After making three posts I decided that it would be polite to come over here and make an official introduction (even though I'm probably not going to post a lot).
You can call me Nemilla, I live somewhere in Scandinavia and I have been reading One Piece for 5 or 6 years now, whenever they started to publish it in my country. (I had just finished with Ranma 1/2 then and was looking for something new, and the other mangas just were not visually interesting for me. Oda has his own, unique style that is more pleasing for my eyes than the most 'generic' manga styles. The only other manga I have in my bookcase -besides Ranma and OP- is Azumanga Daioh. Hard to please, yes I am.)
I have been lurking around for a couple of years, but before seeing the "History connections"-thread I basically didn't have any reason to actually join. Mostly because I don't think that I can contribute anything relevant to most of the topics. Someone else will say everything I think in a lot better way, anyway.
And also because I'm literally old enough to be the mother of most members here, and my points of view differ probably quite a lot from the majority's. (Let's just say that I'm older than Robin, even after the timeskip and leave it there, OK?)
The character in OP I can relate best is Robin. I really like her sense of humor, and my future profession will also have tight connections with historical research. (After I graduate I will order a T-shirt that says: "IM IN UR MUSEUM SAVING UR CULTURAL HERITAGE".) And yes, I cheered aloud when she dropped that b*stard Yama down. Personally I would have made him suffer even more, that a**hole with no respect for history or archeological sites. grumblegrumble remembers her blood pressure and calms down
I think that's it. Be seeing you! 
