This week.

Pretty sad when I can sum up the events of almost an entire week with one blog entry.
Tuesday I found the tire dude in the morning. Mind you it was on the second try, since at first I just figured I had the address wrong, so came back to the house and went to Google Maps. Sure enough, I had driven right by it, and would have missed it again had I not got out of the car and gone in and asked someone.
Not sure why ordering tires has to be so complicated, but since it's part of the lease, (i.e. we don't pay) I'll go through the hoops. Seems that tire dude didn't need just the size, but also the VIN number, so he could check with the manufacturer for a speed rating. He has to get tires that are one level below the ones presently on the car. So my guess is I'll be limited to something like 200 k.p.h?
Ok, I've barely had the car over 160, so I'm pretty sure I'd need to be wearing a diaper to go much faster than that in a snow storm.

But, like I said, I just go with the flow.

Oooh, that was a bit of a pun, wasn't it?

He took my phone number, and will call when the tires come in. Could be a couple weeks.
So since I had the car, I decided to head for IKEA, only to discover that, although they were open for breakfast, the store itself was not yet open. The restaurant was mobbed, by the way.
Fine, on to plan B. Picked up the old cruiser from home and took it for a new inner tube. This is the one I mentioned earlier.
Dropped it off, and was surprised when he told me that I could pick it up at five.
Several days later, the tires still have air in them. Wow.

Not many revelations for Wednesday, except that we discovered the fun and convenience of Skype, which I am now whole heartedly advocating to all our friends and relatives who might like to hear from us from time to time. I downloaded the program in the morning, we chatted for a half hour or so with our friend down in Switzerland (where apparently they get the same 27 minutes of daylight as us) and a bit later that evening yakked with one of our daughters back in Burlington for the better part of an hour. We could see her, but since I'm a bonehead and cannot for the life of me find the webcam I bought a couple months before coming over here, she couldn't see us. She's going to check through our stuff* at home to see where I might have left it.

Honestly.

*You need to watch the George Carlin video on "stuff".

Today was the day we decided to go to a little town called Goor (try to make it rhyme with the English word "boat"..) to go to the municipal building for Hof van Twente, so I could get myself registered for my residence permit.

Also, Gabe had to get some sort of Certificate of Good Behavior (I kid you not!) because she needs to be a Director for Eaton-Holec here in Yurp.

Anyhoo, as we were able to kill those two birds with one stone, we then came back to Delden for her Dr's appointment at 2:30.
Turns out her blood pressure is pretty much fine, it's the retarded blood pressure monitor that she's been using. So it was off to the Apotheke to get a prescription filled and buy a new monitor. Busy place, but really amazing service. Wouldn't mind bringing some of the Chimps they have working at what we think are drug stores in Canada over here to show them how it's done....and how filling a prescription should not take half a friggin' day.

That's about it.

Oh well, one other minor thing, and this is particularly directed to any of my siblings who might be reading, all of whom were born in Margaretville, Nova Scotia.
I knew ahead of time that when I had to register over in Goor, that they'd be asking me a bunch of whacky questions on the form about my parental units, where they were born, birthdates etc. I made up most of it, but I had it written on a post-it note, so that at least it looked like I had the right answers.
Now, we always had a less than glowing opinion about the town where we spent our youth (some of us less than others, thankfully) and used a somewhat perjorative term to discribe it.
So now it's "official", since the name of this village is on an official document here in the Netherlands.

It just happened, before I knew it, I had in fact written down,


(wait for it)



"Maggotville"

.....and never let on one bit.

Straight faced the whole time.

So it turns out Dad was born in good ole Maggotville after all.

Well...... Nico (Dutch lesson Dude) will be here shortly, so best get ready.
...and yes, I've done my homework.