Mastro Lindo Returns To Amalfi...

Mrs. TBF and I are spending the week in Amalfi, Italy. This is our fourth time in Amalfi, and we're staying at the same place we always stay - Hotel Santa Caterina.

We just LOVE it.

We're not sure if they treat all repeat guests the same way, but WE certainly receive the hero's welcome. We BOTH received the double-kiss-on-the-cheek greetings from multiple members of the staff upon arrival, and gladly accepted our upgrade to a junior suite.

It wasn't long until we were in TOTAL relaxation mode.

The days have mostly been spent in a reclined position, but we do occasionally jump into the sea where I swim, and Mrs. TBF rides the noodle. The bar/pool guys (who refer to me as Mastro Lindo - the Italian version of Mr. Clean) take good care of us by delivering drinks and snacks whenever we want. Around 9 p.m., we head out for dinner at some of our favorite places, and then we come back to the hotel where we sleep like babies. Hey... you know what???

It kind of sounds like every other time we've been here!

There is one difference, however...

No Russians this year! Well, at least, not many. We've seen one Russian couple with a small child, and that's it! Last year, the hotel was just crawling with Russians. This year, it's mostly Americans, some Brits, and some Italians. But, who cares?

When we're here, it's pretty much just us and the hotel staff, as far as we're concerned.

Happy... relaxed... tan... well-fed... LIVING THE DREAM!!!

40 YEARS!!!!

This is my friend Carl. We were talking on Skype today about the fact that we met right around now... 40 YEARS AGO!!! And for the record: I WANT his AWESOME man-chair that you can see a little bit of in the background!!

I had just moved to Wheeling, Illinois a couple of months earlier in June 1969. My neighbor, Bob Nuenfeldt, and I were talking on walkie-talkies when all of a sudden we heard this voice cut in to our conversation...

"Who is this?"

It was Carl, who just happened to have his walkie-talkie on. See? He was even an electronic gadget guy back then!

It turned out that Bob and Carl knew each other from first grade, so Bob and I ended up walking to Carl's house which was one street over from my house. I was just shy of seven years old.

And isn't it a small world? Carl's mom is from Finland! What are the odds??

Oh, and in case you're curious... this is how we looked a couple of months later when we were well into the second grade. Carl's the guy in the fourth row/second from the right with the Colonel Sanders tie. I'm in the bottom row on the far left. If I remember correctly, I'm smiling with my mouth closed because one of my front teeth was just hanging on by a thread and I didn't fall for my dad's I-won't-pull-it-out-I-just-want-to-see-how-loose-it-is trick until the next day.

You think that's bad? A few years later, my sister actually fell for my dad's just-let-me-tie-this-piece-of-thread-around-your-tooth-and-this-doorknob-no-I-won't-do-anything...

SLAM!

God, she was a dork back then!!

Today, Carl told me that his father, Bruce (greetings to you, Bruce!), checks out my blog on a regular basis.

Who knew?

Well, certainly not me since Bruce has never left a comment. For that matter... neither has Carl.

Come on, guys. Leave a comment.

I dare ya!

Good To The Last Drop...

Horror of horrors, we nearly ran out of coffee!!!! Fortunately, in the nick of time, I ordered/and received my new supply of 600 Nespresso capsules!!

That should hold us for a couple of months!!

Ok... let me preface what I'm going to say next by saying: I'm not complaining, I absolutely DON'T mind, and... you DO NOT need to compensate me in any way, but...

We sure went through a lot of coffee recently while my parents were visiting. Sheesh!

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, though, seeing how we Finns tend to be rather large consumers of coffee. Plus, having to buy a little extra coffee is a small price to pay for the joy that a visit from my parents brings. In fact, it's been nearly a month since they were here... How about one more picture?

Well, what do you know? Drinking coffee! What a surprise!!!!! Not!

Hmmm... Now that I think about it...

We kind of went through a lot of gin too!

Lost And Found...

Is anybody missing a diamond?

I found this "diamond" while cleaning under the sofa last week. I'm not sure if it's real or not, but I AM sure it doesn't belong to either one of us. In any case, let me know whether or not it belongs to you. If I don't hear from anybody by October 1st...

... it's going in the garbage!

Road Warriors...

Dr. Andy, Dr. Di, and the kids came over for some grilled flesh (clearing assorted meats out of the freezer) this past Saturday evening. They come over fairly often, so no big deal... right? What made this evening different was that Dr. Andy returned from a business trip and came directly from the train station to our apartment where he met the rest of his family.

Still no big deal???

Well... then how about these facts? Dr. Andy had in the past week flown to South Africa, the plane had to make a quasi-not-quite-an-emergency landing in Rome due to a door that didn't seal up properly, had to return (flying "...at low altitude, but high enough to get over the Alps") to Zürich where he spent the night, flew out to South Africa the next day, then flew to South America a couple of days later, spent a few days in South America (where he might have taken another flight...not sure), had a three hour delay in Sao Paulo which resulted in him being switched to a flight to FRANKFURT, and then had to take a three hour train ride from Frankfurt to Basel.

Who says business travel is glamorous?

Even after this debacle, Dr. Andy still seemed none the worse for wear, and he and Dr. Di ("Yes, I'm wearing a down vest in August! What about it?") managed to stay at our place until 1:30 a.m.!

Yesterday morning, it was Mrs. TBF's turn to jump into a taxi and become a "junior" road warrior. I say "junior" because her flight to Munich was delayed by only one hour, and it was spared the need for any quasi-not-quite-an-emergency landings. However, she gets full road warrior credit for staying at some dinky hotel in Holzkirchen (about 30 minutes outside of Munich) in a room with a toilet that trickled all night, and construction that began right across the street at 6 a.m.!

I guess that's why they get paid the big bucks!

Duped!

For a few years now, we've been buying Weight Watchers yogurt at our local Coop grocery store. The reason we bought it was because it was labeled as 1.5 points per serving, thus making it easy for us to calculate it into our point total for the day.

On a whim, a couple of weeks ago, we were at Manor and decided to try Nestle's Hirz 0.1% yogurt. The verdict? It tastes much better than the Weight Watchers stuff, and secondly, after using my handy-dandy WW point calculator, we found out that it contains only ONE POINT per serving - half a point LESS than WW!

So, it tastes better, it has fewer points, AND... I get to call it My Dick Hirz yogurt!

SCORE!

Pleasant Dinner Conversation...

A couple of things relating to toilets and plumbing...

Earlier this week, I called my folks. When I told my dad that our toilet had broken, he actually thought that I had sat on it, it had pulled off the wall, and then shattered into a million pieces on the floor. I told Mrs. TBF about it at dinner, and we both laughed. But then, we kind of began wondering how often this actually happens here. You see, toilets do not rest on the floor here like they usually do in N. America - they're bolted into the wall and just hover above the floor. In fact, I don't remember EVER seeing a toilet resting on the floor in Europe. Is there some kind of weight limit I should be aware of?

Gonna have to start paying more attention to this...

Seeing how the vision of me lying on the bathroom floor on top of a pile of reading material, fecal matter, and the shattered remains of a toilet hadn't ruined our appetites, I guided the dinner conversation to a related yet equally inappropriate topic.

TBF: Do you know one of the things I'm going to miss the most about Switzerland someday when we move?

Mrs. TBF: What?

TBF: Swiss toilet paper!

Mrs. TBF: Oh yeah, it IS good! American toilet paper SUCKS!

And you know what? Mrs. TBF is right! American toilet paper DOES suck! The Swiss TP is thick, absorbent, a pleasure to use, and generally far superior to its American counterpart. Just don't buy the recycled TP. I did that once... NEVER AGAIN!

I read in an article not too long ago about how much forestland could be saved if people would just switch to using toilet paper made with recycled paper. I figured I'd do my part, and I went next door to the grocery store and bought an "experimental" eight-pack. BIG MISTAKE! That stuff is awful. Just...don't...buy...it!

And finally...

Why is water pressure so much better here than in America. Toilets flush better, the water pressure in the shower is much better... I definitely prefer life in America to life in Switzerland, but I just wish the entire Swiss bathroom experience could be replicated in America.

Hmmm...

Maybe it can.

like: the Swiss bathroom experience and Swiss toilet paper

no like: Today? nothing!

Stare-Worthy

The Swiss love to stare. If it weren't for the need to sleep, I'm guessing that staring at things (along with cleanliness and safety) could become a 24/7 pursuit.

Cleanliness, Safety, and... Curiosity*. They should put it on the Swiss flag right under the white cross.

I, as a 6'5" foreigner with no visible signs of a care in the world, am often the subject of their collective gaze.

Yesterday, I was particularly stare-worthy because I was wearing my Kerry Wood t-shirt. Every seat was taken (school had just let out) when I got on the tram to go to they gym, so I stood at the front of the tram facing the back. It wasn't long until I noticed about thirty pairs of eyes (young and old alike) staring bullets at my chest. They'd stare at my chest, confused looks would ensue, then they'd whisper amongst themselves. Stare again... confusion... whispers...

THAT'S ENOUGH!

I finally had to just turn my back to the whole car. I don't mind some staring, but too much is just too much.

I was thinking of wearing this t-shirt today. I don't know... The words are in Finnish, and the print is pretty small so they'll have to strain. Perhaps it'll be too much for the locals (and me) to handle.

Maybe I'll just wear it next week instead and give us all a little break.

*That's me being nice. I'd vote for nosiness, but I don't think it would go over too well.

Home Repairs...

The weather was absolutely beautiful this past weekend. We hardly saw a cloud all weekend, it wasn't too hot, and there was a nice breeze - the way summer should be. We went out for dinner with friends on Friday night, and then we took the train to Baden (by Zürich) on Saturday night for a "Sommerfest" at our friends' house. On Sunday morning, Mrs. TBF played tennis with Dr. Rammy, then we enjoyed a nice impromptu brunch at Dr. Rammy & Dr. John's house, and finally we went home to just laze around. Shortly after returning home, a small problem stuck...

The toilet in our main bathroom wouldn't flush.

I took the panel off the wall, tinkered around with the mechanism a bit, realized that it was unlike anything I had ever seen before, and then just resigned myself to the fact that a plumber would have to be called. I called our rental office on Monday morning, relayed the problem through a combination of English and German, and then just waited for a call from a plumber.

That call (fortunately) came this morning, and the toilet is now repaired.

It's when things go wrong that I really dislike living here. If I get a non-English speaker at the rental office, I always wonder if they truly understand what I'm talking about. Plus, I often don't fully understand what they are telling me. Things usually work out in the end, but I often end up sitting around the apartment waiting for a call that I'm not sure will even be coming. If I leave the apartment, and the call comes, the repairman will often hang up after hearing our English-speaking answering machine message instead of leaving a message. Aggravating!

But... all's well that ends well.

Now, I'll just wait for the bill. You see, in Switzerland, we're responsible for all repairs up to 2% of our annual rent. Can you believe it??? We pay NYC-level rent, and we have to pay for repairs up to a certain point... even if something breaks down due to no fault of our own. For example:

About four years ago, not long after moving in and while we were out of town, a torrential rainstorm came through town, and rainwater seeped into one of the covered outdoor outlets. The circuit shorted, the power to our rooftop garden was cut off, and the outlet needed to be replaced. This ended up costing something like $100. So, to recap: we weren't home, the problem had been caused by an act of nature and/or faulty construction when the building was built ten years earlier, it was an outlet we had never even used, and...

WE HAD TO PAY FOR THE REPAIR!!! It says so right in our standard Swiss rental contract.

SHEESH!!!

TBF like: our apartment!

TBF no like: standard Swiss rental contract!!!!

Sweet Relief!

Today's high is supposed to be 35˚C/95˚F. Tomorrow's high is only supposed to be 26˚C (high-70s), and on Saturday it's only supposed to get up to 23˚C (low 70s)!!

Maybe, by tomorrow, I'll even begin wearing a shirt again! Woo-HOO!!!

Yeah, it's been pretty hot this week. But this past week doesn't even come close to comparing to the summer of 2003 here in Basel. That summer was absolute hell. Temperatures regularly approached 40˚C (over 100˚F) for what seemed like three full months, and we had very little rain. Mrs. TBF has "air conditioning" at her office, but I remember her telling me that it pretty much just cooled the office down to the point where I would have been just sweating rather than sweating profusely.

Speaking of sweating profusely...

Here's a self-portrait taken after riding my bike back from the gym on August 6, 2003. I would ride my bike to the gym, change out of my soaking wet bike riding clothes, and then I'd change into fresh workout clothes. After my workout, I'd just stand under a cold shower, dry off, and then change into fresh clothes for the bike ride home. By the time I was at home, those clothes would be soaked through.

Lots of laundry that summer!

We were miserable (along with all of the neighbors), and the pets were miserable too. But hey, life goes on!

God bless "too cold" (as all the Europeans call it) American air conditioning!!!

I Got Nothin'

There is ABSOLUTELY nothing going on right now... other than the fact that it's hot outside.

The highs this week are around 33˚C/low 90s˚F, but the humidity isn't too bad, so it's tolerable. Plus it cools down significantly at night, so sleeping is no problem at all.

Would I use air conditioning this week if we had it? Yes. Do we need air conditioning? No. But hey, sometimes life is about having more than just what you need, right? I guess it would be nice to have the option of cooling off the entire apartment with the flick of a switch.

I've heard Swiss people say many times that "...air cone-dissoneeng ees completely unnecessary becuss you only neet it for two veeks per year heer in Sveetzerlant!" To which I respond: "Oh yeah? If you lived in a warm climate where you only needed heat for two weeks of the year, would you do without a heating source in your home?"

Anyway, I'll be leaving for the gym in a few minutes. Oddly enough, that's one of the few places I go to that has air conditioning. After my workout, I always sit in the hot sauna, and then I follow that with a plunge into the ice-cold dipping pool.

After that, all is well with my boring world.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Ok, so I haven't reduced or reused anything today. But I did recycle!!

Every three months or so, we receive a couple of recycling bags in our mailbox - one for shoes, and one for clothes. I love it! It's easy, free of hassle, and the frequency of pickups encourages us to go through our wardrobes on a regular basis. I go through my wardrobes, pick out a few things I no longer want, throw them in the bag, and VOILA! Out they go to the curb on the designated day. TODAY was that day.

Mrs. TBF is pretty good about it too. At first, it was like pulling teeth to get her to go through her wardrobes. But now, she just kind of snarls a little bit and then gets it over with.

I like recycling here. It's not quite as easy as it was in Chicago where we could just put everything in one container, drag it out to the curb once per week, and that was that. Instead, we have to bring our plastic bottles, batteries, light bulbs, and Brita filters (you read that correctly) back to the grocery store. But that's really not a problem. Bottles and cans have to be brought to community recycling bins, but that's not really a problem either (for us at least) because there is a recycling area right in front of our building. Bundled newspapers and cardboard are set out on the curb and picked up once per month, and there are also regularly schedules pickup days for larger household items, metal items, and garden waste - just about everything. In fact, as is evidenced by the large list/schedule we receive from the town hall at the start of the year, it seems like just about everything can be recycled here in Switzerland.

Here are some of the things, with instructions regarding where/when/how:

medicine, used motor and cooking oil, electrical appliances, refrigerators, wine corks, stones and construction waste, mirrors and windows, tree stumps, kitty litter sand, and last but not least...

ANIMAL CADAVERS (at the main municipal services area on Monday from 13:30 - 17:00, and on Fridays from 13:30 to 16:00!).

The municipal services area is about a three minute walk from our apartment. Ummm... remind me to avoid it on Monday and Friday afternoons - especially Friday afternoons!

That would really put a damper on my Friday evening T.G.I.F. cocktail!!

The Lazy Days Of Summer...

Since the kids will all be back in school soon, I figured it would be fitting if I got back to blogging on a regular basis. I guess the main reason I haven't blogged for the past few weeks is that not much has been going on.

Give me a minute, and I'm sure I can think of something.

...

...

Ok... here we go.

My parents are back in Canada now. If you'll recall, they were here back in June, then they went to Finland (where I met up with them) for several weeks, and then they came back to Basel for a few days before heading back to North America during the first week of August. We had pretty good weather, got to enjoy meals on the balcony and rooftop, and had a relaxing time. They partied with a bunch of our friends during our August 1st/Swiss National Day BBQ and also got a chance to experience Dale...

We've been cat-sitting Dale for nearly three weeks now while Canadian-Swiss and Orange-X (whom he obviously misses very much) have been on vacation. At his own home, he seems like a totally laid-back cat. Here at our apartment??? He's been...well...a challenge!!! He howls all night (had to confine him to the non-bedroom side of the apartment during the night) and sleeps all day, basically shows us no attention unless he's hungry (which is most of the time when he's not sleeping), has had several not-using-the-litter-box incidents even though I am constantly checking to make sure it is clean, and has pretty much helped us make the decision that we will be a cat-free household from here on out. After King died, we kind of talked about never having a cat again, but now???

Definitely never!

We're taking good care of him, but he's just not returning the love. What makes it worse is that Mrs. TBF is in the U.S. right now, and I'm having to deal with the beast on my own. Yaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh!

BEAST!!!

Dear C.S. and O.X.: Please hurry home, and safe travels. We look forward to visiting the well-behaved, calm Dale AT YOUR HOUSE.

Other than that: grocery shopping, watering the garden, gym, cooking dinner, cleaning the house, etc., etc.

ZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

'66, '85, '02, '05, and... '09

This was my fifth time visiting the fatherland. And, therefore, my fifth time in Helsinki.

After visiting with the relatives in Kauhava for a few days, I took the train back to Helsinki. Mrs. TBF took the same 6:05 a.m. flight that morning that I had taken a few days earlier, and she met me at the train station.

Here are a few of my favorite photos:

After dropping off the bags at our hotel, we went straight to the Kauppatori (market square) for some grub. It's a beautiful location right on the waterfront with lots of food stalls and vendors selling fish, vegetables, souvenirs, etc. However, one does need to watch out for the (very aggressive) seagulls. Those beasts will just swoop down and steal your food if you're not careful. Also, a couple of times while I was walking I heard a splat right next to me and realized that I had narrowly escaped one of their seagull bombs. The tent where we ate, along with all the other tents, were covered in seagull crap. We quickly ate Baltic herring and muikkut, and got the hell outta there... unsoiled!!! The Finns have got to do something about those damn birds!

There aren't too many places in the world where one can buy salmiakki candies or ice cream. Best described as tasting like salty licorice, it is definitely an acquired taste. If you can convince yourself that your are not eating a scoop of sludge (or seagull shit) on a cone, it's really quite tasty. However, there is one nasty side effect: salmiakki tongue!



On Friday night, we had a nice meal at Ravintola Savoy. The restaurant interior was designed by Aino and Alvar Aalto, and it is protected landmark. Everything - even the chairs (although I assume they've been reupholstered) - is the same as it was when it opened in the late-1930s. I snapped the first photo when Mrs. TBF and I first sat down at 9:30 p.m. The second photo was taken at 11:15 p.m.

Overall, we had a relaxing, enjoyable weekend in Helsinki with one bit of adventure sandwiched in the middle. More about that later...

Food For Thought

For the past few years, Mrs. TBF has had to endure my sermons regarding how I would solve America's health care issues. Ok... maybe my idea of an annual weigh-in and a "fat tax" is a bit... um... extreme.

Let's scratch that one.

However, a much simpler approach which most Americans could (but are for the most part unwilling to) do is... Ready for this????

LOSE WEIGHT!!!!!!**

Losing weight would cut down on type 2 diabetes, knee operations, back problems, unnecessary tests, etc. Plus the money one would save on food could go toward purchasing that shiny new car, big screen TV, or straight into the savings account.

Yeah, sure! Like people would actually put the money into savings. Right!

The benefit of that would be that the sales tax on non-food items is much higher than it is on groceries, and that would result in more money going into government coffers. Which, in turn, could go into health care (which people would now be requiring less of).

See? I told you I had it all figured out.

Anyway...

I saw this little letter to the editor in The Economist yesterday:

SIR - Some of the expense of health care derives from Americans' diet and sedentary lifestyle. We have the highest percentage of overweight and obese patients in the industrialized world. One-third of Americans are obese; that is 50% more than the British, 100% more than the Germans and 250% more than the French. The cost of treating obese patients rises as their body mass index increases.
Obesity lessens life expectancy more than smoking. I would like to see Europe's health-care costs with the same levels of obesity.
DR. ARTURO BONNIN
Dayton, Ohio

See? I've been saying it all along!

**I'd also like to take this moment to remind people that you don't loose weight, but instead, you lose weight.

loose vs. lose

Finnish Relatives

I saw quite a few of my relatives while in Finland.

My grandmother had 16 children. Two of them died as infants, and three have passed away in the past few years. Of the other eleven, two (including my father) live in North America, and the other nine live in Finland. Of the nine who live in Finland, eight of them (one aunt couldn't make it because her husband was in the hospital) made it to a family get-together we had at my one aunt's house.

I tower over almost all of my relatives. I say "almost" because my dad has one brother who got most of the "big" genes in his family - my Uncle Laijo. Just look at his forearms! They're like logs!!! They make mine look like toothpicks. I wish I'd had a tape measure because I'm betting that his forearms are bigger than my thighs! Incidentally, when I was in Finland in 1966 as I was approaching four years old, I used to hang from his index finger!

After our little reunion, we stopped at the house where my dad was born. I told him I wanted to physically touch it (which I did) - something I hadn't done since 1966! As we walked back to the car, my dad pointed to the corner of the house where he was born.

I thought that was pretty cool.

Kauhava Or Bust!

We have returned!

Last Tuesday, at the butt-crack of dawn, I embarked on a 12+ hour journey from Basel to Kauhava, Finland. Kauhava is where my dad was born, and since my parents were spending some time there I figured I'd join them and visit with some of the relatives I haven't seen since 2005.

It doesn't look too far away on the map, but it seemed to take forever to get there. First, I had to get up at 4 a.m. to catch a 6:05 a.m. flight to Munich where I connected for a 9:00 a.m. flight to Helsinki.*

Those early-morning flights are killers. TBF does NOT recommend them!

I had some time to kill at Munich Airport, so I went into a barber shop and asked if they'd give me a shave. They seemed willing to do so until I told them that I wanted them to shave my head, and then they refused.

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST SLAPHEADS!!! Who do I talk to about that?

When I finally arrived in Helsinki, Finnish frugality took immediate hold of me because I took the Finnair bus from the airport (with a bunch of Japanese people) to the central train station (5.90 Euros instead of 40 Euros for a taxi). At the train station, I snapped right back into travel diva mode and bought a first class train ticket to Kauhava, looked at my watch, and realized that I had about two hours to kill before the 15:30 departure. The two hours were spent pretty much eating, drinking, and watching a bunch of people walking by - pretty much all of whom looked like they could have been related to me in some way.

The train ride was pretty uneventful, and I finally arrived in Kauhava around 6:45 p.m. Man, that was loooooooooooong trip!

I was met at the train station by my parents and one of my aunts. We went back to the apartment my parents were staying at, I had a bite to eat, watched some Finnish TV, and went to bed just after midnight.

This (photo taken at 12:22 a.m.) is about as dark as it gets at night in July in Kauvaha, Finland. I forgot to bring a sleep mask, but don't worry - I didn't need one! I think I fell asleep about 10 seconds after my head hit the pillow!

*Since a lot of my older relatives don't speak English, I figured I'd go to Kauhava alone, and Mrs. TBF then met me in Helsinki later on in the week.

Dublin: Toner's - Now And Then

While in Dublin this past week, Colm, Diana, Mrs. TBF, and I enjoyed a couple of pints in a pub called Toner's. It was at this very same pub, in 1992, that Diana, Mrs. TBF, and I were enjoying our pints (while Colm was back at the apartment studying for his M.B.A.) when a very drunk man suddenly staggered out of the front door into the alley right by where we were sitting, and then proceeded to projectile vomit all over the ground only a few yards away from us. A few seconds later, his friends walked out and gave him a good ridiculing. Aaaaahhhhh, the memories!

Unfortunately, I didn't capture the projectile vomiting on film. However, I did dig up a few photos of us taken at Toner's in 1992.


Now: July 6, 2009






Then: Approx. July 1, 1992

Dublin: The First Evening

The day after Japandy, Mrs. TBF and I took off for Dublin.

How's this for bad luck? Ryanair used to have direct flights from Basel to Dublin. I say "used to" because they had them until July 1st. That's right, they discontinued the flights as of July 1st, so we opted to fly Aer Lingus out of Zürich.

It's the last time we'll do that.

Ok... I'll just admit blame by saying that it's my fault for not reading the fine print. Aer Lingus has a 6 kg. weight limit for carry-on bags. 6 KILOS!!!! That's about 13 lbs. I mean, my shoes weight nearly that much.

What a joke!

Naturally, we were both over the maximum allowed weight on our carry ons. So, we ended up having to check one bag. Not only that, but we then had to PAY 30 francs for the privilege of checking the bag. It was a total example of over-zealous, Swiss rule following. When we checked in with Aer Lingus in Dublin for the return flight home, they didn't even weigh our bags. Nope... they didn't care one bit. I mean, if it's a regulation size carry on bag.... WHO THE F#$% CARES HOW MUCH IT WEIGHS AS LONG AS YOU CAN LIFT IT INTO THE OVERHEAD COMPARTMENT YOURSELF???? Whether it weighs 5 lbs. or 25 lbs., IT STILL TAKES UP THE SAME AMOUNT OF ROOM!!!!!!!!

As a result, if I ever fly to Dublin from Basel again, I'll choose to fly BA or Lufthansa out of Basel... EVEN IF IT COSTS MORE!!! It's the principle of the thing.

Enough ranting!

The reason for our trip to Dublin was to see my sister, my Irish bro-in-law, and the kids who were in Dublin visiting Grandma Nellie. We stayed at The Westbury this time, and I won't go into details, but...

The Merrion (where we stayed last time) is MUCH nicer. The Westbury has a great location right on Grafton Street, but we'll stay at The Merrion again if we ever return to Dublin.

Our bro-in-law, Colm, was off fishing with his brother the day arrived, so my sister left the kids with Grandma Nellie and met us for dinner at a pub not too far from our hotel. We all enjoyed the pub food, and Mrs. TBF and I washed it down with Guinness - as you do in Ireland, right? Of course, my sister insisted on drinking Heineken.

Whatever!

After returning to our room, we thought we'd open the curtains in order to check out the view.

"YAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Mrs. TBF quickly closed the curtains, and I immediately began treating her for third-degree burns!

Japandy!

We celebrated Dr. Andy's birthday this past weekend. Some time back, Mrs. TBF decided on a menu of sushi and grilled steak with an Asian marinade. Hence, we decided that the theme of this dinner party would be... JAPANDY!

Pretty good, isn't it? I came up with that one, and Mrs. TBF is still seething about it!

Dr. Andy's birthday was actually last month. But due to travel/work conflicts, we were unable to celebrate until this past Saturday. Even this date proved to not be perfect since Dr. Rammy and Oliver were unable to attend due to a prior commitment in England, but we still had a nice, intimate gathering.

One of the sushi offerings was a Mrs. TBF creation: steak tartare sushi. Go ahead, Google it. You'll see that sushi AND steak tartare come up often in the same paragraph, but NEVER as "steak tartare sushi." I'm telling you, Mrs. TBF invented steak tartare rolled up as a sushi roll! And???? It's GREAT!!!!

As an aside: I once came up with what I thought was my own invention: the oyster martini. It was probably around 2004 or 2005 when, on a Friday evening, I was sitting at the dinner table with a martini and a plate of raw oysters. Suddenly, I came up with the idea of scraping an oyster off the shell - oyster liquor and all - right into my martini. At the end of the drink, when the gin is still just barely covering the oyster, you just slurp the whole thing right down.

Try it! It's great!!!

I called Dr. Andy, and I told him to come over to try my invention - the "oyster 'tini." He came over, tried it, and praised my creativity and inventiveness. Unfortunately, he Googled "oyster martini" after going home and came up with hundreds of hits. The next morning, he came over and broke the bad news over a cup of coffee.

Oh well. I guess one inventor per household is enough.