End of the trip

Ok, so the ibuprofen wasn't in the car. I guess it would have been nice to figure that out beforehand, because we could have bought some earlier.

Bruges was very nice, probably our favorite city in Brussels. I think the countryside wins overall location though. There was this one restaurant that we had to go to 3 times in Bruges so Duane could sample the last beer on his list. The first time we went was at dinner (32 euros/per person, no thanks!), then next day we tried to go at lunch (closed on Thursdays), and the finally successful time was just before we left Bruges. Duane was super happy to have that last beer though and it was unique.

Luxembourg City is nothing to write home about unfortunately. The coolest thing is that the city center is wired for wireless internet, so you can sit in the park and check your email (for free!). Our hotel was nice (the Novotel), despite its proximity to the strip club part of town. It had the hugest breakfast buffet! We actually ate at Pizza Hut there, but the Pizza Hut there had about 15 different kinds of pizza.

Next and last stop was Dusseldorf. It was rainy, but we walked around a bit. We had a great (and cheap) dinner of goulash, frankfurters, and cheese. The flight back was fine, although my nose had started running. I ended up with a migraine when we got home because the ibuprofen got misplaced. There was a little snafu where I told a friend to pick us up on Tuesday (but we really got in on Monday). She had forgotten about a show she was going to, so I got my sister to pick us up. We would have been waiting until Tuesday otherwise.

The rest of the week was a blur. We had dinner in Janesville with my parents to celebrate our birthdays, we had dinner with another friend, and a haircut appointment.

Spring Snow

So much to say....

I have a lot to report on. The end of our trip (in which I got sicker), our trip to Texas for a wedding, and the supposed snow that is coming tonight and tomorrow.

We get to enjoy the first day of spring before one last winter storm warning. A possible 1-2 inches tonight, 4-6 inches during the day tomorrow, and 1-2 more inches tomorrow night. Good thing one of the windows in my car won't roll all the way up. I taped a garbage bag over it (classy!). No, I won't be driving it with the garbage bag taped to it.

The UW Badgers are playing their first March Madness game and winning at this point. We have a friend over that wanted to watch the game. He fell asleep right about when the game started.

We are watching my little sister's kitties while they are away for Spring Break. They are cute, but kind of drive you nutty. One of them has white fur on his paws, but he has gray fur growing in between his toes! One of them was nibbling my ear this morning in an attempt to get me out of bed.

I will probably have time to catch up after the weekend. Duane has to go to South Dakota for work for a few days.

Crap, I'm sick

We have been having a great time here in Belgium. I woke up this morning with a slight fever and a scratchy throat. My chest kind of hurts too. I think I would feel better if I had some ibuprofen (which may or may not be in the car which we are too lazy to walk to as it is about a 30 minute roundtrip walk). I have been keeping my chin up though and I hope to sleep well tonight.

Bruges is very nice. I would recommend it over Brussels (although Bruges has more frite stands it has fewer waffle places than Brussels). We have had so much beer, that I will have to detox for a couple of weeks.

We are off to Luxembourg tomorrow!

Hello from Antwerp!

We are having a great time, drinking lots of beer and eating lots of frites (fries). The weather has been decent, but a little on the windy side. We may be getting more wind and snow tomorrow.

Yesterday we went to a beer festival and sampled 22 beers. We were a little drunk on the way back to Antwerp (the festival was a little outside of town). We stopped at another bar and had more beer. I think we were a little noisy when we got home (especially when I tripped over my suitcase and fell down).

Today's highlights included seeing a naked man. Not sure why the dude was naked with the sidewalk level window and curtains open. It was just a butt view, and he was a younger guy (not wrinkley). We had a nice day walking around and had more fries and beer.

We head to the countryside tomorrow to stay at the b&b at the brewery and see some monks.

Are you sure I am leaving the country in 2 days?

Things have been so crazy here.

On Friday we had our all you can eat meat dinner. It was good, but more of a once in awhile thing. They had the tables really crammed together so you were constantly shifting to allow them to get the meat to your plate. There was no music when we first started dinner, which made for a weird ambiance. They have live jazz Sunday thru Thursday, but not Friday and Saturday (?). Eventually some music was turned on. It was fun though, and the duck was fabulous.

Saturday was the big beer festival. The weather was decent, which was a problem. There were so many people there that you couldn't get any beer. What is the point of standing line for an hour to get a beer? The band stunk, and we never found the friends were supposed to be hanging out with.

Sunday was working all day getting our friend's house ready.

Today at work was totally crazy. The main printer/scanner/copier was not working and the service guy didn't show up until 4! I was planning on going to our friend's house to do some painting, but it took me all day to wade through the paperwork.

3 of the pets are being delivered tomorrow with all of the stuff they need. I am hoping to find some time to pack my suitcase. I am working on Wednesday as well and this house needs to shape up a bit. I am taking Hershey to the vet in the morning for a couple of shots and a bloodwork check and then in to work for my "review". It isn't really my 1 year review since I haven't been working in this position for a year.

Breathe in, breathe out.

My car has been freed!

We left my car in my office parking lot over the weekend, as we have done in the past. The freezing rain/snow/frigid temps led to my car being stuck in the parking lot. It is a front wheel drive, so usually I don't have trouble. There was a sheet of ice under the car though, and it was on a slight decline. Duane called AAA this morning and they came right out. It turns out the right rear brake was stuck, so he had to get under the car and hammer it a few times. The guy was nicer than nice, but I did notice that he had no front teeth.

I don't have to carpool with Duane anymore. It hasn't been terrible, but it has lead to my being gone from the house from 9-8 or so every night this week. It is difficult to get much done when you are never home.

I am giving a seminar tonight for first time home buyers. I may only have 1 person. These seminars stress me out, so I will be happy when it is done. It would be nice if this 1 person decided to buy a house with me, but I won't hold my breath.

Wow

I am so happy it is frigid out and the roads are like giant ice rinks. Did I mention that it is 55 degrees in Belgium and I am going there in 8 days? Many of the houses have death icicles right now, the kind that look like they would slice right through you if you happened to be so unlucky to be walking under one when it fell off. Oh and the emergency brake seems to be frozen on my car so Duane and I have been carpooling.

This Friday were are going to a churascaria. This is a Brazillian all you can eat meat buffet! It is pricey, but oh so worth it. The one in Madison has gotten rave reviews, from the food to the decor. I will report back. Tomorrow night we are having dinner with my little sister and her husband.

Duane and I voted tonight! One of the talk radio stations was talking about Obama this morning totally self interpreting a statement his wife made while she was in town and dissing her for it. She made a statement that they had only paid off their student loans 3 years ago. The talk radio announcer said that she was trying to get people to think that they were just like the common man, but wait they live in a 1.2 million dollar house! I think she was saying that they both had student loan debt (like many people out there) and had finally gotten it paid off. The news stations are reporting the Obama has won here.

No tv tonight. We have been watching a bunch of movies, which has been fun too. I should get to the library and read something. I have a bad, bad habit of racking up library fines though (which I always pay). The local library checks books out for 2 weeks, and allows you to renew 3 times. My local library at home checks out books for 3 weeks, and allows you to renew 2 times. The two weeks comes up too fast and I forget to renew things.

Oh and this Saturday we are going to stand outside (and freeze) and drink cold beer! One of local breweries has a doppelbock fest every February. You stand outside in their beer garden, drink beer, and the eventually throw smoked fish off of the roof of the building. Everyone one tries to catch the fish because they contain coupons for free beer. Luckily you can stand far enough away that you don't get any fish parts on you. I avoided going last year by being the chauffeur, but a couple of Duane's friends from work (and their spouses) are going this year, so I can't be the party pooper.

There seems to be a million and one things to do, so I haven't gotten much done lately.

Hey did I mention the weather?

So it was freezing and then it warmed up to about 34 degrees. It rained, then it was freezing rain, and then it was snow. The busses stopped running, and the Urgent Care was closed.

I am pretty sure I hate this weather. I will be happy to go to Belgium where it is sunny and 55 degrees.

We went to IKEA on Saturday which made me happy. I would have been happier if there hadn't been 9 million f'ing people there. There is usually about 7 million people there, but Saturday added 2 million non-native English speakers. It made it a little less fun.

I was good on the 11 o'clock rule for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Thursday was later and Friday was way late. I did sleep till noon today though. As you can see I am up late today too.

I am sick of all of my clothes, so I may try to find a few new things for work. It makes getting dressed in the morning difficult, when you don't want to wear anything you own.

What is up with this f'ing weather?

Madison has officially broken the record for the snowiest winter. I have absolutely no interest in shoveling our driveway and we have been parking on the street. We had more snow last week (and today) and terrible driving conditions. There were trucks jack-knifing all over the place and people were stuck on the interstate for 9 hours! The roads were bad again on Saturday, so we ended up staying overnight in Janesville. We had gone down there for my brother's 40th birthday party, which was a great time. We had windchill advisories (-30 windchills!) and lows below zero.

I have a plan to be in bed before 11 and tv off at 11 this week. It is 10:30 now, so I had better get going!

Here I sit

Well, we are getting dumped again with the weather this week. We are quickly approaching the snowiest winter ever. The office is closed today, but no one put my name on the email that went out saying the office was closed today, so here I sit.

There were plenty of clues that I shouldn't come to work. The snowplow came by and plowed the driveway in just as I was getting my car cleaned off. I got my car stuck trying to get out of the driveway because I didn't shovel enough (and there was ice beneath the snow). The main highway to get to work was totally blocked due to jacknifed semis. I went through town and drove slowly. I checked my email and my messages before I left thinking that someone would tell me the office was closed if it was. Duane went to work this morning, so maybe we will meet up for dinner! (silver lining)

Saturday and Sunday involved some intense manual labor. A friend of ours is getting his house ready to sell and it needs quite a bit of fixing up. We spent the weekend painting, and I learned how to use my new paint sprayer. It works quite well, but it pretty tiring. You fill it up with 1.5 quarts of paint, and wave it around the walls. The sprayer itself has some weight to it, so your arms get pretty tired. I am excited about staging this house and getting it sold though.

Friday night Duane and I went to a UW Badger hockey game. We used to go more regularily (when we first met), but we hadn't been in quite awhile. It was fun and a great game. We had dinner afterwards at the Old Fashioned. A restaurant that prides itself on being very Wisconsin. All the beers on tap and in bottles are local brews (the imports on hand were Miller Lite and Budweiser). There are several cheese plate appetizers. We had a wurst appetizer that was excellent. I had a pulled pork sandwich and Duane had walleye.

My brother's 40th birthday party is this Saturday. It should be fun. It is a mexican fiesta/game theme. The Wii will be going and we are bringing Rockband and Singstar. The mexican part comes in because we were in Mexico 2 years ago for my little sister's wedding and we celebrated my brother's birthday there. He wanted to go to Mexico this year for his birthday, but it didn't work out.

Our trip is coming up in 3 weeks. We haven't figured out what we want to do for the last 3 days, but the other accomedations are planned. I hope we have good weather.

My New Years to dos are still going on, or I am still working on them anyway. I have been better about eating breakfast and lunch, and getting my vitamin and fish oil in. I haven't made the trek to the gym yet. I am still trying to get myself on some sort of schedule.

Oh and the tv schedule still sucks. American Gladiators is fun, but it ain't no Heroes.