Second to Last

This may be my last entry. I know I have slacked off in the last week or so, and I'm sorry, but all of a sudden I was way too relaxed to much else but read, sleep and eat. Perfect vacation activities.
Our week in Munster was pretty fantastic. We went to Koln and saw the gigantic Gothic cathedral
http://pictures.wcunningham.com/germany2004files/DSC_4368s.jpg
Here's a picture for anyone who hasn't heard of it (I hadn't) and needs to be awed. I took a few pictures, but it was a smoggy cloudy day in Koln, and most of the photos I took aren't really impressive. It is hard to describe how enormous that building is, and how impressive and just a little bit scary it looks from across the city.
The day in Koln was a short one, we had some lunch and saw the cathedral, then jumped back on the train to make it home in time to watch the soccer game. I've never been much into watching sports, but soccer (foot ball) in Europe is an entirely different thing. Everyone gets into it... REALLY into it. There were flags everywhere, on cars, hanging out of windows, painted on people's faces. It was quite a European experience to watch a soccer game in a tiny little pub, full to capacity with screaming fans. Well, no one screamed the whole time, only when Germany scored a goal. Just an interesting bit of trivia: Poland has not scored a goal on Germany since 1980. So, and fun as it was to watch the two teams play, the out come was kind of predetermined.
We had a great relaxing dinner at Viviane's parent's place, where we played with their dog Sydney and longed on the deck sipping wine and eating chocolate. It was a perfect evening.
For the most part the trip to Munster included a whole lot of reading (Viviane and I) and backgammon (Ben and Adrian). I think that the guys played at least 40 games in the week that we were there. I read 2.5 books, which I haven't done since I lived at home in the Valley.
Ben filled our stomachs when we were done relaxing our minds. He and Viviane had just been in Thailand for 2 months, and Ben took some cooking classes there. It was great!
One last exciting thing about Munster: while we were there we had a wicked thunder and lightening storm, with hail the size of peas. It was pretty impressive, and unexpected. The day was hot and sunny, then all of a sudden it was hailing and POURING rain. The street flooded and the fire department was kept pretty busy pumping basements. It was really amazing though. The sky was phenomenal, with lightening shooting across it as thunder echoed off the buildings and filled the city with sound.
Global warming doing its thing.
Yesterday, after a fond farewell to Ben and Viviane and Munster, we got on the RIGHT train and came back to Amsterdam. We're staying with Alex, Laura and their 2 rats in a university dorm. It's cozy :)
The rats are a new addition to the family, we went and got them today actually. Alex, Laura and I carried the two rats and all their toys, shavings, cage etc etc home from the pet store this afternoon. They aren't allowed to have pets in the dorms, so we crept in Indian Jones style to avoid any RAs.
The rats names are Sniffy the Virtual Rat and Prof. Ratamus Rattington. I am proud to say that Ratamus was my suggestion :) Sniffy was the name of the rat program that Alex used in his Behavioral class at UBC. I don't think that Sniffy will ever actually get called by her full name though.
Tonight we all went out for dinner with Judith at the Indonesian place we have become addicted to. It was hard to say good bye to her. I hope that we see each other again. I am awful at saying goodbye to people, especially when we have spent so much time together, like Judith and I did. It was a really nice evening, which we wrapped up by watching the 2 rats play fight and swing on their little trapeze (not an actual trapeze... more like a nest on strings).
Perfect.
I am not sure if I will blog tomorrow, we have to be up at 4 am so that we can get Adrian to to train on time. This has been a wonderful trip, and thanks so much for reading along with us.
we will see you all soon
Much Love
Emma and Adrian