A Familiar Staircase

If there was a way to capture this smell in a perfume, I would.

I'm carrying a suitcase and bags of leftover food up to Kendon's apartment in Köln, and I'm breathing deeply. I'm not out of breath, but I'd lie and say I was if anyone saw me.

I'm savoring a very specific smell of damp stone and cigarette residue that I've smelled in staircases in 3 continents so far. It reminds me of hostels in Europe and apartments in San Francisco and Hyderabad and Brooklyn and Florence and the Bronx and emerging from subways and stepping into basilicas or museums or theaters or cafes or bookstores or record stores or, or...

It smells like a feeling that's ever-present yet nostalgic at the same time. Like I'm on an adventure with people I love, who are and will be the constant while the backdrops of cafes and paintings and languages and histories fluctuate.

This smell reminds me how much I love my friends.

I imagine the market for this smell is slim... and I might have to learn how to make it myself. Köln is probably a good place to start, right?

Luxembourg

"Is this... banker humor?" I mutter skeptically at a shirt that says: I'm scared. All my friends got liquidated.

We're in a cafe in Luxembourg, a city and country whose banking and finance services are the majority of its economic output, on our second unsuccessful attempt at finding a hot breakfast.

"What else could it possibly mean? My friends got liquidated like... they're broke? Is this finance humor?"

Is this the finance equivalent of your niche interest going mainstream? When so many people who have similar jobs suddenly become neighbors? I grew up in one of those types of places (scientists, not bankers) and don't remember anything like this when I was a kid.

More importantly, why is it so hard to find a table anywhere? It's a weekday, aren't these people supposed to be doing finance?

We came here today so that Kendon and his family could finalize their citizenship in Luxembourg and get their passports. It was a touching moment to witness, and I'm happy to celebrate with them. We did eventually find a great spot for breakfast, and explored the city.

Before heading back to the Netherlands, we stop at the Eglise Catholicque Archevêché, and I felt a familiar tension as I watch groups of people enter for a few moments, take photos of the stained glass and ornately carved confession booths, and leave without reading any of the signage.

I felt the familiar, "Wait! Don't you want to know why this place is important to the community? Don't you want to know the ways its different from other, similar-looking places? Did you see this cool painting in the corner?"

For as long as I've felt this, I've also seen the differences in condition and upkeep in places that are accessible and regularly used compared to ones where only certain ways of engagement are allowed.

I know this is better than if this cathedral was micromanaged. I just hope more people see these paintings in the back.

Koffie & a Pile of Old Rocks (Nicely Arranged)

"Is there a way the Dutch prefer to take their coffee? I was just going to get a cappuccino but..."

"They love hot chocolate here," Kendon says.

I glare. 

There was a series of winters almost a decade ago when I would be very excited to drink hot chocolate but only get as far as acquiring hot chocolate mix, and subsequently giving it to Kendon because food I couldn't finish usually went to him. He is lactose intolerant and was doing me a huge favor. Ten boxes worth of favors. Now I don't hear the end of it. 

(Understandable.)

"What's this? Koffie Verkeerd?" I look to him for translation. He shrugs. 

I point my phone's camera at the menu to translate. 

"No... this can't be right."

"What does it say?" Kendon asks.

"Wrong coffee?"

"Try zooming out, sometimes it needs the whole phrase..."

"Um... it says... wrong coffee."

We laugh. Our best guess is that it's a play on words about the process of making the drink itself (a macchiato). Maybe adding espresso last is incorrect.

A few hours later, we are winding through the city of Maastricht, Netherlands. We briefly explore their Christmas market, but decide to walk around the city center instead because we can't hear each other. 

We talk about life and research projects and the buildings around us and our shifting styles and how I'm holding up after my dad's death. I tell him about how all my energy is going into holding myself together, how much I miss my dad, and how grateful I feel to love and be loved by my friends. 

Eventually we end up in a place I have a homing beacon for--a pile of old rocks. This one was arranged in the shape of a cathedral. 

The Basilica of St. Servatius is a major pilgrimage site for Catholic people, and has a collection of holy relics. It also has two Michelin stars, but not for their basement cafe (which I was happy to see is wheelchair accessible). I learned that heritage sites can also get Michelin stars, though I couldn't in good conscience rank world heritage sites.

We wandered again and found another one. The Basilica of Our Lady was built in the 11th century and was possibly a Roman temple to Jupiter before a church was built here. It seems to have been a "rival" of the Basilica of St. Servatius, and because the latter seems to have been favored by the emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, there haven't been as many resources dedicated to researching and recording its history. It was overtaken by the French army in 1794, and restored in 1917 by Dutch architect Pierre Cuypers. I wonder if he had access to any paintings or texts about what this cathedral looked like when it was built to guide the restoration.