All generalizations are dangerous, even this one.

Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870)

Half past six

It's been raining all day.

I can't pull myself away from the screen. I have lately noticed how we can get totally sucked into this world behind the screen... it's scary. You come home after a long day, you want to enjoy yourself a little bit. You take your shoes off, hang your coat up, put on the hot water and sit down at your desk.
'Ah, I'll just check my Emails quickly', you think.
...and before you know it, three house have passed and you look up again -
'What happened?' you think.
Not much. You just got sucked in. And again, nothing can be ticked off the to-do-list, even though some of it can be done in the world behind the screen... or the one that the screen connects you to.

Well, I found a place, though, a place to combat this. It is a room with two plain walls with nothing but beautifully patterned wood-panelling, holding from either side a high ceiling, also covered in the dark, brown-reddish wood. Either side of the entrance are shelves filled with books. The side opposite the entrance is a giant window looking out over Cologne. There are a good dozen chairs standing around the place - comfortable leather chairs with foot-rests and small, tasteful tables.

It's a reading room.

You can find it in a museum of the Cologne Archbishopric. Kolumba is it's name and I now am the proud holder of a year-round ticket. In my imagination, I will be sitting there on every day off, turning the pages of all the books I've been wanting to read for a while... let's see.

...

And I feel the loss of a reader... well, she's not all that lost, but in a place (a country, to be precise) in which I imagine life to be like being locked in a diving bell... you can't see out very well, except through fogged-up, round windows, skewing the view. And not much can come in from outside - all sounds are dampened and dimmed. Good luck out there, Beckita!