indian other than the fact that we’re discussing people not actually from India the country. And now that I found out I’m part Indian I feel I can say it, sort of like how some black rappers use the N word or how lesbians are allowed to say dyke. But really, who goes to an indigenous people reserve or and indigenous people casino? No one, that’s who and I’ll say what I like. Perhaps I’m turning into my great aunt and in the future my family will be horribly embarrassed of my terms like my family is when my great aunt says how lovely the ‘darkies’ are over the road and we all cringe and hiss at her that she can’t say that! And she says what? They are lovely… oh dear… It’s odd how terms change in acceptability. In the UK you would never ever say the word ‘retard’ to describe someone with learning difficulties but here it doesn’t seem to be seen as insulting and I’ve heard plenty of people say it, in the UK ‘black’ is the acceptable term but here people seem to prefer ‘African American’.
After our exploration of Plymouth Kim’s parents left to drive home and Kimmy and I went to the Plimoth Plantation which is a living history museum where you can go in and out of the houses and everyone’s in costume.
They had a Wampanoag settlement
They had examples of summer and winter homes and hollowed out canoes.
All the historical actors were doing things like crafting or cooking.
And you could speak to them and they stayed in character and told you who they were and answered questions etc.
Part of the museum had crafting and cooking stations where people gave demonstrations (not in character).
And Kim gave the bee hives a very wide berth.
Then we walked over to the English village where all the actors put on English accents (some were better at this than others).
There were lots of houses you could walk into and the actors would be either in the house or in the gardens.
And they had a lot of farm animals milling about, the chickens kept wanting to go inside all of the houses and kept getting shooed out. We got told there was a pilgrim from Great Yarmouth and that we could quiz him about his life there because apparently all the actors have to memorise details about their back stories but luckily for him he must have been on lunch break because he wasn’t in his house.
I added a new squashed penny to my collection.
And then we browsed the tat.
hayleyiraina 