Aachen

Three weekends ago now I went with some people/friends from work to the Netherlands. What did I do in the Netherlands, you ask? Why, I watched an American movie in English (and went in to a McDonald’s, very touristy things, really.) My friend/mentor at work lives in Aachen, which is about 45 minutes from work by bus, and right on the border with both Belgium and the Netherlands. Since they have an English movie theater just over the border, a bunch of us went over there for the evening. It was too late to catch a train back to Jülich after the movie, so I stayed in Aachen overnight and then Kristin showed me around Aachen the next day a bit, which was a lot of fun.

Kristin’s apartment, a.k.a. a real German kitchen (albeit one inhabited by someone from France and someone from Georgia).


Escher’s Stairs outside of Kristin’s apartment. You wouldn’t want to cross these stairs on a dark night, let me just tell you that. I am still a little dizzy looking at these stairs in this picture, but perhaps that’s just because I experienced how devious these stairs are firsthand.


In Aachen. There are lots of old buildings in the center of the town that they either a) survived the war, and were restored or b) were destroyed, then rebuilt. I don’t remember how much damage Aachen suffered.


Here’s a typical center city street we saw. Notice anything a bit strange about it?


Now notice anything strange?


Apparently Aachen quite often has some sort of art display/event going on in the city center. This week it was elderly people sitting on the sides of buildings. I can think of several things that could be a metaphor for, but I won’t trouble you with them here.


Another such photo. We spotted at least half a dozen of these guys.


Walking up to the cathedral – cool!


Kristin: “This is the only photo you’ll get of me, so make it count.”

I think some of these figures are supposed to be the Bremer Street musicians. All of them are poseable - the copper bits that are still copper colored are the joints.

Chocolate! Tempting.


I really liked how Aachen was just sort of a typical German city going about its business. No messing around or just peddling to us tourists.


Aha! The secret revealed.




We spent a lot of time just looking in at the shops. I heard a lot about the best places to eat, drink, and get chocolate, but those don’t make the most interesting photos. One thing I really like is the density of the window displays in German shops. They make up for lack of window space with just a crazy amount of stuff crammed into their one window display, often.


Last: A random, bonus photo for Jessie! Thistle spectacular!!!! This is so you don’t have to wait 5 weeks until I finally post about Frankfurt to see this photo.