Thanks Greg!

Before...

...and After!

As you may have read before, the furniture in our new flat was not only very lovely, but it was also terribly uncomfortable. Do you know why? Because it was filled with straw. Straw! We know because we would find handfuls of it where the cushions came together. In case any of you were planning to stuff your next couch with straw, be warned--it feels like a whole lot like sitting on cardboard!

So, we found out from our friend Greg that we could have couches made here just like we want pretty cheaply, and Greg even volunteered to take care of everything for us. It was a tough decision, but we decided to say goodbye to the beauty that was our old couches and replace them with something a little more us. That is to say, not quite so gold and gaudy. When the new furniture arrived, the doorman for our building was helping move the old pieces out and commented in Arabic, "They're a little uncomfortable, but they sure are pretty." We just smiled.

Speaking of the doorman, he also brought us the tree you can see next to Sawyer in the photo above. We bought a small tree to go outside our front door, and we thought the doorman was offering to bring us some soil to plant it in, but apparently he was really offering to bring us lots more plants. He brought us 4 small outside plants, and 2 large trees for the inside! Luckily, they're pretty, and we like them all. I guess we'll have to try again on the soil.