it was a good day.

Flea market, chocolate store, ice cream, drawing...today was good. Karaoke with four Polish girls, a Pakistani and an Israeli...last night was great.

Yesterday Al sent me an email saying his work was having a party that night. He said there was going to be food and karaoke, but those were empty threats. There was going to be a gathering with people who spoke english!

Al and Junaid (Pakistani) singing "My Heart Will Go On" per request of the Polish girls.

Pols singing a song of their own and loving it.

There was an "I Will Survive" but surprisingly no YMCA - a song which I feel is played at every foreign dance party I've been to. And I've probably been to more than you would guess. However, they were all into Tina Turner's "Simply the Best". Do you know this song? Cause the other American girls and myself were shocked that these people knew it- every word. Also, of all the Backstreet Boys' songs they chose "Get Down". What? However, as we were listening and watching the music video (cause this was makeshift Youtube karaoke) we decided it is tailored for Eastern Europeans. See for yourself http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j5XOjnpX3-w .

And, today I found another thing to add to my finds in Belgium. But I'll have to tell you about it later since we're just leaving to catch a train to London. Bye!

-annie

time to join...for reals.

"Do you have a blog?" is the one of the main questions I've been asked since September. Shamefacedly I have to respond, "no". Even though it's kind of annoying, I so prefer this over the other commonly asked question for married people "when are you going to start having kids?" uh...

There was never a need to start a blog, I was able to view to my hearts content everyone else's lives without ever having to expose my own. But, I think I've been free riding the blogging world for a little too long now and it's time I start contributing.

So here you go, a little piece of the Grows.

We moved to Brussels (and for those of you who are like me, I'll save you a google text and let you know it's in the country of Belgium) on the 12th of June. I will be here until August 30th and Al until the 20th of September.

Kitchen

View from our balcony.

Living room and balcony windows.

Bedroom

We bathe now.

Closets

And here are the baby stairs we have to climb three floors a few times daily.

And since we only have one set of keys, every day I park it on the balcony around 630 pm and wait for when Al calls up to me. He's home! I then "run" down these stairs. I say run, but really these stairs are so skinny they barely fit my foot (and mine is a small one) so I'm usually hopping down the stairs as quickly as possible in an attempted second position with the best turnout I can muster. Needless to say I scratched my heel yesterday.

While I'm at it, here are some pictures from our trip to Italy. We took a train ride from Brussels that left at 7 am to Basel Switzerland to Chiasso Italy and arrived in Milan Italy at 930 pm and then took a night train from there to Rome and arrived at 730 am. The train ride was beautiful. The only complaint: in order to satiate our thirst, I bought a huge bottle of water that was going to last us for the rest of the day and into the next. Too bad it was soda water. Nothing like bubbly, luke warm water to quench your thirst on a hot, sticky day in Rome. But it was a few euros, so we swallowed it all up...every drop. Oh yeah, at that same store I bought the meal that was to last me the rest of the day and for some reason chose a zucchini sandwich - what?! We made up for it at a McD's in Milan.

Two from the train ride near Lucern

St. Peters- yes, that is shiny hair and shiny faces. We now haven't showered in over 24 hours and slept on a train. AND it was super hot in Rome.

For Milk

Al stole this beauty of a shot.

That's pretty much our first day in Rome. I'll post more later.

-annie