We are in final preparations for our month-long trip to Holland. We will stay in a great location in an apartment in Amsterdam near the Western Market. For any of you that have been to Amsterdam, that's just around the corner from the Anne Frank Museum, so it's a great location.

We're hoping the apartment, which we've only seen from the outside and in pictures, is as nice at it appears. The building is well maintained and the pictures make it seem that we are renting a palace. Pictures lie though and it might be very small. Once we rented an apartment in Holland for a week and the bedroom in the "one bedroom" was a closet. In order to get out of the bed you had to crawl to the door and exit the room. The one thing I made sure of in this apartment was that our fourth floor was accessible by an elevator that works. The one thing about the Dutch, if they say something works, it does. So we are confident that at least we won't have to climb four flights to get to or from the street. In Amsterdam, the stairways are usually very narrow with high risers and a 4-inch platform which constitutes the "stair".  We call them ladders, because that's how you have to orient yourself on them. These are very difficult to maneuver and scary for anyone like me who obsessess about fire.

In other news, we made our final decision about our tenure in Ireland. To my great sadness, we will leave in early November. The combination of the unfavorable exchange rate, combined with the sluggish performance of the stock market make our continuing here for another year unsustainable. As I've mentioned several times in posts here, things cost about the same in Euros as in Dollars (generally something that costs $100 in the US will cost about 100 Euros). So, the exchange rate, which has increased from $1.29 to $1.40 during our time here has never been good for us.

This is a very, very sad decision for me. I've been trying not to think about it too much and trying to focus on the good things about coming back to America. First and formost will be the closer proximity to my dear friends and easier access to them, especially my best buddy in Atlanta (you know who you are). I will make arrangements to see her, first thing! Throughout our remaininng time here, I will keep her in my thoughts and heart.

Other good things about returning will be reuniting with our stuff. Both Alan and I have been thinking about all the possessions we have in storage. I'm most looking forward to having my piano again and Alan is anticipating seeing our art collection, photos and cast iron pots! We are both eagerly anticipating the joy of blended water. Not scalding or freezing when you wash your hands is an unsung benefit of American plumbing. I think that Alan is also looking forward to reestablishing his love for Bloomington, Indiana, a prospect that is OK with me, except that it's surrounded by the rest of Indiana. That's cold, I know. There are a lot of really nice things about Indiana, but I'm already railing at the prospect of hearing all about the lord and the virtues of being conservative in offhand conversation. I'm frequently reminded that I'm in a place that doesn't generally reflect my core values. That's going to be hard to take.

But, back to the positives.We have good friends in Bloomington and there are several people there that I've met through my work so I'm hoping our little network will expand pretty quickly. Alan has agreed to participate in a dance group there and we will be able to have a dog! What's not to like about all that.

Since my last post we had a little side trip to Donegal. I always love to go there. It was a midweek deal in which we got airfare for the short hop from Dublin to Donegal, a rental car and two nights accommodation in a good hotel for 350 Euro for both of us. It was a great deal, a promotion through Donegal airport.  We've been through Donegal Airport before so knew what to expect. It's just like any of the scores of tiny airports in the States, just with the wild Atlantic weather. Those who run the airport there are not fazed by bad weather. So what if the aircraft pummelled by wind, sea spray and rain, we're going! Naturally, I visited my mother's grave and our family while there. All good.

I'm going to miss Dublin while we are in Holland, but we have lots of adventures planned, including a trip to the Friesian Islands, the place where Alan's family name originates. He doesn't know much about that so it will be interesting for us to explore there. We will also likely go to Paris and some places in Germany. The Dutch rail system is great, so it will be a good home base for exploring.

Birthday in Stockholm was fun. It's a very, very expensive city, but we had a good time there from April 30th (my birthday) to May 4th.  The city is very clean, the people are nice, and the sights are very interesting. I was frequently mistaken for Swedish with most people starting their conversation with me in that language and continuing until I said "English only". I could definitely see why; most people have light blue eyes and either light blond or white hair, like mine. I really saw my Viking roots while there!  

We got a three-day Stokholm pass which gave us free entrance to most museums as well as public transportation. I think we saved by doing so because we did two museums a day and took public transit everywhere. 

The museums are just great. We arrived on the Kings birthday, which just so happens to coincide with mine, and a holiday weekend. On our first walk around town we noticed lots of young people wearing what we took to be naval caps and initialy thought the king must be a sailor. It turned out the caps were equivalent to our mortarboards and this was the time for celebrating graduation from high school. It was very cute to see how much of a rite of passage this is.  In most of the public spaces, there were scores of young people out celebrating. Unlike in Dublin, this didn't seem to involve the singular objective to get drunk, although there did seem to be a lot of drinking going on. 

The city is just filled with museums including one that covers an entire park (Skansen) which contains many old buildings moved from throughout the country. It reminded me a little of Colonial Williamsburg, except it was a celebration of most of the history of the built environment in Sweden not just one period. That was the one I liked the most. It is a very walkable city. We enjoyed ourselves there.  

On the down side, everything cost so much, it was hard to fathom. Although they are in the Euro Zone, Sweden is like England in keeping its own currency, the kroner. There are nine kroner to a Euro and seven to a dollar, so it was pretty easy for me to keep track of how much things cost, although at the beginning I was thinking something was 3 Euro and a "great value" and it would really be 30 Euro and a terrible value. This happened the first day with a salad, who would think a salad could cost 30 Euro in a place that was the local equivalent of Starbucks? 

The worst experience was on my birthday. We went to a restaurant that we'd seen touted in the Irish Times as "one of the best" in Europe. Alan made the reservation a month in advance. It was quite a disappointment. I wouldn't take any recommendation for a "gastro" anything in the future. I'm thinking that means small portions of wierd stuff offered by snooty staff. It started out badly. When we arrived, I discovered that not only was there only one menu, from which everyone at the table had to choose the four- or six-course option. The first course on both options were smoked lamb sweetbreads (the thymus and testicles). This, even though there was a third course pork option on the six-course. When I told them that I didn't eat sweetbreads, you would think I said I had an a-bomb in my purse. We should have just left at that point, but after getting the chef involved they agreed that we could switch the sweetbreads to the pork belly. Then we discovered that they had no oven or stove, everything was cooked over an open fire and either charred or smoked (including the desert). I don't mind smoky food but it was just too much, fortunately all the portions were small. The staff were quite unhappy about my giving most of my food to Alan and shot disapproving glances my way throughout the meal. Finally, the bill, over 2100 kroner or $300. Alan had one beer and I had one glass of champagne, both of which were about 180 kroner, so I'm glad we didn't order any more liquor because none of it was offered with the price. We left immediately following the presentation of an excessively sweet smoked pancake thing. It was truly awful. Fortunately it included a few tablespoons of coffee ice cream, so presumably they have a freezer. Unfortunately for Alan, he didnt bring lactaid so couldn't eat that and they switched for sherbert. 

I did get two great birthday gifts. My "free ride card" for transit in Ireland and eligibility for social security. The first came without a hitch, I had my official card in the mail this morning. I'd just posted my application before I left for Stockholm. The second involves more bureaucracy because although when I made the application they said they would direct deposit into our Irish bank, they really won't do that and now I have to go to the US Embassy to get it sorted. That would be OK since it's just up the block from us, but I can't get an appointment until May 29th, just two days before we leave for our month in Amsterdam, so that means more delay and it probably won't start till June. Ah, the problems of the retired! 

Anyone who has known Alan for a while will know about his solution to all economic problems is the "free ride card".  This is something that in his version of Utopia, would be issued to anyone that wants one. They wouldn't have to DO anything, but get out of the way of the people who want to work. So, while my free ride card only covers transit throughout Ireland, I was never going to get his free ride card anyway, so this one is close enough for me.