A Long Time to Get Back on the Train

Back in Iceland, from a long trip to Amsterdam and the Rhineland, with Mom and her friend Ann and Magda. The two old ladies left after Amsterdam, and Magda showed me around her home region. Me being me, the central component of every place was the history, the museums and castles and churches, but the side benefits were excellent as well: The amazing generosity and hospitality of my hosts, the knowledge of my tour guides, the beer (which, as we have learned, as all basically derived from Bavaria) and potatoes and fish and cabbage, the walks and rides through the countryside, the trees, and the basic knowledge that folk of Germany and the Netherlands enjoy quantities of mayonnaise that would make a lesser American than myself sick.

It was an excellent, and exhausting, post-thesis vacation (still waiting for the grade on that, hopefully post it soon), and it's good to be back in my hole, my secular halfling monastery of one, and back to work, with a fresh supply of gummy candy from my German hosts at my side. There's a GRE at the end of the month to study for, and PhD research proposals that need to be prepared, a Kalamazoo paper to write, and XML encoding for transcribed manuscripts to learn. Plus a solid kilo or so of beer and potato weight to burn off.

Fortunately, I think I enjoy being busy.

Pictures will have to be split up, for some modicum of organization. For, some of the fine sights of Köln, mostly the Cathedral and artifacts from the Roman-Germanic museum.


First visit to the Cathedral, and trip up the tower.

 You quickly learn that many young Germans apparently have no qualm

writing graffiti on seven hundred year old structures.

 Roman-Germanic Museum

Some prehistoric and Celtic exhibits.

I think the Roman stuff begins somewhere around here.

 Saxes, found in the Rhineland.

 Particularly awesome Saxes, too.

For James. I apologize for the poor quality, but I will still be expecting typologies.

Not sure why I found some of this so fascinating, but what can you do.

Roman River gods. 

Disney and Demonology, in their early years.

The wall of locks, that tourist couples puts up.

An eternally disgusting display.

Second visit to the Cathedral, to the interior.

Chocolate museum, with a rather excellent selection of Meso-American artifacts.

My own personal chocolate bar. 

Finally, ancient American comic books.