Cologne

Its been snowing softly all day. Its cold outside and on the surfaces elevated above the ground, on parked car roofs and other inanimate objects, it’s staying. It’s still too warm to stay on the paved streets or sidewalks that are still busy. The minute the sun pokes its head through the overcast, grey skies is the moment that it will be gone even from those places. Its only November, there will still be plenty of time for blizzards and freezing weather.

Cologne is on the list of things to do tomorrow. It’s going to be a quick little weekend. The train rolls out around eight in the morning and then we arrive sometime after noon. There will be some time spent with friends and family. On Sunday there is mass and Clara’s cousin will go through some Catholic ceremony-not one that I am familiar with. Cologne is a place that I don’t care to live in but love to visit. It’s a small city yet it retains a feeling of its own steadily eroding self-importance. It was once one of the greatest cities in Europe. My how the mighty have fallen.

Sometimes, when living in foreign countries, we learn to make the most out of the small things. For instance: we learn to laugh at the signs that incorporate two languages at once. Sometimes it’s done to be cool, as if the native word wouldn’t suffice, a pattern all to common in Sweden, and others it’s done just for humor. This is probably one of the latter:

I am more than halfway through The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. It’s been fantastic this far and once I finish with it, I will write a post or two reviewing it. Have a lovely weekend.

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