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.