New borders!

A global warming related change I hadn't expected.

A cold winter!

We've had significantly more snow this year than last year. Here is an interview with head of the Climatology and Meteorology Research Group in Bern.

Snow!

There isn't any accumulation yet, but it has been snowing for a several hours. Rowan is outside in his hat, coat, crocs, and Emily's mittens watching the snow come down. He announced that winter has started and wanted to know when it would be spring.

Muriel and I were out for our evening/early morning walk when the snow started. Neither of us had the correct clothing and she did not like the snow on her face. At least I think she didn't like it. I cannot be positive that there was more screaming after the snow started landing on her face, but I think so.

Current temp: 2.2°C

Climate Change

I found this article about Switzerland and climate change interesting.

More sailing

I went sailing with my coworkers on Wednesday. We had good weather and wind. We tried to go around the fountain in Geneva, but we didn't have that much wind. We'll try again next week.

Dublin: the only airport with a longer wait to clear customs than Seattle

We made it to Dublin a mere 30 minutes late. I guess they had a radar issue yesterday that still isn't resolved. The kids did OK on the train and planes, but there were a few moments that caused a few looks.

We got to Dublin to discover that our "gate checked" stroller would be delivered at baggage claim. This is somewhat annoying, but not too big a deal. At least they handled it correctly at Frankfurt.

I guess Ireland is not part of the passport free zone, as we did have to clear immigration and customs here. There were 3 or 4 people to handle the EU citizens. I don't understand why they needed that many people, because I didn't even see anyone slow down as they walked through. When we first arrived at immigration there were only two people for the non EU citizens. It took about 25 minutes to clear customs and there were only about 15 people in front of us. All they did for us is ask if we were on vacation, ask how long we were staying, and stamp the passports.

The amazing thing is that all three bags plus the stroller were waiting for us when we got to baggage claim. That never happens in Switzerland.

It was raining our our walk to the hotel, but it has more or less stopped. If we are lucky there won't be too much tomorrow.

No Irish cheese yet, but there will be some tomorrow!

What happened to the snow?

We headed to the nearby mountains looking for snow today. We found some, but it was nothing like two weeks ago. It is hard to believe that all the snow could melt in two weeks in January. We go to the pass and found a little snow, but there was barely enough to play with. Rowan and Niamh seemed to be satisfied with the limited snow, but there wasn't even enough for us to use our sled. Maybe we will get lucky and it will snow a few feet this week.