Amsterdam is a city that embraces change. In recent years, the city itself has been the object undergoing the most change. A city-wide metro project has left the city's main arteries under construction for years longer than projected, and of course the project has cost much more than was originally budgeted for it; however, the city now has a super-efficient and lightning-quick underground mode of transportation.

A couple of years ago, a band I was in toured the UK. This was our 3rd tour in the UK and we had played about 23 shows around the UK and Ireland for a little over three weeks. We had gone on this tour with another band from Florida, the members of which I had been friends with for many years. When the tour came to an end, my friends' band was not leaving for the US immediately. Our band was moving on to continue to tour mainland Europe, but we were all sitting in Cardiff for a few days.

Will has described Ranelagh in his Dublin Neighbourhood Watch. I was going to post this as a reply there, but it seems to deserve some space of its own.

What's interesting, but not widely known, is how Ranelagh got its name.

The Icelandic Minister for Industry is obviously a little peeved that the US specifically left them out of the recent currency swap agreement with Norway, Sweden & Denmark. That's putting it mildly. Apparently he said "the US gave us the finger."

She is not an Irish town
And she is not English,
Historic with guns and vermin
And the cold renown
Of a fragment of Church latin,
Of an oratorical phrase.
- Louis MacNiece