Story time!

Last week I discovered that my mattress is effectively ruined - it has a giant waterspot in it that is still wet and that goes all the way through it.... the only thing I can think of is that it got dripped on this summer from the window in my ceiling...obviously, i didn't really want to sleep on top of a giant rust spot (especially since I suspect it gave me a rash!) so I have been sleeping on the couch for the past week. This has not been too bad, as our couch is really quite comfortable, but I have missed sleeping in my room! This weekend, I found out that a teacher at ISB had a bed to give away! So today my roomies and I got the mattress down to the alley in hopes that the garbage men would take it away. We got it down two floors, and then considered the narrowness of the remaining two flights of stairs, as well as the window that overlooks the alley. We decided it would save both time and energy to simply drop the mattress out the window, which we did with only a little trouble and a lot of laughing. It was much easier than trying to maneuver our death-trap of a stairwell. When the garbage collectors came a few hours later, we spied out the window to see if they would take the mattress.
They didn't.
So now we have a dirty, water-stained mattress in our alley that we are desperately hoping will disappear in the night....
I also have a new mattress! Jake, a fellow ISB teacher, past intern and Luther grad, took me in the ghetto ISB van to get it. this being brussels, there were lots more stairs involved! And of course, the woman needed to get rid of the bed frame and the mattress... so now I have an empty bed frame sitting in our freaky cellar (yes, we have a freaky cellar... there's a door in our entryway that leads to a 3-foot drop, a few steps, and a darkly creepy place. We like to pretend it's not there!).
So tonight I get to sleep again on my bed under my fabulous window, through which I can see the star-studded night sky....