whatever fits

For those of you who intensely desire to see more pictures, I posted some on my Facebook page.

Right now, I’m trying to remember where I last left off… oh yes, after Good Friday. Where that ellipse is, I checked my own blog. Wow.

Anyways, I got up for church on Easter morning, which was very nice. Here’s the thing, though. Thanks to the fact that our hotel is pretty much out in the boondocks, the bus only runs once an hour. So I had to decide if I wanted to be 45 minutes early or 15 minutes late. Naturally, I chose to be 45 early because I’m just like that.

After that, I embarked on my museum-filled afternoon. For just €6 (and producing my handy-dandy Cornerstone ID), I gained admittance to all three museums currently open on Museum Island for the remainder of the day. Two are currently undergoing reconstruction.

On the advice of those who have gone before, I started with the Pergamonmuseum. The main feature of this museum was the Pergamon Altar, which dates to 170 BC. I’m trying to remember terminology from my Fine Arts class sophomore year to help describe this, but am coming up empty. Anyways, all along the base of the altar were narratives of the gods and goddesses carved in relief. They had an audio tour that went through all the stories being told on the altar, which was really astounding. The way narrative can come to life in stone never ceases to amaze me.

Other highlights at the Pergamonmuseum included a reconstruction of the Ishtar Gate, which stood in Babylon during the 5th Century BC, or during the reign of Nebuchanezzar. The gate was impressive in size and rather more colorful than I’d imagine something from that long ago being. In my limited mental imaginations of the past, everything from more than about 400 years ago is brown or gray.

Anyways, I spent about 2 or 2½ hours in that museum taking in all the historical artifacts, which were many. After that, I moved on to the Alte Nationalgalerie, or Old National Gallery. It consisted of 19th Century painting and sculpture from many different German artists and had three levels. Level Three held Classicism and Romanticism. Level Two was Idealism, Realism, and Impressionism. Level One contained Classicist Sculpture and Facets of Realism. I’m sure all of that means a lot to everyone, and you’ll know exactly what I saw on each level. My favorite piece was a sculpture of Pan and Psyche, depicting their conversation following Psyche’s attempt to see the face of Cupid.

By the time I finished there, it was closing time. I’ll have to return another day to see the other museum. At the end of the day, which was my third one off in over two months, I felt very refreshed. Spending a day alone at museums certainly fits my idea of a good time. As I said last time, I’m a nerd.

Yesterday, we played the first Monday night game in NFL Europe history. (I stand on the sideline, so I can say “we.”) Despite pregame rain, we remained happily dry throughout the game, in which we defeated the Cologne Centurions 24-13. Funny how staying dry made first mention over winning for me there.

Since Tuesday is when my large weekly press release is due, I had a short night as I prepared that as well as wrote my latest article. That is done now, though, which a wonderful relief.

With the win last night, we now have a perfectly palindromic season through five weeks—WLTLW. What an oddity. I wanted to include that in my press release, but decided people may be thrown off by my use of “palindromic,” which is indeed a word (I checked). Since my job isn’t to be pretentious or to try confusing people, I’ll stick to doing that on my own time.

Though we played Monday, we still play again this Saturday. Talk about a quick turnaround. It will be a short week, and our next two games are on the road. We play in Frankfurt this Saturday and in Düsseldorf the following weekend on Sunday.

It’s hard to believe that I’m closer to my return to Michigan than I am to my initial departure to Tampa. Much remains to be done and seen before I return, not to mention some determination as to what I’ll be doing or where I’ll be going. I decided this morning that this intensely strange experience will probably lead to many more odd experiences, and I’m OK with that. It will make a great book 10-40 years from now.