Our New Liège Apartment!

Hello Everyone! 

Once Matt and I were officially released from quarantine, we quickly found ourselves a more permanent residency... right down the street! 

It's a beautiful Parisian-esque apartment (look at these beautiful walls and ceiling!), and I'm so excited to give everyone the tour! 

Before I start, I just want to express again how in awe Matt and I are of the kindness of Belgians. Our new landlord, Marco, has been incredibly helpful and has gone out of his way to make sure that we are comfortable. People are so nice here!

Also, entirely unrelated to our apartment, but Matt and I went for a walk the other day and met 3 swans. They clearly have been fed before, because they immediately swam towards us when they saw us, which to be honest was a little intimidating but neat. Here's a picture of them:

So when you first enter the apartment, you have to go unlock the bulletproof glass door. We're on the 2nd floor, which they call the 1st floor here, and the floor beneath us (1st floor or "floor zero") is actually a natural medicine store, thus the protective glass. 

My favorite part though is that we have an elevator, but you have to be able to get up the 3 steps of marble stairs to reach it. Europe definitely does not have the same handicap regulations that the States does. 

The elevator is pretty cool, though. It's so tiny! I definitely felt a little claustrophobic when I first used it, but it was helpful in getting our luggage up.

Alternatively, you can always take the spiral staircase.

Welcome to the entryway of our apartment (taken from a side angle)! As you will soon see, this apartment is HUGE! Way bigger than we thought European apartments would be.

Looks like Matt is walking towards the kitchen with some groceries. Let's go check it out...

Better make a pit stop to do some laundry!

Still no dryer, by the way. Let's go take a look out the window. It looks like we got a little snow last night.

Turning back around, it looks like Matt bought us some tasty groceries.

I would love to make myself some tea... although we got a fully furnished apartment and were delighted to discover that this included plates, utensils, and glassware, unfortunately, it did not include mugs. So did we make ourselves tea using bowls as our mugs? We absolutely did. 

Fortunately, I was able to buy some mugs (and a French press) at a Bed, Bath, & Beyond-type store called Hema, so now we can drink our tea with some dignity. But not too much dignity, because I bought mugs that have baboons with little pink butts all over them. I thought they were hilarious...

Let's exit the kitchen using our fancy glass door and head to the left to take a quick peek at our teeny tiny bathroom.

So small! So where's the shower, you may ask? Well, let's turn around and head into the bedroom...

Now look to the left...

Yes, our shower is in the bedroom. Pretty weird! But it works for us and gives us a good laugh. 

Let's head to the coolest part of the apartment: the living room. On our way out of the bedroom, we can grab a sweater if we're cold from our very elegant closet. There are a lot of cabinets and drawers in this apartment, which is very nice because it makes it really easy to store our pretty minimal amount of stuff. 

As you can see, we have a gorgeous living room with beautiful cornices and wall accents. We also have a stunning glass chandelier! And the most amazingly of all, the apartment costs about the same as our one half the size in Minneapolis did. I'd call that a win! 

And we also get a TV! Cable is included in our rent, and although Matt and I don't really watch a lot of TV, flipping through the Belgian channels has been surprisingly fun. Fun fact: the French dub of the Simpsons does a surprisingly good job at keeping everyone's voices and accents similar to the American version. 

That's it for now. Thanks for touring our apartment with us! 

Until Next Time! 

-Zoe