Wednesday, June 11, 2025

Good Morning, from Amsterdam!

Weight? Who knows? I ate well yesterday: 3 squares. Protein, protein for breakfast - eggs and cured meats (love European breakfast!), Pea soup for lunch, and then dinner was in some swanky Portuguese restaurant. I had a small plate of beef filet in a delicious sweet and sour sauce with vegetables. We shared two desserts among the three of us.

Walked 7 miles over the course of the day.

Anne Frank House was deeply moving. At the end of the tour was a film about the father's trek back to Amsterdam. Lots of footage of refugees fleeing Germany. Reminded me very much of the stories my mother told me about her trek to escape the Russians.

Today we board the ship and start our journey to Budapest. Will post more pics on TT when I have a chance.

119.6

If you keep eating and walking like that you won't be gaining any weight! Sounds like a great start to your trip. I hope the ship is nice! What line are you on?

No snorkeling yesterday as it was a bit rainy in the afternoon. We went to dinner on the pier with our friends and their grandson while the parents of the child had a date night (and the grandson had a sleepover with his grandparents). What a lovely, sweet boy! And so well behaved at dinner. Just colors and plays with his cars while waiting for his food.

Today is more of the same, perhaps with the snorkeling today. Not sure as the rain showers may or may affect the day again. As mentioned yesterday this is actually pretty unusual for Aruba. Tonight is dinner at an older restaurant which used to be a favorite. We don't like it as much partially because it is probably the most expensive restaurant we go to and the food quality hasn't been consistent the last few years. But our friends asked us to go and we wanted to spend the evening with all of them.

Have a well-deserved Wednesday!

Greetings all

Cloudy again today. The house got cleaned and it appears that DH has finally done some de-junking in our bedroom. I reserve judgement however until I inspect the rest of the house to make sure it has not just migrated to some other room. Meanwhile the house got cleaned and I am getting organized for the day. Same old gym and studio and such. The gallery member that I split days with is still in the hospital and has in fact been moved to the university hospital in SF. So that does not sound good even though he is better off there than here. They can't seem to figure out whether he had a heart attack or not.

Thanks for the travel updates Peps. European breakfast sounds great. We should take note. America seems to run on pancakes. You will indeed leave pounds there if you keep this up. Seven miles is a lot. We should all eat like Europeans. Three meals, modest portions and no snacking. Seems pretty straight forward. Glad you got to the Ann Frank house. That series "All The Light You cannot See" provided so much back story on those events

Ditto the Liz travel report. Nothing like beach basking.

More chores to do around here including organizing gallery papers and cleaning off my desk. If DH is getting junk cleared out then I had better do the same. Only fair.

DD T minus two days?

Take care all. Diane S

I agree on the pancakes. Seems like almost every American breakfast on a menu has pancakes included. Often to just have eggs I have to do them as a side order. I actually don't like most American pancakes because they are too fat and cakey for me. I prefer something more like a crepe which is actually what a Dutch pancake consistency is like but they are just way too big.

Blueberry pancakes actually sound really good to me right now! I think I'm getting weary of protein bars!

I really can't remember the last time I ate pancakes. Not a fan of them either. They're like thick clouds with no flavor and lots of calories from the syrup you have to slaver on them just to have something to taste.

Exactly!

Housecleaning.....a necessary evil!

Thank you so much for my little slug friend! I love him! I'll get your package out in the mail in the next few days!

Ultimate compliment from a Dutchman at the National Holocaust Museum today: "While you are very tan, you are far too young to be from Florida. You must be from California?"

So Paula, you better rethink that Florida thing... You're a year younger than I am! LOL!!!!

The average age in the community we live in is about 59-60 now (in 2020 it was in the mid 70's). So not everyone in Florida is super old. A lot of people are buying and working from there at least part time in their 50's.