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.
First pic, left to right:
ReplyDeletePetersen A, Petersen A, Petersen K
Second pic, left to right:
Petersen A, Petersen A, Petersen A, Petersen A
Third pic, left to right:
Petersen A, Petersen K, Petersen E, Petersen A
Fourth pic, left to right
Those first two are either Petersen As, or in the Swanton typology, I can't tell if the sockets are lapped or welded, though, so no joy on IDing them; the third is a Petersen L, and the last four are like as not in Petersen's Anomalous Class.
Fifth pic, top to bottom:
Those are Saxon spears, definitely in Swanton. You can tell by the rounded midrib and split sockets.
Sixth pic, top to bottom
Petersen E, Petersen A, Swanton type, either a Petersen A or a Swanton - can't tell if the socket is split or just corroded - and the last one's blade is too corroded to really tell, but it looks vaguely like a Petersen A.
If these are all locally found spears, the pattern dispersal is hardly surprising.
The spears are all found in Köln region!
DeleteThe Hefeweizen and Pils are derived from Baravia, but not Kölsch and Schwarzbier(of which you also had a couple) my dear!
ReplyDeleteAnd as I noted to you today, there is nothing impressive about Kölsch, and nothing particularly German about Scharzbier. The Bavarians culturally own your people.
ReplyDeleteHi Ryder!
ReplyDeleteI just read most of your thesis and found it very useful, as I have an exam on the Merlínuspá coming up. As part of my own MA, which in Germany includes written and oral exams. So: thank you.
Being German, being born in Köln and currently living in Northern Germany, I'd like to think, that we are only culturally owned by the Bavarians when viewed from a distance. The popularity of Oktoberfest even 40 km away from the Danish Border hints otherwise.
Your pictures of Köln made me slightly homesick...
Sorry to make you homesick, but I'm glad you found the thesis useful. Let me know if you have any questions or anything you'd like to discuss about Merlínusspá, or even better, if you have some critiques or insights on something I missed; I´m preparing a paper for Kalamazoo on the poem, so I'm always happy to dig into it more.
DeleteThough the very idea of an exam on a poem as esoteric as Merlínusspá is strange and sort of exiting. . .
And yes, distance makes everything seem similar. The difference between Americans and Canadians seemed fairly concrete back home, but it has pretty much dissolved in Iceland. They're just sort of the Americans that everyone likes better.