Scale Lengths and Costs

Well;
The price for being of a scientific bent is to start thinking of things in round numbers and imagining them as related to things you know. This goes for the oven (which of course is celsius), where 180 has become my 350. And the outside: 30 is too hot and 15 is a little on the chilly side. This goes for Eindhoven (our big city) which is about the same in population as Albuquerque and Colorado Springs. Distances are easy to convert, too. I live about as far from Vokel as I did from what used to be the Wild Oats in C. Springs (it is now a Whole Foods) or as my condo was from what Kate lovingly refurred to as Smurways (it was a Smiths last time I saw it). A comfortable 15-20 minute walk from the house.

Some things are hard to quantify though. I was at the market today with Eileen. We bought veggies and cheeses with my pidgeon Dutch...sometimes effective and sometimes not...and then stopped by the flowers stall and for 6 Euro (about 10 bucks) got three huge bunches of flowers-- sunflowers and two different colored smaller flowers whose names I didn't catch in Dutch and don't know in English - filling two vases. Most everything here is crazy expensive compared to the states -- except beer, wine, candles, and flowers. Does this make the Netherlands the most romantic country ever?