kidzdoc Reads (and Cooks) Globally in 2015: Part 12

The Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, one of the world's great concert halls.




Currently reading:

    

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson
The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud
In the City of Bikes: The Story of the Amsterdam Cyclist by Pete Jordan

Completed books: (TBR = book acquired prior to 1/1/14)

January:
1. Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers (TBR) (review)
2. Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward (TBR) (review)
3. A Golden Age by Tahmima Anam (TBR)
4. A Distant Father by Antonio Skármeta
5. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
6. The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh (TBR)

February:
7. In the City By the Sea by Kamila Shamsie (TBR)
8. The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters by Wes Moore
9. I Called Him Necktie by Milena Michiko Flašar
10 Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy by Darryl Pinckney

March:
11. Grady Baby: A Year in the Life of Atlanta's Grady Hospital by Jerry Gentry (TBR)
12. The Sellout by Paul Beatty

April:
13. Such a Long Journey by Rohinton Mistry (TBR)
14. March: Book One by John Lewis
15. Nada by Carmen Laforet (TBR)
16. Outlaws by Javier Cercas
17. Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal
18. The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich (TBR)
19. Blank Gaze by José Luis Peixoto (TBR)
20. The Education of the Stoic by Fernando Pessoa (TBR)
21. Time Ages in a Hurry by Antonio Tabucchi
22. Navidad & Matanza by Carlos Labbé

May:
23. The Theft of Memory: Losing My Father, One Day at a Time by Jonathan Kozol
24. Fear and Loathing in La Liga: Barcelona vs Real Madrid by Sid Lowe
25. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
26. The Good Doctor: A Father, a Son, and the Evolution of Medical Ethics by Barron H. Lerner
27. Barcelona Travel Guide: A Weekend in Barcelona by Gerry Kerkhof
28. Guide to Troubled Birds by The Mincing Mockingbird

June:
29. The Time of the Doves by Mercè Rodoreda
30. Edinburgh: A Cultural History by Donald Campbell
31. Rick Steves' Pocket Amsterdam by Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw
32. No Word from Gurb by Eduardo Mendoza
33. Panther in the Basement by Amos Oz
34. Youth by J.M. Coetzee
35. The Motherfucker with the Hat by Stephen Adly Guirgis
36. Ring Roads by Patrick Modiano
37. Cologne Marco Polo Guide
38. Everyman by Carol Anne Duffy
39. The Trial (Oberon Modern Plays) by Nick Gill
40. Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli

July:
41. When Doctors Become Patients by Robert Klitzman
42. Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City by Geert Mak
43. A Childhood by Jona Oberski
44. The Outsider by Albert Camus

Books purchased or received in 2015: (Bold = book purchased this year)

January:
1. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (2 Jan, Kindle e-book)
2. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin (2 Jan, Kindle e-book)
3. The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks (11 Jan, Kindle e-book)
4. A Useless Man: Selected Stories by Sait Faik Abasiyanik (12 Jan, Archipelago Books subscription)
5. The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters by Wes Moore (20 Jan, LT Early Reviewers book)
6. DownBeat: The Great Jazz Interviews, edited and compiled by Frank Alkyer and Ed Enright (20 Jan, free book as part of 2015 DownBeat subscription)

February:
7. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, (1 Feb, Kindle e-book)
8. Bedlam: London and Its Mad by Catharine Arnold (4 Feb, Kindle e-book)

March:
9. Less Medicine, More Health: 7 Assumptions That Drive Too Much Medical Care by H. Gilbert Welch (2 Mar, LT Early Reviewers book)
10. Time Ages in a Hurry by Antonio Tabucchi (2 Mar, Archipelago Books subscription)
11. The Sellout by Paul Beatty (3 Mar, Kindle e-book)
12. A Man of His Word by Imma Monsó (29 Mar, Kindle e-book)

April:
13. Stone in a Landslide by Maria Barbal (1 Apr, Kindle e-book)
14. March: Book One by John Lewis (2 Apr, Kindle e-book)
15. The Bees by Laline Paul (2 Apr, Kindle e-book)
16. Selected Poems of Corsino Fortes by Corsino Fortes (3 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
17. The Lost Child by Caryl Phillips (3 Apr, Barnes & Noble)
18. Fresh from the Vegan Slow Cooker by Robin Robertson (5 Apr, gift from Karen W.)
19. Paris by Marcos Giralt Torrente (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
20. Things Look Different in the Light & Other Stories by Medardo Fraile (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
21. Tristana by Benito Perez Galdos (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
22. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by David J. Garrow (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
23. I Never Had It Made by Jackie Robinson (8 Apr, Kindle e-book)
24. The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (10 Apr, Barnes & Noble)
25. My Struggle: Book Four by Karl Ove Knausgaard (22 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
26. Life Embitters by Josep Pla (22 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
27. This Life by Karel Schoeman (22 Apr, Archipelago Books subscription)
28. Amsterdam: A Brief History of the City by Geert Mak (24 Apr, Kindle e-book)
29. The Ministry of Pain by Dubravka Ugrešić (24 Apr, Kindle e-book)
30. The Theft of Memory: Losing My Father, One Day at a Time by Jonathan Kozol (25 Apr, LT Early Reviewers book)

2015 Reading Globally Themes and possible reads from my TBR collection:

First quarter: Indian subcontinent



Aravind Adiga, Between the Assassinations
Tariq Ali, Night of the Golden Butterfly
Tahmima Anam, A Golden Age
Vikram Chandra, Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Vikram Chandra, Sacred Games
G.V. Desani, All About H. Hatterr
Roopa Farooki, Bitter Sweets
Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome
Amitav Ghosh, The Hungry Tide
Intizar Husain, Basti
Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey
Uday Prakash, The Girl with the Golden Parasol
Salman Rushdie, The Moor's Last Sigh
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
Kamila Shamsie, In the City By the Sea

Second quarter: Iberian peninsula



António Lobo Antunes, Act of the Damned
António Lobo Antunes, Fado Alexandrino
António Lobo Antunes, The Land at the End of the World
Bernardo Atxaga, Obabakoak
Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife
Juan Goytisolo, Juan the Landless
Juan Goytisolo, Landscapes of War: From Sarajevo to Chechnya
Juan Goytisolo, The Marx Family Saga
Almudena Grandes, The Frozen Heart
Carmen Laforet, Nada
José Luis Peixoto, Blank Gaze
Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet
Fernando Pessoa, The Education of the Stoic
Mercè Rodoreda, Death in Spring
Mercè Rodoreda, The Selected Stories of Mercè Rodoreda
José Saramago, Baltasar and Blimunda
José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon
José Saramago, Manual of Painting and Calligraphy
Llorenç Villalonga, The Dolls' Room
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Angel's Game

Third quarter: Nobel Prize winners writing not in English

  

Knut Hamsun (1920), Hunger
Thomas Mann (1929), Death in Venice
Halldór Laxness (1955), Independent People
Albert Camus (1957), The First Man; Exile and the Kingdom
Ivo Andrić (1961), The Bridge on the Drina
Jean-Paul Sartre (1964), Nausea
Miguel Ángel Asturias (1967), The President
Yasunari Kawabata (1968), Beauty and Sadness
Pablo Neruda (1971), The Essential Neruda; Canto General
Isaac Bashevis Singer (1978), Collected Stories, Volume 1
Gabriel García Márquez (1982), One Hundred Years of Solitude; Of Love and Other Demons; The Autumn of the Patriarch
Claude Simon (1985), The Trolley
Naguib Mahfouz (1988), Midaq Alley; Rhadopis of Nubia
Octavio Paz (1990), The Labyrinth of Solitude; In Light of India
Kenzaburō Ōe (1994), The Changeling
José Saramago (1998), Raised from the Ground; Baltasar and Blimunda; The History of the Siege of Lisbon; Manual of Painting and Calligraphy; Journey to Portugal
Günter Grass (1999), The Tin Drum
Gao Xingjian (2000), One Man's Bible; Soul Mountain
Orhan Pamuk (2006), Snow; My Name Is Red; The Museum of Innocence; Other Colors
J.M.G. Le Clézio (2008), Terra Amata; The Giants; War; Fever; The Book of Flights; The Flood
Herta Müller (2009), The Land of Green Plums
Mario Vargas Llosa (2010), Captain Pantoja and the Special Service; The Green House; The Way to Paradise; The Bad Girl; The Dream of the Celt
Mo Yan (2012), Life and Death are Wearing Me Out; The Garlic Ballads; The Republic of Wine

Fourth quarter: Women writing not in English

  

Isabel Allende, The House of the Spirits
Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins; She Came to Stay
Assia Djebar, Algerian White; Children of the New World; The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry
Diamela Eltit, E. Luminata
Annie Ernaux, Cleaned Out
Sylvie Germain, The Song of False Lovers
Marlene van Niekerk, Agaat
Miral al-Tahawy, Brooklyn Heights
Delphine de Vigan, No and Me

Books about Medicine:



1. Grady Baby: A Year in the Life of Atlanta's Grady Hospital by Jerry Gentry

TBR Books to Read in 2015:



Tomes (500 pages or more):
      Nicole Barker, Darkmans
      Simone de Beauvoir, The Mandarins
      Douglas Brinkley, The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast
      Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March
      Ralph Ellison, Three Days Before the Shooting...
      Ian Gibson, The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí
      David Grossman, To the End of the Land
      Lawrence Hill, Someone Knows My Name
      George E. Lewis, A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental Music
      A.J. Liebling, Just Enough Liebling
      David Macey, Frantz Fanon: A Biography
      Hilary Mantel, A Place of Greater Safety
      Paul Murray, Skippy Dies
      Patrick O'Brian, Picasso: A Biography
      Roy Porter, Flesh in the Age of Reason: The Modern Foundations of Body and Soul
      Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses
      William Trevor, Selected Stories
      Patrick White, The Vivisector

Non-tomes (less than 500 pages):
      Stuart Altman and David Shactman, Power, Politics and Universal Health Care: The Inside Story of a Century-Long Battle
      Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers
      Bernardo Atxaga, Obabakoak
      Amiri Baraka, Tales of the Out & the Gone
      Eleanor Catton, The Rehearsal
      Patrick Chamoiseau, Texaco
      Jean Echenoz, I'm Off and One Year
      Percival Everett, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell
      Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
      Louise Erdrich, The Plague of Doves
      Paul Farmer, Haiti After the Earthquake
      Juan Eslava Galan, The Mule
      Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America
      Jerry Gentry, Grady Baby: A Year in the Life of Atlanta's Grady Hospital
      Amitav Ghosh, The Calcutta Chromosome
      Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife
      Juan Goytisolo, Juan the Landless
      Alistair Horne, Seven Ages of Paris
      Jonathan B. Imber, Trusting Doctors: The Decline of Moral Authority in American Medicine
      Robert Klitzman, When Doctors Become Patients
      Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle: Book One
      Charles Lemert, Why Niebuhr Matters
      David A. Mendel, Proper Doctoring: A Book for Patients and their Doctors
      Simon Mawer, Mendel's Dwarf
      Claire McCarthy, Everyone's Children: A Pediatrician's Story of an Inner City Practice
      Ian McEwan, Atonement
      Andrew Miller, Pure
      Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
      Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Petals of Blood
      Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
      Laura Katz Olson, The Politics of Medicaid: Stakeholders and Welfare Medicine
      Brian Orr, MD, A Pediatrician's Journal: Caring for Children in a Broken Medical System
      Orhan Pamuk, Snow
      Roy Porter, Madmen: A Social History of Madhouses, Mad Doctors and Lunatics
      Graham Robb, Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris
      Edward W. Said, Out of Place: A Memoir
      Mario Vargas Llosa, The Green House
      Richard Wright, Black Boy

Literature from the African diaspora:
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
March: Book One by John Lewis

Nonfiction from the African diaspora:
Wes Moore, The Work: My Search for a Life That Matters
Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped
Darryl Pinckney, Blackballed: The Black Vote and US Democracy

Planned reads for June (subject to change):

António Lobo Antunes, Fado Alexandrino
Bernardo Atxaga, Obabakoak
Donald Campbell, Edinburgh: A Cultural History
Juan Goytisolo, Forbidden Territory and Realms of Strife
Laila Lalami, The Moor's Account
Sinclair Lewis, Arrowsmith
Geert Mak, Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City
Imma Monsó, A Man of His Word
Josep Pla, The Gray Notebook
Mercè Rodoreda, The Time of the Doves
José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon
Wallace Stegner, Crossing to Safety
Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw, Rick Steves' Pocket Amsterdam
Marcos Giralt Torrente, Paris
Dubravka Ugrešić, The Ministry of Pain
Llorenç Villalonga, The Dolls' Room

Here are some of the photos I took yesterday. First, the National Monument on Dam Square (the historical center of the city), which was completed in 1956 and is dedicated to the lives lost during World War II. It is a major gathering spot for young people and tourists. You can't see them from this image, but there were a hundred or more youth sitting around the momument, which is the first thing I see when I leave my hotel. I'll have to take better photos of it today.



The Royal Palace, which opened in 1655 as the city's Town Hall that year. It was converted into the Royal Palace by Louis Napoleon, brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who became King Louis I after the House of Orange was swept from power by French revolutionary forces in 1795 and Napoleon forced the resultant Batavian Republic to accept his brother as the new monarch. Also located on Dam Square, it is used by the Dutch monarch for official state functions, although it is open to the public at other times.



The Nieuwe Kerk ("New Church") on Dam Square, which was originally built in the early 15th century after the Oude Kerk ("Old Church") became too small to serve Amsterdam's growing population. Fires destroyed much of the original building, and the current church was built in the mid 17th century.



The Hotel Die Port van Cleve, located across from the Nieuwe Kerk.



Begjinhof Court, an inner court in one of the oldest residential neighborhoods in Amsterdam.



Tram, tram, tram, tram, tram, tram, tram, tram: they are everywhere! (Apologies to Monty Python.)

More photos, from Museumplein. The Van Gogh ("gock", not "go") Museum:



The famous Rijksmuseum:



The Stedelijk Museum, the city's major modern art museum. Tad, Julie, their daughters, Anita and Frank Muelstee and I will meet there this afternoon.



Um...how do I get to Museumplein from here???

The Amsterdam Museum, which was a perfect choice for an introduction to and history about the city.







A few portraits from the museum's collection:









A sculpture of Anne Frank:



Banners of organizations from the late 18th and early 19th century:







Finally, a poster in support of (I think) women's right to vote in the early 20th century. For a period of time women were allowed to hold office, but not to vote for candidates for office!

11? For moi perhaps?
Love the new digs and I ope you get to see all the museums you want to this time around in Amsterdam. The only time I went there was from London and I went to see a band play!

>11 LovingLit: ¡Si, señora! Numero once es totalmente para tu, mi amiga bonita.

I just finished posting photos and descriptions in messages 8-10.

There is absolutely no way I'll see all of the museums and sites I want to on this trip! I would need at least another week, and probably two, to do that. We'll see the Stedelijk Museum today, and I do want to visit the Anne Frank House and the Rijksmuseum by the time I leave on Friday, visit the Oude Kerk and Nieuwe Kerk, and walk through the Red Light District, although I won't try any of the "brownies" in the "coffee shops", as Hani mentioned. ;-)

Since I bought a Museumkaart yesterday, which provides free entry to dozens of museums in and outside of Amsterdam for 12 months (a bargain at €59,90), I'm likely to return here between now and next June. As I mentioned on my old thread, Delta offers daily direct flights between Atlanta and Amsterdam, which would make it that much easier, and more likely, that I will come back here soon.

It's after 9:30 am, so I'd better get dressed and do some sightseeing before our sizable LT meet up this afternoon!

Oh wow. You make me want to pay the Netherlands another visit. For me the books on sale in the shop in the Rijksmuseum were just too tempting, and I had to make Hard Choices re getting my luggage home on an economy flight!

Re being struck by the diversity of Amsterdam - I heard a presentation about museum work exploring Amsterdam's global history last year - really fascinating stuff.
They run a tour too which sounded fascinating - http://www.blackheritagetours.com/
I love maps so was even more struck by this heritage mapping project, which shows where the slaveowners lived, linked to current map of Amsterdam http://www.ghhpw.com/slave-owners-in-amsterdam.php

Happy New Thread, Darryl!

So nice to see familiar buildings in your pictures!

Have a good time with Anita and Tad and family!

Lovely photographs of one of my favourite cities Darryl. I don't know why the Amsterdam Museum isn't more popular, but am often grateful it isn't.

When is your BimHaus concert?

Even the Dutch often pronounce Vincent's name the way English speakers say it. I think it would have sounded more like this to him in his time: Fincent Fan Hhohhhg guttural rolled h's at the end. The Dutch don't really have a hard G, and the soft can go silent. W pron V, and V pron F . I learned a very little Dutch years ago. The Dutch aren't too precious with their language, and it has changed and evolved, maybe more than some European languages.

More great photos!! I love how people are out and about, gathering, talking, musing. I truly don't see a lot of that in the US. Trams, trams trams seems like a great idea. Bikes, bikes, bikes are nice too. Do you find people are more fit in Amsterdam?
Need I say enjoy your visits to the art museum and Concertgebouw? Well, I will anyway, enjoy, enjoy, enjoy!!!

Happy new thread, Darryl. Glad to see you're enjoying Amsterdam. Can't wait for you to see my favorite Dutch city, Utrecht. That's where I got my "doctoraal" many, many years ago.

Happy New Thread, Darryl. Lots of good memories come up seeing your photos. Enjoy your time.

Fantastic photos. Thanks for sharing them with us.

Thanks for the photos. Enjoy the rest of your vacation!

Glad you are having a fun and rewarding vacation. You are cramming a lot into each day.

Love the new photos of Amsterdam, Darryl!

Congratulations on the new thread, Darryl. Looks like a terrific vacation.

Lovely new thread, Darryl! I'm loving the photos of Amsterdam! So much to do!

The Great 2015 LT Amsterdam Meet Up is in the books, and everyone had a great time. I've posted photos and descriptions on my Facebook timeline; since I'm falling asleep (it's just after 11 am here) I'll wait until tomorrow morning to post what we did and saw here. Tomorrow will be the Great 2015 LT Utrecht Meet Up, so there will be more photos and descriptions then.

Happy to be part of the G2015LTUMU!

This is armchair travel at its best! Thanks for sharing your travel stories and photos with us, Darryl. I'm so glad the trip is going well and I can't wait to see the pics from the G2015LTIMU !

*looking high, looking low .....coming up empty on Darryl's pics of food in Amsterdam. Heaves huff of disgust and leaves*

Love all the pics of your trip and so pleased that Anita got in touch in time to join a meetup.

Don't miss the Chet Baker plaque which is at the entrance to the Prins Hendrik Hotel, I think it's nearish to the train station.

The 2015 Great LT Amsterdam Meet Up was a successful one. Tad (@TadAD), his wife Julie (@jrzymom), their daughter Abby and their daughter's friend Maddie, Anita (@FAMeulstee), her husband Frank and I planned to meet at the Stedelijk, the modern art museum in Museumplein that hosted the Matisse Cut Outs exhibition that I missed seeing in London and MoMA recently.

Before I joined them I had a disappointing lunch at Sie Joe, a small Indonesian restaurant on the Gravenstraat, behind De Nieuwe Kerk (the New Church) and a short walk from my hotel. I took a tram from Centraal Station to Museumplein, and met Tad & Julie briefly for tapas at Pompa, a much nicer and infinitely friendlier restaurant near the Van Gogh Museum and Stedelijk. We then walked over to Stedelijk and met Anita & Frank shortly after 2 pm, as they had drinks at the museum's café.

Here's a photo of Anita & Frank, taken after we had left the museum:



Highlights from the exhibition, which included the works of Matisse and other artists:

More photos from the exhibition:





A few photos from the rest of the Stedelijk:

Abby and Maddie joined us after we left the museum, and we took a tram back towards Dam Square, where we went to In de Wildeman, a beer tasting pub that dates back to 1690, when it was the site of a beer distillery. The beers were outstanding, and the atmosphere was inviting and quite spirited.

A few photos:





A tiled celebration of In de Wildeman 250th anniversary, from 1940:



Anita & Frank also took some lovely photos. This is myself, Tad and Anita, outside of the museum:



Waiting for the tram. Julie is to my left:



In the pub:



One more Matisse cut out from the exhibition (I missed that one):

We said goodbye to Anita & Frank at the pub, and stayed for another hour or so trying the beers on tap. From there the five of us took a tram to Jordaan for dinner. Julie used her Yelp! app on her mobile phone to find a highly rated restaurant that served authentic Dutch cuisine, Bistro Bij Ons, which is on the Prinsengracht very close to the Anne Frank House. We were all very pleased with our meals.



I had a traditional Dutch stamppot, with mashed potatoes mixed with sauerkraut and bacon, served with sausage and gravy:



Maddie had the same type of stamppot as mine, except that she had endives instead of sauerkraut, and stewed beef instead of sausage. The sausage was very good, but the stewed beef was superb.



After dinner we boarded another tram to Dam Square, and I said goodbye to the four of them.

Today will be more of the same, as the five of us will meet at Amsterdam Centraal station in a little less than two hours to take a train to Utrecht Centraal station, where we'll meet Connie for a day out there. I'll have to return at the end of the afternoon, as I have a ticket to see a jazz performance at the Concertgebouw tonight. I think I'll get dressed now, and if I have time before I meet them I'll catch up on previous messages at the station over breakfast.

Hi Darryl, I wish you a fabulous weekend with all your meetups and concert.

Fabulous pics of both the meetups and the museum exhibits! How wonderful to be able to get together with so many LT friends while you're in Europe.

I saw the cut out exhibition at Christmas while visiting my daughter in NYC. It was superb!

Echoing what Mary said, Darryl. Fabulous pics; looks like such a good time. Love the Matisse cut-outs.

The Dutch food looks great! I love it that you sought out some local food, and in such good company.
The art is amazing, I love the modern masters the most. Chagal is my fave from your photos, as Matisse has never really grabbed me. How amazing to see them in RL!

Eta: I understood your Spanish in >12 kidzdoc:! How that can be, I don't know.

Darryl, I'm in Boston this weekend visiting my daughter, and today we went to a jazz brunch. Eggs Shakshuka was on the menu and thanks to you I ordered it. The menu description alone probably would not have sold me-- it was your "warbling" that did it! Yum. It was delicious.

Wow! So much to praise!! Happy New Thread, Darryl! All the vacation photos are perfect. It feels like we are on the trip with you.

And hooray for another Meet-Up. You have become quite the Biblio-Ambassador, good sir and I tip my hat to you!

ETA: Ooh, I want to go to the In de Wildeman!!

Lovely photos, and another wonderful meet up. This 'other life' is going to get too good to leave!

I saw the Matisse cut-outs last year. Amazing creativity in a gentleman of his age, as some of them were sizeable pieces, and I accept he had studio help, but personally I prefer his paintings.

I hope you are resting up today!

Wow! what a good time!! I hope you have another week of vacation when you get back home. You'll be exhausted!

Hi Darryl, I hope your trip to Cologne turned out well.
I just wanted to say I spend a lovely day with you, Tad, Julie and Maddy yesterday. I hope to see you again whenever you visit the Netherlands again. Hugs for you!

Great photos! I love the art exhibit.

WOW, Darryl! This is way better than the fb photos I'd been so happy to see. Thank you for taking time to post them all. I really appreciate having an opportunity to be a little bit of your splendid travels.
(And if you actually get to Darkmans this year, will you let me know? I've had it on Mt. Bookpile forever, and even added The Yips without doing more than cracking either.)

Woo! I had an amazing weekend, with Connie, Tad and Julie in Utrecht on Saturday, and with Bianca in Cologne on Sunday. Saturday's meet up was a relatively short one, from roughly noon to 5 pm, but yesterday I left my hotel just before 7 am and didn't get back until nearly midnight (I wouldn't change a thing about yesterday, though!).

Although I could stand a day of rest, this is also my last full day of vacation, and it's supposed to be another great day in Amsterdam, with most sunny skies and a high temperature of 23 C (73 F). There are still a ton of things I'd like to do here, but I certainly plan to come back here on a semi-regular basis, so I'll limit myself to a reasonable walking tour and one or two museum exhibitions. I have an early morning flight from Schiphol to Atlanta tomorrow, so I'll need to get my things together by this evening.

I think I'll catch up on past messages, and then post photos of the Utrecht and Cologne meet ups later today (I did create Facebook photo albums and descriptions on my timeline, though). I still have to post previous meet up photos, including the group gathering two weeks ago in Saffron Walden and Thaxted and my splendid day with Claire in Winchester last Monday. I'll probably do that on Wednesday after I return to Atlanta, as I won't have to go to work until 5 pm.

>13 charl08: I'm already starting to think about coming back to Amsterdam and I haven't left yet, Charlotte! Apologies if I'm repeating myself, but Delta Air Lines offers 3-4 daily direct flights between ATL and AMS, as Schiphol is one of Delta's major European hubs, along with de Gaulle in Paris, so it's easy to get here. I bought a Museumkaart last week, which permits free entry to dozens of museums in and outside of Amsterdam for one year, so I'll want to take advantage of it on future visits. What I would ideally like to do is to fly here in September, and then travel by train to London, depending on how much time off I get.

Ooh, thanks for the information about the Black Heritage Tours! I'll definitely look to take that tour on my next visit here. I'll look at those maps later today.

>14 connie53: Thanks, Connie! It was great to meet you on Saturday, and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

>15 Caroline_McElwee: The Amsterdam Museum is superb, Caroline, and although it wasn't deserted when I went there last week it wasn't as busy as I thought it would be.

I missed the Bimhuis concert on Sunday, as Bianca's suggestion to meet in Cologne yesterday easily trumped a jazz concert that I was moderately interested in seeing.

Anita, Frank and Connie helped us with pronounciation of Dutch words and letters, although we didn't come close to making those guttural sounds properly.

>16 Carmenere: Thanks, Lynda. You're right; you don't see people sitting in large plazas in US cities and towns for the most part, and I think I've seen more people riding bicycles in the past week than I have all year so far in Atlanta. I definitely think that Nederlanders of all ages are far more fit than their American counterparts, which I'm sure is due to their frequent use of walking and bicycling to travel, instead of driving monstrous cars and SUVs as we do. I also love the public transportation service here, both the trams and the intercity trains.

>17 RebaRelishesReading: Utrecht is a beautiful city, Reba, and I'm glad that we had a great tour guide (Connie) to show it to us.

>18 Ameise1:, >19 Oberon:, >20 catarina1:, >21 weird_O:, >22 Cariola:, >23 jnwelch:, >24 Storeetllr: Thanks, Barbara, Erik, Catarina, Bill, Joe, Deborah and Mary! I'm sorry that I've been neglecting your and everyone else's threads; I'll catch up later this week, though.

>26 connie53: I'm happy that we were able to meet up on a perfect day out, Connie, and I hope that we can do it again soon. Hopefully you can convince Peet to join us.

>27 cameling: Thanks, Caroline! I have been good about taking food photos, which are in my Facebook posts. I'll include them here soon.

>28 avatiakh: Thanks for mentioning the Chet Baker statue, Kerry! I plan to walk through the Red Light District today, and since I'll need to head toward Amsterdam Centraal to pick up another GVB pass I'll look for it on my way there.

>33 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara; I hope that you had a good weekend as well.

>34 Storeetllr: The single best thing about my European trips is the friendship that I've made with LTers, Mary. I would enjoy coming here on my own, but having people to share these experiences with is invaluable. It was great to make three new friends last week (Anita, Frank and Connie), and to see old ones here and in England.

>34 Storeetllr:, >35 jnwelch: I didn't realize that the Matisse cut outs were here until Anita mentioned that they were, so it was a double treat to see them and to meet up with her, Frank, Tad and Julie.

>36 LovingLit: The food I've had in Amsterdam, Utrecht and Cologne has been superb, save for a disappointing Indonesian meal that I had on Friday. I haven't tried herring in cream sauce with onions yet, so I hope to do that today.

I love Marc Chagall's work, and I was immediately attracted to it when I saw it on Friday. Bianca and I saw some great art at two museums yesterday, which I'll mention in more detail when I post photos of Cologne. German museums frown upon the taking of photographs, though, so I didn't take any while we were there.

¡Muy bien, mi amiga! Podemos hablar en español todo el tiempo, si quieres. ;-)

>37 lauralkeet: Cool! I'm glad that you liked the shakshouka (or is it shakshuka, I've seen it spelled both ways), Laura. I love jazz brunches, although I haven't been to one in years.

I'll start putting out feelers to see if any LTers in the NYC-Philadelphia area would like to meet up in the second half of August. I'll visit my parents from August 13-28, and Tad is interested in getting together in NYC toward the end of the month.

>38 msf59: Thanks, Mark! As you know, LT meet ups are fabulous, regardless of which country they take place in. Your name was mentioned at least once when we went to In de Wildeman ("Mark would love to come here"), and I thought about you when Bianca and I had German beers in Cologne yesterday. I took photos of the beers I had there on Facebook, and I'll post them here as well.

>39 Caroline_McElwee: Right, Caroline! I'm usually ready and eager to return to Atlanta after a holiday that lasts for two weeks or longer, but I could easily stay in Amsterdam and/or return to London for another week or more.

>40 Carmenere: Ha! I mentioned to Bianca yesterday that I could use a week off to recuperate from my vacation, Lynda. Fortunately I only work two days this week (Wednesday and Thursday), and I'll have a three day weekend to recharge my batteries before I get back to a regular work schedule next Monday.

>41 connie53: Cologne was excellent, Connie, especially in the company of Bianca, although I did notice that the people on the streets there were far less friendly than the ones in Amsterdam and Utrecht. Fortunately the staff in the museums and restaurants and on the trains were quite nice.

I should find out soon what days I'll be off in September, and if I'll be able to come here again that month. I'll let you and Anita know in the next week or so.

>42 banjo123: Thanks, Rhonda!

>43 LizzieD: You're welcome, Peggy. It's relatively easy to transfer photos from my camera's SD card to Facebook and Google albums, but far more time consuming to post them here, which is why I'm four meet ups behind in this thread. I won't cach up before I leave, but I'll be able to do so after I return to Atlanta.

Great to hear, Darryl. I hope you have a nice day today. The weather is very nice for walking around a city. Enjoy and safe trip home tomorrow!

"Mark would love to come here"! You all know me well. Grins...

Enjoy your final vacation day and safe travels home.

Thank you for the photos and for taking us all along with you on another wonderful vacation.

Amsterdam looks like my kind of place...that food! that art! those people!

Wishing you a safe journey.

I'm at Schiphol Airport, and my flight back to Atlanta will take off in a little less than 1-1/2 hours. This was a fabulous vacation, and I'm grateful to my LT friends for showing me such a good time in England, Nederland and Germany. I look forward to seeing all of you soon!

>50 connie53: I was worn out yesterday, so I decided to catch up on sleep and pack. I'll definitely come back to Amsterdam within a year, and hopefully in September, so I'll do the things I wanted to on that visit, or future ones.

>51 msf59: Mark, you would have also loved the great German food and beers that I had when I spent the day with Bianca on Sunday (along with plenty of others, I'm sure).

>52 catarina1: You're welcome, Catarina. I forgot that I also have two days' worth of photos from Edinburgh to post on LT, so I have quite a bit of catching up to do!

>53 laytonwoman3rd: Definitely, Linda, and it has at least two friendly LTers as well! I loved Amsterdam, even though I only saw it for a brief period of time. I'll try to come back here at least once a year in the upcoming future.

>54 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara. The weather should be good, as the weather in Atlanta isn't supposed to deteriorate until mid to late afternoon. My flight is scheduled to arrive there just after noon Eastern Daylight Time, or just after 6 pm CEST.

Thanks for sharing those gorgeous photos with us. I always look forward to traveling vicariously through you. I have to admit I've fallen way, way, way behind on your thread and have (mostly) been scrolling through all the pics. I'll have to backtrack!

I am looking forward to your comments of The Moor's Account. My son wants to minor in creative writing and she teaches at the university he chose. :) OK, back to the top ......

Sending Travel Mercy your way!

I'm back home in Atlanta, after a smooth and uneventful flight from Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport. I finished two books en route, the script of Franz Kafka's The Trial, based on the play that Fliss and I saw last Tuesday at The Young Vic, and Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli. I didn't sleep that much on the flight, so I'll crash very shortly, since I've been basically awake since 4 am CEST (10 pm EST).

I'm very glad that I decided to cook and freeze several meals before I left Atlanta three weeks ago, as I have plenty of food at home and I won't have to go grocery shopping or cook until the weekend.

>56 avidmom: You're welcome, Susie! I've badly neglected my Club Read thread this month, so I'll have to catch up there this weekend. This was a fabulous and memorable trip, and I still have many more photos and travelogues to post over the remainder of this week.

I'll come up with a list of books to read for July later today or tomorrow, but The Moor's Account will likely be one of the books I will read in August.

Thanks for the Travel Mercy! It was a bit daunting to get through Schiphol Airport, but after I took my seat on the plane it was a breeze the rest of the way.

>32 kidzdoc: Stamppot has definitely become one of my favorites after that meal. I'll probably try to make it this weekend so that my son and other daughter can try it. I had the potatoes, sauerkraut and stewed beef. It was amazing!

I had a slightly different version later in the trip at Moeder's but the Bistro Bij Ons version was the best.

Speaking of food, the remains of a truly epic amount of tapas we had at a small canal-side place in Utrecht. The five of us tried hard but couldn't finish the mounds of chorizo, calamari, patatas bravas, olives, tuna fish, langoustines, albondigas, tapenade, chicken drumsticks, feta and some delicious bread. Not to mention the cheese, pesto & sundried tomato panini and the nachos. :-D

Glad you have arrived home safely Darryl. Enjoy a long sleep.

>58 TadAD: The stamppot was fabulous, Tad. My sausage was very good, but your stewed beef was even better. I'll have to install the Yelp app on my smartphones after Julie was able to find Bistro Bij Ons as a result.

>59 TadAD: That tapas meal in Utrecht was epic! For the rest of you, Tad's photo shows the food after we ate and ate and ate and still couldn't finish the massive amount of food we were given. I still can't believe that only cost us €15 per person with a very generous tip.

Here's a photo of that same mezze tapa just after it was brought out to us, which was meant to serve two (elephants? sumo wrestlers?):



>60 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I crashed around 4 pm, was awake from 9-11 pm, and then slept until 3 am, so I did sleep for nine hours. It's 4 am EST now, or 10 am CEST, and, of course, it feels as though I should get my day started. I'll see if I can go back to sleep for a few hours, either later this morning or in the middle of the afternoon.

I'll post more Utrecht photos soon, but I particularly loved this one (such a good looking group!):

Planned reads for July:

Aeschylus, Oresteia
Kate Atkinson, A God in Ruins
Albert Camus, The Outsider - reading
Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation - reading
Amitav Ghosh, Flood of Fire
Knut Hamsun, Hunger
Robert Klitzman, When Doctors Become Patients - completed
J.M.G. Le Clézio, Terra Amata
Jorja Leap, Project Fatherhood: A Story of Courage and Healing in One of America's Toughest Communities
Geert Mak, Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City - completed
Lona Oberski, A Childhood - completed
Orhan Pamuk, Snow
José Saramago, The History of the Siege of Lisbon
Ali Smith, How to Be Both
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Discreet Hero

Impressive list, Darryl. Hunger knocked me over when I was a lad, although the author turned out to have an unfortunate affection for the Nazis.

>64 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. Today marks the start of the third quarter Reading Globally theme, Nobel Laureates Writing in a Language Other Than English, which Deborah (@arubabookwoman) is hosting. I own more than 50 books that qualify for this theme, and many of these books are high on my TBR pile, so I'll get started on this theme right away. I started reading The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud yesterday, which is a new novel written by the brother of the victim of the main character in Albert Camus' The Stranger, told from the view of the faceless Arab man. It looks great, but anyone reading it would benefit from re-reading Camus' masterpiece. I have read it at least twice, but I did buy the new translation of it by Sandra Smith, published as The Outsider, three years ago, so I'll make it my first book to read for this theme, and then read The Meursault Investigation shortly afterward.

You're right about Knut Hamsun, of course.

I finally finished When Doctors Become Patients by Robert Klitzman this morning, so my next nonfiction book will be Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City by Geert Mak, which I'll appreciate much more after my all too brief visit there. I'll also re-read The Trial by Franz Kafka, after Fliss and I saw the theatrical production of it at The Young Vic last week. I read the script of it, written by Nick Gill, on the flight from AMS to ATL yesterday, along with the short novel Faces in the Crowd by Valeria Luiselli.

On Saturday Tad, his wife Julie, and their daughter's friend traveled by train from Amsterdam Centraal to Utrecht Centraal to meet Connie (@connie53). It's a short trip, as it only took 27 minutes to make the journey, and trains were running every 15 minutes between the two stations that morning. We met outside of Bruna, a bookstore chain founded by the father of Dick Bruna, the Utrecht-born author of hundreds of children's books, including the beloved Miffy (Nijntje) series based upon a female rabbit.

As we left the indoor mall associated with Utrecht Centraal, the busiest train station in the Netherlands, we were treated to music played on an old fashioned, and very large, organ grinder. According to Connie there are only a small number of these models still in operation in the country.



From there we proceeded to the Dom Tower of Utrecht, which is the tallest church tower in the Netherlands. It was begun in 1321 and completed in 1382 and it is a free standing tower, as the cathedral that was associated with it was never finished and collapsed after a storm in 1674.





Across the street from the Dom Tower is the Domkerk Utrecht, the cathedral dedicated to St. Martin, which (I think) dates back to the mid 16th century:







Sculptures of Miffy, the rabbit created by Dick Bruna, can be seen throughout the city. Near Dom Tower:



On a bridge looking over the Oudegracht, the "Old Canal":

After we left Dom Square, the oldest section of this ancient city, which dates back to at least 50 CE, we walked along the busy streets and bridges along the Oudegracht, with the Dom Tower serving as a constant presence and vantage point:





We chose to have lunch at Tapaskalder, the tapas restaurant affiliated with Winkel van Sinkel, the department store that opened along the Oudegracht in 1839. The restaurant is in the cellar of the store, and it has outdoor seating on the level of the canal, which provided a fabulous viewing spot

Winkel van Sinkel:



A view from our table. City Hall is the building to the left, and to the near right is the main branch of the city's public library, with a bookstore located adjacent to it. Dom Tower is visible behind it:







This is a view from the bridge over the canal, looking down upon the seating area of Tapaskalder:



As Tad mentioned the meal was epic, very tasty and unbelievably inexpensive. The prawns were equally impressive:

Tad, Julie and their daughter's friend left early, and Connie and I walked around the city for a few more hours. Walking through the city was pleasant, but also hazardous, as there were thousands of bicyclists coming from different directions throughout Utrecht. Each of us came very close to getting hit by a bicycle!

The Buurkerk, a 14th century cathedral that was converted into a museum in the mid 1980s:



A statue of Anne Frank:



A medieval building that is part of the University of Utrecht:



The city's Guildhall?:



According to Connie, "This is the statue of Franciscus Cornelius Donders. He was a Dutch ophthalmologist. During his career, he was a professor of physiology in Utrecht, and was internationally regarded as an authority on eye diseases, directing the Netherlands Hospital for Eye Patients."



The plaza in front of Fam. Stegeman (the white building with the red awning), where Connie and I had a pleasant chat over coffee:



After coffee, Connie and I walked back to Utrecht Centraal, where we said goodbye. It was a splendid day out, and I look forward to seeing Connie and visiting Utrecht again in the near future.

Hi Darryl. I am glad to see you had a fun & safe trip. I have been enjoying your photos. I am planning on reading Snow for the Reading Globally quarterly theme read too. Hopefully, we will both get to read it and compare notes.

Thank you for the wonderful photos. It looks like you greatly enjoyed the day in Utrecht and the meet-up with LT friends.

So glad you got home safely after your fabulous trip! I hope you had a chance to rest before going back to work! Loving the images of Utrecht; thank you for sharing! It's almost like being there...but not really. Great meetup photos and stories! LTers are the best!

Another wonderful day Darryl. You cram so much in. Great photos too. Brings back pleasant memories of a visit I made there some years ago.

I vividly remember reading Hunger, wrapped in a Moss Bros demob coat (it was then hip for women to wear men's big coats) sitting on a park bench on an icy day. It fitted the book. It's a difficult connundrum where great writers and artists turn out to have unsavoury philosophies. Perhaps we learn something from reading them: about them, about how we avoid following in their footsteps, about what led them there. Maybe on a case by case basis?

Looks like you had a wonderful tour of Amsterdam and a equally wonderful meet-up with fellow LTers!

>69 Tara1Reads: Thanks, dieKatze. I'm glad that you'll also read Snow for Reading Globally this quarter. I haven't read anything by Orhan Pamuk, and I've had this book in my library for several years, so I'm looking forward to finally getting to it.

>70 catarina1: You're welcome, Catarina. I think we all enjoyed our visit to Utrecht, and meeting new LTers.

>71 Storeetllr: Thanks, Mary. I did fit in as much sleep as I could before my work shift tonight, which ends in less than an hour. Although I'm glad the pictures turned out well, they, of course, can't do justice to seeing those buildings and that city in person. You're right; LT meet ups are the best part about this group, although I value my online friendships as well.

>72 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I still have a few meet up descriptions and photos left to post, though, including our visit to Chelsea Physic Garden.

Nice description of your experience reading Hunger! I don't think I'll be able to match it.

>73 lkernagh: Definitely, Lori!

On Sunday I returned to Amsterdam Centraal, this time to take a Deutsche Bahn (DB) Intercity-Express (ICE) train to Cologne (Köln) to meet up with Bianca, who drove from London back to Germany the previous week to visit her parents and son. She met me at the station, and we spent the day seeing the famous and breath taking Cologne Cathedral, visiting two museums, having lunch and a light dinner, and touring the old section of the city. (I'll start this travelogue now, and finish it later today.)

The exterior of Köln Hauptbahnhof (Hbf), the city's main train station:



It, like nearly all of the major buildings in the city, was heavily damaged by Allied bombs toward the end of World War II. The buildings in Cologne represent a striking mixture of old and new alongside each other, depending on whether the ones that were hit by bombs could be restored or not.

The Cologne Cathedral (Kölner Dom), the largest Gothic church in northern Europe and the most visited landmark in Germany, sits next to Köln Hauptbahnhof; in the previous photo, the cathedral is no more than 200 feet behind me. Construction began in 1248 and was halted in 1473, and it was also heavily damaged by Allied bombs. Due to its age it is under near constant renovation. Mere photographs cannot do justice to the majesty of this cathedral, but this photo from the Internet is the best one I've found so far:



The bridge crossing the Rhine is the Hohenzollern Bridge, and as you can see in the above photo, the trains coming from the north head directly toward the cathedral, before making a sharp turn to the right just after crossing the river (a portion of the station can be seen on the middle left border of that photo).

Here are some of my feeble attempts to capture the cathedral with my camera:















There was a service taking place during our visit, so our ability to tour the interior of the cathedral was severely limited.

After our brief visit to the Cathedral we walked to the Museum Ludwig, Cologne's major modern art museum, which houses the third largest collection of works by Pablo Picasso. En route we saw this unorthodox Russian classical group playing Vivaldi:



The Romano-Germanic Museum:



The Museum Ludwig; a portion of the Cathedral can be seen on the far left:



According to Bianca the taking of photographs is frowned upon in German museums, so I didn't take any photos. We saw nearly 100 works by Picasso, most of which I had never seen before or even heard about, and visiting this museum was worth the trip by itself.

After we left the museum we went to the Cölner Hofbräu Früh, a restaurant and brewery recommended by Bianca's father for its Kölsch beer and excellent food. Her father was spot on, as the meal and beer were both outstanding. We wanted to try several different items on the menu, so we ordered four different plates. The waiters were confused, as we had enough food for another two people.



Tartare on a roll:



The blood pudding with potatoes and caramelized onions was my favorite; it was probably the best single dish I had during my three weeks in Europe. Everything else was also very tasty.







More photos later today.

Looks like a great trip, thanks for all the photos.

I am not up to speed with the new reading globally challenge, but will go take a look and see what fits with the library's collection and my own wishlists.

Wonderful photos as always, Darryl! I can see that I need to visit the Netherlands sometime soon. Your tapas meal looks incredible, just seeing the picture made me hungry. Hope you are adjusting to being home again and aren't being hit too hard by jetlag.

Great pictures, Darryl!

Now we have to get Tad to post the group picture with you on it!

Lovely photos, Darryl!

And, oooh, the Oresteia!! The opening of The Agamemnon was the first Greek text that made me cry because of it's beauty instead of its difficulty (although it *is* some of the most difficult Greek we have extant). Ha! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

All looks great, Darryl. Wish I could've heard the Vivaldi. Is that huge triangular shaped stringed instrument a balalaika?

>47 kidzdoc: No apologies necessary! You're on vacation, for goodness sake--enjoy yourself and reply when you get home. I've been enjoying your stories and photos. I need to find a stamppot recipe (although it looks pretty easy to figure out--kind of like Dutch Colcannon).

>48 kidzdoc: I will be officially retired as of August 7, so a mid-to-late August meetup will work for me (whereas it wouldn't have last year). Not sure about NYC, however. But I'll think about it.

>63 kidzdoc: I REALLY liked How to Be Both; hope you do, too.

This looks to have been an amazing trip, Darryl. Thanks for sharing it with us!

>77 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte; it was a great trip.

I hardly know where to begin with the new Reading Globally theme, as I could read 10-12 books per month from my library during this coming quarter and not come close to reading all the ones that qualify for it. I'll probably read one book by as many different authors as I can; I think Knut Hamsun, who won the Nobel Prize in 1920, is the most distant author who has written a book that I own.

>78 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire! Yes, I would highly recommend a visit to the Netherlands, even though I only had a small taste of Dutch hospitality while I was there.

I'm definitely feeling sleepy from effects of jet lag, and from having to return to work the day after I returned to the US, but I'm not complaining! I'm just getting back from an appointment with my cardiologist, and another one with my barber, and after lunch I'll probably sleep for a couple of hours. I do have one more swing shift tonight (5 pm to 1 am), then I'm off for a three day Independence Day Weekend. I only work Monday and Tuesday of next week, so I'll have plenty of time to get back on a regular schedule.

>79 connie53: Thanks, Connie! The four of you looked great in that photo, so hopefully my substitution for Tad in his photo looks at least halfway decent.

>80 scaifea: Thanks, Amber! Bianca, Laura (my work partner, who was visiting her sister in London when I was there) and I loved Oresteia, and despite its length of nearly four hours (with two intermissions) we were captivated throughout the performance. I'll read the script of it this weekend or sometime next week, and review that play and the three other ones I saw with Fliss.

>81 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe; I'll post the remainder of the Cologne photos shortly. I have no idea what that instrument was, as I had never seen it before. However, in looking up "balalaika" it does look exactly identical to the one played by the musician we saw.

>82 Cariola: I was on vacation, Deborah! I flew back to Atlanta on Tuesday. I'm glad that you've enjoyed my photos, and I should be caught up with travelogues, book purchases, and book and theatre reviews by the end of next week, at the latest.

Congratulations on your upcoming retirement! I'll arrive in Philadelphia on August 13th, and leave on August 28th. There is at least one exhibition I want to see at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and with that much time off I'll certainly go to the Center City at least two or three times while I'm there, and probably make a similar number of visits to NYC, depending on what my parents have planned. Let's start planning a meet up there, then.

I'm looking forward to How to Be Both, after comments from you and others on LT who have read it.

More Cologne photos. After a very satisfying lunch and long conversation at Cölner Hofbräu Früh Bianca and I walked to the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln, as Kollwitz is one of Bianca's favorite artists. Her works are in a variety of media, including sketches, charcoal, wood cuts and sculptures, and she was most active in the first half of the 20th century, particularly the period between the two World Wars. She focused her attention on the poor of Germany, who struggled with poverty, hunger and the death of loved ones during that time, and she fell into disfavor with the government as a result. I enjoyed our 2+ hour visit there, which was greatly enhanced by Bianca's fluency in German, as the descriptions of the works were almost entirely in German, with no English translation provided.





As I mentioned previously, the taking of photographs is frowned upon in German museums, according to Bianca, and I didn't take any during our visit there. (I should have taken a photo or video of her happy dance just after we arrived, though.) However, I did photograph one of Kollwitz's sculptures, her 1931 work Mourning Parents in the interior of the Ruins of St. Alban's Church, which was nearly completely destroyed by Allied bombs on March 2nd, 1945. It serves as a memorial to those who lost their lives during World War II.







En route to the Käthe Kollwitz Museum and close to the plaza near Cölner Hofbräu Früh we saw the Heinzelmännchen-Brunnen fountain, which depicts a fairy tale written by August Kopisch in 1836 about the elves that worked in the homes of the residents of Cologne as they slept. According to Wikipedia, "The Heinzelmännchen are a race of creatures appearing in a tale connected with the city of Cologne in Germany. The little house gnomes are said to have done all the work of the citizens of Cologne during the night, so that the inhabitants of Cologne could be very lazy during the day. According to the legend, this went on until a tailor's wife got so curious to see the gnomes that she scattered peas onto the floor of the workshop to make the gnomes slip and fall. The gnomes, being infuriated, disappeared and never returned. From that time on, the citizens of Cologne had to do all their work by themselves."

I love the Germany photos! What a cute story about the Cologne gnomes!

I have also had Snow on my shelves for years probably since 2006. This is also my first Pamuk. I started reading the book yesterday. So far it seems like there is much to discuss regarding sexism, the politics of Turkey, and the never-ending battle between different Islamic beliefs.

On our way back from the Käthe Kollwitz Museum we walked through the older portions of Cologne, and passed by several historical sites. First was the Antoniterkirche, a Gothic church that was built in 1384:



The Groß St. Martin, the second most important church in Cologne, was consecrated in 1148 and finished in 1200, It was Cologne's most iconic basilica until the completion of the Cologne Cathedral.







We entered the church, but because there was a service taking place at the time I didn't take any photos of its interior.

This building is the one in which Eau de Cologne was first created by Johann Maria Farina in 1709:



Hmm...I can't remember what this was at the moment. Once I find out I'll mention it in a subsequent message. Check out Bianca's fiery hair style!



I love these multi-directional signs, although I sometimes find them more confusing than helpful:



A sculpture of Martin of Tours (316-397), who later was given sainthood and became St. Martin. This sculpture depicts St. Martin's most famous act, in which he cut his cloak in two to share with a beggar clothed only in rags. The sculpture is located near the Groß St. Martin:

After we visited the Groß St. Martin we decided to walk along the Rhine, and look for a place for a light supper before we needed to head back to Köln Hauptbahnhof to board our trains. We chose to dine at Karibik, a Thai restaurant that also served a variety of beers. There we found one other beer that Bianca's father had recommended, Schöfferhofer Weizen, a highly regarded wheat beer that contains a rich amount of yeast, which gave the beer a cloudy coloration, as you can see from the photo. It tasted great!



Another photo of Bianca, taken at Karibik:



A closer view of the Hohenzollern Bridge, where trains from the north cross the Rhine just before they enter Köln Hauptbahnhof:



Bianca and I said goodbye at Köln Hauptbahnhof, as we rode on separate trains to return "home" (my hotel in Amsterdam, in my case). It was an unforgettable, special and very full day, and I'm grateful to her for coming up with the excellent suggestion to meet there.

>86 Tara1Reads: Thanks, dieKatze! I read the story about the gnomes in my (highly recommended) Cologne Marco Polo Guide book on the train on Sunday morning, and Bianca elaborated on the story when we passed by that fountain.

I'll probably start reading Snow next week. I look forward to discussing it with you!

I really enjoyed your vacation photo gallery, Darryl. And all those Meet-Ups? Wow!

Hope you are settled in back home. Have you read On Immunity yet? It is a good, timely book and a nice, brief history on immunization.

The pictures of the Cologne Cathedral are stunning! Another great batch of vacation photos, made me feel like I was walking through Cologne with you and Bianca. Thanks for posting them!

>88 kidzdoc: I'd never linked cologne with the place. Cool!

Great photos all around, but what a stunning sculpture set in the ruins in >85 kidzdoc:.

I'm extremely jealous of your trip and your chance to meet so many great LT'ers!

I am jealous that you got to go to the Kathe Kollitz exhibit. She is a favorite of mine as well.

Wooooo...I feel a lot better than I did on my work shift on Thursday night, when I was really spacy and had a hard time focusing and staying awake. After my shift ended a little more than 24 hours ago I spent the majority of yesterday sleeping, after I ran a couple of late morning errands. I'm still tired, but at least I now feel functional.

Fortunately I'm off this weekend, so I'll mainly read and do a little bit of cooking and cleaning on Sunday.

>90 msf59: Thanks, Mark. I'm not finished, though!

I haven't read On Immunity yet, although it's high on my wish list. I'll look into it more closely, and I may pick it up next month. The topic is an interesting and, for me, relevant one, of course, but I'd like to find out if it covers territory different from the ones that Paul Offit (the pediatrician who is the head of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and Public Enemy #1 of the anti-vaccinationists) and others have already written.

>91 lkernagh: You're welcome, Lori! I'm glad that Bianca suggested meeting in Cologne, and we both had a splendid time there.

>92 charl08: I hadn't either, Charlotte, before I read Cologne Marco Polo Guide on the train ride from Amsterdam to Cologne on Sunday.

>93 streamsong: That sculpture by Käthe Kollwitz in the Ruins of St. Alban's Church was impressive and moving, particularly in that setting, although seeing her sculptures in the museum dedicated to her were even more so. Visitors can only see the exterior of the Ruins and look inside the door and window frames, which are gated, so that last photo was the closest I could come to capturing Mourning Parents with my small camera.

Everybody I know, including my parents and the LTers I saw in Europe, was jealous of this trip! I feel very fortunate to have the ability to take off that much time from work, travel abroad, and meet so many warm and welcoming members of our fabulous club in person.

>94 banjo123: Have you seen Käthe Kollwitz's work in the US, Rhonda? Either Bianca or one of the helpful staff members in the museum told me that some of her work is on display at MoMA. I am a member of that museum, and I plan to go there at least a couple of times next month, as there are several current exhibitions that I'd like to see, including the ones dedicated to Jacob Lawrence and Yoko Ono. (If any LTers want to join me I can get up to five guest passes for $5.00 per person for each visit, and we can often enter the museum an hour before general admission begins.)

Hi Darryl, I wish you a lovely weekend.

Happy 4th, Darryl! Hope it's a relaxing one for you, and you get some good cooking in.

>97 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I hope that you are enjoying your weekend as well.

>98 jnwelch: Happy 4th to you too, Joe! It will be a relaxing weekend, and mainly an indoor one, as it is quite soggy here in Wetlanta. It rained here most of yesterday, as well as this morning, with thunderstorms and, at times, heavy rain. The rain has stopped, but more is on the way for today and tomorrow, and we're under a flood watch through Sunday. Fortunately I had the foresight to cook several meals before I left, so I have enough leftovers in my freezer to last me through the weekend. I'll probably go to Publix tomorrow morning, as I usually do on Sundays, and cook one or two meals then.

Happy 4th, Darryl.

The best photo in your collection was that of Miffy, my second favorite bunny after Peter Rabbit! ;-) Did you take all the photos with a 'proper' camera or did you use your phone camera? I've toyed with the idea of getting myself an SLR camera, but the thought of carrying it around has been a major deterrent. Also, in some countries, it doesn't pay to carry a camera openly, just too tempting for some muggers.

I love your July reading plan, although I shuddered when I saw Snow on the list. Try and I might, I have not been able to enjoy Orhan Pahmuk. I gave up on My Name is Red before I was even 50 pages in, and The Black Book gave me a headache and I tossed it. Maybe i shouldn't read anything he writes with a color in the title?

I'll be watching out for your review of the Saramago, because I hated The Stone Raft and liked A Year in the Death of Ricardo Reis.

Happy Independence Day, Darryl!

If I remember correctly Kollwitz had a son who was killed in WWI and so her sculpture of the grieving parents was a reflection of her experience.

I had supper with friends tonight and made a papaya salad with feta cheese. It was a big hit and is a perfect salad for summer. I had planned to go pick blueberries this afternoon but it is raining here in Alabama so did not get to do that. I plan on staying in tonight and will watch the BBC TV production of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

I spent a second day mostly sleeping, and hopefully I'm nearly caught up by now. Today will be another stormy day in Wetlanta, so I'll stay indoors after my usual Sunday morning trip to the supermarket.

>100 cameling: Happy Fourth, dear Caroline! I hadn't heard of Miffy until Saturday, when Connie pointed out the white bunny next to the Dom Tower in >66 kidzdoc:. Tad, Julie, their daughter's friend and I met Connie outside of the Bruna bookshop (newsstand?) in Utrecht Centraal Station, which was one of a chain of stores that Dick Bruna's father founded in the early 20th century.

Speaking of Utrecht, Tui's post reminded me that this year's Tour de France started yesterday in Utrecht; I thought that it started today, as I had planned to watch it. I forgot to mention that when I posted my meet up photos, and one of them showed a
stylized red bicycle in the background, which is barely visible next to the iittala store on the bridge over the Oudegracht (Old Canal):



You can see it more easily in this photo from the Internet:



The vast majority of the photos I took on this trip were taken with a proper camera, a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-RX100:



It's a compact camera that I bought in 2012 or 2013, after it received glowing reviews from the NYT and CNET. I've been very pleased with it, as it takes great photos and easily fits into my front pants pocket or small shoulder bag (it would also easily fit into a purse). Tad had a much more impressive camera with a large zoom lens, and there were times that I wished I had his camera, especially when I took photos of the large cathedrals and towers and distant buildings I saw, but for the most part my camera did what I wanted it to.

Uh oh. I know that some here haven't been very impressed with the books they have read by Orhan Pamuk, and although I own four of them, Snow, The Museum of Innocence, My Name Is Red, and Other Colors, I haven't read any yet. This Reading Globally theme is as good a time to get to him as any, and I thought I would start with Snow. Hopefully I'll like it better than you did.

What??? I loved The Stone Raft! I think you should read it again.

>101 Storeetllr: Thanks, Mary! I hope that you had a splendid and drier Independence Day than we had here.

>102 benitastrnad: You are spot on, Benita. One of Käthe Kollwitz's sons died during World War I, in 1917 I believe, and his death did have a profound impact on her later works, including Mourning Parents.

Your Fourth of July plans and dinner sounds great! I had no plans for yesterday, as all of my friends and colleagues had prior arrangements with family, were working, or were out of town (my life in Atlanta is vastly more boring than my life in Europe!). That was fine with me, though, as I needed to sleep more than anything else. I have no plans for today either, although I might check with Lily, the ER doctor at Children's who recently moved into my building, to see if she and her husband Angel want to have dinner together.

Lucky boy, Darryl, with rain at your place. We still have terribly hight temperatures and no end in sight.

Wishing you a relaxed Sunday.

>105 Ameise1: I still can't believe how hot it's been in Europe this week, Barbara! 36 C (97 F) in Zürich? That would be excessively warm even in Hotlanta! I'm sorry to hear that you are experiencing this extreme heat. Do you have air conditioning? I hope that your temperatures return to normal soon.

>106 kidzdoc: It's been the same here - we had 35 degrees last week which was unbearable!

>103 kidzdoc: I loved The Stone raft too.

>106 kidzdoc: Darryl, we don't have ACs. Only shopping centres and modern business buildings have them. Also in public transportations only the very new ones have ACs and they cool down only a difference of 5C. So as you can see, we are suffering. The forecast is saying it will be so until Wednesday. *sigh*

>107 SandDune: That is unbearable unless you have access to A/C, Rhian. I couldn't imagine living in Atlanta without it; I'm normally cold natured, and prefer to have my place somewhere between 20-21 C at all times.

The Stone Raft is excellent. Caroline doesn't know what she's talking about.

>108 Ameise1: Ugh. I didn't have A/C in my apartment when I lived in Pittsburgh for four years during medical school, but I did have ceiling fans, and there would only be one or two days a year that I longed for A/C, as it rarely got above 30 C there. It was far more likely to drop to -15 to -20+ C in the winters there, and the coldest day I've ever experienced was in the 'Burgh, when the low was -30 C (-22 F), which set an all time record for the coldest day in the city's recorded history.

I hope that the forecasts are wrong, and that the temperatures drop to normal before Wednesday.

I'm NOT reading Stone Raft again. I like my wrists too much to want to risk marring them with an introduction to a scalpel. Now that I understand the dangers of suffering from stress I'd like not to subject myself to the risk of conversion disorder. :-p

Miffy was my favorite bunny when I was in kindergarten and elementary school. Actually given where you work, I'm surprised you haven't come across Miffy books at the hospital. I even had Miffy tee-shirts and a grubby Miffy plush toy whom I slept with. I think it's time you acquainted yourself with MIffy and her friends. The books are infinitesimally more enjoyable than The Stone Raft.

More vacation photos. On Monday of the week before last, Claire and I spent a very enjoyable day in Winchester, a city in Hampshire that is a little over 60 miles south of London. We boarded a South Western Main Line express train from London Waterloo Station and were in Winchester roughly an hour later. The skies were overcast in London, and by the time we reached Winchester it was raining moderately. Fortunately for us the rain soon abated, and it was mostly sunny and very comfortable for most of the remainder of the day.

We walked at a brisk pace, passing by Winchester Cathedral, which was not open to the public at the time we arrived there, as it was being set up for a ?flower festival that was to take place last Monday. The cathedral, one of the largest in England, was originally founded in 642, and the construction of the current structure was began in 1079. In addition to the preparation for the festival there was a significant amount of scaffolding on the outside of the main portion of the cathedral, which made it difficult to capture its overall beauty on film. Here's a photo of it from the Internet:



Here's a photo that I took of the Cathedral, toward the middle of the afternoon:



After we passed by the Cathedral we walked on the city's high street through the center of town. We walked through the Westgate, a former medieval gate which has been converted into a museum:



Another impressive building was the Winchester Guildhall, built in 1871:



As we were walking I asked Claire how far we were from London. The Guildhall provided us with the answer:



The Abbey House, built in the mid 18th century, serves as the official residence of the Mayor of Winchester, and is only one of five such residences in England:





I think I shall run for mayor there later this year.

Not far past Abbey House was the main channel of the River Itchen, which has smaller branches throughout Winchester:





We walked along the River Itchen, past the ruins of Wolvesey Castle (which we returned to later in the day), and proceeded on a footpath to the Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty. It was founded in 1132 by Henry of Blois, the Bishop of Winchester, and it is the oldest charitable institution in the United Kingdom. According to the web site, "The principal activity of the Hospital continues to be the provision of individual, private apartments for a living community of about twenty-five elderly men. Known as ‘Brothers’ they wear black or red gowns and a trencher hat for daily church and other formal occasions." The campus also includes a Norman church, a medieval hall and kitchen, a Tudor cloister, another ancient hall in the outer quad that serves as a tea room, and an immaculate and extensive garden. Even though it is a place for respite and reflection the Hospital is open to the public for a small fee.

I took a lot of photos during the approximately two hours that we spent there; these are a few of my favorites. First, the church, hospital and almshouse:

The Compton Garden was serene and peaceful, even though it had plenty of visitors including the two of us:

After our lovely visit to the Hospital of St Cross we walked back to the center of town along a different route:



This is the house in which Jane Austen spent her last days and died on 18 July 1817:



The relatively tiny Church of St Swithun-upon-Kingsgate, a place of worship and quiet reflection for over 750 years:









The Dean Garnier Garden, on the gardens of Winchester Cathedral:



Claire sitting in the garden:

We passed by the Winchester Cathedral a second time, hoping to be able to go inside, but to no avail. We walked back toward the River Itchen, and visited the ruins of Wolvesey Castle. It was built between 1130 and 1140 by Henry of Blois, the Bishop of Winchester who also founded the Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty, and it was destroyed in 1646 during the English Civil War.

















We walked back along the high street, stopping at the Winchester Oxfam Bookshop just before it closed. Claire both two books, I think, and I came away with The Accordionist's Son by Basque author Bernardo Atxaga. We had had lunch at a local pub earlier in the day, and we had tea and dessert at a café before we headed back to the train station, where we returned to and said goodbye from Waterloo Station.

That day out was one of the most enjoyable ones I've spent in England, and I thank Claire for showing me another very appealing English town and for her great company.

>110 cameling: SIGH. Alright, fine, don't re-read The Stone Raft then. Can I read it aloud the next time I see you?

I haven't heard of or seen the Miffy books. Are they readily available in the US? Surely they can't be more entertaining than a Saramago novel, though.

I've decided to gift some Miffy books to your workplace. You can read them to your young charges so that no child grows up with suffering this the tragedy of not getting to know her bunny world. I've just ordered the books and I'll send them your way soonish.

Wait.. did we agree to meet in person? I must have forgotten our plans already, how sad. The memory loss must have been triggered by your threat and seems to be expanding at an alarming rate. Who are you again?

>117 cameling: TYIA for your gifts to Children's! The kids will be grateful, assuming that I don't hoard the Miffy books for myself.

Who are you again?

LOL! If you are suffering from memory loss then I should remind you that your favorite baseball team are the Boston Red Sox, since you live so close to the city. The Yankees are the enemy.

Another batch of wonderful photos. thanks again.

Love the pictures, Darryl!

And on the Tour de France bit. On Saturday there was a time trial in the Utrecht. I watched it on tv and I saw lots of places we had visited including the Oude Gracht/ Old Canal where we had lunch with Tad, Julie and Maddy. You could see the water-bikes we saw moored to the embankment on the opposite site!

Woo hoo! The USA women's soccer team has just defeated Japan 5-2 to win its third FIFA World Cup, and the first since 1999:



A shout out goes to fellow Rutgers alumna Carli Lloyd. She scored three goals in this match, and scored the winning goals in the USA's previous three matches, so she will undoubtedly be named the MVP of the World Cup:

>119 catarina1: You're welcome, Catarina. I don't think I've posted photos of the LT meet up in Saffron Walden and Thaxted, or my picnic with Caroline in Chelsea Physic Garden, so those will be next, followed by the remainder of my photos from Edinburgh.

>120 connie53: You're welcome, Connie! I missed the Tour de France time trial in Utrecht yesterday, as I thought it was taking place today. I saw some highlights on YouTube, but none of them showed the Dom Tower or the Oude Gracht, unfortunately.

I picked up Outlaws on your recommendation. I'm only a few pages in but I'm enjoying it so far.

Lovely photos of your travels Darryl.

>111 kidzdoc: and following: What a lovely write-up of our day! We were lucky that the rain cleared and we had such a good afternoon to enjoy in the various gardens. It was good to go to Wolvesey Castle as I'd never been there before. I'll start thinking of some other good destinations for your next visit!

>111 kidzdoc: Now, you've got me humming 60s songs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKc1OCJ7iXk

>112 kidzdoc: The hospital and almshouse sound interesting.

Welcome home, Darryl. Again, your photos are spectacular! Thanks for sharing them and for the travel narrative which makes the photos come alive.

I want to tell you my friend is very grateful for the info you shared w/them, via me, regarding Barcelona. She said they probably would not have gone to the monestary if not for the info you and others supplied.
They took the train, went early before tour busses arrived and stayed to watch the boys choir. In general, they loved Barcelona's transportation system, the beach and cathedral, is it La Segrada?, were very pleasing as well. Thanks :0)

>95 kidzdoc: silly question alert....is the 4th of July about celebrating those in the armed forces? I thought it was like a "birth of a nation" kind of celebration. Has focus changed, or have I just got it wrong?

>121 kidzdoc: I heard that on the news here and 3 goals in 16 minutes, all by the same player! Wow.

>117 cameling: LOL! Caro, you are a card!

Hi Darryl! I've enjoyed catching up with all your holiday pictures. Sorry we didn't manage to meet up this time but glad to see it looks like you enjoyed your holiday.

Hi Darryl! I'm still enjoying your holiday photos, especially the ones from England. I'm looking forward to your Edinburgh photos.

I liked both Snow and My Name Is Red, although they're very different from each other. I'd give the edge to My Name Is Red, but only because I have a fondness for books with an art theme.

oh oh oh, I just want to add to what Carrie said. My Name is Red is my favorite book of all time! For me, it was all about perception. Artists from the west saw their subjects quite differently than those from the East. A real eye opener.

Just in case you haven't seen this already - Caine prize winner has been announced - Namwali Serpell.

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jul/07/caine-prize-goes-to-zambian-namwali...

Guardian article includes link to download the winning story: http://www.caineprize.com/pdf/2015%20The%20Sack%20-%20Namwali%20Serpell.pdf

My two day work week is over! I have a short week this week because I'll have a far busier schedule for the next two weeks starting Monday, as many of my partners will be leaving town to attend a pediatric hospitalist conference.

I finished Amsterdam: A Brief Life of the City by Geert Mak earlier this morning. It was very good, but it left me wanting to learn more about the city, especially the plight of its Jewish residents during World War II and the period that followed that war.

Thanks to the Millions I just downloaded the e-book Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit, a collection of essays in which the author "takes on the conversations between men who wrongly assume they know things and wrongly assume women don't. The ultimate problem, she shows in her comic, scathing essay, is female self-doubt and the silencing of women." Amazon US is selling it for $2.99.

The Millions also posted its Most Anticipated: The Great Second-Half 2015 Book Preview on Monday. These are the books that appeal to me the most, along with the date of release in the US:

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates (July): "A journalist who learned the ropes from David Carr, Coates is one of our most incisive thinkers and writers on matters of race. Coates is unflinching when writing of the continued racial injustice in the United States: from growing up in Baltimore and its culture of violence that preceded the Freddie Gray riots, to making the case for reparations while revealing the systematic racism embedded in Chicago real estate, to demanding that South Carolina stop flying the Confederate flag. In Between the World and Me, Coates grapples with how to inhabit a black body and how to reckon with America’s fraught racial history from a more intimate perspective — in the form of a letter to his adolescent son."

The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch (July): "The visionary editor of Chiasmus Press and first to publish books by Kate Zambreno and Lily Hoang is herself a fierce and passionate writer. Yuknavitch is the author of a gutsy memoir, The Chronology of Water, and Dora: A Headcase, a fictional re-spinning of the Freudian narrative. Her new novel, Small Backs of Children, deals with art, violence, and the very real effects of witnessing violence and conflict through the media."

Lovers on All Saints’ Day by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (July): "Winner of the International IMPAC Dublin Award for his novel The Sound of Things Falling, Vásquez is bringing out a collection of seven short stories never before published in English (nimbly translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean). The twinned themes of this collection are love and memory, which Vásquez unspools through stories about love affairs, revenge, troubled histories — whole lives and worlds sketched with a few deft strokes."

Among the Wild Mulattos and Other Tales by Tom Williams (July): "The recent passing of B.B. King makes Williams’s previous book, Don’t Start Me Talkin’ — a comic road novel about a pair of traveling blues musicians — a timely read. His new story collection also skewers superficial discussions of race; admirers of James Alan McPherson will enjoy Williams’s tragicomic sense. The book ranges from the hilarious “The Story of My Novel,” about an aspiring writer’s book deal with Cousin Luther’s Friend Chicken, to the surreal “Movie Star Entrances,” how one man’s quest to remake himself with the help of an identity consulting company turns nefarious. Williams can easily, and forcefully, switch tragic, as in “The Lessons of Effacement.” When the main character is followed, he thinks “When your only offenses in life were drinking out of the juice carton and being born black in these United States, what could warrant such certain persecution?” Williams offers questions that are their own answers, as in the final story, when a biracial anthropologist discovers that a hidden mulatto community is more than simply legend."

Flood of Fire by Amitav Ghosh (August): (I bought a copy of this book in London last month.) "Ghosh brings his Ibis Trilogy to a rousing conclusion with Flood of Fire. It’s 1839, and after China embargoes the lucrative trade of opium grown on British plantations in India, the colonial government sends an expeditionary force from Bengal to Hong Kong to reinstate it. In bringing the first Opium War to crackling life, Ghosh has illuminated the folly of our own failed war on drugs."

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie (September): "His latest follows the magically gifted descendants of a philosopher and a jinn, one of those seductive spirits who “emerge periodically to trouble and bless mankind.” These offspring are marshaled into service when a war breaks out between the forces of light and dark that lasts, you got it, two years, eight months, and 28 nights."

Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann (October): "With a title borrowed from the iconic Wallace Stevens poem “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” McCann explores disparate points of view in this collection of short stories. The title story follows a retired judge going about his day, not realizing it’s his last. Other stories peek into the life of a nun, a marine, and a mother and son whose Christmas is marked by an unexpected disappearance."

Death by Water by Kenzaburō Ōe (October): "Six years after Sui Shi came out in his native Japan, the 1994 Nobel Prize laureate’s latest is arriving in an English translation. In the book, which features Oe’s recurring protagonist Kogito Choko, a novelist attempts to fictionalize his father’s death by drowning at sea. Because the memory was traumatic, and because Choko’s family refuses to talk about his father, the writer begins to confuse his facts, eventually growing so frustrated he shelves his novel altogether. His quest is hopeless, or so it appears, until he meets an avant-garde theater troupe, which provides him with the impetus to keep going."

Submission by Michel Houellebecq: "This much-discussed satirical novel by the provocative French author is, as Adam Shatz wrote for the LRB, a “melancholy tribute to the pleasure of surrender.” In this case, the surrender is that of the French intelligentsia to a gently authoritarian Islamic government. The novel has been renounced as Islamophobic, defended against these charges in language that itself runs the gamut from deeply Islamophobic to, er, Islam-positive, and resulted in all kinds of moral-intellectual acrobatics and some very cute titles (“Colombey-les-deux-Mosquées” or “Slouching towards Mecca”)."

Numero Zero by Umberto Eco (November): "The Italian writer takes on modern Italy’s bete noire — Benito Mussolini — in Numero Zero. Moving deftly from 1945 to 1992 and back again, the book shows both the death of the dictator and the odyssey of a hack writer in Colonna, who learns of a bizarre conspiracy theory that says Il Duce survived his own murder. Though its plot is very different, the book pairs naturally with Look Who’s Back, the recent German novel about a time-traveling Adolf Hitler."

There are plenty of other books that also look appealing, so I would encourage you to look at this list yourself.

I saw that list a day or so ago and agree there was a lot of good stuff on it. Not surprisingly, our picks don't overlap very much - ha! I am on the library hold list for The Small Backs of Children, though, and will be buying a copy of the Ghosh so I have a matched set of the trilogy in those beautiful dust jackets. Maybe I'll even read them one day... *sigh*

Hope your return to Real Life hasn't been too traumatic, Darryl.

>123 TadAD: Excellent, Tad! I hope that you like Outlaws as much as Ellen and I did. It remains my favorite book of the year so far.

>124 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I'll post pictures from our afternoon in the Chelsea Physic Garden shortly.

>125 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire! We were fortunate to have such nice weather after a very rainy start to the day. I'm awaiting official confirmation from my partner, but it appears that my group's September schedule is finished, and that my vacation request was granted. Apparently I'll be off from work from the 9th through the 27th, so I'll probably spend the entire time in London instead of going to Amsterdam before or afterward.

>126 thornton37814: Ha! I love 1960s music, and I'm familiar with that tune, although I haven't heard it in years and never knew that it was titled Winchester Cathedral. Thanks for that YouTube link and memory, Lori!

The Hospital of St Cross and the Almshouse of Noble Poverty were very interesting, and I'm glad that Claire suggested going there.

>127 Carmenere: You're welcome, Lynda! I'm glad that you enjoyed my photos and descriptions of my travels.

I'm also glad that I could help your friends enjoy Barcelona. You're right, the church is la Sagrada Familia. I've requested two weeks of vacation in October, and if I get it I'll probably return to Barcelona then.

>128 LovingLit: is the 4th of July about celebrating those in the armed forces?

That isn't a silly question at all, Megan. You're exactly right, it's not about the men and women who serve in the US Armed Forces, but IMO all Americans should celebrate and honor those who have and continue to serve and defend our country every day of the year.

>129 souloftherose: Hi, Heather! I'm also sorry that we couldn't meet up last month, but hopefully we can get together in September.

>130 cbl_tn: Hi, Carrie! I'm glad that you've enjoyed the photos I've posted so far. I'll definitely catch up with the rest of them this week, as I'll mainly stay indoors due to the hot weather we'll have for the next five days.

I'm glad that you enjoyed Snow and My Name Is Red. I'll look at both of them in the next day or two, and if My Name Is Red seems more appealing I may read it before Snow.

>131 Carmenere: Ooh, thanks for that recommendation, Lynda. I'll take a close look at My Name Is Red soon.

>132 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte; I hadn't seen that, so I'll download the winning story and read it this week.

>134 katiekrug: Ha! I'm not surprised that our pick from The Millions' list didn't overlap much, Katie. There were several other books that I might look at and possibly buy (not the Franzen, though), but the books I posted are highly likely to end up in my library.

Even though the General Pediatrics service is unusually busy for this time of year my work days last week and this one weren't stressful. I had the pleasure of working with a very good third year pediatric resident from Emory on Monday and Tuesday who is going to be one of the chief residents next year and wants to be a hospitalist, so she was both very motivated and very competent. We split up the patients on my list, so she shared my workload with me and made my days much better ones.

Caroline (@Caroline_McElwee) is a member of London's Chelsea Physic Garden, and she invited me to join her for a picnic lunch and a tour of the Garden last month. Located just north of the Thames, it was founded in 1673 by "the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries for its apprentices to study the medicinal qualities of plants and it became one of the most important centres of botany and plant exchange in the world." It is also the second oldest botanical garden in the United Kingdom, after the Botanic Garden at the University of Oxford, which was founded in 1621.

We were blessed with a perfect afternoon to visit the Garden, with mostly sunny skies and a seasonable temperature. Caroline prepared a nice lunch for us, which we ate while sitting on one of her favorite benches:



Selected photos:







Caroline in the Garden:

After our visit to the Garden we went to the British Museum, met Claire (@Sakerfalcon), and saw the Indigenous Australia exhibition, which is on until August 2nd. The exhibition consisted of works from the museum's collection, along with ones commissioned for it. It was a somewhat controversial exhibition, as indigenous Australians and their supporters want the museum to give their long held items back to the people who created them, and protestors did demonstrate soon after the exhibition opened, although we didn't see any of them during our visit.



Photography was not permitted, so here are some images of the exhibition from the Internet:









For me, the most memorable portion of the exhibition came at very end. There we were treated to works by the master weaver Abe Muriata that were commissioned for the exhibition, along with a video of him describing the traditional art of basket weaving, which he and others are keeping alive. This is a photo of him and Prince Charles in Australia:



Claire and I said goodbye to Caroline, and we met Luci (@elkiedee) for dinner at Tas, an Anatolian Turkish restaurant that was close to the museum. I had patlican salatasi (grilled aubergine purée with tahini, olive oil, yogurt and garlic) as an appetizer:



My entrée was kalamar yahnisi (squid cooked with green lentils, chickpeas, double cream and orange rind):



The service at Tas was glacially slow, but the meal was very good.

Hi Darryl! Love this latest round of photos. Flowers, art and food. Oh, my!

A friend shared this link with me- 32 Essential Asian-American Writers You Need To Be Reading:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jarrylee/essential-asian-american-writers-you-need-to-be...

^This definitely is something that you will enjoy. This is such a wonderfully rich field of artists.

>139 msf59: Thanks for that link, Mark! There are several familiar authors in that list, but there are plenty of writers who I haven't heard of before, so I'll look at their books in more detail this week.

I listened to a recorded edition of Snow a couple of years ago and found it interesting. It was not an exciting novel, but it was interesting because of the point-of-view of the argument. It is also clear that Pamuk is trying to make a point with the novel so from that perspective it could be said that it is a political novel. I have a Turkish friend and he told me once that Pamuk is just an old crank who turns everything into some kind of philosophical question and answer session. In the case of Snow, the question he turns inside out and back again is that of headscarves. By the time you finish the novel you will not want to hear about them again. But I think that might be the point.

I also read his book Istanbul: Memories and the City and I liked this book. It was a series of essays he wrote about his life and his home. It made me want to go to Istanbul for a good long visit. However, I like to read travelogues and other travel books, so take that thumbs-up from a person addicted to the genre. This book made Pamuk the kind of person I would like to meet as well as giving me itchy feet for traveling.

Wonderful images of the gardens (and food). Just lovely. I try to remember to go to our own botanic gardens as much as possible as it is a lovely wander, and the landscaping and paths create a lot of little quiet enclaves to explore. The kids love it too.

Darryl, your thread is a feast for the eyes!
And the patrician salatasi and kalamar yahnisi look and sound delicious.

I read and enjoyed My Name is Red a few years ago. I tried and could not get into Snow but it's still on the TBR shelves.

Hi, Darryl! I'm enjoying your vacation vicariously--great photos!

Thanks for reminding me about The Millions. I always get wonderful suggestions from their lists. I'll be looking forward to the McCann.

>141 benitastrnad: Thanks for those comments about Snow, Benita. I'll come back to them after I've finished the book.

I love travelogues, and I'm very interested in visiting Istanbul, so I'll add Istanbul: Memories and the City to my wish list. I should also try to get to A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar sooner rather than later; according to Pamuk it's the best book ever written about Istanbul.

>142 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan! I love visiting parks and gardens, and although my knowledge of plants is limited I do enjoy colorful flowers and attractive trees.

The Atlanta Botanical Garden is in my neighborhood, and I live a couple of blocks away from Piedmont Park, the largest one in the city. I had hoped to sit in the park and possibly visit the garden this week, but with high temperatures of 34-35 C every day this week I'll mainly stay indoors.

>143 EBT1002: Thanks, Ellen! I'll post photos of our group outing in Essex today, and finish with the Edinburgh photos this weekend.

The meal at Tas was very good, although we had to wait roughly two hours to get our food.

I'm glad to hear that you liked My Name Is Red. I'll see if I can get to it this quarter, or possibly read it before Snow. There is something appealing about reading a book with a wintery title in the middle of a hot summer day, though.

>144 Cariola: Thanks, Deborah! There are three more days' worth of photos to come.

I love The Millions' biannual list, as it contains more books that interest me than any other source I've found so far.

Soon after I arrived in London last month, a group of LTers met to spend a Sunday afternoon in Essex, roughly 55 miles north of central London. Bryony (@BBGirl55) and I met at St Pancras Station in London, took a Victoria Line Underground train to Tottenham Hale, and boarded a West Anglia Main Line train to Audley End station. From there we walked to The Fighting Cocks, a pub in Wenders Ambo, for a proper Sunday roast:



We met Rhian and her husband Alan at the pub, which hadn't opened yet, so we took a quick drive through nearby Saffron Walden and passed the Audley End House and Gardens, a 17th century country mansion that is one of the finest in England. We didn't go in, so this photo is from the Internet:



Shortly after we returned to The Fighting Cocks Fliss and Jenny arrived.

Clockwise from left to right: Fliss (@flissp), me, Bryony, Rhian (@SandDune), Alan (aka MrSandDune), and Jenny (@lunacat):



I had met everyone at least twice except for Alan. He was very warm and a great conversationalist with an excellent sense of humor, and it was a pleasure to meet and spend an afternoon with him, along with everyone else.

Despite Bryony's and Rhian's insistence that I have a proper Sunday roast, which I hadn't had before, I was a typically rebellious American and chose to have the Moroccan lamb instead, which was very good. However, I kept my contrariness in check and put gravy on my Yorkshire pudding instead of butter and jam, due to the likelihood that I would be dismissed, if not dismembered, by the Yorkshireman Alan and the other patrons in the pub. The waitress was very pleasant and entertaining, and the meal and our conversation was most enjoyable.

After our Sunday roast we drove to the center of nearby Saffron Walden, a market town with medieval roots. The town's market dates back to the year 1141, and the market continues to be in operation on Tuesdays and Saturdays.

The Market Square, with the Market Cross:



The town Guildhall:



The Saffron Walden Library:



After we left the Market Square we walked to the ruins of Walden Castle, which was built from 1141 to 1143 by Geoffrey de Mandeville, the First Earl of Essex. He did so in order to gain further control over the region during the period known as The Anarchy (1135-1154), in which lawlessness reigned in England and Normandy. De Mandeville openly rebelled against King Stephen of England, and ultimately died as the result of an arrow wound in 1144. The unfinished castle was slighted (partially demolished) on the order of King Henry II in 1157, and only its ruins remain today.





We then proceeded to St Mary's Church, the largest parish church in Essex, which dates from the end of the 15th century. It was heavily damaged by a lightning strike in 1769, and it was extensively renovated in the 1790s. The church spire was added in 1832.

We said goodbye to Fliss and Jenny in Saffron Walden (if I remember correctly), and the remaining four of us drove from there to Thaxted, a small town in Essex that is most notable for the Thaxted Parish Church. Dedicated to John the Baptist and other saints, its construction began in 1340 and was completed in 1510.









After we left the cathedral we walked to the center of Thaxted, and saw the Thaxted Guidhall and Dick Turpin's Cottage. Dick Turpin (1705-1739) was a notorious but romanticized highwayman who was best known for highway robbery and horse stealing. He was ultimately caught and executed by hanging.

Dick Turpin's cottage in Thaxted, which was likely purchased with stolen money:



My photos of the Thaxted Guildhall, which was built sometime in the 15th century, didn't turn out well, so this is a photo of it from the site's web page:



We left Thaxted, and Alan & Rhian drove Bryony and I to Bishop's Stortford station, where we caught a train back to London after a very enjoyable LT meet up.

I'm loving all these photographs, Darryl. When you return to Amsterdam, make a trip out to the Alkmaar Cheese Market. It was really fun watching their cheese auctions and there was LOTS of food to sample too.

>149 cameling: I'm glad that you're enjoying the photos, Caroline. Thanks for your suggestion of visiting Alkmaar; I just read a bit about it, and I would like to visit that cheese market. It looks as though it's easy to get there by train from Amsterdam Centraal, so I'll add that to the list of things I'd like to do during my next visit there.

Your day in Essex looks great. My aunt and uncle live in Saffron Walden but we haven't visited them there since I was a child, so I don't remember the town at all. I think there is some Civil War history there, because I remember them sending me a postcard of something related for a primary school project.

I don't think I'd call Dick Turpin's home a cottage, based on that picture!

Saffron Walden is a lovely town, we were fortunate to live near there for a few years and visited at least once a week for routine errands and restaurants. And the library of course! Audley End is also a really nice place to visit.

>146 kidzdoc: what a lovely photo of the meetup. Some LT celebs in that group! What a great pub too, the names are amazing, aren't they?
Incredible ancient houses too! talk about topsy turvey on that last one. Looks like Dr Seuss designed it ;)

Great photos, Darryl. Hope you're squared away being back home, and that you have some relaxing weekend time.

Looking back at your photos from your trip, what a contrast to the buildings you're surrounded by now that you're home. Since you were away for such a long time, it must have been a little jarring to return to life here?

I've finally finished organizing and tagging my Edinburgh photos, so I'll post some of them here today and tomorrow. That should complete the photos from this holiday, although I still need to post theatre and book reviews, which I'll do next week.

>151 Sakerfalcon: Thanks, Claire. Yes, there is (English) Civil War history in and around Saffron Walden.

That's a pretty shabby excuse for a cottage, which is the second one in that photo, and Dick Turpin may not have ever lived there. However, there is a plaque above the door that states "Dick Turpin's Cottage" on it, which you can see better in this photo from the Internet:



>152 lauralkeet: Saffron Walden was a lovely town, and it would have been nice to have visited the market, but it isn't open on Sundays (as you probably know).

>153 LovingLit: Thanks, Megan. That pub would have been appreciated by fans and alumni of the University of South Carolina, whose mascot is a fighting gamecock:



The Thaxted Guildhall looks considerably less sturdy in that photo than it did when we were inside of it!

>154 jnwelch: Thanks, Joe. I'm still adjusting to being back in the US, which I'm starting to think is due more to the new anti-hypertensive medications that I'm taking than to a difference in time zones. I've been sleepy for the past few weeks and I haven't been sleeping well; I've been awake since just before 1 am after sleeping for most of the late afternoon and early evening hours. Hopefully I can get back on a normal sleep schedule by Monday morning, when I have to return to work.

>155 cameling: You're right, Caroline. Being back in Atlanta and the US, and returning to work, has been quite an adjustment, although working has been easier than adjusting to these new medications. They are working well, and I hope that I'll eventually get used to them, rather than having to switch to others that make me less drowsy.

My first full day in Edinburgh was spent exploring Old Town, as my hotel was half a block away from the Royal Mile and a very short distance from St Giles' Cathedral, although I didn't spend much time on the street or go into the cathedral until the following day. My first stop was the nearby National Museum of Scotland, located on Chambers Street. To get there I had to walk a short distance on High Street (a portion of the Royal Mile), then turn onto George IV Bridge and walk several blocks to the museum. En route I passed no small number of interesting buildings.

St. Giles' Cathedral, more properly known as the High Kirk of St. Giles, is the parish church of Old Town, and dates back to the 14th century:



Two portions of Edinburgh Central Library:





This striking building is next to the Central Library, but I'm still not sure if it's part of it or not:



The Elephant House, a café where J.K. Rowling reportedly came up with the idea for Harry Potter:



The National Museums of Scotland consist of two adjacent buildings, the former Royal Museum of Scotland and the Museum of Scotland:

(I think I posted museum photos already; if not I'll post a few later today.)

After a visit to the superb National Museums of Scotland and an equally excellent (although overpriced) lunch at the Tower Restaurant on the roof of the museum I walked toward the University of Edinburgh, in order to visit the world famous Medical School.

This is Bedlam Theatre​, the oldest student-run theatre in the United Kingdom, which is owned by The University of Edinburgh​. It was formerly the home of the New North Free Church and was built in the early 19th century:



Greyfriars Bobby's Bar, which is dedicated to Greyfriars Bobby​, "a Skye Terrier who became known in 19th-century Edinburgh for supposedly spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner until he died himself on 14 January 1872."



One of the buildings that comprise the University of Edinburgh Medical School. Established in 1726 (although medical education at the university dates back to the early 16th century), it is the top ranked medical school in Scotland, and the third ranked medical school in the UK, after Oxford and Cambridge. Edinburgh Medical School was highly influential on the development of medical education in the United States and the rest of the developed world; the founders of five of the seven Ivy League medical schools, namely Penn, Harvard, Yale, Columbia and Dartmouth, are Edinburgh alumni. The school has produced dozens of highly influential physicians, and it continues to be one of the top research institutions in the world.



Old College, the first building on the University of Edinburgh's campus:



Other campus buildings:

After I left the university campus I walked to nearby Word Power Books, an independent bookstore with a leftist bent that is popular with authors. I had three books in mind, and found all of them there:

Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh: A novel in the form of short stories about a group of young heroin addicts and their companions in 1980s Leith, a district just north of the city of Edinburgh. It was chosen for the 1993 Booker Prize longlist.

And the Land Lay Still by James Roberston: A sweeping saga of life in late 20th century Scotland, which won the Scottish Book of the Year Award in 2010.

Scottish History Without the Boring Bits by Ian Crofton: Word Power featured this book on its web site, and the title was irresistible to me.

Word Power had an excellent selection of books, and the staff was very friendly. Unfortunately I didn't do justice to the bookshop with this photo:



After I left Word Power I walked up Nicolson Street, back toward the Royal Mile, with the intention of visiting the Surgeons' Hall Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons of Scotland. Unfortunately it was closed for renovations, and most of its exterior was covered with plywood and scaffolding, so I couldn't get a good picture of it. This is what it should look like:



After that disappointment I decided to have coffee and a scone at Black Medicine Coffee Company, a nice café that Fliss recommended, then walked back toward the hotel, passing several more interesting buildings along the way.



Edinburgh Festival Theatre:



Parliament House, home of the Supreme Law Courts:



I believe that this building is also part of Parliament House:



I returned to my hotel, ordered room service for dinner, and called it a night.

You have so many lovely photos, Darryl, from your trip. Did you keep some sort of journal to remember the names of the buildings and notes of each place?

>160 cameling: Thanks, Caroline. One of my tricks is to take photos of the signs of buildings, the plaques of monuments, or the small descriptive signs of paintings and sculptures, to help me remember what it was that I saw. However, I often have to resort to maps, guidebooks, or the Internet to help me when I don't know what I took a photo of, such as the Central Library and the building next to it. It's time consuming, but it makes the trips much more meaningful, and memorable, if I take the time to do it.

Normally what I'll do at the end of a day is upload photos from my camera's SD card or my smartphone into Facebook albums or posts, and fill in the details later. I usually do it that same day, but I fell way behind during this trip, and didn't get to do most of that work until I returned to Atlanta.

Love the Edinburgh photos! My only visit was 11 years ago. I was with a tour group with several coworkers. Our hotel was next to the Water of Leith and my most vivid memories are from the Water of Leith Walkway.

>157 kidzdoc: Glad you made it to Wordpower books. Great book haul. I can't work out from your pics of the library (and my own dodgy memory) whether your second picture is of the side of the music section of the library, which had a separate entrance. I think this road featured in the BBC serialisation of Kate Atkinson's Jackson Brodie novels, the setting for his office.

I love the way those buildings have such an amazing structure, opening onto the bridge but with floors going all the way down to the Cowgate below.

Thanks for reminding me of what a lovely place Edinburgh is to visit. Did the Tower restaurant have a good view?

Great photos of the monumental architecture of Edinburgh Darryl.

>162 cbl_tn: You're welcome, Carrie. I had no idea that a river ran through Edinburgh, and in looking on my map I see that I wouldn't have passed by it during my limited travels in the city. I'll have to stay longer and explore the city and area more the next time I go there.

>163 charl08: Thanks, Charlotte. From what I read, the music library is connected to the Central Library, but that building is away from the Royal Mile, whereas the one in my photo is in the direction of Royal Mile, on George IV Bridge.

This was the view I had from my table at Tower Restaurant, which shows the monuments on Calton Hill:



>164 Caroline_McElwee: Thanks, Caroline. I'll post the remaining photos tomorrow.

ETA: Google comes to the rescue. That building next to the Central Library, on the corner of Victoria Street and George IV Bridge, is the Fine Art Department of the Central Library, according to two sources.

My second full day in Edinburgh was mostly cloudy, intermittently rainy, windy and at times quite brisk. The high temperature was reportedly 14 C (57 F), but it felt much cooler than that at times, especially in the afternoon. I started by walking on the segment of the Royal Mile heading east from St Giles' Street, where my hotel was located, down to its end at Horse Wynd and the Queen's Gallery.

Immediately to the east of St Giles' Cathedral is the Edinburgh Mercat Cross (Scottish for Market Cross), which marks the site of a market square, as I mentioned previously. This cross was built in 1882 and replaced a 14th century cross that was installed nearby. St Giles' Cathedral is immediately to the right in this photo.



Edinburgh City Chambers, built from 1753-1761 to house the Council of the City of Edinburgh:



The Tron Kirk​, a former 17th century parish church that now hosts the Royal Mile Market:



Two of the oldest residential houses in Edinburgh sit next to each other on the Royal Mile: Moubray House, whose foundation was laid in 1477:



and John Knox House, which dates back to 1490:



A portion of the Old Tolbooth, which was completed in 1591 and originally served as a booth to collect tolls from people entering Edinburgh. Canongate, which immediately follows that portion of the Royal Mile, was separate from Edinburgh at that time:



Today a section of the Old Tolbooth has been converted into Tolbooth Tavern, a pub which has served customers since 1820:

Just past the Old Tolbooth is the Kirk of the Canongate​, the parish church of the Canongate, which was built between 1688 and 1691:





The Kirkyard is a graveyard that was in use from the 1680s to the mid 20th century, and it is the burial site for several notable Canongate residents, most notably Adam Smith, "the father of modern economics", and the influential Scottish poet Robert Fergusson (1750-1774), who died at the tender age of 24.







A statue of Robert Fergusson stands just outside of the Kirk's gates:



The Royal Mile Primary School, formerly known as the Milton House Public School, which provides education to 5-11 year old children:



The frontage of the very unconventional Scottish Parliament Building​. It was designed by the Catalunyan architect Enric Miralles​ and opened in 2004 to house the Scottish Parliament, which was created after a 1997 referendum by the Scottish electorate in order to legislate on most Scottish domestic affairs. From 1707, after the Act of Union that united the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, to 1999, Scotland was directly governed from London, without a legislature of its own.



More photos of this striking building:







The Queen's Gallery, an art gallery at the entrance of Holyrood Palace​. It was originally built to serve as the home of the Holyrood Free Church, and it was last used as a house of worship in 1915.



A portion of the Salisbury Crags can be seen just to the south of the Scottish Parliament Building:

I stopped for lunch at Oink, a local shop run by local farmers which features hog roast sandwiches. I ordered a hog roast roll with haggis ("a savoury pudding containing sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock", according to Wikipedia) and a chunky apple sauce. The lovely young Scottish woman who took my order was visibly pleased and surprised that I chose haggis for my sandwich, as she said that it was a "hard sell" to American customers. I loved that sandwich, though!

Unfortunately, as Laura and Katherine said, I have no excuse to avoid eating scrapple now.

After lunch I decided to take a ride on a hop on, hop off tour bus, and get a good view of the city, given that I had a limited amount of time to be there, and I took photos along the way.

Another view of the Salisbury Crags:



The home of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh:



A view of Princes Street in New Town, with Jenners, a major department store, behind the trees to the left, and the Scott Monument, dedicated to Sir Walter Scott, to the right. It is the tallest monument to an author in the world.



A better view of Jenners:



A lovely Scottish lass played bagpipes outside of the Scott Monument as the bus was waiting at a stop:



Edinburgh Castle, as seen from Princes Street:





Usher Hall, a critically acclaimed concert hall loved by musicians for its excellent acoustics:



Tollbooth Church House, better known as The Hub, the home base of the Edinburgh International Festival​:



The Royal Scottish Academy:



A partial view of the Scottish National Gallery, adjacent to the Royal Scottish Academy:



It's getting close to 7 am, so as usual I'll go to the supermarket, get breakfast, and start cooking. I'll post the remaining Edinburgh photos later today.

Happy Sunday, Darryl.

>169 Ameise1: Thanks, Barbara! I hope that you're enjoying your Sunday as well.

I had a productive Sunday morning, which always makes me happy. I've already made a batch of Zuppa Toscana, the Moroccan lentil and vegetable stew will be done in a few minutes (both recipes are favorites of mine from Budget Bytes), and I just finished having lunch; Publix had some nice looking precooked lemon dill salmon burgers on sale, so I just finished having one of them with a banana, yogurt, and a glass of red(?) wine. I'll complete the Budget Bytes trifecta later this afternoon, as I'll try one of Beth's new recipes, Crunchy Chinese Chicken Salad, which I'll have for dinner. The dressing is marinating in the refrigerator now. Yesterday I made another batch of Chinese Tofu Scramble, using the recipe I found on One Green Planet, and I made Heather's white chicken chili in my slow cooker overnight, which was ready when I woke up this morning. I now have plenty of food to last the work week.

On the reading front I finished the new translation of Albert Camus's The Stranger yesterday by Sandra Smith, which was published as The Outsider in 2012. I wanted to re-read it, for the third quarter Reading Globally theme of Nobel Prize laureates who wrote in languages other than English, but especially because I wanted to have it fresh in my mind before I started The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud. This novel was published earlier this year, and the protagonist is the unnamed brother of the Arab man that Meursault murdered on the beach in Algiers in The Stranger. It's excellent so far, and I should finish it today.

Darryl, I can't thank you enough for posting your travel photos and sharing your trip. I deeply appreciate that you take the time to include us in your travels.

Thank you for posting your travel photos, Darryl! Makes me want to go book a trip to Edinburgh right now. ;-)

>168 kidzdoc: Great photos, Darryl.

>169 Ameise1: Cool fire engine, even if I am a little old for it.

Thanks so much, Darryl, for the photos. We all enjoy your travels.

>173 weird_O: Isn't it? We turned several kids vessels when they didn't use them anymore into special 'flower pots' :-). But that one isn't ours.

I did make Beth's Crunchy Chinese Chicken Salad from Budget Bytes for dinner yesterday, and it turned out better than I thought it would.



Here's the recipe:

Crunchy Chinese Chicken Salad

Ingredients

DRESSING
¼ cup Canola or vegetable oil $0.17
3 Tbsp rice vinegar $0.33
1 Tbsp honey $0.15
1 tsp soy sauce $0.10
½ tsp ground ginger (dried) $0.05
⅛ tsp garlic powder $0.02
½ tsp toasted sesame oil $0.29
Freshly cracked pepper $0.05

SALAD
1 head (2 lbs.) Napa cabbage $2.86
2 carrots $0.24
4 green onions $0.38
¼ cup sliced almonds (or chopped peanuts) $0.66
1 pkg (3oz.) uncooked ramen noodles, seasoning discarded $0.29
½ rotisserie chicken (about 2 cups chopped) $3.50

Instructions

Prepare the dressing first by combining the oil, vinegar, honey, soy sauce, ginger, garlic powder, sesame oil, and pepper in a jar or bowl. Shake the jar or whisk the ingredients in a bowl until combined. The dressing will separate a bit as it sits, but will be stirred again prior to adding to the salad.

Rinse the cabbage well and shake off as much excess moisture as possible. Slice the cabbage into thin strips and add it to a bowl (about 8 cups of shredded cabbage). Peel the carrots and then shred them using a large holed cheese grater. Slice the green onions. Add the carrots, green onions, and almonds to the bowl.

Before opening the package of ramen, crush the noodles using the heel of your hand. Open the package, discard the seasoning envelope, and add the crushed noodles to the bowl.

Pull the meat from half of a rotisserie chicken, then chop it into small pieces (or use two cups of pre-cooked chopped chicken). Add the chicken to the bowl. Give the dressing a brief stir, then pour it over the salad ingredients in the bowl. Stir until everything is evenly coated in dressing, then serve.
______________________________

The Napa cabbage I found at Publix was deceptively large (I suspect that it weighed closer to 4 lb), so I only used half of it. I used 2 lb of freshly cooked chicken thighs that I had left over in my freezer, along with 1/2 cup of sliced almonds. This recipe makes a perfect summer salad, and I'll prepare it on a regular basis from now on.

>171 Whisper1: Thanks, Linda!

>172 lkernagh: You're welcome, Lori!

>173 weird_O: Thanks, Bill. I like that fire engine as well.

>174 catarina1: You're welcome, catarina. I'll post the last batch of photos, which I took in St Giles' Cathedral, after work today or later in the week.

>175 Ameise1: Nice, Barbara. I look forward to reading more about your upcoming holiday!

I don't have a picture, but about a week ago I was attracted to a salad recipe on the side of a can of black beans. Even though it was too hot to cook this weekend, I had to have something to eat for the coming week and I wanted something that would be cool and refreshing as well as light and filling. Mango Black Bean Salad sounded just right, so I whipped up a big batch. Then on Sunday night I attended a memorial service for a friend of mine who was a professor in Aerospace Engineering here at UA. He died unexpectedly two weeks ago and the memorial service was held at a local tap room. The service was at a local brew pub because he was a very good guitar player and he played at open mics around town and was an extra player for several local bands when they found themselves short. He was a local regular but never made music his profession as he was first and foremost a teacher. He loved locally brewed beers and was especially fond of potlucks at bars. He always brought a dozen deviled eggs to any party. To honor him one of his favorite local breweries and tap rooms provided the pulled pork and the rest of us brought side dishes for the party. I took my salad and it was delicious. A local farmer's market staple baker "HipPies" brought Chilton County Peach pies along with Pecan pie and Blueberry Balsamic pie. They were delicious. Even though it was too hot to party, and it was a sad occasion, it was a good time for all.

I've loved your travelogue and photos, as always, Darryl. Why is it that the ruins appeal to me more than the intact cathedrals?? Soooo....you've eaten and enjoyed haggis, eh? (You know where I'm going with this, right?) Breakfast at my house some chilly fall morning, and I'll cook you some crispy scrapple that will make a believer out of you!

Great photos. Looks like the Edinburgh weather I had there 30 years ago: grey, grey, and more grey. Which goe well with all the grey stone!

Speaking of Budget Bytes, I made the mujaddara last week. It was really good and made a lot.

I have about 120 pages left in Snow. I haven't been enjoying it, but every now and then there is an interesting part.

I enjoyed the photos again this time as much as I did on FB the first time around.

I just finished another bowl of the Crunchy Chinese Chicken Salad for dinner, and it tasted even better one day later.

>178 benitastrnad: I enjoyed reading about your weekend, Benita. I'll have to look for other summer salads, and a mango black bean salad is definitely appealing.

One of the nurse practitioners on the Psychiatry service and I often talk about recipes and cooking, and we chatted this afternoon after she saw my Facebook post about the Crunchy Chinese Chicken Salad. I told her that a group of us ate at one of Yotam Ottolenghi's restaurants in London last month, and she told me that his cookbook Plenty is one of the three that she uses the most. (I purchased the Kindle version of it earlier this year.) She is going to let me know some of her favorite recipes in the book later this week, including a couple of his salads, and I'll probably give at least one of them a try this coming weekend.

>179 laytonwoman3rd: Thanks, Linda. I highly enjoyed visiting the ruined castles in Winchester and Saffron Walden, along with the Ruins of St Alban's Church in Cologne, but I liked the (mostly) intact Rochester Castle that Claire, Bryony and I visited last year a little better, and I love visiting medieval cathedrals and other buildings that are still in use, including the Hospital of St Cross and Almshouse of Noble Poverty that Claire and I saw in Winchester last month.

Laura and Katherine called me out after I posted a description of the roast hog sandwich with haggis and apple sauce from Oink on my Facebook timeline last month. If we're able to get a group together to meet up in Philadelphia next month I assume that I'll have to give scrapple a try then. Hmm...I could tell them that I'm waiting to try your version of it, though, to buy myself a little more time.

>180 Cariola: Thanks, Deborah. There was a very brief bit of sunshine during my visit to Edinburgh, which you can see best in the photo of the Kirk of the Canongate. That didn't last for long, though, and after I had lunch at Oink the skies were completed covered by dark clouds.

>181 Tara1Reads: I'm glad that you liked the mujaddara, dieKatze. I'll have to give it another try soon, although I'll probably make Adas Polo, a somewhat similar Iranian dish, first.

Hmm. That's far from a ringing endorsement of Snow. I may read My Name Is Red before I get to it.

>182 thornton37814: Thanks, Lori!

I have to own I had a problem with Snow too. I think I put it aside half read some years ago. I don't do that too often. I think I felt it was like dragging a lead weight behind me.

I enjoyed the first half of Snow and then it seemed to turn into a different book, from what I remember. I found it interesting but probably won't reread it. I do, however, want to read My name is red, and my mum really enjoyed his non-fiction book about growing up in Istanbul.

>183 kidzdoc: >179 laytonwoman3rd: Scrapple! I love scrapple. Crispy is best, yes. Other Pennsylvania Dutch delicacies include headcheese and souse (but not for me). We usually have it (scrapple) when our daughter visits from Boston, where it is hard to get.

#184 & 185
Snow has some problems. I found it a bit didactic, and it is clear that Pamuk is trying to make a political point. I think that is what gets in the way of the story. It is also clear to me that he believes that unless people have the freedom to dress as they wish that things will end up in violence. This is silly and he realizes that as well. When I read the book I wondered how much of the wit and wording got lost in the translation. Even so, I thought it was worth the time to read because I learned more about Turkey. For one thing, this book is not set in Istanbul, proving that there are other areas of the country and that they have their opinions and thoughts about politics that might not be the same as in the political capitals. Aside from the book about Istanbul this one is the only other Pamuk work I have read, so I am not an expert on Pamuk and I should read more of his stuff. He is a controversial author - even in Turkey, but as my Turkish friend pointed out - Turks read his stuff and his work always makes them talk among themselves about it. Sort of like Gunther Grass.

Woo! I did get my two week September vacation request, and I'll be off from Sep 9-27. I made hotel and flight reservations this morning, and I'll leave for London on the 9th, and return to Atlanta on the 26th.

>184 Caroline_McElwee: Yikes. Your comments make me want to think twice about reading Snow, Caroline.

>185 Sakerfalcon: You too, Claire? Hmm...maybe I'll read My Name Is Red, instead. Has anyone read The Museum of Innocence by Pamuk?

>186 weird_O: Despite growing up relatively close to Pennsyvlania Dutch Country (in Bucks County) I've never had scrapple or head cheese.

>187 benitastrnad: Thanks for those comments about Snow and Pamuk, Benita.

De-lurking so you know I saw that scrapple reference upthread. Cue diabolical laugh!!

I laid down for what I thought would be a 1-2 hour nap at 7 pm last night. I woke up refreshed...at 4 am.

>189 lauralkeet: I knew I'd hear from you and/or Katherine sooner or later, Laura! How about this: if we can organize a group meet up in Philadelphia one day next month I agree to give scrapple a try. I'll arrive there on August 13th and leave on August 28th. I have plans on the 22nd through the 24th, but otherwise the rest of my schedule is wide open at the moment.

>190 kidzdoc: Oh! Can I come? That would be cool.

Absolutely, Bill! The more the merrier. We had a great turnout two years ago for a meet up in Philadelphia, as 18-20 LTers met for a weekend in Center City. My parents live just north of the city, and I can get there easily on SEPTA Regional Rail.

We should start discussing dates soon.

>190 kidzdoc: Oh, I'm watching too. :-) How about if you set up a thread in the meetup group and see who wants to witness the event?

>193 qebo: Great idea, Katherine. I've just created a August Philadelphia LT meet up? thread in the LibraryThing Gatherings and Meetups group.

This thread is taking a long time to load. Instead of posting the remainder of the Edinburgh photos here I'll create a new thread and post them there. I'll post a link to the proposed Philadelphia meet up there as well.

Good idea - my computer is pretty fast, and it's still taking a long time to load.