It's finally time to go to Amsterdam.  I've been looking forward to this trip because I lived in Holland in the late 80's.  Last year I was going to move to either Holland or Belgium, but since the move was in November, I thought about how cold it would be.  I opted to start my adventure in a warmer climate, so I came to Malta instead.  Living in that area is most certainly still on my to do list.  I checked the weather forecast and it looked chilly, so I brought a jacket.   Sadly, I should have brought a parka because it was cold, windy and rainy the whole week!  We landed and hopped on the train.  The train station was attached to the airport, so it was by far the easiest transport we've had.  We were talking about what we were going to do after checking into our hotel when a man 2 seats up turned around and glared at us.  We looked at him like WTF?  He then looked up at the silence sticker on the window.  Apparently we were in the silent car, and oh

There was a record convention in Bologna that Mic was going to, so I decided to join him.  How could I pass it up when air fare was only €49 round trip?   The first morning I signed up for a cooking class.  I learned how to make pasta from scratch and it was unbelievably easy. The school was actually a restaurant, with classes in the basement.  When I went in, there were 3 people cooking away.  They signed up for an all morning course which included making the pasta and several different sauces.  I would have done that one had I seen it.  As it was, I had a chef to myself.  Basically you take flour, make a well in the middle and crack two eggs into it.  You slowly pull in more and more flour until it's all one ball of dough.  Now the hard work starts.  You have to fold it over and over and over and over.  Next step is to spread it out using your finger tips and the heal of your palm only. You fold it, spread it, fold it etc a few more times.  You don't want to

I was excited to visit Rome again, if for no other reason than to see if my memory of being there in the 80's matched what it was like today.  The first day we decided to go to the US Navy base in Naples.  I wanted to show Mic, who is Danish, what a US base is like and of course, to shop at the commissary and BX.  We bought the tickets the night before and the agent spent a bit of time finding us both the morning and evening high speed trains, about an hour each way.  The regular train was just over 2.5 hours.  We had to be in Naples at a certain time to catch the military shuttle to the base, so we got up at the crack of dawn and headed out.  Once at the central station in Rome, we looked on the board, but couldn't find our train.  We finally asked an agent who told us that train left an hour ago.  How stupid could we be, we both looked at the ticket which clearly said departure 0730 AM.  It was now 0830 AM.  I'm not sure how we got that wrong, but we did.  Th

My new landlords are the sweetest people.  They are a 'mature' couple, Edwin is 90 ish I think and Mary is younger.  Edwin gets around great for a man his age, but he is hard of hearing and quite frail looking.  When I moved in, I noticed my refrigerator wasn't working right, so Edwin called a repairman, who said the thermostat needed replacing.  The next day I noticed a horrible noise coming from the freezer.  I took the back panel off and could see the fan scraping and the plastic blades being torn up.  And it still wasn't cold enough.  My ice cream was melting and the items in the lower portion, like the milk, were warm.  So I called Mary and explained the noise and the temperature, and soon enough Edwin came to check it out for himself.  The noise was so loud that it kept me awake at night and you could plainly hear it all over the apartment.  When Edwin came in the front door, I said "do you hear that"?  He cupped his hand around his ear and

A week after I got back from Barcelona I moved to a bigger apartment.  While I loved my last place, and especially my landlady, it was time to find something bigger.  And OMG is this place bigger!  It has 3 bedrooms, it's closer to the waterfront, and there is a large kitchen with a formal dining room.  The master bedroom alone is probably bigger than my last apartment.  It's very light and airy, with large windows in each room.  There is usually enough of a breeze that I have to prop the doors open or they slam shut.  I don't have air conditioning, which is the only disappointing thing.  The reality is, I only need it for two to three months out of the year, so it's not that big of a problem.  It is possible to get a portable AC unit, so I may try to get one for next year.    The move itself went very smooth.  I had more stuff then I thought; oh my how it accumulates.  I had 2 people helping me and I ended up using a cab company.  The two places are a