The Museum Girls Visit a Dutch Museum and a German Restaurant

When I first moved to the East Coast, one of my greatest fears was that I wouldn't be able to make any friends. Thankfully, that wasn't the case - I've been able to make friends with a great group called "The Museum Girls" who, you guessed it, meet up periodically to check out a local museum.

Recently we met up to check out the Vander Ende Onderdonk House in Queens, and afterwards went out to eat at a delicious (and kitschy-cool) German restaurant called Zum Stammtisch. And personally, I had a lovely time. I'm happy and lucky to know these ladies and I'm way looking forward to our next meet-up!

Photo collage by Lindsey Loves History

So what exactly does an official Museum Girls meet-up entail?

Mysteries of Kinderhook

Hey, remember when Sarah and I went to Albany?

When we did that, we were actually staying in a small town just south of Albany called Kinderhook, best known for being the birthplace of President Martin Van Buren and not for much else. It's an adorably quaint historic town, though, and a little over a week ago, we went and stayed there again for Sarah's birthday, taking excursions from there to Albany, Hudson, Adirondack, Lake George, and Saratoga Springs. We did so many exciting things, from escape rooms to ropes courses to a historic spa!

But one of my favourite things that we did happened in Kinderhook itself. Sarah and I helped solve a mystery.

No, really. I'm dead serious.

Kinderhook happens to be full of mysteries, as every quaint small town should be if fiction hasn't lied to me.  Some are more historical in nature, some more paranormal, and some straddle the line. I'll of course be talking about all types in this blog entry but first allow me to brag about the mystery Sarah and I helped solve. Ours was more historical than paranormal, but who isn't down for a history mystery?

It was pretty much one the coolest things that has ever happened to me, but like an idiot I did not have the foresight to take photos of the object in question. However, I did at least get a photo of the outside of the historic house in Kinderhook where our mystery was solved:

Built in 1819 and now known to locals as the "House of History" (What a great title, amirite?), the Vanderpoel House was originally the home of prominent lawyer James Vanderpoel and his family. In the 19th century, it was used as a boarding house. It stands today as an outstanding example of Federal style architecture and is one of four museums in Kinderhook run by the Columbia County Historical Society.

Sarah and I had stopped in on the morning of the sixth and I happened to strike up a conversation with the woman running the place about my own experiences working in historic homes, both the Winchester House and the Federal style Hamilton Grange. And that's when this woman's eyes lit up.

"Maybe you can help me with something," she told me as she led me to the front door.

Musings on Loki, Baldr, and Modern Perceptions of Norse Mythology

Hey guys, did you know that what I actually studied in school was basically Vikings?

My major was in archaeology, yes, and my minor in early medieval history, but all of the research I did, all my papers and projects (with a few exceptions that I very begrudgingly trudged through for the sake of my professors' respects), were focused on Old Norse culture and mythology. ('Viking' is technically a misnomer for the culture but I'm using it here for the sake of recognisability.) Even outside of school, I lived for this stuff. I read up on Norse mythology. I taught myself how to read three separate runic alphabets. I re-enacted as a Viking. For over five years I lived and breathed Vikings. And while I don't get the chance to show off this knowledge much when at the Grange, I do still love it all.

Hey guys, did you know that there's currently a series of very popular movies with a rather interesting take on Norse mythology?

In case you didn't realise what I was talking about.

Now, unlike certain friends of mine, I actually have no problem with how the "Thor" movies loosely interpret Norse mythology. It's a superhero franchise, it's as deep as a wading pool. No one is realistically gonna come away from these movies thinking that the Vikings believed in the Incredible Hulk.

But the trailer for "Thor: Ragnarok" has me thinking lately about how we now portray a very particular god from Norse mythology in our modern pop culture. No, not Thor. This guy:

No, wait. That's not right. This guy:

NO GODS DAMN IT THAT'S NOT RIGHT EITHER.

This guy:

This post is about the mythological Loki. Not Tom Hiddleston, not Alan Cumming in "Son of the Mask", but the Loki of Norse mythology, the Loki the Vikings would recognise. More specifically, this post is my own personal meditation upon the myth of Loki and Baldr.