Germans and food

A partial list of the things you can eat or drink at a German Christmas market: bratwurst, curry wurst, steak on a rock, fondue, raclette, mushrooms in cream sauce, mulled wine, mulled wine with amaretto, mulled wine with rum, salt pretzels, cheese pretzels, sugared pretzels, fried battered bananas, fried dough balls, apple fritters, fried potato pancakes*, a dozen variations of of sugar-coated almond, Italian pizza, German pizza, French crêpes, Belgian waffles, waffles coated with chocolate, tacos, burritos, cheese spätzle with or without onions, shish kabob, candy of a billion sorts, hot chocolate, hot chocolate with rum, schnapps, schnitzel, fried fish, pickled herring, baked salmon on a roll, smoked ham, baked ham, cotton candy, and popcorn.

*With apologies to Ben Franklin, reibekuchen is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

My first breathalyzer!

We were coming back from Germany today and stopped at the rest stop in Spy. (Don't bother trying to be cute about this, Pop. We've already made all the jokes. Besides, it's pronounced "spee" in French, which is far less interesting.) As we were leaving, a gang of Belgian policemen waved me over to the side of the parking lot. After checking my license and registration (the first time anyone has asked to see my Belgian license!) the officer assigned to me asked if I had had anything alcoholic to drink. "Yes, officer. I had a cup of glühwein at the Christmas market in Cologne this morning." Only I said it in French, where glühwein is vin chaud, meaning hot wine. "No problem," he said--in fake English. I had to blow into the thing and passed. They wandered off with my license and registration to make a note of it for their stats, then we were on our way.

It's a good thing it wasn't a grease-alyzer, though. That I would have flunked big time. I had, after all, been to a German Christmas market.

Christmas in Germany

We just spent several days in Germany, where the Christmas decorations are up and the markets are going full blast, serving liters of Gluehwein, tons of brats, and piles of those delicious greasy potato pancakes. It's all about Christmas there. 

We were reveling in the lights and atmosphere and food and drink but I couldn't help thinking how ironic it was that if we were home in the States, we'd be grumbling about the premature advent (not Advent) of decorations and the pressure to buybuybuy. In Germany it just seems right. 

Bezoek onze productpagina

For some reason Hewlitt-Packard has apparently decided I'm a Dutch speaker, as they have taken to emailing me ads in that language. I know I should send them to the junk folder, but frankly, I appreciate the practice, because in theory I do know some Dutch.

It snowed

It's no Buffalo Blizzard, but we had some snow here in our little corner of Belgium last weekend. Yes, even in Hautrage. As you can see from the photos, it covered some stuff. This is our memorial to the Great War. It stands, as do they all, in the Grand' Place. I'm very fond of this monument, especially its statue. (Don't tell anyone in the surrounding villages, but I think ours is the best memorial around. It certainly has the best statue. It's much better than the one those fancy pantses in the county seat, Saint-Ghislain, have.) I have another view to post one of these days.

The other photo is our bridge shot through the snow and over the goat pasture. It has only two goats, but this is where they hang out, so I think that qualifies it as a goat pasture.

The Cows Come Home

Last year we noticed that sometime in the late fall we didn't see cows in the fields anymore. These are milk cows, so it's not like they disappeared for good, if you know what I mean. Sure enough, they showed up back in the fields in the spring. So this year we were keeping watch to determine what the magic date was for putting the cows away for the winter. 

Well, we missed it. It happened sometime between Veteran's Day and today. Today was the first time in several weeks we drove the canal road in the daylight - it's dark when we go to work now - and we realized the brown cows that graze in the field along the canal were gone. To ensure this was not an anomaly, that this wasn't just one farmer who'd put his ladies inside, this afternoon we took one of our usual walking routes that passes between two cow pastures. Nary a sign of that farmer's ladies. They're apparently all snugged up inside their barns for the winter. 

We'll be looking for them come spring.

Euro Graffiti

You never have a camera when you need one. Today we were getting on the autoroute (interstate) behind a dirty white vehicle. Someone had taken their finger and written in the dirt (in French) "also comes in white." This is a favorite joke. It's the European version of "wash me." But this one also had traced on it (somebody was busy) "old guy driving." Except he wasn't old at all. He was my age!

Jolly Old Saint Nicholas

It's that time of year again. St. Nick is starting to pop up all over the place. We caught a glimpse of him today as he strolled through the City 2 shopping center in Brussels giving out candy, accompanied by his ragtime brass band. The chocolate stores are full of St. Nick figures and his helpers, including Swarte Piet, in white, milk, and dark chocolate - something for everyone! We especially like the Swarte Piet in dark chocolate. (That's a linguist joke.) 

Many stores have started bringing out the Christmas decorations but we don't have the feeling that Christmas is being rammed down our throats. Perhaps that's because of the prevalence of Christmas markets, which will start up in the next couple weeks. You can go to the markets to get your Christmas on or you can choose to avoid them. I plan to hit several, starting with the German Christkindlmarkt at SHAPE the weekend after Thanksgiving.

It's a magical time of year, the Christmas market season.  The magic helps us put the darkness out of our minds. And hey, without the dark, it wouldn't be so magical!

This is how I buy my fish at the Carrefour, a French megaeverything supermarket chain. We have one in Mons. They make a heat-sealed paper and foil bag for every order and adjust the size for the amount of fish you tell them you want. This bag has pangasius in it. We eat a lot of that because it's mild and Rita isn't crazy about fish and it's readily available all over Europe. It's also tasty. It's farm-raised Vietnamese catfish, though if you look it up in a French-English dictionary you get some whacky translation like "shark catfish."

Moondance

I was thinking of, and humming, Van Morrison last night on our walk because we had rare clear skies and a gorgeous full moon so that we didn't even need our flashlights. It was November, not October, skies, but still... (And I was surprised to see how many people have covered that song. I thought he'd be too old-guy-geeky. I hope it's legal since I've posted only a snippet. But maybe everybody who doesn't have it should quick go buy it just to be safe, though!)

Another great moment in history

We seem to be getting swept up in one national event after another lately. Just days after voting in the US elections, we took a train ride to Paris and got to experience another national phenomenon: Chaos on the rails! Pretty much the entire French high-speed train system ground to a halt, with our 1 hour 20 minute dash to Paris taking 6 hours. And we were the lucky ones. Lots of trains just never left the station. If you haven't clicked to read the article, someone sabotaged the electric lines in four spots. They don't know who did it yet, but my guess is disgruntled rail workers, the French equivalent of our disgruntled postal workers--only less deadly.

One of the surprising things about the delays--we sat first for 2 hours, then for 90 minutes, then for 30, then for 2--was how patient everyone was. We heard very little grumbling, and most of that was wry humor about being on the high-speed train ha ha. People read, played cards or board games, yacked, or--when they let us get out--smoked. It probably helped that the bar car gave out drinks and snacks for free (until they ran out and closed up) and that the conductor walked through handing out forms to claim refunds. See, if your high-speed train arrives late you get reimbursed on a graduated scale until you get a future ticket free for being more than 2 hours late.

Now there's another interesting cultural observation. The train made up in Cologne, Germany, so there were, Germans, Belgians, and Frenchmen aboard. Those of us who live in Belgium or France will be issued a voucher for a free ticket. But the Germans want nothing to do with credit or promises; they deal in cash and get a cash refund.

And of course, this being Europe, the way you get the cash is to give the train company your bank number, and they deposit it directly. That's the way many transactions are done here. It involves a lot of trust. We've even bought stuff at expos and had the vendor give us her account number; we go home with the goods and make the transfer later.

Oh, and one more train anecdote. When the conductor gave me our claim form, he and I were speaking French, but he showed me the instructions in German and explained how I could get the Germans-only cash refund. He had looked at Rita and assumed we were German. This happens to her all the time. Part of it is our unplaceable foreign accents, but mostly she just looks German.

Notre rêve américan

"Our American Dream" -- That was the headline today in Belgium's Le Soir newspaper's coverage of the US elections (notice that they even have a red and blue, state-by-state map). Europeans are ecstatic about our choice, though, truth to tell, anyone not named George W. Bush would probably have made them happy. Yet some perceptive observers have pointed out that they may be in for a surprise when he turns out to act like the president of the United States after all, not the prime minister of Belgium (where, by the way, they still haven't gotten around to forming a government to replace the one that's apparently not working, though no one really seems to notice). Even some Europeans, like German newspaperman Josef Joffe, are trying to warn their fellow continentals not to expect the US to suddenly cut it's defense budget by 85% and start spending all its time in cafés. In a piece entitled "He's still not a European" (at the bottom of the page) Joffe throws a little cold water on the president-elect's Euro admirers, noting, among other things, that he too may insist they deliver those troops they keep promising for Afghanistan.

Oh, and in yet another stunning revelation, Le Soir reports that Barack Obama has a Belgian ancestor! Well, to the extent that a guy born 240 years before Belgium existed can be called Belgian. But leaving aside petty details like history, Nicolas Martiau was born near Wavre in about 1592 and left very quickly for Virginia, where he married a widow and eventually had a descendant elected president.

Too bad for McCain that this didn't come out sooner.

Quirks of Living in Belgium

Although we'd noticed long ago that Belgians will close off a lane of a road at the drop of a hat, we've noticed some pretty unusual cases lately. It's not unusual to see lanes diverted because a barn has collapsed or they're putting in sewers, but one day last week, on the way to work, we had to dodge a big pile of gravel dumped in the right lane in front of a house being rehab-ed. The next day the gravel was gone but there was an equally big pile of sand in its place.

Yesterday we got in a huge long line of cars leaving work and assumed there was an accident further down the road. Nope. The lane was closed off - by a couple little orange cones - because one half of two different crosswalks had been repainted. Never mind that it was rush hour. We halfway expected to see the cones there again today, for the other half of the crosswalks, but it rained so I guess they couldn't paint.

Given situations like those above, imagine our surprise upon seeing a crane perched on side of the street in Saint-Ghislain with its bucket hanging over a house on the other side of the street - and traffic streaming underneath.

Only in Belgium!

Mark the date

For my birthday Rita gave me Julia Child's memoirs of her time in France in the late 40s, early 50s. I didn't get around to starting it (an Atlantic Monthly arrived) until last night. But when I did, I noticed that Julia Child first set foot on French soil 60 years ago today. I should go cook something.

Oktoberfest 2008 SHAPE style

I know y'all have been reading with great interest about our Big Central European Adventure, but what you really want to know is, Did David and Rita go to Oktoberfest at SHAPE again this year? Yes, we did. We went a couple of nights before we left on the BCEA, which sort of distracted us, which is why I'm only now telling you about it.

In Munich the President of Bavaria or the Mayor of Munich or some such official taps the first ceremonial keg at Oktoberfest. Here at SHAPE the man wielding the hammer is the Chief of Staff. SACEUR (pronounced "sack your") is always an American, his deputy (D/SACEUR, pronounced "dee sack your") is a Brit, and the Chief of Staff (pronounced "chief of staff") is always a German. Because we need someone who knows how to tap a keg the old-fashioned way: with a hammer.

Budapest: OMG

This is Saint Stephan's Basilica in Budapest. It's not a terribly old church, as you can tell from the style. In fact, it doesn't look like much from the outside. But on the inside it's all marble and gilt. It's gorgeous. We went to Sunday evening Mass there. It was in Hungarian. If you've ever read anything about Hungarian, you know it's nothing like the Romance or Germanic or Slavic languages. It's in its own little Finno-Ugric language family. Which means about the only word we picked up during the entire service was Jesus.



Imagine our surprise when we walked in and one of the first things we saw was a statue of Szent Rita. (Click...) We turned, and there across the way, was ...


Szent Terez.

We kid you not.

(I inadvertently saved some changes to this picture, which accounts for the over-dramatic presentation. But it really is Szent Terez!)

Impressions of Bratislava

The main square in Bratislava, where the music festivals were going on. This is where David heard his newest favorite chanteuse, Jana Kirschner. Check her out on YouTube.


I think this is the old town hall. Double click to see the detail on the green roof.


The blue church. Blue on the outside, blue on the inside.

And here are my general impressions:

- There weren't nearly as many tourists as in Prague but just give it a few years...

- Everything is already priced in euros and you can use euros to buy anything. That's because Slovakia will join the euro zone on 1 January 2009.

- We heard lots of German. Given Bratislava's proximity to Vienna (about 30-45 minutes down the Danube), we assume they were mostly Austrians.

- Slovak seems to be closer to Russian than Czech, or else I was just getting used to it, because I could pick up a little more of what was going on around me.

- Traffic never seemed to stop outside our hotel, even though we were on a semi-residential street.

- Even though most restaurants close up tight early, there must be some night spots open late - really late - because inebriated Brits kept waking us up as they said good-bye to their new Slovakian girlfriends outside our hotel.

- Slovakians are meat eaters. The menus all feature pork, poultry, and beef dishes and some have duck; there was also lots of goose because it was goose season.

- What impressed me the most was the perception that Slovakia is terribly excited and enthused about being in the EU and NATO, about the promise of a bright future with the West. They're working hard to rehab the city and restore it to its former glory as the coronation city of the Hapsburgs. So our advice is to visit now, before the rest of the world discovers it and it becomes the next Prague!

General Observations About Prague

Double click on this to see it in all its magnificence: it's the astonomical clock on the town hall. I really, really wanted to bring one of these home for Becky but the astonomical part on the souvenir models doesn't turn like the real thing. But that's not one of my general obserations. Here they are:

- There are way too many Russians in Prague.

- The two items you're supposed to buy in Prague are garnets and crystal. We didn't find any real bargains on either. Souvenirs, as well as garnet jewelry and crystal items, are expensive in Prague. (But that didn't stop us from buying some...)

- The sales clerks in the garnet jewelry stores (check out www.granat.eu for a co-op that mines garnets and makes jewelry with the stones) were fluent and very comfortable in Russian. They were much less so in English. I later realized that because these were women d'un certain age, they probably grew up speaking Russian, given history and all.

- Sidewalks are made up of little paving stones, about 2.5 inches square, with flat surfaces. These paving stones are pretty and much easier to walk on than the big, rounded ones we have in Belgium.

- English is most definitely the common language. I realized at some point on the trip that sales clerks and waiters and tour guides and everyone else dealing with tourists in Czechia, Slovakia, and Hungary are doing so not just to deal with Americans but to deal with tourists from all over the world. We saw Asians, Frenchmen, Scandanavians, Spaniards, Brits, Canadians, Italians all using English because that's the one language everyone has. It made me feel less conspicuous as an American. We were just another couple English speakers.

- Prague is beautiful: a grande dame of city, stately in and proud of its architecture. But it's full of tourists! I can't imagine what it's like there in the summer.

Impressions of Budapest

Our apologies for not reporting on Budapest while we there, but our hotel was stingy with the internet. Now that we're home, though, here's what we were observing while we were there.

Budapest is something else! I'm not sure what we expected, but probably not that. I guess it's most like Paris or New York: huge, congested, and full of things to see spread out all over the place; grimy, gritty, noisy, and absolutely lovely. The whole city seems to be under construction, and they appear to be doing everything all at the same time: adding a subway line, repairing tram tracks, laying pipe and electric wires, gutting and rehabbing whole buildings, cleaning facades...you name it. And they make almost no provisions for people or traffic while they're working. When we walked the broad boulevards south and west of our hotel we were essentially walking through a big ol' construction site. One morning a bunch of guys were tearing up the sidewalk, without bothering to close it. Pedestrians were being forced to walk past the jackhammer spraying bits of concrete everywhere. Part of that is just the European sense of personal responsibility (Don't want concrete chips in your eye? Then don't stare at the jackhammer bit, buddy); but the Hungarians seem to take it to an extreme. There are also lots of vacant storefronts in really prime locations, interspersed with expensive, stylish clothing and antique stores. But if they ever finish all this work, its going to be one of the greatest cities in the world.

We seemed to see more Hungarians there than we did Czechs in Prague or Slovaks in Bratislava. That may be because the sites are more spread out in Budapest, so there's less of a tourist "ghetto." It's also--especially in comparison with Bratislava--probably a reflection of the relative size of the cities: over 5 million for Budapest (one in ever five Hungarians lives in Budapest) versus a little over 400,000 for Bratislava. You gotta put 5 million Hungarians somewhere, I guess. But Prague is a big town, and all we saw there was foreigners (lots of Russians).

After a week of trying to convince Rita to take in one of the many touristy "greatest hits" concerts on offer in every city we've visited, she finally busted out in Budapest. We spent about a gazillion bucks (roughly 200 gazillion forints) to see some Hungarian folk dancin' one night (real good) and a bunch of Ave Mariae, gloriae, and panes angelici in St. Stephen's Basilica the next (okay).

I had the impression it was easier to get vegetables in Budapest than in some european countries, though you pay a little extra for them. The main ones are the Hungarian triad of tomatoes, peppers (in all colors and varieties), and cucumbers. But there's also cabbage (though less of it than in Germany or Czechia or Slovakia), potatoes (of course), onions, mushrooms, giant fava beans, radishes (both white and enourmous red ones), all kinds or root vegetables, and salads of various types:
• tomatoes with grated cabbage
• tomatoes with diced red onion
• cucumbers in a sweet-sour marinade, napped with yoghurt.

How to change your currency

Have a big party, give away stuff, and play music.

Slovakia is giving up the crown and adopting the euro on 1 January 2009. You can already pay just about anywhere in Bratislava in euros. Lots of Austrians and Italians do. And this weekend they're throwing what we think may be a countdown party in the Bratislava Grand' Place (Hlavné námestie). Today they were giving away stuff: conversion tables, pamphlets, brochures, highlighters, and tape measures, which were also a kind of euro-crown conversion tool. Then you invite what appears to be a gingundo local pop star, Jana Kirschner, who is my new favorite Slovakian singer. Here's a sample.

Visit Bratislava. Now!

"Gunner," a retired Navy warrant officer colleague of ours, is about 20-40% accurate with anything he tells you. He's right just often enough that you can't even use him as a negative barometer. (Curtis knows who and what I'm talking about.) But one thing Gunner was right about is that Bratislava, Slovakia, is a cool town. It's just across the river from Vienna, so it has excellent pastries and coffee. It was ruled by Hungary for 900 years, so the food is good, if a bit "sturdy" in the German mould. It was actually the capital of Hungary while the Turks were knocking at the gates of Buda and Pest, so it has some great architecture. It was joined with Czechia for almost a century, so the beer is good, yet at the same time it has its own strong viticulture tradition. It's smallish (half a million) and has made great strides in repairing decades of communist neglect. The old part of the city in particular has really been fixed up. And it doesn't seem to have been discovered by too, too many tourists yet. But you might want to hurry to get here before they do, because the Slovaks are working hard to attract people.

Some scenes from our first full day:

Slovak teen idol singer.

Slovak C&W singer. Even better than the teen idol.

Slovak mounted police.

Across the street

It's a small field: one bale.

The Girls of SHAPE

No, it's not a Playboy spread. I could just as easily have labeled it "The Boys of SHAPE." And actually, it's more about uniforms than the soldiers in them.

There are 26 nations in NATO and more than that at SHAPE (Swedes and Irish in the EU mission, for example). The easiest way to tell them all apart is by their camouflage patterns (all the ground troops tend to wear BDUs or ACUs or whatever they call their battle gear). You wouldn't think there'd be so many, but there are. About the only dupes are the Croatians, who are not yet full members but have tons of personnel at SHAPE and who look like they bought surplus fabric from the US Air Force.

The French uniforms are, as you could probably have guessed, very nicely tailored. The trousers for both the women and the men have darts in the waist so that they all fit very tight--much to the delight of all the girls. And I have to admit that the little blond lady capitaine isn't exactly what you'd call ugly. The French also take the prize for dumbest uniform piece: a wrap skirt for the women.

And speaking of women's uniforms, the first time we saw the Czech girls, we thought they were in civvies, their uniform skirts are so short. (Not that I noticed, of course. Other people pointed it out to me.) And they don't seem to have a standard shoe; most of them wear strappy sandal type things--cute but definitely not your grandmother's combat boots. Actually, it seems like lots of countries don't really have a standard for female footwear because many of them get to wear far more stylish shoes than the US girls, who do wear combat boots.

Hautrage en fête

Party time in our little village of Hautrage. It's the ducasse, the annual feast of the patron saint. I have no idea who that is, because as is often the case here in nominally-but-not-really-Catholic Europe, the party around the saint's day has eclipsed, or even replaced, the religious component. But for what it's worth, the village church is Saint-Sulpice. This is a picture of the tiny carnival that now fills the Grand' Place in yesterday's rain.

And here's one of today's antique tractor expo. Lots of models from 1956 and 1957, which I figure must mean that harvests (or subsidies) were better than normal in 1955 and 1956.

For the serious language geeks, ducasse is a Belgian and northern French usage that is a corruption of the word dedicace, meaning a dedication or consecration.

Why they still kick our butts

On one of my trips to Germany last year I saw the end of a kids' soccer practice. And the little guys didn't just run out to Mom's van and jump in. Almost every one of the little dudes hopped on his bike and pedaled home. I figure that must have something to do with it. (Good thing for them, though, that soccer doesn't involve much one-handed throwing.)

And we think Texas can gerrymander

Well, it can, but for sheer complication of borders, check out the town of Baarle-Nassau, the Netherlands, Baarle-Hertog, Belgium. Not only is this a piece of Belgium inside the Netherlands, there are bits of the Netherlands inside the bits of Belgium inside the Netherlands. According to the wiki entry for Baarle-Nassau, it goes back to some political horse trading during the Middle Ages. The entry for Baarle-Hertog (that's the Belgian part--you folks keep up!) gives slightly different numbers for the parcels.

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Why we like coffee in Belgium

A picture that doesn't really need any explanation.

Why I microwave my beer

The US Army believes--and rightly so--that no American should be without a honkin' big refrigerator. So to make up for our little freezerless Belgian, the Army loans us a US model (a big shoutout to all you taxpayers). The only problem is that it has only one temperature control for both the refrigerator and freezer; so to keep our ice from melting, we have to keep the refrigerator way too cold for our Belgian beer. Which is why I microwave it for a few seconds, to boost it to proper serving temperature.

Bike Ride

Sorry to bombard you with postings in one day, but what the heck--most of you aren't reading anyways.

We're having a gorgeous sunny day today--the first nice weekend day in several weeks--so Rita and I rode our bikes to Beloeil, the site of the famous Château de Beloeil (well, it's famous around here). Along the way we saw dozens of other bike riders: families, gangs of teenaged girls, other couples, solo serious riders, small groups of serious riders, old guys going to the store, young guys going...somewhere, and a serious young woman rider (not as common as you'd think).

We stopped for refreshments in Beloeil. I mistakenly ordered an 11% beer. The barman pointed out that it would give me strength to pedal. While sitting in the cafe, we saw, not one, but two loads of hay come by. On the way there and back we saw onions being harvested. Did I mention that there's a lot of agriculture around here? We also saw a young couple on a Vespa. It was pale turquoise. And the girl was cute. It looked so Euro.

Then we wobbled our way home.

Things we saw today

Two culturally interesting things to note:

- We had coffee this morning at our favorite cafe in Saint-Ghislain, the Concordia, which finally reopened this week after its long summer vacation (it seemed long to us, at least). While we were there the local butcher (from Tertre, the next town over from us and in between us and Saint-Ghislain) arrived to deliver the meats. At the same time the fresh produce delivery arrived. Both deliveries were carried through the restaurant back to the kitchen.

- At lunch I was perusing the local newspaper, the Passe-Partout, and noticed a full page ad on the back advertising - get this - an All Saints Day sale on marble tombstones and slabs. The company promises incredible prices! Above pictures of two models.

I guess it's not terribly unusual to see restaurant deliveries in the US. We did find it not a little culturally interesting, though, to see the tombstone ad. Not something you'd run across too often in the States - but then Europe takes All Saints Day far more seriously than we do. It's even a legal holiday here.

How to learn a foreign language

No matter how much time you spend in a classroom, they can't teach you everything you need to know. You have to get out there and do stuff. Combined, Rita and I have spent close to a century studying French, yet every time we have a different situation we learn something. Today we went to the jeweler in Ath (cute town!) to have Rita's engagement ring repaired. She caught it on something boarding a train in Germany, and it's really messed up. So we learned that the setting is l'ensemble and a prong is une griffe, which also means a claw. At this rate I should be pretty fluent in a couple of decades.

A Medal!

At last, Belgium has an Olympic medal, a silver in the women's 4x100 relay. Thanks to an outbreak of fumbling by the favorites (the same thing that happened with the men), the Belgian women managed to snag the silver in this race. We're all excited as can be over here. It's a great Belgian team: a Walloon (Olivia Borlée), a Flem (Kim Gevaert), an African (Elodie Ouedraogo), and a can't-tell-which-she-is (Hanna Mariën).

Oops!

No, it's not an illusion, and no, it's not because of that extra margarita you had. The steeple in Pommeroeul really is crooked. Or tilted. Or bent. Not straight, at any rate. I have no idea what the story is behind this. And it's the steeple. All these little villages have only one church each, and each one's steeple is distinct, making it surprisingly easy in this flat country to navigate on a bicycle, especially if you're trying to get to Pommeroeul.

Straight, plumb, and level, guys, straight, plumb, and level.

Girls are different

Did you happen to catch the end of the heptathlon at the Olympics Saturday? At the end of the last heat of the last event, the 800 meters, all the competitors from all the previous heats poured out onto the track and milled around kissing and congratulating the winner. Rita said it looked like they all really liked her; maybe if she hadn't won the event she would have been voted Miss Congeniality. But they didn't stop there. They were kissing and congratulating and hugging everybody. Quite a difference from all the chest-thumping and preening that goes on after the men's 100 meters.

Elsewhere in Olympic news, in case you didn't notice, the Belgian men's soccer team beat the Italians, who couldn't seem to score unless the Belgians gave it to them. The poor, delicate Italian boys seemed to get booboos easily, always conveniently near the goal.

Maybe not as impressive as the flower carpet

But they ARE flowers from our garden. Oh, and a couple weeds too (the dainty yellow ones in the middle).

Remember you can click on the picture to get a close-up.

The flower carpet

Another thing Belgium does well - besides coffee, beer, and chocolate - is flowers.

Every two years they fill the Grand' Place in Brussels with a carpet of flowers. Each year it's a different design. This year they used begonias and it looks like a tapestry design.

Pretty incredible, huh?

Church on the economy, part deux

A couple weeks ago I mentioned having gone to church in our village for the first time. Now that we're in August, Sunday Mass has rotated over to Hautrage Etat, which is across the Route de Wallonie (a major road) from Hautrage Centre (our village). So yesterday I ventured over to Hautrage Etat for church. (Since it was raining, I drove rather than ride my bike or walk - it's only a couple kilometers away.)

There were only about 10-15 of us there, a smaller crowd than that of my Hautrage experience. Maybe the rest of the folks knew something I didn't: there was no priest for yesterday's service. We had a completely lay-led service, with most of the Mass elements except the consecration. We even had music. It was kind of weird and culturally interesting all at the same time. 

The absence of a priest was apparently an anamoly, because we were assured there would be a priest for both the Assumption day Mass Friday (another Belgian holiday!) and next Sunday's service.

Mom's new toy

This is what we went to Germany for last weekend. It was hard to decide between the many models but I had an idea of what size I wanted and that I wanted lots of color. So the very helpful salesman demonstrated several clocks for us, and since we both liked this one, this is the one that came home with us. It cuckoos out the hour and once on the half hour and is supposed to play two tunes. We haven't figured that last part out yet, so we'll check back with the store to see what we need to fiddle with.

Below is a little better view close up.



In case anyone needs a recommendation for a cuckoo clock store, this one is from the House of 1000 Clocks in Triberg (check out their website at www.houseof1000clocks.com). The staff is used to dealing with English speakers, and they have a repair center in the US. Much to our surprise, the Belgian repair center is in Ath, just up the road from where the US commissary and PX are located. That's because they sell to so many Shapians.

"Oh, that's a feature."

This is what our sysads say whenever we complain that something we used to be able to do on our computers is no longer doable. Politicians could learn a lot about spin from these guys.

Today, however, I have conquered feature creep on at least one site. Viamichelin is the Michelin travel folks mapping and trip planning site. (I hear they make tires too.) It's a good tool, partly because it offers pedestrian and bicycle options. But they recently updated it (run away! run away!), and it started to stink. The new version will let you ask for a bicycle route but never quite gets around to displaying it for you. ("Well, sir, that's a feature of our new and improved tool.")

But just now I discovered, waaaay down at the bottom in a big long list, a link to the old site, which still works great and is fast as greased lightning. Unlike me on a bicycle. The link above is to the old, useful site. It's a little Eurocentric in presentation, but the maps of the US work just fine.

One small step for man, one giant leap for computer-using mankind.

Speaking of the Dutch

Okay, so technically you and I weren't really speaking about the Dutch, but I've been thinking about them a lot since our weekend trip to the Black Forest because just about every other vehicle on the road out there this time of year is a Dutch family either in a smallish RV or in the car towing a largish camper. It's because they're tightwads and conservative and don't want to 1) spend money on lodging, food, or drink or 2) risk not being able to find beer in one of those funny wine-drinking countries.

So now that we're both thinking about the Dutch, let's try something completely different. Allow me to direct you to a web site where we have posted (finally!) pictures of our April trip to Keukenhof. You might want to try the slide show feature at the top.

A Multicutural Moment

On our way to Germany this weekend (more later), we were listening to a German radio station while driving through France, and they played a French country and western song entitled Sur la route de Memphis -- On the road to Memphis. It was a trucker song. It made me think of the first French trucker song I ever heard in 1978. I still remember the chorus: Roule, roule et bouffe du goudron -- Keep on drivin' and gobblin' up asphalt. Holy cow! I remember the tune too!

Also seen along the way: hops fields. They grow really tall! I knew that on an intellectual level, but to actually see a 25-foot-tall crop is impressive.

And one tobacco field. I have no idea what it was doing amongst all the corn and wheat and barley and grapes and hops and orchards and cherry trees, but looking across a little vale, I saw a piece of equipment that looked familiar. It was that platform thing with the awning (sorry to get so technical). Then I noticed the crop itself. I think they were topping. If they weren't, they needed to.

Experienced travelers will recognize the two-level euro flusher on our master bath toilet. There's a little flush for "number one" and a bigger flush for "number two." You can't really see them, but these two buttons even have one bump and two bumps for the "one" and "two" functions. All Europeans worry about saving water, even though Belgium is basically one big flood plain.

Now, you'll notice that I said it's on our master bath toilet. The other two toilets have different models. We also have eight (I counted) different brands and styles of heater or radiator and about a gazillion different kinds of light bulbs. Every danged room has a different kind of bulb, sometimes two. This is all because of the way houses are built here: with lots of sweat equity. We have yet to see a house built entirely by a builder that somebody just moves in to. They all seem to be built to one stage of incompleteness or another, then the new owners take over and work on it as they have time until it's done enough to occupy, which is often before it's actually what we would call "done." Part of this has to do with money, but I think somehow it has to do with taxes, which are complex and high here. And nobody loves getting away with a scam like an overtaxed European.

Overheard

Two guys discussing their Afghanistan deployments:  "Oh, I loved Khost. Except for the rocket attacks."

Scenes from Paris

I can think of worse places to spend one's birthday than looking across the Seine at night.




From the wheel in the Tuileries we could see the Rue de Rivoli, where the Tour was going to come through. (We didn't actually get on the ferris wheel until Sunday but the night view sure makes a better picture!) And of course the batteries had died in the camera by the time we got up to the top and had magnificent views of Sacre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower, and the Invalides - not to mention the Tour de France publicity caravan that came by as we were moving back to the hotel to pick up our bags and head to the train station, before the riders came through.


So where were we again? I thought we went to Paris. Sure looks German to me!

This is a section of street in the Butte aux Cailles neighborhood, not far from the Place d'Italie (where we strolled through an excellent open air market).



Me when I get hungry...actually finding restaurants willing to serve before 8:00PM wasn't so difficult this time. We had a couple really good meals (ask David for the details) and a couple really good lunches.

The one thing that didn't work out as well as it could have was the hotel. Although it was cute and ideally located, it wasn't air-conditioned. And the weather was hot. Being Belgians, anything over 80F feels really hot to us. And it was over 80. Had to be.

Lies they tell us about Europe - Installment 1

On the autobahn in Germany you can drive as fast as you want.

Not exactly true. The speed limit on the autobahn is 130 kph (about 80 mph), just like it is almost everywhere in Europe except Belgium, where it's 120. There are sections of the autobahn where you see
the "end of all previous prohibitions and restrictions" sign. Then you can drive as fast as conditions permit. But those stretches tend to be not all that long in many parts of the country. And "conditions" include traffic. The autobahn in much of Germany is just unbelievably congested. It's like one gigantic Capital Beltway (NC readers, think I-40 between Durham and Raleigh) all the time. In more rural areas, like down south, you can actually get up some speed; but in many areas, you can't even go the speed limit because of another phenomenon: every German man thinks he's the fastest thing on the road. So what winds up happening is that everybody gets in the left lane, and you wind up driving 100. Why the left lane? Because unlike in the US, you do not pass on the right here. Europeans (well, at least Northern Europeans) are very strict about this. You drive in the right lane except when passing and always pass on the left. Passing on the right can get you a fine of several hundred euros and a chance to learn lots of quaint local gestures, some of which we also use.

End result: you don't drive as fast in Germany as we always heard you could.

Hautrage Happenings

Observations and musings on goings-on in and around the village:

We realized last week that we are in the middle of the summer church season. What that means is that some of the village churches in our commune (Saint-Ghislain) which normally remain shuttered most of the year get to host Mass for a month in the summer. July is Hautrage's turn, so today I attended Mass at Saint-Sulpice in our very own village. It was only the second time I'd seen the interior of the church. That's a shame because it's a very pretty church - stained glass windows, beautiful wooden altar, tasteful statues, and a working pipe organ.

On a different subject, we had noticed earlier in the week a hotel barge, called L'Embrun, moored at the quai down the street from us. After googling it, we learned that it sails out of Liege and one can rent a cabin or two or the entire barge for various periods of time. That was intriguing. Then yesterday we started seeing signs reading "'Seven' boot" pointing toward the canal. [Boot is German and Dutch for boat.] We tucked that one away in the back of our minds as we headed down to the village to drink a beer in the tent erected for the Belgian national day celebration.

Today we exercised different exercise options, David opting for a bike ride and me for a walk. I headed toward the canal and walked past L'Embrun, which was teaming with people, including one fellow with a large video camera. Hmm...I returned from a different direction and saw what looked like a film crew shooting a scene down the street from our house (for those of you who have been here, at the corner house, where the goats live). Turns out as David was coming back from his bike ride he had to wait for them to finish a scene before he could go past to get home. We speculate it's a university project or perhaps an indie film being made.

Back to the celebration in the village: tonight is the bal sous les lampions (ball under the lanterns or something like that) with music by an orchestra. The ball is preceded by a barbecue, which here means an aperitif, a slab of meat and frites. We thought about going but couldn't scare up anyone to go with us. Next year for sure.

Tomorrow the celebrations continue, as 21 July is Belgian independence day. At 11:00 there will be national aperitif and the laying of a wreath at the war memorial in Hautrage. Although it's a SHAPE holiday, as US civilians we still have to go to work, but we're toying with the idea of saying we have to leave in time for the ceremony.

It's Thursday and ...

guess what the weather's doing: it's raining! Yup, can you believe that? Rain in Belgium? Whoda thunk???

How many horses do you see?

Here's another game we've been playing lately. These guys (or gals) live in one of the pastures around the corner from us. They are always no more than 6 feet away from each other. And they're frequently even closer than that. The other day we drove by and they were all reclining in the grass facing each other like they were having a good gossip.

La chasse aux taupes

We're playing a new games these days. Whack-a-mole proved spectacularly unsuccessful so we took the neighbor's advice and invested in some sonic mole chasing devices. They're long thin tubes with 4 D-cell batteries each; they produce a noise at irregular intervals that irritates the moles so they move on. We know just how irritating this noise is after having worked in the garden in the proximity of one of these devices for about three hours yesterday afternoon. 

The instructions warn that you may get more molehills initially as the moles try to escape the noise; you're supposed to move the devices after 3 or 4 days to keep chasing them out of your yard (and into the neighbors', one supposes). Looking at the new mole hills this morning it appears our devices are working well - so well, in fact, that David repositioned them today to keep the moles moving toward the cornfield beyond the tree line that borders our yard. (We're purposely aiming them toward the cornfield rather than our neighbor's yard - although his efforts are probably why WE have so many this year!)

Time will tell whether our new strategy will be successful. We'll keep you posted!

Midterm review

We're nearing the halfway point of our overseas tour, so this seems like an appropriate time to take stock of our cultural experiences and see what we like about life in Belgium. One of the advantages to living somewhere, as opposed to visiting, is that you have time to sort out what you really like and don't like. We miss many things from home--especially friends and stores that are open past 6 PM--and tons of things annoy us about living here--like stores that don't stay open past 6 PM. But we also realize that we're going to miss much of what we've come to take for granted here. So with apologizes to Mandy, who was the impetus for this and has already seen much of it, here, in no order other than the one in which these items came to me, is what we like about being here:

We like being able to have a beer at nine in the morning (or nine at night for that matter) without anyone thinking you're going to hell. We like Belgian coffee. We like going to cafes to drink the coffee. We like being served that coffee in crockery instead of paper. We like drinking our beer and our coffee out of doors. We like greeting the staff and patrons and being greeted by them when we arrive at or leave a restaurant or cafe. We like saying bon appétit to total strangers when their food arrives. We like seeing jobs in food service and housecleaning and gardening, and any number of other fields, viewed as respectable, living-wage careers, not as a place to park ex-cons, future cons, and misfits. We like summer when it stays light until 11 PM. We like the way people drive here (most of the time). I like not having people try to kill me just because I'm on that weird communist bicycle contraption. We like diesel cars. We like poppies, either springing up on the edge of a path or growing in whole fields. We like window boxes overflowing with geraniums. We like bakeries. We like that every village still commemorates, invariably by name, the men killed in the Great War. We like that every town square in all of Belgium is named the Grand' Place (Grote Markt in Flanders). We love chocolate shops and trying them all to decide which brand is our favorite. We like doing the same for beer. We like being able to walk on sparsely traveled country roads. We like being able to drive fast. We like trains. We actually do like cool summers. We like French doors and tile floors and separate toilet rooms. We like the way there's no traffic on Sunday afternoon because everyone is at Grandma's eating themselves comatose (it's basically Thanksgiving every week). We like having a specific glass for every beer or soft drink or water. We like seeing little old ladies and couples who celebrated their 50th anniversary long ago drinking beer (yes, sometimes at 9 AM). We like the religious shrines and chapels scattered all over--and they're still building them--though it makes us wonder why the churches are empty.

Like I said, there's a lot we'll miss.

Rain, rain, go away

Today marks our fourth day in a row of rain. Not just a light Belgian sprinkling, but a real downpour, with lightning and thunder. 

We were lulled into complacency during our several weeks of mostly sunny weather. God has come back to remind us that Belgium is a rainy country and we should not expect otherwise. Or maybe that we should cherish those rare sunny days (which we do) - but never leave home without our raincoats!

Cue Martha Reeves and the Vandellas

Because it's like a heat wave! Or...it was yesterday. It got up to about 84, 15 degrees above normal. It was already a little cooler today, and tomorrow it's supposed to be rainy and 65. And for this our office is air conditioned, proving once again that what they're really worried about is keeping the machines comfortable.

Stes-Maries de la Mer

The one thing Sarah wanted to do on our recent trip to southern France was see the Mediterranean. So on our way from Nimes to Montpellier we drove through the Camargue down to Saintes-Maries de la Mer, a beach town on the Med. We enjoyed a picnic lunch while sitting on a bench overlooking the beach. Some brave souls were even in the water. Brrr!




And this was the other interesting thing about Stes-Maries de la Mer. According to one of the local legends, Sarah was a servant girl who accompanied Mary-Jacobe, Mary-Salome and Lazarus, in their flight from Jewish persecution of early Christians, across the sea to this little town. Sarah, or the Black Madonna, is the patron saint of gypsies. (Pretty ironic, given our Austro-Hungarian roots.) We even had a gypsy or two try to sell us religious medals while there.

Move over, Versailles!

This weekend we visited the Chateau de Beloeil, which is only about 10-15 minutes from us. We'd been hearing about it since we got here but just never got around to visiting. So Saturday we did. We took the little train ride through the gardens (no flowers, just trees and canals) and then toured the parts of the chateau that are open to the public. As you can see from this picture, the furnishings could rival those of Versailles. I found it particularly interesting that this chateau was inhabited by some folks who were somehow related to the Hapsburgs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Those people sure did get around!

Our canal

Ok, it's not really "our" canal. It's the Nimy-Blaton canal and it goes a long ways. This is a view from the bridge just down the street from us. That's the bridge TomTom doesn't know about, in case you were wondering.

The days are getting shorter

Or they will be tomorrow. This is a shot from our terrace at 2215 (10:15 PM). We have fireworks tonight in the village, but they can't start until 2330 because it won't be dark enough until then. Have we mentioned lately that we really like summer here?

Horses

Today must have been "take you horse out for a spin" day in Hautrage and environs. 

We went for a bike ride, since it was sunny and we hadn't been out in a while. First we passed two ladies walking their horses sedately down the street. (It struck us as odd but funny that one of the ladies was smoking as she rode.) Down the road apiece we came up behind a couple who had just pulled their horse-drawn wagon out of a farmyard. We nodded and greeted them as we rode by, only to meet another horse-drawn wagon, followed closely by a rider on a horse, coming towards us from the other direction. This particular cart horse, a BIG Belgian, looked like he wasn't used to pulling a wagon. Or maybe it was the wind he didn't like - but something sure had him reluctant to pull that cart. Maybe it was the entire family sitting in it, out for a leisurely ride on a sunny day.

There was a lot of horse talk in the office the last couple days, since the announcement that InBev is bidding to take over Anheuser-Busch. Speculation is running wild that the big Belgians might replace the Clydesdales. We had visions of these big, stolid workhorses pulling those big beer wagons for a few paces ... and then stopping for a cigarette break!

Handsome guy in tight pants

This handsome fella here is just one of the attractions at the Roman arena in Nimes. We got to see some of his clothes too - gorgeous reds and purples. And his little black ballet slippers were to die for! The bullfighting display was ok but the gladiator stuff left me cold. Pretty nasty stuff, that.

We'll try to get some more photos and commentaries posted this weekend. The Honkin' Big Mower arrives Saturday, so once David hacks down the back 40 with it, we should subsequently have more time for blogging.

The Anglican Report

Yesterday my little Anglican congregation had a day-o-Charles Wesley (on purpose; it happens every now and then by accident in the Methodist world). All four hymns were by CW: "Christ, whose glory fills the skies,""Soldiers of Christ, arise," "Gracious Spirit, Holy Ghost," and "Tell out my soul, the greatness." Of course, by this point in my relationship with the Parish of the Good Shepherd, I'd be disappointed if we didn't sing a couple of hymns to unfamiliar or unexpected tunes. I was not disappointed; I think only the first was to the tune I'm used to.

This all happened because Saturday was the 270th anniversary of John Wesley's Aldersgate experience. I missed it completely, but the Church of England had a celebration of the Wesley brothers, and Padre used that and the music as a springboard for a nice little ecumenical sermon.

Speaking of ecumenism, it was Corpus Christi in the Roman Catholic world. Rita's church prayed for the day when all believers could share together in the Body and Blood of Christ. You'll be relieved to know that they did not go completely crazy and invite the non-Catholics to the Table, though.

The merry, merry month of May

As many of you know, we were back in the States for two weeks for a combination of leave and business meetings. This being May, lots of things happened in the yard while we were gone: the trees leafed out, the azaleas and rhodos bloomed, the weeds flourished, and the grass grew. And grew. And grew. When we pulled into the driveway we were stunned to see the grass was at least 12 inches high - no exaggeration! David set out immediately to start knocking it down.

So far we've spent, together, at least 8 hours mowing. David did the whole yard in a preliminary round Friday, and I went back over the front when he stopped to fix dinner. We have a mowing curfew of 9:00 PM here, so that pretty much took care of Friday. Saturday it rained, and Sunday we're not allowed to mow. So David attacked the Back 40 again this evening and got about halfway through before the gas ran out. After eating and replenishing the gas can, I took over and managed to finish the Back 40 just after 9:00. We still have the middle section to go, and by then the front will need it again.

That's the story on the grass. The weeds are another story, and one that will occupy me for the entire summer. The azaleas and the rhodos, however, are a thing of beauty, at least for now. We have a lot of rhodos, and they seem to be healthier this year than last. There are only a few azaleas, but two of them are pictured here, in colors you probably don't expect to see from azaleas. We saw the orange ones at the Royal Greenhouses at Laeken (Brussels) just a few weeks ago but didn't realize we had one of these special babies right in our own back yard. Neither of us remembers it blooming last year.

And you can see I have my work cut out for me with these weeds.

So you think you're overtaxed?

We just got our Belgian income tax information. We don't have to pay, but they send the packet to all homes. The lowest bracket, up to 7,042 euros in taxable income, is 25%. (The standard deduction is just over 6,000 euros, and they apparently do not distinguish between married and single taxpayers.) The lowest bracket in the US is 10%. The highest bracket in the US is 35%, and that doesn't kick in until a single wage earner has taxable income of more than about $358,000. In Belgium taxable income over 32,270 euros ($50,000) a year is taxed at 50%. And keep in mind that all this is on top of the 21% value-added tax, which is essentially a sales tax paid on almost everything you can spend money on, including cars.

My fellow Americans, stop whining.

I'll tell ya what won't work

I've heard commentators suggest that the US drastically raise gasoline taxes as a way to discourage consumption, thereby reducing our dependence on imported oil, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, and putting the Orioles back atop the American League. While I'm in favor of all those things, raising gasoline taxes will not accomplish them. We were in the Netherlands today and spent several hours sitting in some of the worst traffic jams I've ever seen anywhere. So I'm here to tell you that not one single Dutchman is staying home just because his gas costs $9 a gallon.

The day is complete when...

we've seen the usual convoi exceptionnel (wide load) on the road - or, alternatively, a  cow...umm...relieving itself in the field. both almost daily sights in our part of the country.

We decided it's spring

For various reasons we had not been able to get down to the flower market at the train station in Mons for the last several Sundays. So we decided earlier this week that would be our destination after church today. Divine Providence apparently approved because we had an absolutely gorgeous day. It got up to 15 (59 Fahrenheit) degrees today, the warmest it's been since last fall.

We sorta went crazy buying flowers. We filled the two bedroom window boxes (the pansies in the one on the ledge outside the bathroom window weathered the winter well and are blooming like crazy). We filled the wheelbarrow. We filled the tub on the deck and still have some left to put in the other tub when the tulips Sarah's friends gave us are done.

We call this the Back Forty. It's about a third to a half of our lawn. I mowed it last week because the grass was--no kidding--10 or 12 inches high in spots.

I waited so long because it wouldn't stop raining, and our yard just might be below sea level. As you can see from this post-mowing photo, despite a week without rain it hadn't quite dried out. It was like mowing the Everglades.

In a really stupidly trivial way, though, it made me understand just a little of what the troops on this part of the front had to put up with during the Great War.

Old Elegance

Antwerp is full of gorgeous old buildings. The top picture is shot from inside the central train station. (The thought ran through my mind that I could be arrested by over-zealous homeland security types for taking such a picture.) The bottom picture is, if you double click on it and see, a bank.

We wondered how much destruction Antwerp suffered during the war(s). Obviously, and fortunately, some of its graceful old buildings survived.

The Nationaal Scheepvaartmuseum in Antwerp

Sunday we went to the Scheepvaartmuseum, a museum about ships. We were surprised upon entering that 1) is was free that day! and 2) the first floor exhibit was about the shipping lines that catered to emigrants sailing to the US. We had no idea it was such a booming business back at the turn of the century - so much so that there was competition among various shipping lines, which led to better accommodations for steerage-class passengers. I found this all the more fascinating because my Grandpa Mendl actually sailed from Antwerp, probably on one of the Red Star Line ships we read about at the exhibit.

The photo above is from the other part of the museum, the part where they have scale models of various sailing ships. While this wasn't as interesting to me, I did have to admire the beautiful workmanship of the models.

Tempting, very tempting

I think we spotted a trend in Antwerp.

It was probably a good thing the store was closed by the time we passed by. Red is sooooo tempting. Double click on the picture to get the full effect.