Even though Adrian would love a couple of Saint Bernards or Dachshunds he has compromised by giving me exactly what I want - two little kittens. I am super excited. I now have four large boxes from the ever-generous Internet that contain all the food and equipment to make our house cat friendly, including a kitty back-pack to bring them home on the train. As they will be living on the 11th floor, they will not have access to any actual trees, but I hope that this structure will suffice:

Image from zooplus

I am in contact with a Chartreux breeder near Charleroi using Google Translate as my intermediary. If Google is correct, the breeder has two female kittens who are currently nine weeks old, and we can go and pick them up in three weeks and bring them home. I may be visiting them this weekend to make my reservation. So now Adrian and I are currently working on potential cat names. He has vetoed names derived from television or movies, and technically Chartreux kittens born in 2009 should start their names with ‘E’. The naming of cats is a difficult matter. This is my current list:

Blauwe Kat and Kattebelletje
Pepper and Mint
Socks and Mittens
Misha-Penguin and Misha-non-Penguin
Hopscotch and Peppermint Whiskers
Moppet and Mittens
Smudge and Sage
Pickles and Pattycakes
Dot and Dash
Hocus and Pocus
Buttercup and Daisy
Midge and Middles
Medley and Mopsy
Bubbles and Buttons
Puddles and Pumpkin
Stardust and Teapot

We haven’t seen our little ones yet, but they should look something like this:

Images from annonces-animalieres

Today is our two year wedding anniversary. We met in Australia, were engaged in Croatia, moved in together in the USA, and eloped in Canada. We flew up to Banff National Park for the weekend, staying at Banff Springs Hotel. I felt like the princess of the castle.

Over the past 732 days, Adrian has been the most wonderful husband. He has worked tirelessly to ensure my days are filled with delight. He shares with me his understanding and his insights into the world. He is my best friend and my greatest support. He is constantly reminding me that the point of life is to be happy, and the dangers of using other goals as proxies if this means sacrificing ones own joy in the process.

We begin the third year of our marriage as homeowners and immigrants, adjusting to life in Europe. Adrian is now running his own lab at a major university, conducting novel and elegant experiments in medical research. I have an enjoyable job that teaches me about the pharmaceutical industry. We have time to travel and explore, to watch the city move around us, and to walk hand-in-hand down historic paths and cobblestone streets. It is a very happy anniversary.

Yesterday was a big day. We met in Ghent to sign the final deeds on our mortgage and the deeds for our apartment. We were there with our notary, the seller was there with his notary, there was a representative from the bank, and a legal secretary. They really like conducting business in person here in Belgium. The documents were in French, but verbally translated to us by our notary. The seller and his notary could read French but held their discussions in Flemish. It took two hours for the notary to go through every article and ensure that we understood and agreed to what we were signing. They were very thorough. He even gave us the document that we would need to submit to the government to protect €900/month of our income if the rest was seized by the bank for non-payment of the loan. Each page had a lovely big red stamp that read “Belgische Notaris - Notaire belgique - Belgische Notar”, and was initialed by all parties present. Finally, with a handshake an exchange of the keys, the home was ours.

After that we went to Ikea to order a dining table, chairs, bed, mattress, sofas, desk, and coffee table. It is a big deal to get things delivered to our apartment. The elevator is too small for most items. Thus, we need to register with the police to block off part of the road, and then hire a 15th floor external crane/lift to move everything through the windows. So we need to get everything delivered from our old place and from Ikea on the same day - July 10th.

Finally, it was time to walk through our very own apartment. Adrian hadn’t seen the place for four months, so I hoped that he still liked it. You can see the entrance to the metro from the front door of the apartment complex:

Eleven stories later, we saw our front door:

And our entrance, with a bucket of paint to redo the outside windowsills, if we wish:

The guest bedroom:

The day was glorious, we opened up the windows, and Adrian discovered that we can see six of the Atomium atoms from the lounge-room if we stick our heads out. We could also see people picnicking in the park below:

We have the first plans drawn up for our new kitchen.  Unfortulately these people can’t fit us in until January, so I am still shopping around to find someone who is available in July. We are going with a small-sized dishwasher, and a half-sized oven that is somehow also a microwave even though it is filled with metal. To maximise our bench space we will have a two-burner oven and a single sink that can be covered with a chopping board. We will have lighting under and on top of the wall cabinets to brighten up the area as much as possible.

We’d really like to have the renovations completed before our stream of visitors increases. Who knew that living in the heart of Europe would mean that we would have so many lovely people coming to visit us? It certainly makes us feel less lonely to know that we are going to have friends and family coming to visit. I just hope that they can both shower and eat while they are staying here.