Les petites annonces

I am intrigued by the classified ads in our local weekly, especially in the "Rencontres" (Encounters) section. In addition to the usual "man seeks young woman" (h ch jf) ads, there are the clairvoyants. Cristaline promises an answer to every question. Cabinet Bangoura specializes in bringing back your loved ones, where ever they may be, and in two days! But you have to bring a picture and a candle. Maitre N Karan is known for his effectiveness and quick work; he specializes in the occult. Both Bangoura and N Karan post their pictures. To me they just look scarey. Mr. Sanquiana offers to work on your family problems; with the "honey of love" husband and wife will become inseparable. ... Uh, too many ways to look at that so we won't go there.

Then there are the OTHER ads. A 35-year-old housewife, adventurous but lacking affection, is looking for a guy to spend an afternoon with in complete discretion (ch. h. ou j.h. pr passer après midi...). There are the 50-something women who are "still very sexy" and the usual phone sex numbers. And here's my favorite: a "duo coquin," a 52-year-old mom and 23-year-old daughter combo. Gee, that could have been me and Rachel 4 years ago!!! Ugh.

Le Basket à la belge

Rita went to her first and I to only my second professional basketball game ever last night. No, we didn't see the Wizards or the Bobcats, but we did see Dexia Mons Hainaut spank the ever lovin' daylights out of Spotter Leuven! DMH is the local team and a pretty danged good one. They're tied for second in the Belgian league, have already qualified for the next round of the European championships, and could seal a first place finish and home court advantage with a 3-point win Tuesday over Ural Great Perm.

I've been intrigued by the Mons team ever since I noticed that among its four American players were Justin Gray (Wake Forest '06 and pictured here), whose college career we had followed closely, and Ben Ebong, fellow Davidson alum ('99). I shamelessly dropped their names when I emailed the team to reserve tickets, which caught the attention of the press director, who in turn decided that we would be his guests. We got to meet Ben quickly before the game and had a chance to chat briefly with Justin afterward. It was cute watching the Belgian teenagers fawn over him as he signed autographs. All the boys wanted their picture taken with him, and one of the girls asked him for a bisou (the kiss on the cheek). Not surprisingly that was a French word he knew.

Anyways, we had a great time. Our guys did really well: Justin was the high scorer with 23 points (a point a minute), and Ben had 8 points, 4 rebounds, a pair of assists, and some solid defense. As is always the case when you see a familiar thing in a new setting, some things were different. Maybe the weirdest was that they pounded drums while the home team was shooting free throws. But it was still the same game we know, and we'll be going back to see some more. Allez l'union!

More from Wuerzburg

Ok, these pictures are supposed to be below the previous entry. So start one down.

Where we went

It had been a month or two since we went to Germany, so we went back last weekend. We actually went to see our friends who will be heading back to the States in a few weeks. The four of us grownups and one little guy trundled off to Wuerzburg, another German city that suffered a lot of destruction during the war. Nevertheless there were still some interesting things to see. You're looking at a picture of the Marienberg Fortress on the hill across the Main River from town. ...We meant to spend Sunday night in the Ardennes, on the German-Belgian border. We figured there wouldn't be a run on hotel rooms, so we didn't make a reservation ahead of time. What we hadn't counted on was a couple hotels in St. Vith being closed, apparently still loafing after the Christmas season. That, coupled with the rain and gloomy skies, sent us home Sunday - but not until after we'd looked at some massive German-style (but Belgian-made) solid wood furniture. We came away thinking none of it would fit in our house in Columbia but maybe we'll go back and look again another day...

This is what my hand looks like after 10 days. Not bad, huh? I'm thinking of offering to do a celebrity endorse- ment for Flammazine. Now if only I were a celebrity...

Don't try this at home, kids.

You should try it at school, where more of your friends can see and be impressed.

This is my mummy hand. You can have one, too. All you have to do is heat a sauce pan in the oven for about an hour (425 Fahrenheit works nicely), pull it out and set it on the counter, take 2 seconds to forget that it's hot, pick it up with your bare hand, then go to a Belgian emergency room. The Belgian emergency room is the key to getting the mummy hand because the SHAPE clinic doesn't do nearly as nice a job of wrapping you up. The SHAPE folks did agree, however, that the Belgians had treated me properly. The Belgian hospital uses a product called (no kidding) Flammazine! They also gave me some megapowerful acetaminophen, so I can laugh at my stupidity instead of writhing in the pain I obviously deserve.

The lights go out

This morning we looked out our back windows and discovered that the Christmas tree lights on the crane have been extinguished. The Christmas tree crane was our beacon morning and evening that signaled the magic of the season. And now it's over. I guess the compensation is that the days are slowly getting longer, with sunset not arriving until after 5:00 PM. With the slightly longer days comes the promise of spring - and the completion of our first year in Belgium. Wow - we're only a month away from a full year here. Hard to believe...

Tragedy Strikes Mons...and Mom

I'm surprised Rita still has the spirit to post entries. She's been listless and depressed since the day a couple of weeks ago when we walked down the pedestrian shopping street in Mons and discovered, to our horror, that the Zigzag had been destroyed by fire! (Sorry, no English version of the story; it's real local news.) The Zigzag was our favorite store--and hard to describe. It was kind of a tiny, two-aisle, hip dollar store. Everything was priced at only a euro or four. It was a great place to get things like candles and holders, cute coffee cups, cheap wall clocks, cutting boards made to look like Swiss cheese, bread baskets, rubber ducks and duck-shaped soap (Rachel), and cow-shaped salt and pepper shakers (Linda). And now it's gone, destroyed by a fire set in the trash that wasn't collected as usual because the garbage men had Saint Barbara's feast day off. Ironically, Saint Barbara is the patron of fire-related professions. *Sigh*

Back to the grind

It's cold and rainy today, a fitting end to a very enjoyable Christmas break. With all three girls here, we had a typical family Christmas - except that we went to a Christmas eve service that wasn't at midnight, we made monkey bread but not for breakfast, and we decided to forego the traditional Yule log in favor of all the cookies, chocolates, and fruit cake we'd already accumulated. 

We did some day trips too: the Christmas market in Lille; Epernay and Reims, where not much was open but we still managed to get in a tasting; and Antwerp. It was our first trip to both Lille and Antwerp, and both deserve a return visit. We barely scratched the surface in Antwerp and realized, as we were leaving, that we should have planned to spend the night. 

This is a picture of the Grote Markt (Grand' Place in French) with the Christmas market in Antwerp.