
I'm in Troy - upstate New York, at the tidal head of the Hudson river 150 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. Troy is proud to be named after Helen of Troy, with her beauty shown on the top of a tall pillar in the town square.

Troy is also proud to be the town of origin of Uncle Sam - someone else who's name I have oft heard, but about who's history I know very little. His fine statue stands in the Waterfront park, where a military band was playing last night in the bandstand to entertain rows of "Vets". About as American as they get!

But grand though the architechure is, the old town of Troy has clearly seen better times, with some elements of our hotel - the Best Western Rensselaer Inn - leaving something to be desired. On the first evening, the door of the list shaft was propped open and we could hear the sound of running water from within; on the second day, we were moved to another room as "we'll be digging up the floor outside your room and there may be a bit of dust". On the third day, we popped back to see what our old room looked like!
Let's be fair - we're well away from the works in the new room, we have a view of the pool rather than the car park, and now that we've learnt not to ask for a shuttle before 9 a.m., to order a taxi 20 minutes before we really need to travel, and to give the breakfast time to warm up by not going down soon after it starts, we're getting along just fine. Internet access is excellent in the middle of the night, but patchy with lots of dropped connections when all the business people need to be on line at the same time - 6 to 9 a.m. and 4 to 8 p.m. And we are within walking distance of the town.
(written 2007-08-17, updated 2009-08-31)
Associated topics are indexed as below, or enter http://melksh.am/nnnn for individual articles
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[70] Red Luas - early life and times - (2004-10-02)
[92] Hard work, Hard sell - (2004-10-18)
[186] Lull - (2005-01-22)
[218] Golden Nugget - (2005-02-17)
[403] Full circle - made it back to an old haunt - (2005-08-05)
[670] Architectural Heritage - Devizes - (2006-04-04)
[685] A couple of days away - (2006-04-15)
[713] Pictures from my travels - (2006-05-07)
[727] A journey, an arrival, a people - (2006-05-21)
[730] Reading the newspaper and working with other restrictions - (2006-05-23)
[740] Finishing up in Dhahran - (2006-06-01)
[778] Weekend in Ireland - (2006-06-26)
[886] Signs of Leek - (2006-10-04)
[1147] A picture (mostly in words) of Helsinki - (2007-04-14)
[1204] Spot the difference - (2007-05-25)
[1229] Where am I? - (2007-06-11)
[1244] FolksFest Bristol - German beer, Bratwurst and music - (2007-06-24)
[1298] From Leeds - (2007-08-10)
[1425] Melksham v Ely - (2007-11-09)
[1456] Right up to the top of the City - (2007-12-03)
[1457] A day in Ljubljana - (2007-12-04)
[1460] Christmas fare in Ljubljana - (2007-12-05)
[1524] Nottingham - just text! - (2008-01-30)
[1536] A Weekend in Liverpool - (2008-02-10)
[1537] To Wales - where theres still a toll on the bridge - (2008-02-11)
[1590] All Change, Portsmouth Harbour - (2008-03-23)
[1617] Steam Engines at Bressingham - (2008-04-20)
[1624] From Freddie the fallow - (2008-04-27)
[1638] Pictures far apart - (2008-05-10)
[1639] Minehead Marauder - (2008-05-11)
[1652] Old Sarum airfield brings back fond memories - (2008-05-24)
[1714] Hillier Gardens, Hampshire - (2008-07-20)
[1715] Pictures from South Hampshire - (2008-07-21)
[1730] Punting on the Cam - (2008-07-31)
[1755] Istanbul - (2008-08-15)
[1804] Colvin and Carlisle - (2008-09-20)
[1807] A sad town in the sunlight - (2008-09-22)
[1837] Alfred the Great - (2008-10-13)
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[2207] North Antrim Coast - a jewel thats well worth a visit - (2009-05-29)
[2316] Guadalajara - a special tour of a lovely city - (2009-08-01)
[2387] to Clifton Down and Avonmouth - (2009-08-30)
[2392] Lymington, New Forest - some pictures - (2009-09-03)
[2411] Further North - long summer days and lovely countryside - (2009-09-19)
[2624] Skyline and looking up in London - (2010-02-04)
[2733] Travel Troubles and Jesus again - (2010-04-21)
[2754] At Arlington and the Pentagon - (2010-05-07)
[2799] Nuremberg - some pictures - (2010-06-08)
[2802] After the Perl course in Nurnberg - (2010-06-11)
[2808] From home to Nurnberg - journey pictures - (2010-06-13)
[2809] Frankfurt in 90 minutes - (2010-06-13)
[2897] The Land of the Black Labrador - (2010-08-01)
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[3064] On the way to the course this week - (2010-11-22)
[3070] Belfast, on a cold November evening - (2010-11-25)
[3175] The Rhine in winter - (2011-02-19)
[3185] Day Trip to Hereford, in pictures - (2011-02-26)
[3204] Two views of a war memorial - (2011-03-17)
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[3353] Off the beaten track - non-quite-so-tourist spots - (2011-07-10)
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[3529] Sharpness, Gloucestershire - a place in transport history - (2011-11-25)
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[3603] Another cold night - (2012-02-03)
[3631] Getting around Dublin by public transport - some observations - (2012-03-01)
[3654] On a sunny afternoon in London - (2012-03-15)
[3667] A modern area of Cambridge - some thoughts provoked? - (2012-03-22)
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[3854] Busmans Holiday - I like being a busman - (2012-09-02)
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[4182] Welcome to Salford and Oldham - (2013-09-30)
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[4214] A busy week, and a long flight - (2013-11-24)
[4220] Thun, Switzerland - (2013-12-14)
[4331] Musings on a Welsh town - (2014-11-28)
[4348] Taking my life in my hands in Swansea - (2014-12-11)
[4411] Location, location location. And a chance of a giggle! - (2015-02-01)
[4477] Yesterday - off on leg one of our holiday - (2015-04-29)
[4479] Pictures from around Rekjavik - (2015-04-29)
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[4486] Newark to New York - the PATH suburban railway - (2015-05-05)
[4488] Election day, 2015 - (2015-05-07)
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[4497] Around the world from Melksham - (2015-05-25)
[4643] From last July (2015) - (2016-02-08)
[4671] Ruby training, half a world away - (2016-05-14)
[4683] Saudi Arabia or Weymouth? - (2016-05-22)
[4729] The oldest part of Los Angeles - (2016-11-23)
[4730] San Juan Capistrano - (2016-11-23)
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[1068] ls -l report, Linux / Unix - types and permssions - (2007-02-06)
[1132] Well House Manor, Melksham, Art Gallery - (2007-04-02)
[1237] What proportion of our web traffic is robots? - (2007-06-19)
[1375] Python v Ruby - (2007-10-02)
[1475] Tcl/Tk - updating your display while tasks are running - (2007-12-16)
[1521] Evening drive across the roof of Wiltshire - (2008-01-27)
[1621] Linux and Java Course in London - (2008-04-24)
[1629] A short introduction to our courses - (2008-05-03)
[1751] Public Training Course Dates until July 2009 - (2008-08-13)
[1843] How many cups of coffee? - (2008-10-17)
[1967] LinkedIn - Thrice Asked, and joined. - (2008-12-30)
[2050] Why the Pony Tail? - (2009-02-21)
[2125] We have lost a regular business guest - (2009-04-10)
[2222] A (biased?) comparison of PHP courses in the UK - (2009-06-07)
[2385] Reading all our recent news from a single source - (2009-08-29)
[2400] Are you wanting to learn PHP? - (2009-09-08)
[2520] Global and Enable - two misused words! - (2009-11-30)
[3168] Web Sites - Subject to Advertising Standards from 1st March - check your sites - (2011-02-13)
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