We've realized that we're making a tour of obscure countries that start with the letter L. We started in Lesotho and we're now in Luxembourg. We should hit Laos in a few months... From the moment we came back to Luxembourg (from Brussels) we felt relaxed. It's been great taking a vacation from our holidays and spending time with friends from home. Jason works for KPMG and he is working in Luxembourg for 2 years; Janine has gotten work at a law firm and is doing some translation for them as well as admin work. They love it here and the European lifestyle definitely agrees with them! Check out their site, if you dare: www.jasonandjanine.blogspot.comYou can't really blame them for loving it here. Luxembourg is rich and there are low taxes, so it's a great place to have a company. There are banks every 5 metres. Very few people live in Luxembourg--over 80,000 workers commute from other countries each day to come to work. You may have heard about a train crash just yesterday; it paralyzed much of the city as people were stranded. People are given "cheques repas" to help pay for their lunches--almost 9 euros ($14) a day in the form of a cheque that can even be used to buy groceries or, as Moog proved, beer. Many people also get subsidized transit fare, even if they walk to work. It's a great place! Oh AND they get 2 free massages a month, on company time.They have been such great hosts--letting us sleep late and playing board games with us every night. We know that it's been pure torture to have to play so much Settlers  ;) It's hard to believe that tonight is our last night here.A great addition to the reunion was Katey, who has been living in Paris for the last year, working at a translation company. She came last Friday and joined us for Thanksgiving dinner. Take a look at the beautiful napkin creations we made, thanks to a Rick Mercer segment featuring Tie Domi: (http://www.cbc.ca/mercerreport/backissues.php October 3rd, Tie Domi). We have a great meal, complete with Stove Top stuffing, Moog's stuffing balls (with poultry seasoning, bread crumbs and creamed corn all made from scratch!), chicken (they don't sell turkey until Christmas here), salmon, beans, carrots and delicious mashed potatoes. One of Moog's colleagues (Joe) and his wife (Nicole) joined us as well. We had a lot of fun telling stories and laughing, all while stuffing ourselves silly.Joel and I haven't done too much tourist stuff here. It's nice to be in a place where we can relax for the day. Most of the hostels in Europe lock you out during the day and you have to pay to be anywhere in Europe it seems. They even charge you to use the public toilets! Sheesh. Katey indulged me one day and we went on a little train that takes you around the city. It's an audioguide and we both realized that quite a bit of the commentary went by unnoticed. oops. It was nice to get driven around in a toy train though. And they had commentary in a bunch of languages, including Luxembourgish, so we had a good time listening to that.We did manage to add to our passport while we were here. We got a Chinese visa for our trek through the mainland. It was relatively painless, the hardest part being listening to the little Chinese lady whisper in French through a pane of glass. Not the easiest thing to understand, but we got through it with a visa and that's all that really matters, right?This past 9 days has been filled with coffee, sleep, laughter, a little bit of gin, and lots of good times. We'll be sad to leave Luxembourg, but Russia is calling! Don't expect to hear from us for the next three weeks or so. We'll probably write from China... :) m&j