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