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More adventures
Traveling woman Dot has been having a great time traveling to conferences in Germany and England. According to her, the best beer is in Dusseldorf, a great city. She spent the first evening drinking beer at cafes along the Rhine and watching the crazy Germans with her companions. The next morning, as they explored the town, they discovered that Dusseldorf was having a festival. Every few minutes a German brass band would come marching by. The trumpets had velvet flags and all the musicians were dressed up - some in Three Musketeer style outfits, others in lederhosen and feathered caps. There was even an old man walking down the sidewalk pushing a hand crank wooden cart that played music (alas, no monkey). Dot next headed to Aachen, which is even more beautiful than Dusseldorf. While the womenfolk in her group went to bed early in preparation for the start of the conference the next morning, the lads were not so sensible. The last one wandered in about 5 the next morning. In spite of the questionable medieval knight dinner for conference attendees, it is fair to say that Germany is a hidden gem, a wonderful place to visit that seems to also be a wonderful place to live. The Germans should be very proud of their beautiful country and their cafe-filled cities with pedestrian areas and lovely beer, too. 
Aachen town centre (left) and Oxford dining hall (right) Niamh I do not try to trick the baby into thinking I have breasts. That would be wrong. She does, however, sometimes question Dot on what on Earth Dot's doing giving her these lumps o' flesh when she really just wants a nice bottle. She then will look at me imploringly, but I just shake my head and chuckle at her that we need to humour Dot, but, not to worry, Dot will leave soon and we can get back to our nice routine. 
Niamh’s recent discovery is the joy of hands, putting them together and staring in complete amazement. This is the sort of intellectual curiosity that W can only dream about. She also liked it when we fed the ducks, pigeons, and canalgulls. Niamh really liked it when I put the bread on her lap and the pigeons hopped right on. (I didn’t actually do that, though I was tempted.) We had literally zillions of birds around us - it was neat. In general, she’s getting more and more active and aware, as babies do. All the moms at Lindsay Road School oohed and aahed at how much she’s grown over the summer, etc. However, I’ve noticed a very cute baby newer than Niamh, so I suspect the attention will soon be re-directed. Lindy Lindy has gone back to school, which means that I have to listen to more incomprehensible things in Irish. When translated, they usually mean things like, “The boy has a blue parrot.” I’ve stopped asking for translations. She had a great time when her friend Sarah came all the way from Fairbanks to visit with her mom, Heather. Lindy, Niamh, and I did our best to show them the sights of Dublin and a bit more. (Technically, Niamh’s contribution to this amounted to drool and spit-up.) I’m not sure how much Lindy and Sarah saw, as they were too busy chatting. 
Passage Tombs Sarah and Heather were taken on the grand tour of 5000 year old burial sites, castles, and cathedrals galore. The 5000 year old burial sites (Newgrange and Knowth) are really neat, although the volume of visitors coming through means you don't get quite enough time to see everything you'd like. The amount of energy they expended building them is very impressive, hauling large rocks many kilometers before the invention of the wheel, etc. I think I've enjoyed the early history sites even more than the castles, and I've enjoyed the castles a lot. They are called passage tombs as they seem to emphasize passing from one world to the next: you enter into a large mound through a doorway by an elaborately carved entrance stone, travel down a long passage finally entering into the inner chamber where cremated remains and various artifacts would be placed in one of three sides chambers. We've been to several different types of burial sites (probably many other ceremonies were held on the same locations as well) and they all emphasize passages. Earlier sites are very simple, just some large rocks on their ends with a larger rock stacked on top, but the concept of a passage into them is still unmistakable. As the years went on, the level of sophistication grew considerably, but the underlying concept remained. 
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