If you want to get somewhere fast... (plus on writing)

...take a train. And NOT Amtrak.

They just opened a brand-new train line between Munich and Nurnberg. It used to take 2 hours by ICE (Intercity Express, Germany's highest-speed train). Then last year I went in an hour and a half. It still depends on time of day, number of stops, etc.--mostly it still takes 2 hours. But with this new line, the track is specially built with wind protection, and a lot of it is tunnelled straight through hills, eliminating even more wind shear. The very fastest ICE at its top speed in ideal conditions maxes out at 320 km/h. Well, yesterday on the way home we ended up on the special line, and watched the speed creep up as high as 298 km/h. Fastest I've ever traveled on land, that's for sure!! The train line runs near the Autobahn, and we were easily outzipping the fastest cars there (and as you know, in Germany, most of the freeway system comes without speed limits). It was cool.

And, completely unrelated, but one of the perks of going on vacation is an unplugging from the phone, internet, and in some cases, TV. (That we did have. We were in a Ferienwohnung, which I highly recommend if you are traveling with children in Europe. They are vacation apartments, with kitchens and everything, and they are not only cheaper than hotels, but you can deal with kids so much easier this way.) We find that we sleep more since the kids don't have their usual toys and distractions, and since we've escaped from our usual schedule, we can actually talk to each other without having to dance to someone else's plans. (This is, incidentally, why my husband likes moving, once all the packing and loading is done. We all actually get to see each other.)

So anyway, we could talk about books (which is one reason I liked DH in the first place :), and he pointed out that while The Host and the Twilight books are rather different in plot and characterization (Wanda is a lot more strong-minded than Bella, for example), there are some similar themes: humans vs. Something Else that is usually bad, but in these cases gets presented as sympathetic. (The MC in The Host is the bodysnatching alien.) And I think one of the ways Meyer is really strong is how she pulls people into the story by setting up polar antagonists who are BOTH sympathetic to the reader. You know vampires are dangerous, but you don't want anything bad to happen to the Cullens. You know bodysnatchers are bad to invade humans, yet you feel Wanda has a right to exist, too. And you find yourself wanting good for both sides, and you have no idea how this could ever be resolved, so you keep reading. (I have some spoiler theories about the last Twilight book based on the end of The Host, but maybe it won't work out that way, and in any case, I can't very well discuss them here without spoiling The Host, so I won't.) The other thing she does well is of course make the MC's desire both the driving point of all action, and the very thing that sets off obstacles. I know someone on my friends' list has been talking about this with regards to a conference they went to (angie_frazier?), and Meyer just does a great job with this. So, some things to think about.

One more

Okay, it's really short because I was low on battery and my camera is meant for pictures, not for videos. But the effect of walking into this beautifully-painted cathedral and finding a choir practicing was a bit of sensory overload and I wanted at least a sample. By the way--they were high school kids singing. Yes, I'm sure the acoustics of the building helped--but wow.