Greetings Dear Readers,

We landed in SFO yesterday after a wonderfully smooth 10-hour flight from Dublin on Aer Lingus. When I say “smooth” I mean no one broke out in tears, kicked the neighboring passengers, or spilled their juice on the seats. Not even the kids

To summarize our vacation very briefly, we spent long hours with the family, browsing the shops in my husband’s home village, drinking latte macchiatos, and watching the cousins enjoy each other’s company — and all but our three speak zero English. Needless to say, even my smallest daughter (6 years old) was speaking pretty fluent German by the time we flew out.

Our clan spent one whole week on the coast in Holland, and were blessed with Californ-ish weather. Seven full days of warm sunshine, with not a drop of rain — almost unheard-of in those parts! We took a full-day tour of Amsterdam in a private barge that boated us all around the canal district. The weather that day was absolutely perfect as well. Magic!

Back home in Germany, we swam in the local indoor pool (called H2-0h if you can believe it), took bike tours to picturesque neighboring towns, and drank a lot of beer and wine. We toasted with homemade cocktails every evening before dinner, and walked to the local Italian Gelato cafe at least twice a day (I stuck to the lattes, but licked my girls’ spoons).

For our overnight in Dublin, we rented a summer apartment within the walled campus of legendary Trinity College, which dates back to 1592 (!) and boasts among its graduates the likes of Samuel Beckett, Oscar Wilde, and physicist Ernest Walton, who won the Nobel Prize for his work on the atom.

On the diabetes front, my OmniPod stayed put admirably well despite so much water and sand, and water.  I had no significant lows (if you don’t count having to gulp down a whole bag of raisins in Dublin Airport on the way in), and no significant highs (if you don’t count the two times I briefly went over 300 during/after a site change).  My average glucose for the last 30 days looks to be just over 130, of which I’m quite proud considering the circumstances. We were on the road and on our bikes a lot, and I indulged in quite a few gluten-free treats I don’t normally eat: choco-muesli (yum!), chocolate tea biscuits (double-yum), and “fitness bars” that were actually more like flattened squares of coffee cake (oh-so-yum!)  All of this helped offset the ache of watching everyone else eat Gelato three times a day.  You have to pick & choose your carbs, of course!

Now we are home again, so it’s back to reality. No more choco biscuits. No more ignoring the internet (which I actually quite enjoyed for a while there). I’m staring at a two-foot pile of mail and three inboxes with thousands of emails between them. Arrgh.  I’m feeling something odd, which may possibly be writer’s block. Or diabetes block. Like when you’re not sure what to do next and just can’t seem to come up with ANYTHING that seems worth your while.

Nah, I’m sure it’s just jet lag. Gimme the weekend. I’ll get over it.

In any case, I wanted to say that I’m simply delighted with the lineup of this year’s Summer Guest Post series. I do hope you enjoyed them all as much as I did!

The sun is shining. My husband is downstairs making vegetable soup. Our girls are trying on their new uniforms for Fall AYSO.

It is good to be home indeed.

Yours,

AmyT

Friday, August 21st, 2009 | Permalink | Comments (5)