It's been a while...

I apologize for the lack of posts, I've been slacking off. I'd like to say I've been busy, but I haven't really. Here's a brief account...

-I went to a park with Miguel, which was fun

From Living the Expat Life...

-I got sick with some crazy sinus/cough thing and didn't leave the apartment for about 2 weeks. I was full of green snot, had no voice, and was up all night a couple nights coughing. It was lovely. Miguel took good care of me until I finally went to the doctor and she fixed me up with everything BUT antibiotics.

-Somewhere along the line, I think before I was sick, Miguel and I went to the equivalent of China Town here and took pictures of products with funny names.

-Just after I got back on my feet, a good old friend came to visit! Brice! He's still here and hanging with us. He's a lot of fun to have around and bum around town with. He also does the dishes. :-)He also takes a lot of pictures and is fun to go to bars with. We went to one called Delirium on Sunday and tried a bunch of kinds of beer. My first was one on tap called "Pink Killer" (a grapefruit-y beer which, happily, didn't kill me), then Barbar (a tasty, strong honey beer) and then I had a St. Idesbald Blonde (all, as far as I know, Belgian).

All the while we were looking around the bar (there was a lot of beer-kitsch), talking to random people (mostly tourists, but interesting tourists), Brazilians, Americans, Aussies, Brits, etc. We noticed that there was a lot of money (esp. US dollar bills) on the wall. We decided to write on one and donate it to the cause. The bartender put it up for us! (He also took this pic of it for us...)Greenwich St. represent! Brice then went to bum a cigarette off of these guys who turned out to be British soldiers that served in Northern Ireland (he sure can pick em!). They were friendly and bought us a few rounds of something, no idea what. They were already quite inebriated...

So then was the long walk home followed by a bit of a same-day hangover. It was a lot of fun though, and totally worth it.

So that was one of our adventures. Our other was last night. After getting my tax refund (and stimulus check! btw, I think "stimulus check" should be a euphemism for something!), we decided we needed a celebration! We decided to FINALLY go to the restaurant we live above, Au Vieux Bruxelles! We got a bottle of pinot gris from Alsace, a starter of a selection of sausages, Brice and Miguel each got mussels (Mig with garlic sauce, Brice with blue cheese), I got a vol au vent de poularde (kinda like a chicken pot pie), all of it came with frites, and then we got a couple of desserts (mini creme brulee and a mini dame blanche-- vanilla ice cream served with melted Belgian chocolate. Everything was totally delicious and we will be going back there. I did try the mussels, and while I'm not a fan yet, they were certainly palatable and I will try them again. Dad, you would love this place!

So that's the latest of my adventures. I would like to share with you a funny thing about Brussels. Most of you have heard of the Manneken Pis, aka. the peeing boybut fewer people have heard of the Jeanneke Pis, aka. the peeing girl! Yep. There is such a thing, and now, finally, I have a picture!So there you have it folks. I hope you have enjoyed this post, and I will try to post more soon!