Barbara Thompson

Last night’s sleep was brief. I couldn’t get to sleep and then didn’t stay asleep. I haven’t been sleeping great anyway, then add in suitcase anxiety (small) and getting a covid test and passing the test (not much worry, but people test positive with no symptoms, so…) and I slept about 3 hours. I went […]

So, I’m not gonna lie. I have really wanted to go to the Rijksmuseum since I learned about this guy: Not since I learned about Van Gogh as a person or as an artist; since I learned about him as a Playmobile guy. I saw him in the airport quite a few years ago and

Hey! A great way to avoid the worst day (daylight savings day)(taking my sleep. Bad)(although I don’t really sleep any more, so would it matter?) is to come to Amsterdam a day or two before. We went from 6 hours ahead to 7 hours ahead, and now back to 6 hours ahead. Didn’t even notice

I’ve seen articles touting the bikiness of different cities in the United States. Portland is so bike-y. Madison is bike friendly. Ha! Ha, I say. They need to come to Amsterdam and find out they don’t know what they are talking about. We didn’t start with bikes, so I’ll go back to the beginning. And

I packed yesterday. We brought a lot of stuff. I don’t think I did too bad of a job packing. We used most of what we brought, although we did have lighter weight clothes for springier weather. Regardless, we still have an absolute ton of luggage (hyperbole, of course. Each of the FOUR suitcases weighed

I had a great idea! We could get up really early and train and bus to see another castle. It is the second largest castle in the UK (Windsor is the first) and it seemed a shame to miss it, since we are almost near it. (And we are so good at trains and buses

Didja know that there are 3.1 million people in Wales, and about 10 million sheep? In square miles, Minnesota is about ten times the size of Wales, and has just less than twice the population. I don’t know how many sheep we have; I don’t recall seeing any (but I wasn’t particularly looking) Didja know

This has just been a fantastic day. I had the great idea of going to Cardiff to see the graffiti art supporting Ukraine. It appeared last week and I think it is absolutely stunning. I saw it in my newsfeed and admired it, before realizing that it is in Cardiff. I thought we should go

I got up this morning and had a bit of a panic that we are leaving soon. I don’t know what I think I need or want to do before we go, but I felt like there must be something. I calmed myself down by doing laundry. We walked to get some groceries – mince

Steve and Sheila drove us home! We spent a delightful morning with more poached eggs ala Steve (using eggs laid by Henrietta and I-can’t-remember-but-it-seems-like-it-was-an-M-name in the back garden). Deon, Sheila’s son, came over for a marvelous visit. When we last saw him, he worked in a bank and part-time (independently) as a book editor. He