Hello lovely readers! How are you all today?

“Where the hell have you been?” you ask?

Good question.

My last post was on Thursday and I actually missed posting on Wordless Wednesday and Flashback Friday. While this wasn’t entirely on purpose, it did make me realize something; I’m taking a little break from thematic days. It’s gotten tot he point where I feel like my posts are being dictated by the day of the week. If I had an insite on a Wednseday it would fall by the wayside because Wendesdays are wordless. I sat in front of the computer for hours on Friday and couldn’t think of a worthwhile flashback so I simply didn’t blog. So for right now I’m going on a theme hiatus. There will still be pictures and fun music and memories, but not on any particular day. I might link that particular post to the host blog but I’m no longer paying any attention to what day it is (I hope that makes sense). So let me tell you about the past four days. I’ll try to be brief, honest.

Friday: Basically a blow off day, Rex woke me up around 6 in the morning so I fed him, fiddled on the computer for a bit, climbed back into bed to wake CB and fell asleep again until 11 in the afternoon. Upon waking I promptly picked up Sarum, the book I’m reading currently, and had a blessedly uninterrupted 120 minutes of pure reading joy. In fact, I don’t even remember what we did after that, it was such a lazy day. But you need one of those every now in then. Well, maybe you don’t, but I do, so it was nice.

Saturday: We were up bright and early to tidy up the house before CB’s dad arrived to work on the bathroom. The menfolk installed most of the framework for the ceiling and then we went to Makro to look at toilets and tile for the walls. It was a beautiful day so after CB’s dad left we went to a few places to have a drink or two on the terrace.

Gildenbier, one of my favorites, tastes kind of like caramel and I call it “Robin Hood Beer” in my head

Sorry I’m not home right now, I’m walking into spider webs…

Silhouette on a beautiful day

Afterwards we came home, made some dinner and then headed upstairs for the night. But when I checked my email, lo and behold, we had been invited to the Brazilian’s place for drinks at 9:30 (in Europe that translates to somewhere around 10) so we showered and got dressed. I even wore my boots with heels (this comes into play later) and a semi-foofy shirt. We took the bikes over to Brazilian’s because it ended up only being about five minutes away by bike and we were led thorugh this huge, beautiful, fantastic loft-style thing (I don’t even know the proper housing term, but it was huge and very friggin awesome) out to the back deck where there was plenty of wine and some apperitief liqueurs (I love me some amaretto). Amongst the friends of the Brazilian and his roommate were my teacher from level 2 and 3 and her sisters as well as another teacher from the language center. The Dentist came a bit later with his girlfriend. I don’t think we’d been there longer than a half hour before my teacher looked at Brazilian and I and said, “You can relax, you passed. I won’t sit here with you and not tell you how you did.”

SQUEEEEEEEEEEE! I passed level 3!!!

So after that of course, much too much white wine and amaretto was embibed upon by yours truly (and CB too, though his poison is red wine). Relief, elation and booze all go straight to your head, let me tell you. We left around 2 in the morning, biked home (drunk at night and in heels no less, and I didn’t fall or cry or anything…it was glorious) and fell into bed.

Sunday: After two whole slovenly days of doing basically nothing, I got my shit together and CB and I cleaned the house (not just straighten up, no, we cleaned), got the laundry done, cut the cat’s claws (my arms look like I had several encounters with a small velociraptor, so we figured it was time for a nail trim), went to CB’s parents’ house for waffles (and also to meet some of his other relatives), hung some fencing on the garden wall so the clematis could climb up something instead of choking the life out of the grass, and then I skyped with my mum and dad. They’re about to get two brand new kittens. I’m sure my mum will post pics on her blog as soon as they’re home and settled.

Today: I got a waaay too late start this morning. I went to the town hall for my working papers. They were on number 47 when I got there around 10:15. My ticket was number 130.
Yeah….so I went to Kruidvat and picked up some pictures we had printed, did some other shopping, went back to the town hall, saw they were only on 64, walked up to the language center to see my score and also to see who’d be in my class in June, tried to get a book for level 4 (I have to wait a week or so, there’s another group taking level 4 this month and they need to make sure they get books first), stopped by the Oxfam to get a notebook (I wrote half of this post in the town hall), and then went and sat to wait my turn at the town hall. Fortunately someone I knew from level 2 was there and for some reason or other (there are times for asking questions and this was not one of those times) he had an extra ticket. It was 100 and he had already gone so he gave it to me and knocked off about an hour’s wait for me. He is definitely my hero today. Unfortunately though, I forgot my passport photos for the working permit so all the waiting was kind of useless. However, the lady at the counter was very very kind and told me to be there tomorrow at 8 am and come straight to her counter. I won’t have to get a ticket or anything, just go straight to her. So that’s the plan for tomorrow. Get my working papers, go to the Poezenboot for an hour or two and head back to the student area to start looking for a job. They only open in the afternoon so I can’t kill two birds with one stone. That’s something I can’t stand about Belgium…office hours here are somewhat sporadic and definitely limited so it’s often hard to do everything you need to do all at once in one area of the city. But hey, I passed level 3 so now I have the whole month of May (don’t freak out CB, this is hypothetically speaking) to do whatever I want. Well, within the constraints of when places arbitrarily decide to open.