Anyone who has moved countries knows that reaching the first six months is a milestone of sorts. It's the period with the most stress in terms of finding out how everything works, where everything is, what you can buy (and what you can't), what you can do, and who you can do it with.
Well, once again we have reached that six month mark, and thinking back, we are certainly alot more relaxed about living in Lux. We can now navigate around alot of town without the need of the GPS; we understand when the checkout assistant is asking if we want to convert our reward points into a cheque; I can communicate simple things in french such as " a quarter kilo of cheese please" or " I would like two holes" (in Phil's new belt!); we have figured out which brand of yoghurt we prefer (amongst a number of other things); we are familiar with snow, ice, slush, winter tyres and the need for anti-freeze in the window-wash; we know that 130km/hr is not fast on the highway; It's much nicer to walk in snow than in wind and rain; and we know one word of Luxembourgish - "Moien" which means 'good-day'.
Now that six months is up, the government department will hopefully finish processing our drivers license applications. We can also start thinking about what to do in the summer (although that is hard to imagine given that it is snowing outside).
One last interesting fact about Luxembourg - did you know that it has the biggest (in terms of turnover) petrol station in western Europe? (Of course you didn't, although a few of you won't be surprised). The taxes on petrol here are lower than in neighbouring countries, so alot of truckies and travellers, and people living just over the border, choose to fill up here. Having said that, the price of 95 octane petrol is still 1.10Euro!
