Today we saw the magnificent Cunard cruise ship the Queen Elisabeth 2 in Rotterdam. We spotted the large red word “Cunard” by chance between a few buildings as we drove home from our dentist appointment, so we had to go check it out. We crossed the Erasmusbrug and drove passed the Cruise Terminal where all the fancy people with their pipes and hats were getting ashore and onto busses. Unfortunately we didn’t have our camera with us, but here are some great pictures from today as found on Flickr by aureliozen and vanda2006:
What’s wrong with Kingsport? Well, it’s not Ocala. It’s also not Durango. It’s not Lakeland, Cincinnati, Nederland, or Rockford. It’s not even Asheville or Greenville. It’s not any of the dozens of places we thought we might like to live, but it was the number one pick when we went through the survey on FindMySpot.com a few months ago. We’ve done the survey a few more times since then, and Kingsport comes up in our top 10 every time.
On FindYourSpot.com you can pick your lifestyle preferences in categories like weather (we like seasons, but keep it mild, please); culture (museums & music - yes, zoos and operas - no); recreation; region (we have no particular preference); and housing cost. Affordable housing is a priority for us as we would like to buy a house.
Some other towns that come up under our preferences are Sheboygan, Wisconsin (too cold in the winter); Salem, Oregon (too far from home); and Tulsa, Oklahoma (too tornadoey).
Last Wednesday we went to Texel for the second time (last time was in April last year). We took the train from Leiden to Den Helder and then the 9:30 Teso ferry to Het Horntje on Texel. It was a beautiful day for bicycling around Texel: 30oC and sunny.
Yesterday we took the cats out for some fresh air. We bought harnesses and leashes for them. They will have to wear the harness during our upcoming flight so we thought to try and get them used to wearing them.
Today we have finally set a date for our big move to America. We bought our plane tickets today and will fly from Amsterdam to Chicago with our two cats Arby and Alex on Sunday 21 September. This means we have only 85 days left from today to arrange a lot of stuff, get rid of a lot of stuff, and move all the stuff that’s left. We’re going to have a busy three months!
One year ago, on 23 June 2007, we were in Paris and visited the beautiful Musée d’Orsay. The museum holds French art dating from 1948 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture and photography. Here’s a view of the museum from a bridge over the Seine:
Three years ago today, on 19 June 2005, we had a great day in Italy on our city trip to Napels. In the morning we took a bus from Napels to the foot of Vesuvius and in the afternoon we visited the ruined and partially buried Roman city of Pompeii nearby. Here are few photos of our visit to Europe’s most famous volcano.
The tagline at I’m Voting Republican (imvotingrepublican.com) is You’ll Get What You Deserve. Here are some good reasons to vote Republican this November.
Read more about the segments in the commercial here.
Are you still voting Republican? If not, you might like some of the funny, original Obama t-shirts for sale at Leftique.
This is my favorite picture of the week. Woody from Toy Story watches Space Shuttle Discovery lifting off on May 31st with Buzz Lightyear onboard, finally fulfilling the toy’s dream of going into space. The 12-inch action figure is visiting the International Space Station this week along on mission STS-124 as part of a new educational partnership between NASA and the Walt Disney Company and to commemorate the opening of Toy Story Mania! at Walt Disney World and Disneyland.
The Euro 2008 football (soccer) championships begin next week in Austria and Switzerland. Dutch grocery chain Albert Heijn is trying to duplicate the huge success of their Wuppie campaign of two years ago with a new cute character to collect - the Welpie. Welpies are cute little wild-haired lions meant to show support for the Dutch team. Welp is Dutch for baby lion.
We got our first Welpie on Monday and today I picked up another.
