Centreville, VA

Location: Centreville, Virginia, USA
Date visited: October 2013

On a rainy furloughed day, my friend and I took advantage of the time off to visit the Stuart Mosby Civil War Cavalry Museum right here in my home town. I visited once before a few years ago during their open house, but the collection is much more extensive now. We were also treated to a common perk at such tiny museums: a private tour of everything. The men working there were extremely knowledgeable and personable. Good times.

Cologne, Germany

Location: Cologne, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

The Cologne Cathedral Treasury is full of bejeweled golden goodies, most of which contain body parts from saints. Glitzy and creepy, all in one.

Bonn, Germany

Location: Bonn, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

One of the highlights of our trip was Beethoven House. He only lived there the first few years of his life, but it's the only Beethoven residence in Bonn still standing, so it's been turned into a museum. We sprung the extra 2 Euro for the audio tour, which was good because all of the signage was in German and we would have had no idea what we were looking at. The whole place was fascinating. There were a lot of the original instruments, as well as more personal things like ear trumpets. The audio tour also let you hear what the instruments actually sound like when playing Beethoven's music. The most heartbreaking part was when they played Beethoven's music as he would have heard it at various points in his life. "Ode to Joy" was basically unrecognizable, it was so muffled. The entire experience was pretty unforgettable.

I am unreasonably proud of my "many faces of Beethoven" page. I like how he looks all grumpy in all the pictures except the Beethoven who wants to give you a hug.

Cologne, Germany

Location: Cologne, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

Cologne Cathedral is probably the most impressive church I've ever entered. It's simply amazing. I tried to include the most representative pictures but photos just do not do it justice. Every corner reveals more amazing art and architecture. Definitely somewhere worth seeing. The boat tour on the Rhine, however, was less interesting. We mostly went on it as an excuse to get my husband off his feet for a while.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Date visited: April 2013

By far our favorite place in Copenhagen was the Nationalmuseet (national museum). It was informative, entertaining, and free! There were bog people galore - apparently the ancient Danish were into human sacrifice via tossing people into the bog, so they're all really well preserved. The museum itself used to be some sort of castle, and a few of the rooms were decorated as they were when folks were still living there. All in all, it was a really great place to explore, and their brunch buffet was pretty darn tasty too.

Cologne, Germany

Location: Cologne, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

The NS Documentation Center is a Socialism museum housed in an old Gestapo prison. The graffiti on the walls of the basement cells was haunting, but the upper floors had no English signage. It appeared to be an in-depth history of the Nazi party, but since everything was in German we didn't really know what was going on. It's something that I'm glad I visited, but I would have gotten so much more out of it had I been able to read the captions.

Gothenburg, Sweden

Location: Gothenburg, Sweden
Date visited: April 2013

We did not spend nearly enough time in Gothenburg. Though originally we went for the 2013 BookCrossing Convention, we'd go back in a heartbeat. The people are nice, the city is beautiful, and there's plenty to see. Included in these pages are Flying Barrel (delicious), Haga (would like to see when it's not pouring rain, thanks), the Poseidon statue (which I made horrible comments about), and Skansen Kronen (which we stumbled upon entirely by accident). Wish we could have spent another several days there. Maybe next time.

Cologne, Germany

Location: Cologne, Germany
Date visited: April 2013

Gross Sankt Martin isn't the most impressive church in Cologne, but it's still quite lovely to visit. My favorite pamphlets to include in these spreads are ones that include photographs of the interiors, especially big panoramas that really show the scope of the place.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
Date visited: April 2013

To be honest, we weren't that impressed with Copenhagen. It was okay, but honestly we could have skipped it. But we tried to make the most of it while we were there, and did kind of enjoy our random tour of Christiansborg Palace. We checked out the castle ruins underneath, which weren't the most interesting (yay for unidentifiable piles of rocks!), but the video about the history of the building was unintentionally humorous, as it seems to have had a problem with fire. After the second conflagration we started making jokes about the king of Swamp Castle from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: "So I built a third castle. That one burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp!" Later we wandered into the chapel portion of the castle and learned that it too had burned down on another occasion. We decided to leave before the building caught fire again, as it was clearly overdue.

The National Book Festival

Location: Washington, DC, USA
Visited: September 2013

The National Book Festival is an annual event to celebrate books and reading. It's mostly author talks and a Pavilion of the States, where each state library system with information and stuff for the kids. It's not my favorite festival (too crowded and usually none of the authors are anyone I'd want to see) but sometimes I go with some of my fellow BookCrossing buddies. I particularly liked the artwork on the program this year. Too bad it poured rain all afternoon.