We went to a concert on Saturday evening in the Concertgebouw: Hayden's Symphony #98, two Strauss songs and Mahler's 4th Symphony. The concert hall is just beautiful. Very similar to others we've seen in Europe. Really ornate and fitting for such a wealthy city. The music was good, I much prefer Hayden to Mahler and was sorry the bill wasn't reversed, with the Mahler the shorter selection. Still, it was good to get out to hear music. Earlier in the day we did another part of the Rijks Museum, I'm up to 1800. I was resolved to remember one thing well and I focused on the Roentgen Writing Desk. This is a truly amazing piece of furniture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vC5Hqk7wl7U


On Sunday, we went on a bike tour to "the countryside". It was a very well led group. The young man leading the group, Stuart, reminded me of the leader of a Bikecentennial adventure way back in the olden days of 1976. It was fun to follow someone so fit, who really knew how to keep the group engaged, interested, and moving! On a bike, that's pretty critical. It was a fun adventure. We were exhausted when we got back in the evening.

We took it easy on Monday, catching up with laundry and the like. And today we took our first trip outside Amsterdam. We went to The Hague to start Alan's ancestor search.

The trip to The Hague was quite successful in finding information about Alan's family. In fact, finding all he needed to really get into the community we will visit where the Balkema name and Alan's ancestor, Jakub, originate has been made available. It was quick and easy. He was able to get in a half hour, what would have taken months otherwise. His brother had earlier done some digging, but Alan's research was the first among official documents. He started with Jakub's self report to the marriage license place in Lafayette, Indiana (home of Purdue), that he arrived in New York from Amsterdam in 1851. Turns out it was 1850, but one could see how he would get that wrong since he didn't have any paperwork. From that, Alan got the town and a list of the parents and siblings of his ancestor. It's a wealth of information. He's pretty engaged in it I think.

We are planning to do another area of the Rijks Museum tomorrow. Alan will plan the next trip to his ancestral region. We also made a commitment to return to The Hague because a museum that's been highly recommended, the Mauritzhuis is closed for the next 11 days. There's a countdown flag in front of the museum and it looks like it's been closed for a long time. Still, it also looks like the perfect museum, small, interesting rooms and an amazing collection. We will likely combine that with a trip to Delft.The time is going so quickly, I'm starting to wonder if we will even fit all this in.

Alan is doing much better, so much so that he cancelled the acupuncture treatment that was scheduled for yesterday morning.  We went to the Rembrandthuis Museum instead, had a nice lunch out and got back after a full day for yet another great home cooked meal. Since we had a visit from our friends Mark and Judy and Alan brought up that it had devolved that he does "all" of the cooking, we have had made a good compromise in that we alternate cooking responsibilities. This is one great thing about a long and successful marriage, we're still learning how to live with one another. That divergence was prompted by my thoughts about the great food we've had here. Both that which we've prepared for ourselves in this great apartment, and meals outside. We continue to benchmark against the $300 fiasco in the restaurant with no stove in Stockholm. I don't think we've spent that in the supermarket yet.

Anyway, back to Alan. His knee was much better the morning after the last treatment and he was willing to walk for a mile or so. We have been keeping a routine of going to a small museum in the morning (not too early) then having lunch and doing a good walk in a new area of Amsterdam. Alan is a very good pathfinder and now with his bum knee, he's not so inclined to just start walking just by looking at the sun. So that makes it better from my perspective. He's got really good wayfinding abilities, but I'm always nervous that, particularly in these old cities, the path turns and becomes blocked by centuries old terraced houses. There are definitely secret pathways, but even when you go searching for them, as we did yesterday, you can't figure out how to get in unless someone tells you.

The windows to the back of the apartment where we are staying view a very quiet and private courtyard. In contrast, the building front faces Vijelstraat a busy trolly stop (Westerkirk). We also face the church, also Westerkirk, the first one in Amsterdam built for protestants during the reformation. The buildings on the street are the western wall protecting this little courtyard within from the busy world out front. There are lots of trees and birds sing throughout the day. Our walk adventure yesterday was to try and figure out how to get in. There has to be a way because there are at least a dozen roofs to be seen from our fourth floor (5th floor) aerie. The courtyard is not big, but like so many Dutch things, it is very well laid out. We had a little luck in one of the small hotels that is within the warren of roofs we see from our window. They had a cafe in their tiny part of the courtyard and we (well Alan) could get bearings. I'm still a little confused, but I do see the church (the one behind, not Westerkirk) so I know there's a way. Alan wants our walking exploration today to be a reattempt to get inside.

I thought we would be doing more adventuring around Holland, but we've been here 12 days today and have not ventured too far afield. I must say, Alan is being a good sport about his knee. Of course early in his convalescence he was free to play computer games all afternoon without me nagging him, so he got his fix. Plus it was only a few days of complete lay-up.  During those two days I went to the Rijks Museum and bought us Museumpass cards that are good for a full year. They were expensive, 54.90/each, but we are resolved to go to a museum a day and I think they have really already paid for themselves. We will give them to friends when we return to Ireland because they will continue to be good for months afterward.

That first day, I stayed in the Rijks and did the first floor rooms, from 1100 to the 16th century. I went through it pretty quickly because it's heavily religious in subject and I don't find that particularly interesting. My plan is to do the Rijks in stages, and this pass really facilitates that plan. Alan says he will go back for the next section (1700-1800). This should be the most interesting in the whole collection, I think, and I want to be fresh for it. If we can, we will push on to 1900 the next time. I just don't see how I will be able to get the whole way through that museum alone.

We've been to three smaller museums included in the Museumpass on our daily forays since Alan has been feeling up to walking. Mostly my favorites, house museums. I'm especially excited to see a lot of them because of our impending move. It's so interesting to see people's old stuff!

The first one was the van Loon house. As we were walking through I was just overwhelmed with the wealth everywhere on display. It seemed so pretentious and over the top. Still, I could see how one could get used to living that way, if you didn't think at all. All the way through the house I had a feeling of unease and when we got to the basement kitchen, I saw the "family crest" predominently
displayed on every piece of china: two black men in chains facing one another. All this wealth was a result of the slave trade. It was creepy. We capped that morning off with a good walk around the Rembrantplein area. 

The next day we did the Willet-Holthuysen House, a really nice house with interesting furnishings, history and owners. The last owner, Louisa H. gave the house to the city of Amsterdam in 1894 to be run as a museum and it has ever since. The must have been a good endowment with that house. She was the owner through her father, she married Abraham W. late. They seemed to have an interesting relationship and I think in these times, both sounded like they would have been happier living openly but I think they did OK. He was known then as a bon vivant and they both were called collectors. I don't think either did much, but they lived well.

Yesterday we went to the Rembrandthuis. It was interesting, but as I reflect on what I saw, I realize that I can't call to mind a single painting. In fact, I think most of the collection on display in the house was not authentic. I was much interested in the house, and saw that it was the type of lifestyle Alan and I might live today. It was very like our house on Lake Drive in Milwaukee in ambiance. Poor Rembrandt met a sad end though, still he wasn't tortured for years like Van Gogh, but it sounds like no picnic.

The acupuncture guy has done the second treatment and continues to advise Alan to keep off the knee. What a drag. Up to today, I've done excursions on my own, yesterday visiting the open air market at De Pijp. That's near the Heineken Experience, in the south part of the city. It was an interesting market, many streets long, with an array of diverse goods in stalls that were bigger than they looked. There was one of everything there. Alan wouldn't have liked that either, so I was happy enough on my own again.

I have been able to figure out the trollys and it's been fun to do it. Still, I would like to do an adventure further afield, like the Friezen Islands. The "doctor's orders" prevents thinking about that for now. He will get another treatment next Wednesday. He is feeling incrementally better again today so it might be doing him some good. I hope so. We are planning to go to a movie tonight.

Our auspicious start has been scuppered. After the first day walking around the uneven stone streets, Alan's knee struck out. He was totally laid up yesterday.

I went for a shopping excursion, which was quite fun as I usually like to do that by myself anyway.When I returned, he'd about finished his book and was happy for the beer I brought up. On my way back I stopped in a Chinese herbalist and masseuse and she said Alan could come back either at 5 p.m. or this morning at 10. He was up for it this morning, but I didn't really formalize the 10 time with a call and when we got there it was closed. He was pretty undone by that time but after a half hour or so (while I had a coffee) it opened and Alan had an acupuncture treatment. He seems to feel marginally better. We made another appointment for Friday morning. It is hard to believe that we will have been here six days by that point.

This place is still very nice and well equipped, it's just that now we see that it is about the size of our condo in Washington. That was a small place, but well laid out, like this one. Still, I don't think I could go back to that now that we've had so much more room in Dublin.

I'm hoping Alan is better tomorrow. He's encouraged me to go out and purchase the pass for Amsterdam museums and I think I will do that later this afternoon. I'm suddenly conscious of the time a fleeting.

We got to our great apartment in Amsterdam yesterday afternoon. We have been in Holland a lot of times and have never had such good digs, so conveniently located. It's on a tram stop at the Western Market. There is plenty going on in the neighborhood but the working elevator takes us to the 4th floor in ease. When we get there, we are in a quiet, roomy apartment with really comfortable furniture. It's all we were hoping for.

I had a field day integrating our stuff into the amazingly well appointed larder and housekeeping items already here. Our all broiled veg meal last night was perfect. Cooked in a kitchen well equipped with good appliances and crockery. There is a supermarket downstairs that carries really fresh produce, dairy and meat. What an auspicious start.

After a good night's rest, during which I wasn't awoken with allergy woes for the first time in two months, Alan and I spent the morning walking around the neighborhood. We did a similar walk in February, during our stop-over here on our way to Aruba. It was interesting to compare the same neighborhood in the season change between then and now. We stopped and had a really nice lunch, returned to the neighborhood and hit the supermarket, returning just now with another load of groceries. I think I might have more to blog about and hope to get back here before too long...

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.