Big dog is in remission so to speak. We don't really know what happens from here on out. Everything is dependent on how long she stays in remission. We're hoping for a long one.

Cancelling a nonrefundable trip sucks. We encountered several dick.s and a few bright spots. The hotel in Amsterdam refunded 80% of our stay and even checked in later to see how Emmy was doing. Delta was the biggest surprise. When I called to change tickets the lovely woman on the phone waived the $300 ticket change fee because she considered our situation a "family emergency". She was a dog person. We just have to use our tickets before the end of October. Paris, Strasbourg and Bruges, they were dick.s.

So we've started booking for the next trip and have decided to take a different route. We're flying into Prague in June and staying there for 5 days, then taking a train to Lucerne, Switzerland and staying there for 5 days, take an overnight train to Amsterdam and stay there for 5 days. Pearl Jam is playing the first show of their European tour in Amsterdam. I purchased tickets from a really kind German guy who wants to meet up before the show. That could be interesting. Then we go to Bruges for 3 days, train to Paris, spend one night in Paris and then fly home from there. Nothing (except for the concert) is nonrefundable. Not playing around with that again.

June looks promising. Grad school graduation and hopefully a successful licensing exam will have taken place. Should be a good chance to unwind as long as Emmy's Lymphoma cooperates. She has good oncologists, so I'm hopeful.

The only thing left to book for the June trip is the flight but I'm waiting until it's closer to get a reasonable fare.

There is a very good chance that we'll fly back to Austria next December for the Krampus festival. We were really bummed that we didn't get to go there, so we're skipping Austria all together in hopes we can go back there next winter.