Embracing the european life

Here I am, living my dream of sitting in my window seat, in my european flat, sipping tea.

Here is the escalator down to the subway.  This picture really does not do it justice.  This was taken at the top, and you really cannot see all the way to the bottom from the top.  It is intimidating, but the locals all look bored, and don't even hold on to the rails.  I wonder if there's some kind of tradition of kissing all the way up or all the way down, since I've seen two couples hold a kiss for the entire trip.

Here is the infamous teapot that I burned my hand on the first day.  It is actually an addicting habit to come in after a day in the brisk fall weather, turn on the teapot, which takes 30 sec- 1min to heat to boiling, pop in a few tea bags, and then sip tea for the rest of the afternoon.

The people of this country have raised bread making to an art form, and I have not seen a loaf yet that doesn't deserve the term "artisan."  On our walk to the orphanage, we have to pass a large industrial building which is a commercial bakery.  That is a special form of torture, as large fans blow the delicious aroma out to the street, and there is no discernable entrance.  This is a soft loaf with a poppy filling, slightly sweetened.

Here is a sight many of you thought you'd never see--David sipping a cup of tea.  Yes, he still drinks Coca Cola.  It's not hard to find here, but he also likes to be warm, and the heating system is not turned on until October 15, we're told.  I don't think it's that cold, yet, though.

We've discovered that neither of the girls knows how to hold a crayon, or to make a mark on the paper.  Daddy held each girl's hand with a crayon, to show them how to color on the paper.  This was a nice, quiet activity, which we resorted to after this little girl kept trying to escape out every open door, and got quite irritated with us when we kept bringing her back.

This little boy did not seem to be in such a daze today, as he was intrigued by the large, fabric ball.  He was going to ignore us, until we started throwing it at him.  That got the occasional smile from him.  He liked to chase it, and throw it somewhere else, though, as if we weren't in the room at all.

The wild child is still wild, but she has longer periods of calm now.  This is a game Daddy taught her the other day, in which he takes her index finger, and uses it to push the button on his watch to turn on the light.  She went looking under his sleeve for the watch, and held her finger out, so they could play with it again.