the longest day

Well today is the longest day of the year, and here in Brussels we are in a considerably higher latitude than Toronto. In fact one of the hardest parts about living here isn't the damp climate, or the dark winter, but the long days: today dawn began at 04:43 and dusk at 22:46. Toronto's started at 05:00 and 21:39 respectively, which doesn't seem like a big difference but it is. I feel right now at 19:00 that it's around five o'clock, which does mix up the schedule a bit.

It's good that we had a long day because it's been a busy one. Bryan and Kiana lent us their car, and David and Louise lent us their car, as well as a ton of stuff to help furnish the apartment, and by 10:00 this morning we were packing cars and driving over to unload them at the new place. Four car loads handled a surprising amount of stuff, and then the delivery man arrived from Waterloo with the washer and dryer as well as a few other articles.

I don't think I've ever lifted something as heavy as that washer up two flights of stairs, it was pretty intense! The delivery man certainly earned his money as he was working just as hard. I won't move those things down those stairs again if I can help it.

We had time for a bite of lunch before the next delivery, this time from Mons. Two beds (one of them a huge American-made captain's bed), three chest-of-drawers, and the mattresses, carpets, dining room table, chairs, etc... we had help fortunately from the friends and colleagues who were selling them.

A cold beer and conversation in the garden followed, and I'm about to swim to cool off. Tomorrow should be a quiet day; Maggie has already cleaned most of the house and polished the floors, and we've cut the grass, so we have another couple rooms to finish off and get the bikes over to J and K's garage, and we're done. They're cooking dinner for us tomorrow, and driving us to the airport on Monday, so we have a lot to be thankful for, with all these good friends helping out; they've made a big big difference. We hope to entertain them all to a big curry cookout when we return in late August.

This will likely be my last post from Belgium before leaving, so thanks for reading along with our adventures. If you haven't already, check out Maggie's take on our experiences here, and we'll be talking with you more in late August, if not before...

... à bientôt!