Rainy Days

Very, very rainy. So rainy, in fact, that roads, railways and basements in parts of Nordrhein-Westfalen (the state I live in) and the Ruhrgebiet have flooded. Hopefully this will not prevent my train from getting me home on time tonight; I'm currently in Aachen (the westernmost town in Nordrhein-Westfalen and Germany, on the border with the Netherlands) visiting my friend Bedrus. I'm blogging as a kind of therapy to recover from getting my ass kicked all around the backgammon board. Seriously, never play backgammon with somebody from Turkey. It's the national pastime there, so don't even try it, because you will swiftly get served. Do, however, accept the tea and cookies that they offer you. They're delicious.

 I unfortunately will not have any pictures to show from this trip to Aachen, because I forgot to bring my camera. It's so gray and rainy, however, that I don't think I'd be able to get any decent pictures anyways. I'll just have to come back here again (which, thanks to the semester ticket from the University, is entirely free) when the weather is nice. Which probably won't happen until about May, so don't hold your breath for those pictures.

Speaking of photos, I won't be posting very many to the blog directly because that takes a long time and it clutters things up. Instead, I'll include a representative sample here, and the rest can be seen on the my photobucket account, the link to which is on the left side of the screen. Within the next couple weeks I'll write some retrospective posts talking about the various trips the pictures are from. Until then, browse at your leisure!