happee birthday to ME!!!!

Today is my 39th birthday. This morning I woke up to a smiling albeit insistent Lucas, who gave me a cheeky smile and then threw out his lovey at me. Fred was still asleep as we went out to the kitchen for milk and biscuits (Lucas has refused his cereal, and now wants to have brioche and biscuits for his breaky instead). It was a nice surprise to find that Fred has been up all night assembling the furniture we bought the day before!!!!! Unlike Malaysia, everything here is DIY - including the 'delivery' where the shop leases you a lorry for 30 euros and you drive home your furniture yourself....

Oh, forgot to tell you all about my last 2 days - I was down with a bad cold, but as Fred had purposely taken 2 days off so we could get my visa done and try to get some furniture so that we no longer live off the suitcases, we went along with our plans. The first day was nice and sunny, we were able to go out with only sweaters and jeans. As we drove through town, I could see the mountains all covered in snow! What a beautiful sight!

I find that in order to buy anything here, one must NOT convert euros into RM!!!! Or else we would not end up with anything at all. A crap wooden shoe rack that sells for RM10 in KL is now 19.90 euros! Needless to say, after a lot of convertion and then cursing from moi, we decided to just bite the bullet and get on with it. This was after we'd spent 2 hours in Conforama (kinda like IKEA) and Lucas was getting irritated and we'd still haven't decided on anything!
Anyway, long story short, we went to another shop the next day (FLY - also kinda like IKEA) after I absolutely refused to pay 630 euros for a sofa bed no matter how friggin good the mattress is; and today, we have our beautiful day bed, shoe rack (49 euros!!!!), dining table with 2 chairs, kitchen cabinets, bathroom cabinets, closets, TV cabinet, a rug for the floor and a bibliotheque for my books. Along the way we got some hangers for clothes, a towel rack, dish drainer and blinds for the balcony. We still need to get a bed!!!!

We went to the markets yesterday (every Thurday there is a huge market selling produce, clothes, household stuff etc - like pasar malam but much much bigger) and as we were buying some fresh vegetables from a vendor I noticed she had green chillies and took a handful - she stopped me and said that the chillies were very hot... when we came home and made dinner later, I cut one of the chillies and sauteed it with mushroom and potato. It was a disappointment cos the chillies were not in the least hot... I should've challenged that woman and said that if I could eat 2 in front of her, she give me my chillies for free. Maybe next week!

My MIL invited us over for cake - must be my birthday cake... but as Lucas is still having his nap, maybe we will drop by later before we go out for dinner. Fred is taking me to the Buffalo Grill for a huge steak!!!