Deciding where I was going to go and what I was going to see took longer than one might think. Ultimately I had to visit Braunschweig and London to see a couple of rare and precious textiles, but where before that? I toyed with the idea of flying into Munich and doing a Grand Circuit of southern Germany and Austria that took me to a different city each night, then realized that spending most of my time hauling a suitcase around the train stations of Deutschland would be less than restful. I read Fodor’s guidebook, looked at maps, perused city and regional tourism sites…there was so much to see and do, and I had so little time!
I finally decided that I would do a Grand Circuit in a few years. Munich, Salzburg, and Vienna aren’t going anywhere, plus I’d rather save up my vacation so I have two weeks and can savor the experience. That will also give me the chance to see an old friend, Annie Laurie, who lives in Geneva, and get to see a little of Switzerland as well.
Thus I decided that my itinerary would be as follows:
-
Fly out of Boston to Frankfurt, then take the train to Heidelberg
- .Stay in Heidelberg for two full days, which would be plenty of time to see the sights and recover from jet lag. This would involve side trips to Baden Baden and Karlsruhe, the home cities of my maternal ancestors.
-
Take the train to Braunschweig, see one of the two 14th century appliques that were the reason for my visit, then spend another morning exploring whatever other delights the former seat of the Electors Palatine had to offer.
-
Take the train to Hannover, the nearest international airport, and flying over to London.
-
Spend a day in London at the Victoria & Albert Museum, take in a lecture at the University of London, then have dinner with my friend Gale.
-
Return to the Victoria & Albert, then visit one of the following sights in Britain’s great and gallant capital: Liberty of London, the Churchill Rooms, the Imperial War Museum, and/or St. Martin-in-the-Fields.
-
Fly home, meet my friend Fran, somehow stay awake while she drove me home, and then collapse in a heap once I’d placated the Double Felinoid.
It was a great plan, and by and large I stuck to it, at least at first. But maybe I should go through it day by day so you’ll see why things didn’t quite go as I’d originally intended…
November 10 – things started to go a little off the rails when I had to schlep Gil the Wonder Cat to the vet first thing in the morning. He’d been scratching up a storm and lost a little weight, and I wanted to make sure he was all right before I went away for a week. Fortunately for everyone involved (especially Gil), it turned out to be a false alarm; my poor floof is very sensitive to flea bites, which puts him off his feed and makes him scratch until he sheds in clumps, which is exactly what had happened. A dose of Advantage, a switch to a hypoallergenic food, and he’d be fine.
After that I had lunch, checked my suitcase one last time, and headed out. I took the express Peter Pan bus to Boston along with several dozen UMass students, lost and then found my knitting, then transferred to the Silver Line out to the airport. I checked into my flight, had dinner, and at long last boarded Icelandair for the first leg of my journey.
November 11 – Icelandair is a very good airline, with excellent food, a large and entertaining selection of movies, TV shows, audiobooks, games, and classical music, and polite, considerate flight attendants. Even so, it was almos timpossible to sleep on the flight over, and by the time I staggered off the plane at Keflavik Airport in quest of breakfast, I felt and probably looked like I’d been run over by a steam shovel. That maybe why one of the polite, considerate flight attendants took pity on me on the shuttle to Frankfurt and moved me to my own row so I could stretch out and sleep rather than deal with the fussy baby next to my original seat.
We landed in Frankfurt, I picked up my luggage, and then it was time to head to the train station so I couldg et to Heidelberg before I keeled over. Fortunately there was a McDonald’s at the airport food court, and as much as I’d originally turned up my nose at the mere idea of American food in Germany, that burger and fries gave me just enough energy to stay upright until I staggered through the front door of my hotel.
And what a hotel it was! Originally built in 1592 by a Huguenot cloth merchant fleeing the Wars ofReligion, the Hotel zum Ritter St. Georg is a tourist attraction in and of itself. My room was in one of the newer portions of thehotel, only two hundred years old, but the dining room dated from the 16th century. As tired as I was, I couldn’t help feeling the history of the town and the building itself as I enjoyed my beef roulade with vegetables, then snuggled under a lovely soft feather tick for my first actual night’s sleep in nearly two days.
November 12 – the Hotel zum RitterSt. Georg offers a lavish breakfast buffet in what was probably the Huguenot cloth merchant’s living room, with meat, cheese, fruit, cereals, juices, eggs cooked to order, a variety of breads and pastries, and that wonderful tasty butter one can only find in Europe. I fueled up, borrowed an umbrella from the front desk, and sallied forth to my first destination: Schloss Heidelberg.
This magnificent heap looms romantically over the Altstadt, or Old Town, its ruined towers and facades as much a part of Heidelberg as the famous university. It was built by several generations of the Palatinate dynasty, most notably Frederick V, the Winter King of Bohemia, and even now it’s possible to see traces of the gardens, sculpture, and architecture that made Schloss Heidelberg a wonder of its age. Large sections were destroyed during the wars of the 17th century, but the ruins are so romantic that generations of German poets and artists have come to Heidelberg simply to be inspired by the ruins and the romance.
I explored what was left of the gardens and an unusual grotto that seems to have been inspired by the then exciting new humanist movement called “Rosicrucianism,” then took the English language tour. The best part of this was probably the “restored” wing that had been reconstructed and decorated in the early 20th century according to what local antiquarians thought was good Renaissance design, which is why there are deer antlers on the ceiling and faux marble floors that are too fragile to walk on. It was definitely a Restoration So Bad It’s Good, and I loved every single nanosecond of it.
The tour ended up in the wine cellar, which is home to the world’s largest wine barrel, a behemoth so large it holds 220,000 gallons and has its own dance floor. There’s a little snack bar/bierstube/wine bar, but I’m not much of a drinker so I headed to the last part of the tour, the Museum of Germany Pharmacy.
This museum is so crammed with artifacts, actual apothecary shops, herbs, pharmaceuticals, and exhibits that one half expects Severus Snape to sweep in and start sneering about the exact art and subtle science of potionmaking. There’s a completely preserved distiller’s lab that could have come straight out of an alchemical manuscript, exhibits about the four humors, even a preserved blowfish to show the sort of exotic components that went into medicaments before the invention of antibiotics. I had a blast, and by the time I had lunch (excellent potato soup with bread) and headed back into town, I was ready for something quiet and calm.
This I found right across from my hotel at the Church of the Holy Ghost. This modest brown building has been the main church in Heidelberg for centuries, hosting both Catholics and Protestants (sometimes at the same time thanks to a partition that formerly bisected the nave). It’s still a living church, with stained glass memorials to modern tragedies like the atomic bomb alongside the tombs of early rulers and frescoes of local knights’ heraldic shields, and I’m glad I took the time to visit and explore.
I went back to my hotel to rest up before dinner, and that was when I heard the bells.
The first ones were at the Church ofthe Holy Ghost, but within seconds they were answered by another set, and another, and another. I grabbed my coat and headed out into the street as the churches spoke to each other, and I walked up and down the Hauptstrasse, the main shopping street, mesmerized by the sound. There were shops and restaurants and hotels straight out of a tourist brochure, but there were others that were clearly for the locals: pharmacies, a movie theater advertising Mord dem Orient Express and Justice League, bookstores, coffee shops and falafel joints and American fast food joints, even a knitting shop full of fine German sock yarn. It was clear that Heidelberg was more than a tourist trap, and as I sat down to another fine dinner (veal schnitzel with vegetables) at my hotel, I was grateful beyond measure for the chance to visit and spend a little time enjoying the sights and sounds and beauty all around.
November 13 – I slept late, then headed out to do a little shopping. Most of the museums were closed,so I decided to take it easy and go with the flow This took me past, I kid you not, a Subway that invited me to Eat Fresh, a stationery/mailing store called “McPaper,” and the main square of the famous University. I bought as much sock yarn as I could cram into my bag, bought stamps so I could mail my postcards, then headed to the university.
The main library, which I’d expected to be a medieval relic, was actually a bright, lovely Art Nouveau building with an airy grand staircase, a stained glass roof, and several nicely curated exhibits on the second floor. These included a room devoted to a local artist from the early 20thcentury (good but not great, which is probably why his name escapes me) and an extensive display devoted to the techniques and materialsused to produce medieval manuscripts like the University’s crown jewel, the Manasse Codex. I managed to puzzle out most of the exhibit cards, took pictures of the stretched skin that would eventually become parchment, and headed back out to have lunch and then explore a bit.
Lunch was at a local student hangout, which could have been straight out of Amherst except that the pizza didn’t have as much cheese and the seating was better. I did not Eat Fresh since I had not come several thousand miles to partake of American fast food – the McDonald’s was a one-off, plus I’d been too exhausted to care – which was just as well because even the students seemed to be avoiding the place.
The last place of note that I saw was the old student jail, which is definitely a Tourist Trap So Strange It’s Amazing. For it seems that the University used to have limited legal enforcement powers over misbehaving students, and since the students were every bit as likely to drink, brawl, and generally misbehave as their modern counterparts, that meant a lot of arrests. Miscreants were housed in a tall, narrow house on a side street, and once they’d sobered up, they basically graffiti’d the place to hell and back with everything from satirical poems to self-portraits to “Lasciate ogni speranza” over a doorway. My personal favorite was a procession of little black cats on the staircase between the second and third floors, but a bare-assed Cupid mooning the stairwell certainly had his charms.
After that, I headed back to my hotel. I checked my email, packed, and took a final walk at dusk before dinner and bed. Tomorrow I’d travel to Braunschweig, home of the reason I’d come to Germany in the first place: a 14thcentury appliqued hanging that depicts the Tree of Jesse, or ancestors of Jesus. This piece has never been written about in English, and I wanted to make sure I had all my wits about me when Iarrived and began taking notes.
November 14 – I bade farewell to Heidelberg with a hearty breakfast and a cab ride to the train station for my journey to Braunschweig. This got off to a rocky start when I accidentally ended up in the first class carriage, but soon enough I was settled down and rocketing toward the reason I’d come to Europe in the first place: a rare 14thcentury appliqued textile depicting the Tree of Jesse, or genealogy of Christ.
This treasure is owned by the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig, an otherwise ordinary industrial town that had a brief burst of fame during the Middle Ages thanks to Duke Henry the Lion. Henry, a Crusader who briefly ruled over a vast chunk of the Holy Roman Empire, supposedly befriended a lion during his travels and brought it home to Germany after he finished putting the smackdown on the paynim. It became his heraldic symbol and constant companion, and reportedly died of grief after Henry’s own demise.
Whether any of this is true or not I can’t say. I can say that the Lion of Brunswick, a medieval bronze portrait of Henry’s feline friend, is an impressive beast indeed. So is the Dankwarderode, the restoration/recreation of his castle in the heart of the city. It currently houses the impressive medieval collection of the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, and is on the same plaza as the Landesmuseum and the Braunschweiger Dom, the local cathedral.
I’d been emailing with one of the curators at the Dankwarderode about the Jesse Tree applique, and was hoping to meet her when I finally arrived at the museum after checking into my hotel in the early afternoon. Alas, my friend’s schedule was too busy for her to greet me in person, but she left me a free pass into the museum, so I was able to spend ninety minutes alone with the reason I came to Europe:
Isn’t that a magnificent sight? It’s massive – about 9 by 11 feet, with surprisingly little wear or damage given its age – and the last time anyone did a detailed examination of it was around eighty years ago. I took pictures, measured several sections, and took about twenty pages of notes, and by the time I was done I was grinning with delight at the opportunity to introduce this glorious artifact to the world.
After that it was a brief look inside the cathedral, a quick dinner in town, a little bit of shopping, and then off to bed. My hotel room was luxurious – a queen sized bed and gorgeous marble and tile bathroom, plus free wifi and breakfast – and I slept very well indeed.
November 15 – I took my time getting ready this morning since I didn’t have to be in Hannover for my flight to London until around 4:00 pm, which meant I had several hours to kill in Braunschweig. This was not as easy as one might expect, since Braunschweig is not precisely a tourist mecca like Heidelberg; the historic core was all but wiped out by Allied bombs in 1944, and what visitors they get tend to be other Germans, not Europeans. I could have easily decided to leave early and spend a couple of hours in Hannover seeing the home city of what is now the ruling dynasty of Great Britain.
I can’t tell you how glad I am that I didn’t. Braunschweig might be off the beaten path, and most of its buildings might be modern, but the Landesmuseum is most definitely worth a visit. So is perhaps the most unusual shopping center I’ve seen in my life, and I say that as someone who grew up about a mile from a GIANT CONVERTED SHOPPING MALL SLAG DUMP O’DOOM in West Mifflin, Pennsylvania.
My morning of discovery began with the pleasant realization that the “_______ Boutique” across the street from my hotel was not a clothing store, but yet another yarn shop. I spent about half an hour petting the lovely yarns and flipping through the sale bins before picking up two balls of sock yarn, one a gorgeous bittersweet/copper/dark brown wool-bamboo blend, the other a rich royal blue perfect for a geeky delight from my friend Allison’s book Unobtainables.
After that it was off to the Landesmuseum and two fascinating hours at an exhibit commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. The main exhibit cards were in English as well as German, and I was deeply impressed by how the curators put the Reformation into its social, political, and scientific context. The early 16th century was a time of climate change, economic turmoil, and societal change, just like today, and the exhibit did not shirk from drawing parallels both obvious and obscure.
The rest of the museum was more of what one might expect in a regional museum: period costume, furniture, and historical displays. The sections on the early 20thcentury were particularly interesting, if heartbreaking, but it was all worth a look or two.
I then spent another half hour in the Braunschweiger Dom. My brief visit the night before had impressed me so much that I wanted to see the rest in full daylight, and I’m very glad that I did. For in addition to the tomb of Henry the Lion and his consort Matilda in the crypt, the Dom boasts stunning medieval paintings in the vaults, a splendid stone altar that’s still in use, and a massive Romanesque candelabra dating from 1188. Why this church and its art aren’t better known is beyond me, and I’m still at a loss as to why to the museum and the local tourist board don’t do more outreach to non-German speakers.
After that I poked about block or so of surviving old building, headed back to my hotel to book a cab to the airport, and headed out for lunch. That was when I found that what appears to be a massive ducal palace, complete with a quadriga on the roof and two massive statues of former rulers in front, is nothing more than the reconstructed façade of a building destroyed in the raids of 1944. Behind it is, my hand to God, a shopping mall, complete with a food court graced by a regional chain offering light sandwiches and elaborate ice cream treats. I had lunch there, of course, and when I say that I never in my life thought I’d partake of a “Hawaiian sandwich” consisting of white toast, sliced ham, mild cheese, and a slice of pineapple, it is nothing more than the truth.
Then it was time to catch my train to the Hannover Airport. I was slightly delayed by a missed connection, but thanks to a helpful student at the local university, I got back on track and to the airport in plenty of time to make my connection. Before I knew it I had landed at Stansted and caught the train to Victoria Station, and soon after that I’d hailed one of London’s renowned black cabs to my hotel in Kensington.
It was full dark during our ride, which meant I got to see several of Christopher Wren’s lovely churches lit up for the night. That included the majestic bulk of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and after seeing its mighty dome looming above the city, I could see why the Luftwaffe did everything it could to bring it down during the Blitz. It’s stunningly beautiful, especially at night, and I couldn’t help tearing up at the thought of how close we’d come to losing it during those dark, dark days of fire and war.
My hotel, a converted Victorian row house, was clean, quiet, and only ten minutes on foot from the Victoria & Albert Museum. It also boasted the smallest hotel room I’ve ever seen in my life. It was only six or seven feet wide and had clearly been carved out of a bay windowed sitting room, but it still had a comfortable bed, a television, a small desk/wardrobe, and a clean, private bath. After I stopped laughing I unpacked, took a shower, and watched the BBC for a few minutes before turning off the light and getting a very good night’s sleep.
November 16 – I spent most of the morning at the Victoria & Albert in their medieval section, and that alone was almost worth the whole trip. For it seems that in addition to a fine collection of sculpture, architectural elements, Arts & Crafts dining rooms, and a statue of Prince Albert in trunk hose and doublet, the V&A is the home to the oldest intact European bed covering, the Tristan Quilt.
Needless to say, I spent plenty of time all but worshipping the oldest example of my artI’m ever likely to see. It probably dates from the 1390’s and may have been a wedding gift, albeit a very odd one since the story of history’s most famous adulterers is not precisely what comes to mind when thinking of appropriate presents for a young couple. I then spent about an hour photographing, examining, and taking notes on yet another 14th century applique, this one a secular piece depicting (you guessed it) the story of Tristan and Iseult. It’s from roughly the same time period as the Jesse Tree in the Dankwarderode and was likely made in the same area, but it was almost certainly from a different atelier so I had a fine time.
After that I went back to my hotel long enough to download my pictures onto my laptop, rest a bit, and then head to a lecture at the University of London. There I met my friend Gale, who’s also one of my editors at Boydell & Brewer. We had a great time at the lecture, then had a long, excellent dinner at an Italian restaurant near Euston Station. Three hours later I caught another black cab back to my hotel, where I found that one of that evening’s offerings on the telly was Green Lantern, featuring a miscast Ryan Reynolds in a Superhero Movie So Bad It’s Good.
I watched it – how could I not? – and then turned in for the night, safe and snug in my teensy little corner of Kensington.
November 17 – My last full day in London began with another trip to the V&A for more pictures of the Tristan applique. After that I enjoyed a fine exhibit on British India, including a wonderful anti-colonialist automaton of a Bengal tiger savaging a redcoat, complete with a small internal organ that makes discordant sounds intended to mimic the redcoat’s dying screams. I bought a postcard of it – how could I not? – then headed out to lunch.
This was at what proved to be a chain Italian restaurant in a small shopping mall across from my hotel. The food was decent, if not all that similar to what one would find in Italy (or Little Italy, for that matter), and after I paid up I took the Underground to Westminster in search of the Churchill Rooms.
These are housed in the actual, genuine, bomb-proof bunkers where the future Nobel Prize winner ran the British war effort, and I’ve been told they’re well worth the visit. Unfortunately I can’t say one way or the other since I couldn’t find them thanks to lousy directions (damn you, Google Maps!) and the twisty little streets in that ancient part of London. This was disappointing, as anyone who’s been reading these diaries can well imagine; I’m something of a World War II buff, and I’d been looking forward to seeing the Churchill Rooms ever since I decided to visit London back in the summer.
I was about to head back to the Underground station in search of a good map and decent directions when I saw a fine Gothic church at the end of the block. I paused – could this really be what I thought it was? – then set off for the final historic site of my trip, Westminster Abbey.
The Abbey, which was begun by Edward the Confessor and has been periodically updated ever since, is truly one of the most inspiring sights I’ve ever seen. From its soaring Gothic roof to the lacey fan vaults of Henry VII’s chapel, from the undulating stone floors to Poet’s Corner, from the tombs of Elizabeth I and Mary Stuart and Henry III and St. Edward himself, the whole of English history is in these ancient stone walls. Prime ministers, novelists, landowners, a desperate husband trying to protect his wife from the Angel of Death, a stunning Cosmatesque mosaic, the Coronation chair, a chapel honoring the brave fliers of the RAF, a memorial plaque to Franklin Rooseveltwith an Art Deco eagle honoring the “friend of freedom,” illuminated books naming the victims of the Great War and World War II…there simply aren’t words to describe all the wonders and sorrows sheltered by these soaring Gothic vaults.
I spent two hours there, listening to an audio tour narrated by Jeremy Irons, and I could have easily spent two days. And for all the glory and history and art, the most memorable parts of my visit were the simplest: the shrines of paper poppies and regimental names in the churchyard left over from Remembrance Day, and the plain black marble slab in the nave that shields the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior. I’m not ashamed to say that I wept at both the simple memorials in the yard and the polished marble so sacred even the sovereign dares not tread upon it, even when processing to the high altar to be crowned. November 11th in America may be little more than discounts for the troops and a day off for the rest of us, but in England the war to end all wars is still a raw, gaping wound, and woe betide anyone who forgets how gamesmanship and power plays cost them an entire generation of their youth.
After that I went back to Kensington. Dinner was at yet another chain restaurant, this one a surprisingly good burger joint called Byron’s. After that it was to my hotel, a couple of documentaries on the Beeb, and an early night –
At least until I checked the times for the Gatwick Express to the airport in the morning and found that the train would not be running over the weekend due to track maintenance.
I nearly panicked – how was I to get home? – until I checked with the front desk and found that they would be happy to arrange cab service out to Gatwick. I grabbed my coat and headed to the corner store for enough cash to cover the fare, then spent half an hour packing and calming down before turning in for the night.
November 18 – I got up in time for the first breakfast seating at my hotel, took a long, hotel shower, then checked all my bags a final time and did my last packing. I made sure to leave a tip for the chambermaid, combed my hair, then headed downstairs for breakfast.
I dawdled a little bit – I had over an hour before my cab to the airport arrived – so had plenty of time to settle my bill, brush my teeth, and watch the morning news. Soon enough, though, the cab was at the door, my suitcase and laptop case were in my hands, and it was off to Gatwick we went.
This is when I learned that British highways are very similar to American highways, only they drive on the left, not the right. I blinked at the sight of what could easily have been an interstate, shrugged, and settled down for the ride. A little over an hour later we pulled up at the airport, I tipped my cabbie, and it was off to get my boarding pass and check my luggage. I was flying home on Icelandair, which meant the same sort of polite, efficient service I’d received before, and I wasn’t anticipating any trouble.
Nor did I experience at, at least in Britain. That’s not to say that Gatwick didn’t have its quirks; walking through a dozen duty free shops selling perfume, cosmetics, alcohol, chocolates, Christmas ornaments, souvenir glassware and clothing, and special promotional editions of Murder on the Orient Express to get to the waiting area was an experience in and of itself, and that doesn’t even count the food, souvenir, and book shops in the waiting area. Then there was the interesting fact that Gatwick doesn’t announce gate numbers until an hour before take-off, so everyone and their uncle was milling about the central food court/waiting area buying sandwiches, bottled water, cookies, souvenir tea tins, duty-free handbags, promotional editions of Murder on the Orient Express, and Harrod’s exclusive brands of cookies, hot chocolate, Christmas ornaments, toys, clothing, and glassware.
It was all quite interesting, and when I admit that I finally broke down and bought a promotional edition of Murder on the Orient Express, well, I’m only human. That it came with a half-price promotional edition of The Labors of Hercules made it a bargain, too, so go, me! Then they announced my gate, so it was time to bundle up my coat, laptop, bottled water, and copies of Agatha Christie for the first leg of my flight home.
Soon enough we were in Keflavik, which I was surprised to discover was a) completely covered in snow and b) within striking distance of a sharply colored mountain range straight out of a Maxfield Parrish promotional calendar. I was awake enough to look for tacky tourist souvenirs to go along with the three shot glasses and one awful refrigerator magnet stowed in my suitcase, but alas! Iceland is not only a land of ice and snow and hot springs and spring water, they only sell tasteful souvenirs made by local artisans. And since I was not inclined to spend a couple hundred bucks on a beautiful, hand knitted sweater I’d be too nervous to wear for fear of ruining it, I could but shrug, eat a digestive biscuit, and start reading Murder on the Orient Express.
Then it was time to board my flight back to Boston.
This flight was both better and worse than my flight on the 10th. I was awake, which meant I was alert enough to read, knit, and watch Wonder Woman for the fourth time. Unfortunately, the couple across the aisle from me had brought their toddler with them, and since she was still (barely) small enough to sit on their laps during takeoff and landing, they hadn’t bothered to purchase a seat for the poor thing. Fortunately I had earbuds with me, which masked most of her periodic and very, very loud shrieks of boredom and distress, but didn’t prevent me from wondering just what her parents were thinking.
Finally, six hours, one movie, several Grieg tone poems, half a sock cuff, and one Hercule Poirot mystery later, we landed in Boston. I was a good citizen and declared my sock yarn, books, and chocolates on my paperwork. I even managed to get a laugh out of the customs agent when I told him that my reason for traveling was “blowing some of the money I won on a game show, no really, I’m not joking, do you ever watch Jeopardy?” I wasn’t so lucky when I was pulled out of the line for a random bag check by a less than polite TSA agent, but whether thanks to my obvious exhaustion, obvious innocence, or obvious WASP-ness, I managed to stumble out into the waiting area into the arms of my friend Fran only a few minutes late.
After that it was back to the Last Homely Shack East of the Manhan, where the Double Felinoid greeted me with a mixture of “where have you been?” and “when will you feed us?” Fran, who is an excellent traveling companion, A++++, would definitely go again, bedded down on the sofa, I checked my email, and then it was off to face plant into my own good bed for the first time in over a week.
And thus ended my visit abroad. I did good work, saw fascinating things, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I also finished those socks I’d been working on throughout my trip and was able to wear them over Thanksgiving, so it was a win all around.
Now I’m home, the holidays are upon us, and it’s time to do what minimal decorating I do every year. There’s cocoa in the mug, Beethoven on the stereo, and the season’s first snowfall scheduled for tonight and tomorrow. So at least for right now, life is good.
I hope everyone reading this is well, and that the holidays bring you joy. Be well, my friends, and courage for the year ahead.
Peace,
Ellid
%%%%