We've Become Lame

Dear readers, we have a confession to make. We've become lame. Sara is in the end of finals, working frantically on her blog (a review of books and other materials for young adults) until the early hours of the morning, while I'm feeling particularly swamped with work, topped by preparing a presentation for a group of art historians, lawyers, and journalists about the science I do and how we are using it in an investigation of forged paintings (one of which was sold to Steve Martin). Luckily, both of us will finish this week, Sara on Thursday at 9 am and I on Saturday at noon, and then we will celebrate in style.

You are probably wondering how Germans (or wannabe Germans, or at least those of us living among Germans) celebrate in style. In our case, we travel. On Monday, December 19, my brother Jaren will be flying into Paris, where we will meet him for a 30 hour stay in the city of love. Then we'll take the fast train approximately ninety minutes to Brussels for an equally long visit. We'll then come back to Aachen for Christmas proper and to visit some sights in the Rhineland before Jaren leaves 10 days after his arrival.

That's still not enough for us at the Meldrumhaus, though. Taking advantage of Sara's time off of classes, we'll hop on a fast train to London on December 31 (the total trip is 3.5 hours) to spend New Year's Eve watching fireworks over the Thames and a few days more in the city. We then get home just in time to catch one more work-related trip (one on which Sara gets to join) to Munich, where we'll meet up with Franz, a friend and colleague of mine whom I met in Berkeley, and spend a weekend seeing the city and the Alps. I'll have some work to do during the weekdays so, just as in Berlin, Sara will do the sightseeing and museum-seeing and report all about it.

This post boils down to an apology and an invitation. The apology is for not keeping you all up-to-date on our happenings. Primarily because there haven't been any, but also because the few that have been (like the party we threw for two members of Sara's Sunday School class for young adults) have been short on photos and we've been short on time. The invitation is to come back to the Meldrumhaus after the holidays. If our travel itinerary is any indication, we'll have PLENTY to talk about.

With that, perhaps we can leave you the best (and most affordable) Christmas card we could manage. It summarizes our six months in Europe and, hopefully, gives some indication for the months to come.

Frohe Weihnachten! or, in other words, Merry Christmas!

P.S. After reading this post, Sara told me, "We could also just tag it 'bragging.'" Which is mostly true.