How 'bout them Cowboys

I must say I was very happy Sunday morning when I woke up to find that my beloved Cowboys had won-as I like to say we are still in the hunt for a National Championship!

All is well in the Hague-as soon as September hit we have had cold, windy and wet weather. The heat in my apartment is already on! Yesterday 4 of us went to the Army base about 2 and 1/2 hours away. You would have thought we had been stranded on a desert island for years rather than living in a first world country for 3 months! We could barely fit everything into my Jeep for the trip home-of course between all of us we probably had 35 bottles of wine but MOST importantly 2 jars of pickled okra. When I saw the pickled okra I think my cheeks became damp with tears I was so happy. The funniest part is that we all shopped as though we were going BACK to a desert island, after all I know I am going to need 7 brownie mixes and 5 cans of cream of chicken soup.

I have already planned my Columbus day trip, I am going to go to Milan. I was going to just go up to Lake Como but have decided to stay in Milan and then go up to the Lakes next time I go. I don't know what I am going to do in November when we don't have a 3 day weekend, we have to work the Friday after Thanksgiving and I am duty officer that week so can't go anywhere.

Paris was great-I went with 3 friends and we had a fantastic time. Lots of wine and cheese. I was very proud of myself, I was relaxed and didn't feel the need to organize and plan (for any of you that have traveled with me you know that is quite a coup). On the first day we walked to the Eifel tower and sat in the park and drank some wine, then we walked to the Champs de Elysses to go to the Louis Vuitton store, off to Sacre Cour-the best view in Paris. We then sat in the grass, ate our picnic and you guessed it drank some wine....the next day we slept in (what a surprise given all of the wine). We had our omelets for breakfast and made our way to the Orsay museum-which is my favorite museum. We then went to lunch, while at lunch we ordered some Asparagus as an appetizer. The waiter asked us how pink we wanted our appetizer-at this point you would have thought that we would have thought something was wrong at this point but nnnnoooo...we asked for our asparagus to be not so pink. Imagine our surprise when our 9 Euro aspargus turned out to be 24 Euro PINK lamb chops. Once again who has heard of pink asparagus?? We headed over to Notre Dame and walked around the Latin Quarter. For dinner we went to the park at the Eiffel Tower and had dinner which consisted of wine and cheese! When in France! Upon my return from France I learned that I am a true Cowboy fan. I settled on to the couch to watch the game against Washington State (I love Slingbox). To my dismay, even though I knew the score I was convinced the Cowboys would some how manage to not win the replay!!

I have to get ready for my (don't laugh) wine and cheese party on Friday night. I have invited all of the my coworkers that live in my apartment complex. It is really sad but I schedule my hosted social events around the week my housekeeper comes!