Susan and I are now settled in Amsterdam and loving it. I'm doing research at the Academic Medical Center of the University of Amsterdam and we plan to be staying here until the end of next summer, so I'm afraid we won't be making it to the next Paradox reunion. I really wish we could have found the time to visit you before we left the country but getting everything together for this trip proved to be an overwhelming set of tasks and there just wasn't time.
Living in Amsterdam has been even better than I had hoped. I think the Dutch are an under-appreciated people (or at least the Dutch in and around Amsterdam - we haven't had much opportunity yet to travel in the more rural parts of Holland). I've been very pleasantly surprised at how warm and kind most of the people I've encountered here have been. Our daughter Annie is doing her junior year in college at the University of Paris so we've been getting to know that city as well and, while I can certainly understand why everyone raves so much about what a fantastic place it is, I have to say that I'm happy that Susan and I decided spend my sabbatical year in Amsterdam rather than in Paris as we had originally planned.
There has, however, been one major drawback during the trip... While we were in Paris six weeks ago, Susan broke her ankle. I can tell you that dealing with the French medical system would be daunting enough if you spoke the language but it is certainly no picnic if you don't. So after 2 stressful days in Paris we hobbled back to Amsterdam where we could at least understand what the doctors were saying, since most of them speak such excellent English (which, of course makes us feel like idiots for being so linguistically challenged). But Susan is out of her cast now and learning to walk like a biped again, so we hope things will be back to normal soon.
Anyway - enough of all the travelogue stuff. We are having a wonderful time here but we do miss the beautiful people at home, which is why I'm thinking of you. I hope everything is well with you and would love to hear from you. Please take good care of yourselves and give my best to all.
No comments:
Post a Comment