Our lodging in Amsterdam, Zoku, had an “almost everything store” in its 6th floor “living room,” a set of drawers containing a bunch of useful things one might need when traveling:

The selection here is obviously western hipster-traveler oriented, but the labels on the drawers still serve as a useful guide as to the things you might want to remember when you travel.

Also, the presence of SIM cards is brilliant: every hotel catering to international travelers should simply offer a SIM card as a part of the check-in routine.

Oliver started grade 12 at Colonel Gray High School today; while we drive to school these daysm as opposed to walking, we simulated the previous start-of-school pictures for completeness sake.

Grade 12, 2018

Grade 11, 2017

Grade Ten, 2016

Grade Nine, 2015

Grade Eight, 2014

Grade Seven, 2013

Grade Six, 2012

Grade Five, 2011

Grade One, 2007

The first time Oliver used the sink at our Malmö Airbnb, he emerged exclaiming “The sink sounds like a didgeridoo!”

I asked him to record this, and he emailed me this sound.

Which does, indeed, sound like a didgeridoo.

Luisa took this photo of me when we were in Malmö and called it my “author photo.” It’s a testament to her skills as a photographer and to the quality of the OnePlus 5 camera. It also means I need to write a book to deserve it.

I planned to edit together several video clips that Oliver and I shot to review the smart fortwo electric drive this morning, but Google Photos just alerted me that it had done this itself.

The result is very very weird, but may in fact be more compelling than anything I could have created myself.

We had an hour to kill before IKEA opened this morning, so we stopped in at O’Regan’s Mercedes to test drive a smart fortwo electric drive (and learned, in the process, that smart no longer makes non-electric cars).

We shot a full video review, but the short story is that while the old gas-powered smart drove like a sluggish riding lawnmower, the electric drives like a rocket.

If we didn’t have the need to carry three people and a dog around—and if the PEI government offered the kind of electric vehicle subsidies that other provinces do—I’d seriously consider it to replace our Jetta.

This closing video of Smart Stuff That Matters 2018 captures the spirit of the weekend well.

I came surprisingly close to offering up my phone for Elmine’s wrecking hammer; in the end, though, I realized that I’d have no way to find our hotel in Amsterdam without it, and no way for people at home to contact me. It’s good to be aware of our technological dependencies in such stark ways from time to time.

I have often described the PEI Cancer Treatment Centre as simultaneously one of the saddest and happiest places on earth: when the sound of the “my treatment’s done and I’m cancer-free” bell rings out, there is no greater wave of joy to be felt flowing through the halls; but it is also a place of heart-wrenching conversations and great suffering, and you can see this chiseled into the faces of people in the waiting room, both those living with cancer and those supporting them.

In the last four years that I’ve been accompanying Catherine to treatments and doctors visits there, Tom Rath seemed ever-present; Tom, undergoing treatment for his own cancer, never had anything but a smile on his face, though, and we always took a minute to chat when we ran into each other. I’d known Tom from his days as a bed & breakfast operator in Murray Harbour, when he was active on the Tourism Industry Association of PEI, and had lost touch with him for many years once he stepped away from that; it was nice to make his acquaintance again, despite the circumstances.

Tom died on Sunday; the Eastern Graphic has a lovely description of his life, and his contributions to his communities, many of which I didn’t know about (I also had no idea he was another one of the seeming multitudes of Islanders born in Hamilton, Ontario).

I will miss my chats with Tom, and my heart goes out to his wife Frances.

After this morning’s very positive experience at Schiphol Airport, I had high hopes for the balance of the day. As usually happens, we had good times and challenging ones. But we survived, and as I type we are trying to stay up to a regular Atlantic Daylight Time bedtime.

Our transfer in Frankfurt was made much easier by not needing to clear security again (the secret here appeared to be taking the subterranean “passenger tunnel” that connects the A concourse where we arrived to the B concourse where we were to depart; if you happen to take the same tunnel someday, there’s an impressive photo installation by Martin Liebscher lining the wall). On the outbound voyage a couple of weeks ago we didn’t know we’d need to clear security while transferring to our SAS flight to Copenhagen, and it created some early morning jet-lagged transition stress.

Things took a turn for the anxious, however, when we arrived at gate B61, a cavernous basement cattle pen with not enough seats for we who were herded in. The lack of seating was inconvenient, but not stressful; the source of the stress was that each of the three Condor staff that we showed our “print out all attached documents and keep them with you during the whole journey” documents regarding Oliver’s need for assistance paid them no heed, and offered us no assistance whatsoever. As a result, when the pre-board call came, there was a crush of about 150 already checked-in passengers crowding to catch the buses to the apron. So we sat down and caught the last bus, which provided a little more calm. It was frustrating the Condor didn’t rise to the challenge of providing assistance.

The flight across the Atlantic was long (the extra 60 to 90 minutes that the westward flight takes vs. the eastward always makes coming home seem like a long slog). Oliver upped for the ‎€9 “premium entertainment” voucher to avoid having to watch one of the two “free” movies on offer; he watched Yes Man and Love, Simon. Meanwhile I watched four episodes of the new Jack Ryan series, downloaded in advance to my phone from Amazon Prime (the ergonomics of watching a film on a plane are horrible).

Oliver had a brief spasm of anxiety during my pre-landing “oh, right, I need to calculate how much we spent on things” calculations. He was very, very concerned with accuracy (as, of course, I was), and wanted to make sure I included everything, and that I didn’t include anything that we left in Europe. He also was concerned that we had a written record of all purchases and of all the places we visited. So I complied, and compiled. And he calmed down.

When we arrived at the customs line in Halifax there were approximately 300 people waiting in line, a mixture of Condor and Icelandair passengers.

Unable to face the prospect of managing a stressed-out Oliver for however long it would take to wend through the line, I redirected us to the line labeled “crew and special services,” rationing that it was indeed special services that we need. We waiting for about 20 seconds before we were in front of perhaps the kindest, most compassionate border agent I’ve ever met. I introduced him to Oliver; Oliver presented his lists; he complimented Oliver on his lists, and told him that he wish that all passengers were as organized. When he noted that we’d done a lot of stationery shopping in Halifax, he mentioned his own stationery interest, and ended up giving Oliver a pen. This experience reminded me that accessible service for people with autism is simple: just be clear, precise, and friendly. Which is the service that everyone should expect.

After a quick diversion to get a form filled out for the items we mailed ahead, we beat a path to the Quality Inn shuttle bay, and were checked in and in our room within 20 minutes. The Quality Inn doesn’t look like much, and it could certainly use some new hallway carpeting and a coat of paint. But the beds are comfortable and the rooms are clean. I expect, in any case, that we’ll be awake and on the road at 5:00 a.m.

Sitting here in the airport in Amsterdam I received the sad news that Jim Munves, a neighbour and great Islander, has died.

Jim and his wife Barbara were fixtures of our neighbourhood; I saw them just a few weeks ago walking around the block together. Jim briefly lost track of Barbara when she and her aid took a shortcut through the Murphy Centre parking lot; there was a palpable look of joy on both their faces when their reconnected.

Even though he lived just a few blocks away, shared an interest in public transit, and used to write talk pieces for The New Yorker, I never introduced myself to Jim. I always meant to, but was forever in a hurry; “I’ll get him on the next round.” Alas that’s exactly what I did last week, even though the opportunity presented itself. And so we never met.

By all accounts, Jim’s was a life well-lived; our neighbourhood won’t been the same without him. My sympathies to Barbara and their children.