Cheese Cheese Everywhere

Good morning-I am at a little bagel place called Bagel & Beans down the street from me since I STILL don't have internet access at home!! Holland is the land of Monopolies (and I don't mean Park Place Monopolies!). There is only one cable/internet/phone company and they were scheduled to make an appearance last Tuesday but they had "overbooked" and would be more than happy to come over on July 5th (a Saturday, a Saturday of my first 3 day weekend in Europe!). Luckily my neighbor-who is having the same problem will let the cable company in. So I am keeping my fingers crossed that when I return from Dublin I will have internet. Luckily the apartment still has cable so I can get my daily dose of Dr. Phil at night with Dutch subtitles.

All is well here, we are preparing for the July 4th festivities(from my understanding no turtle racing or seed spitting contests) actually they are July 2nd this year because Dutch parliment will be out and no one would be here on the 4th (yeah us!). It is at the Ambassador's residence-which I got a tour of last week by the Residence Manager. I will have to attend because I need to meet my contacts-I didn't even knew I had contacts! It is very small this year because we currently do not have an Ambassador in residence. Then early on Friday I am headed out to Dublin!!! I am very excited. I found out last week that I don't have to go to the consulates 4th of July celebration (no contacts there I guess) on the actual 4th of July so I am free to travel. I found what I thought was a good fair to Dublin on Aer Lingus. THEN I started the process of filling out all of the necessary information.......will you be checking a bag? 15 Euro (the answer is no-15 Euro will buy some Guiness)...would you like a seat!!!!!!! I had to pay 5 Euro each way to have a seat! Of course I could have paid 10 Euro to sit closer to the front of the plane or if I was feeling flush, as all government employees do, I could have paid 15 Euro for a bulk head seat!!!! So by the time I paid for everything-I am sure I will have to pay to check in, pay to use the bathroom and might even have to pay to pedal the plane! I am still very excited about the trip.

I am taking this weekend very easy-you almost feel guilty if you are living in Europe and you aren't out and about touristing. But this is the first weekend I have had a chance to revel in the fact that my household goods came last week. I was very lucky in that my parents were here when my household goods came. I went in to work for a few hours and by the time I got home at 9:00am most of the truck was unloaded and a number of boxes unpacked. The movers were gone by 10:30! It was quite a luxury for me to come home every afternoon and see the progress being made by my helpers! Don't worry it was not all work and no play. We went to Gouda-which is about 30 minutes by train and walked around the town and saw an amazing church with 70% of the stained glass in the Netherlands. We then watched with great disappointment as Holland lost to Russia in the EuroCup. Sunday was almost a national day of mourning after the loss.

I had forgotten how stressful moving is. I still don't remember my address: I feel like I am six again and need to have it pinned to my shirt. But could you remember Schenevingsweg (which I am sure I have misspelled)? That is the name of my street-Schenevingen is the name of the beach which is about a mile away. During the war the Dutch would ask anyone they felt might be a German spy posing as a Dutch citizen to pronounce Scheneveingen-if they could they new they were Dutch if they couldn't they were caught!

I am about out of battery and I may have worn out my welcome so I will close. I will try to write next week from Dublin!