Bizarre Belgian church experience no. 931

The Christmas edition

Last night we went to "midnight" mass (started at 11 pm) in Saint-Ghislain. The choir sang for a half hour before the service began, but the mass itself had only two hymns, "O Come All Ye Faithful," which when it went from Latin to French became "Faithful People, the Lord is Calling You," and a pretty drippy piece that would translate something like "Peace Is Here upon Us." Since it has no corresponding English-language version, it didn't sound Christmas-y at all to us. But then after the mass was ended, the choir did a carol to the tune of--I kid you not--"The Battle Hymn of the Republic." The chorus was something like "Glory, glory hallelujah, today is Christmas Day!" We near 'bout died when we heard it start. The congregation stayed around to listen and applauded at the end, but we couldn't tell if it was because it was a song they knew or what. We sang along with the chorus. Then they served sparkling wine.

In other Christmas news, this is what our yard looked like up until a few hours before Christmas. As we mentioned in an earlier post, we had what for Belgium is a lot of snow late last week and over the weekend. Then the weather came to its sense, it started raining, and by late Christmas Eve all the snow was gone. Now it's damp, dreary, and about 40 F. But it's the Feast of the Nativity, so all is well.

Merry Christmas to all of our readers from David, Rita, the girls, Stephan, and Belgium.

In our backyard

We have pheasants. If you don't know anything about them, they don't fly a lot. even if you do know a lot about them, they still don't fly. Despite what you see in wildlife photos, they prefer to run from danger, which is one reason they're prized as game birds. Since it's not considered sporting to shoot them on the ground (you wonder who made up these rules), the trick is to flush them into the air. In the olden days you would have used a servant. Now you would use a dog. Or that the brother-in-law you've never cared for.

Where have all the plowers gone?

Apparently Belgium does not own a snowplow. Or road salt. We were up in Waterloo this afternoon. Yes, the Waterloo. It snowed…oh, maybe 3 inches. It took us 3 hours to make the 35-minute trip back. Even once we had spent 2 hours to go less than 2 miles to the R0 (Brussels' beltway), that four-lane interstate-type highway was covered in crusty, icy, snow. No plow in sight. No salt anywhere. Just lots of cars moving very slowly.

Oh, and the Belgians have discovered that if you press the pedal all the way to the floor on icy roads and make your wheels spin really fast…you don't go anywhere. But they keep trying, like this time might be the time it works and my car leaps forward. Straight into the car stopped dead 10 feet in front of me.

Les Fêtes patronales

Back at the end of November and beginning of December we kept seeing ads for restaurant menus for the fêtes patronales. We knew it wasn't Belgian national day and were pretty sure it wasn't the king's birthday or anything like that, but didn't really know what all the fuss was about. On Friday, 4 Dec., the bank was closed and the cleaning ladies cleared out of our building before 11:00, early even for a Friday. We were perplexed. So finally I googled it. Turns out Belgians celebrate three big saints days in the first week of December:

- 1 Dec: Saint Eloi, or Eligius, bishop of Noyon-Tournai (just down the road from us) and the patron saint of goldsmiths, other metalworkers, and coin collectors;

- 4 Dec: Sainte Barb or Barbara, the patron saint of artillerymen, military engineers, miners and others who work with explosives because of her old legend's association with lightning, and mathematicians. We also heard, the first year we were here, that she's the patron saint of firemen. Ironically, one of our favorite stores in Mons burned down on Sainte-Barbe (see our blog posting from 5 January 2008).

- 6 Dec: Saint Nicholas, who is, according to one source, the patron saint of "several classes of people, especially, in the East, of sailors and in the West, of children."

So we added another bit of cultural trivia to our growing collection.

Will we never stop being afraid?

In the last week, hand sanitizer dispensing stations have appeared all over SHAPE. I've yet to see anyone use one, but they're everywhere. I assume this came from the US and is happening there too. It also mirrors the latest theological development. There now appear to be three elements of the Eucharist: the bread, the cup, and alcohol-based Purell. Because of course Jesus would have worried about germs in the Upper Room. But we Anglicano-Episcopalians have resisted the frenzy. And guess what? No one has died.

Another slightly bizarre church experience

Last week I tried to go to church in Tertre, the next village over. The schedule says Mass is at 9:15 there every week. I got there and saw only one other car in the parking lot, and the church was locked up tight. The lady from the other car was as perplexed as I, since she had actually called and was told there would be a Mass. Oh well. Another example of the mysterious Belgian Mass schedule.

I decided to give it another shot this week, figuring, what are the odds Mass would be cancelled or changed two weeks in a row. I guessed right; there was indeed a service. Today was the feast of Christ the King, so we celebrated that. In addition, for some reason I didn't catch, the offertory involved bringing baskets of rolls up to the altar. It was also the feast of Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of music, so before Mass ended the congregation honored the organist and the cantor with small gifts. Before we were dismissed there was an announcement that they'd be giving out the rolls. And that the blessing of horses would follow immediately after the service.

Huh?

I thought maybe I'd misunderstood or they were going to go out to some farm to bless some guy's horses. But when I walked out of the church to the parking lot, there was a line of horses and riders waiting for their blessing. I then realized why the stable I'd passed on the way over there had been a beehive of activity at such an early hour: students from the riding school were preparing to ride their horses the short distance over to the church. So there they were, waiting patiently for their blessing. I wished I'd had a camera.

Bastogne

Saturday Mickey and I visited the Battle of the Bulge battlefield--or part of it. The thing was huge. You may have read that somewhere. In fact, our guide pointed that out as a feature of mechanized warfare: battlefields are bigger than they used to be--much bigger. Our "guide" was the commander of the unit Rita and I work in. He is a historian who has studied this battle extensively, and he served in the 101st Airborne, which was the US unit that defended the surrounded town of Bastogne, Belgium.

We stopped first at Elsenborn Ridge, where US forces really started to stop the attack. It diverted the German thrust aimed at Liège to the south and constricted the northern shoulder of the advance, basically keeping the bulge a bulge, instead of letting it become the second overrunning of Belgium that Hitler hoped for. This is a monument to the 26th of the 1st--the US 1st Infantry Division, 26th Regiment, which dug in and fought along a ridge line part of which you can see low on the horizon.

Next on the itinerary was a piece of the Siegfried line. These are the "dragon's teeth" tank traps that marked the German border. A two-lane highway runs along the border. Walk across the road, and you're in Belgium.

Third stop was a copse of woods where an isolated recon platoon (maybe that's redundant) fought a battle against a German battalion. As we traveled the battlefield, it started to become clear that the German advance was slowed to no small degree by individual actions by US units of various sizes that were outmanned and outgunned. But not outfought.

The positions from this action are still there--a little eroded, but still there. You could spot the machine gun pits and the foxholes the riflemen dug.

This is the view they had of the German battalion coming at them, only it was covered with snow.

And the little memorial to the men who fought here. It's in some farmer's back yard. A hand-lettered sign on the road points you to it. The farmer has left a corner of his yard for people to park in.

A slightly bigger memorial on which to end. This was erected at the point where the German attack on Bastogne stopped. They got no further. In the center is a stone inscribed, Liberatoribus Americanis populus Belgicus memor. The Belgian people remember the American liberators.

Nice Suits!

Summer time

and the livin' is easy.

We went off summer time last night, so for the next week, we are only 5 hours ahead of the East Coast and 6 hours ahead of Austin. Gotta go change some more clocks.

Europe Without Borders

Last night we went to a concert in Lille, France, which is about 45 minutes from our house. Every time we've gone to or through France in this direction on the autoroute, we've had to slow down to 10 kilometers an hour as we passed through the choke point that used to be the customs and border control area. In fact, we've actually seen cars being pulled over there, despite the fact that Belgium and France are both in the Schengen Zone. Last night, as we approached the border, we entered a road construction zone. Lo and behold, the left-over border control and customs police shacks have disappeared, and the road is being repaved in two normal-sized lanes with no nothing to slow you down as you cross over into France.

It's about dang time. France and Belgium were among the original signatories to the 1985 Schengen Agreement, which provided for the removal of border controls between participating countries. Ok, according to Wikipedia, it's the "gradual" removal of border controls.

Twenty-four years is pretty gradual.

Get your fresh rabbits right here!

Rita didn't mention this in her posting on the new piece of furniture, but we stayed in Liège while we were doing all that shopping last weekend. Liège bills itself as having the "longest Sunday market in all of Europe." It certainly felt like it. It took forever to go from one end to the other, but of course we were rocking back and forth or standing still much of the time. So I mapped it out when we got home, and it runs for about 1.5 km along the Meuse River. The first photo shows just the beginning. Once you get over how big it is, though, there are surprisingly few different things for sale. Don't get me wrong! There are lots of stalls selling lots of things, but a lot of them sell the same thing as the 20 guys you've already inched past. The basic categories are clothing, food, and housewares. And the clothing breaks downs into socks or stockings, jeans, jackets, boots, boots, or boots. Or boots.

Even this guy selling…ummm, really fresh poultry (and rabbits, which Europeans tend to consider almost poultry) was not unique. There were lots of places selling food to eat right there. Not this one, but Vietnamese, Chinese, Italian (of course), and regular Belgian fry shacks.

Speaking of fry shacks, I noticed a linguistic difference between Mons and Liège. A few years ago the French-language authorities here in Belgium tried to get everyone to give up some of their Belgicisms and switch to "pure" French words. It was a failure. The only change that stuck was friterie, which replaced the old word friture. My theory is that that's because friture is too close to the Flemish word for a fry shack: frituur. But I noticed that the Liègeois still use friture.

So what is a friterie or a friture…or a frituur? It's a little stand with a bunch of oil vats where they make the world's best french fries and greasiest food. They offer a variety of processed meat products, little brochettes of meat, and meat-like patties, all of which are cooked by being dropped in the fryer. I once had one made of bacon. Yes, doctor, I ate deep-fried bacon. But don't worry. I washed it down with plenty of beer.

What happens when

Unlike rolling stones, tile roofs gather a lot of moss. Ours was no exception. So our landlord decided it was time to clean the roof. He hired some guys, and this machine showed up in our yard.

We wondered what would happen when they wanted to move it into the back yard, since the gate in the fence isn't all that wide and the spiral stairs leading to the annex (our separate upstairs storage room) are relatively close to the opening. We came home from work one day to find out they had removed a couple sections of fence.

Now, for those of you who have never been to or lived in Europe, you have to understand how important fences are. Europeans are very private about their property. Every yard is delineated by a fence, often to afford absolute privacy. The fence says, "This is my personal domain and don't even think about violating my space, not even with your eyes." So imagine our chagrin on seeing this:



Yes, our fence is kaput. OK, it was falling down before The Invasion of the Great Machine, but now we've got it propped up on both sides trying to maintain a semblance of privacy and security until the landlord (hopefully) replaces it.

And the roof? Well, it's been de-mossed but whatever solution they used to clean the tiles left a nasty residue on our roof windows. I managed to get one mostly clean yesterday and left the others for another day. I'm not a very good Belgian Hausfrau, I fear.

We succumbed

Or maybe a better title would be: We found what we wanted!

Last spring we went to Tongeren, Belgium, for the Sunday morning antique/flea market. We were disappointed because we didn't see much antique furniture, but by the end of the morning we had decided what we wanted. We made a couple trips to the local Troc, a store that sells what could be considered somebody else's junk, but still didn't see what we were looking for: a wall-mounted coat rack, a monk's bench or a trunk, and maybe a square table for the kitchen.

Since we had today off for Columbus day, we decided to make a weekend of it by combining visits to Sint-Truiden - another antiques area - Tongeren, and Sankt Vith, where there's a big furniture company that caters to Americans from Germany and Belgium. Saturday we visited several dealers in the Sint-Truiden area and saw some beautiful furniture but not exactly what we were looking for, although we were really tempted by a small table with extension leaves that we think must have been incredibly cheap despite its great condition and Louis-the-something style. We then moved on to Sankt Vith (traveling from the Flemish-speaking Sint-Truiden to the German-speaking area of Belgium), where we realized once again why we didn't buy any furniture there the first time we visited: it's new, pretty, and sturdy but incredibly expensive.

So Sunday morning we headed for Tongeren, not expecting much after our last experience there. And we found the mother lode. Fortunately we didn't buy the first thing we saw but kept looking. And we ended up with a monk's bench, in what appears to be perfect condition, made in England in the early 1900's.

This particular bench has a feature we really liked.

Bench:


Swivel the top and you have a table!


It's an awesome piece of furniture. We can't believe we have something so nice.

Oh yeah, we found that coat rack we wanted too. We're not going to hang it here, though, because we're done making holes. Gotta think about starting to patch those buggers one of these days in preparation for our (reluctant) return to the States.

I forgot

In all the excitement of race day (and the cute girl cops), I failed to mention that the winner of this year's Circuit Franco Belge was Tyler Farrar, an American riding for Garmin Slipstream. Go us!

Ho hum. Another day, another bike race.

Or you know you're in Belgium when… This time it's the Circuit Franco Belge, a 4-day race run through--you guessed it--France and Belgium, featuring David and Rita's road again.Unlike the national time trial championships I wrote about in August, the course for this race was closed only minutes before the race caravan passed. This cop has to explain to everybody why they can't come through for a while, though she did let anyone going to watch the race drive the hundred meters to the abandoned gas station right behind me and park. You can't tell from this angle, but she was kinda cute. I was thinking of doing something to get arrested. The cop at the other corner was even cuter.The ever popular Rodania car. Rodania is the official timer of a lot of Belgian races. Next time I do this, I'm going to record, with sound. That way you can hear not only the gear clack-clacking of the peleton coming by but the annoying ro-DAN-ee-aaah ro-DAN-ee-aaah ro-DAN-ee-aaah ro-DAN-ee-aaah ro-DAN-ee-aaah that accompanies this vehicle.The publicity caravan is a feature of all professional races. In the big races, the sponsors' vehicles have people on the back of a flatbed throwing things to the crowd--candy, key chains, and the like. Petrus is a Belgian beer. Throwing bottles of beer to the crowd would have been problematic. Thus, no free samples.
At long last! The peleton arrives! It lasts only a few seconds, but it really is an impressive sight to see 150 riders jammed shoulder to shoulder at 50 kph. These guys are totally fearless.And here come the team cars, all bristling with spare bikes, bringing up the rear.

We went to Amsterdam for my birthday weekend, and we each got to do something fun and Dutch. I ate herring, and Rita took a bike ride along the Amstel river. I went on the bike ride too. Rita did not eat the herring. I bought it at a little stand that was doing a brisk business. At the last minute I was tempted by the fried version but decided to stick with the lightly pickled one. It was delish! As is always the case with tasty food, the secret is fat.

On Saturday morning we rented those big black Dutch bikes and rode through town and south to Oudekerk aan de Amstel. The dedicated bike paths and lanes were great, but the bike! Woof! Think of trying to pedal a Ford Excursion stuck in low gear and you're about there. Now I know why the Dutch ride these things at breakneck speeds: to make it easier to climb the bazillions of little hills that are canal bridge.

You know you're in Belgium when...

The 12-year-old altar girl helps polish off the communion wine.

Then and Now

If you don't have kids or your kids aren't old enough to mock you yet, think back to when you made fun of the silly things your pathetic old mom or dad used to say. One of the things I say that my girls like to make fun of is, "One day those trees will make some nice shade." Well, girls, here is our Grand' Place in 1894 at the dedication of the new kiosk. For the event, they planted a bunch of new linden trees.

Those same lindens 115 years later. Same kiosk too.

David discovers the blogosphere…finally

This picture slays me. It's a little hard to grasp in one glance, so here's a hint: the guy in the middle is the punch line. I took it from The Talking Mirror, a blog written by two conservative, mainstream Christians that I find funny, even if I am too old and too far away to get some of their pop culture references. They do a little ranting, but I've taken to reading it anyways. I recommend the post on meeting girls in church and the one on praise music.

This photo first appeared on a blog called BuzzFlash, which bills itself as progressive. Forgive me if everybody already knows all these sites. I'm late to the party.

What is an American?

Our neighbors are not Belgian…or so the husband tells us. They were both born here in the late 40s. His parents were recently arrived from Italy, hers from Czechoslovakia. There was a lot of that then because this was a coal mining and industrial area that needed lots of labor, so people came here from all the depressed, bombed-out parts of Europe. Then the coal played out, the industry moved to China, and now everyone is unemployed--except the Italians. They all opened restaurants. Rita calls Italian the European food. There are Italian restaurants everywhere. And in Italy itself, that's all there is.

But back to our neighbor. Despite being born and raised here, he still considers himself Italian. The other night he was pouring me a wine he described as being from where he's from: "C'est un vin de chez nous." It was the Italian wine prosecco.

The first time we had them over, before we understood this refusal to just accept being Belgian, Rita was describing her Austro-Germanic roots, and Marco asked, "Then what are you?" And Rita, a bit nonplussed, said, "Well, I'm an American!" I was proud of her.

I don't know about you, but it makes me appreciate what we have. We take all comers, and all we ask is that you agree to say that you're an American and accept that you have the right to pursue happiness.

And you guys all thought we'd go over to the dark side on our Big Belgian Adventure.

300 years later

Big goings-on around here this week in preparation for Friday's 300th anniversary of the Battle of Malplaquet, the bloodiest engagement of the 18th century. It was part of the War of Spanish Succession, which was in no small measure a big land grab by France and Louis XIV. It was only in the late 19th century that France turned into a victim. The battlefield is on the French border, just a few miles south of us. In typical fashion, the Belgians are marking the event with a commemorative drama and a special bread, sausage, and beer (you knew that was coming).

In case you don't feel like clicking on the link, 32,000 men died in the 1-day battle between the French and an allied force of British, Low Lands, and Austrian troops. The Allies lost almost one-fourth of their men dead. Also killed were 57 civilians at morning mass.

It seems that 11 September has always been a bad day.

Only in Belgium

Or…the rest of the story on the beer ice cream.

Yes, it really tasted like beer, hops mostly. I got it at the Maredsous Abbey, which brews beer and has a big welcome center/cafeteria/gift shop/religious articles store/ice cream parlor where the monks hawk all their wares: beer, bread, cheese, sausage (very tasty!), patés, crucifixes, rosaries, medals, saint statues, CDs, books, etc. Oh, and they're monks, too. They used the 8% brown beer for the ice cream. They also have a speculoos-flavored ice cream that should interest anyone who's ever had coffee in Belgium. The brewery is commercially run but supervised by the monks and run for the benefit of the abbey and its works. It produces the standard three varieties that most Belgian beermakers brew: a blond, a brown, and a you'll-never-make-it-to-mass-on-time triple, weighing in at 10% alcohol.

The church had a little exhibit on Father Damien, a Belgian missionary who served lepers in Hawaii. Even many of us non-Catholics have heard of him. His connection to the abbey is that he stopped there to worship on his way to Bremen, whence he left for Hawaii. So they're just like us: we have "George Washington slept here"; Belgian monks have "Father Damien prayed here."

How much does God love us?

This much: I had beer-flavored ice cream today.

Saint-Ghislain - center of the universe

At least the center of the Belgian cycling universe, which is a pretty significant universe if you're a cycling fan. And Belgian. Saturday a week ago the Belgian national time trial championships were held in Saint-Ghislain. Both the 11-km young riders course and the 26-km adult course ran within a few hundred meters of our front door, so I was jazzed for weeks beforehand. I even returned from my TDY a day early so that I could be here for it. We had visitors coming, too, but still...

This is the start-finish on the Grand' Place in Saint-Ghislain. Maxime Monfort won the race. You may never have heard of him, but he's not a nobody. He finished 28th of 156 riders who finished the Tour de France. He rides for Team Columbia, along with the American George Hincapie. If you're interested, you can see complete results here.

This is a couple of the elite men, complete with team cars and race official's cars, blowing through town. I think that's Sébastien Rosseler in the front. He finished second. Surprisingly, there were only 11 elite men. It is a small country. This day was for all categories, though, from beginners to pros, men and women. Even the young riders have a team car following them. But since they aren't allowed to use radios, a lot of the cars had loud speakers with which the coaches could give instructions. Most of the "instructions" consisted of "Go, go, go, go, go, go." Only in French or Flemish, of course.

One of the junior rider's was on a tight budget, and the whole operation seemed to be a family affair. His spare bike was riding not on a roof rack, but on a trunk-mounted bike carrier, nylon straps and all. And his communication with the team car consisted of his little brother leaning out the window and screaming at him.

I love this scene. One of the riders parked his bike outside the bakery, and these guys are checking it out. Last minute carbo-loading, I guess. (Good bakery, too. According to our cheese man, the baker is originally from Alsace.)

No, these are not entrants in the father-son division. It's just a father and a son out for a ride on the 11-km course. An interesting feature of a small, big-time race like this is that, while they close the course to cars, pedestrians and cyclists can continue to use it. We saw these guys, joggers, race participants warming up or cooling down, and old ladies going to the store. On the elite course, they did ask cyclists to stay on the sidewalk.

If your only idea of big-time bicycle racing is the Tour de France, this is very different. The entire Tour route is locked down, by cops, hours before the first rider comes through. In our race they let cars cross the course between riders. And the hordes you see standing on the mountain stages in the Tour? The entire crowd in downtown Hautrage consisted of the baker and her family (different baker), another extended family of about eight, a visiting colleague, and me.

Football and Beer

Noticed on a Belgian sport web site today (www.sport.be) that they have news of the MLS. Maybe the Belgians have an affinity for US professional soccer because the Belgian league, called the Jupiler League, is also second-rate.

Jupiler comes from the sponsor, which, not surprisingly is a beer. It's referred to familiarly as Jupe, which is interesting because that's the French word for a skirt. Jupe is one of four or five mass-market pilsners made in Belgium, along with Stella Artois, Maes, Primus, and maybe another one I'm forgetting. Stella and Jupe are both in the Anheuseur-Busch Inbev stable. To our way of thinking, Stella, which has a significant cult following in the US, is the best of the lot. That makes it, as a former colleague likes to say, the fourth worst beer in Belgium.

My tongue's on fire

And I like it!

I'm still TDY ("on a business trip" for you gentiles), and I found a new restaurant. I thought I had merely missed it during earlier trips, but the owner told me he had been open only 3 months. It's a Thai-German restaurant called the Kölner Hof, which means something like the Cologne courtyard. This is at least the third Thai restaurant I've seen here in Griesheim. (Who knew this place was such a magnet for Thai immigrants?) It features kölsch, a beer from Cologne (Köln), a German menu made up mostly of schnitzels, and a reasonable selection of Thai dishes, heavy on the curries. I had thood man plàa (a fish cake with lots of cilantro) and a duck salad that was the spiciest food I've had since I left the US…that I didn't make myself. The owner warned me it was spicy, and I told him I was familiar with Thai food. So he brought me a spoon. The Thai normally eat with spoon and fork, not chopsticks. They eat soup with chopsticks, which sounds like a bad Polish joke (are there good Polish jokes?), but it's because it's noodle soup and all the vendors of that used to be Chinese. So it's kind of tradition.

As always, I spent much of my time observing the other patrons. There was a table of four ladies out for the evening. At least two were sisters. Then this cute young Thai-German couple came in. They were going back and forth between English and German, and I think she may have still been learning German. But they apparently understood each other well enough to get married and be expecting. He reminded me of my pal Eric from church back home. And come to think of it, I suppose she could have been seen as a Thai version of Mandy.

I'm going out for ice cream now.

Why me?

Rita and I go for long walks several days a week (basically every day once bad weather constrains cycling), so we're often approached for directions to some place. We get asked a lot! One of the favorite destinations is the office of the doctor who has evening hours. (While she's a GP, I suspect she must have a sizable prenatal practice because we're often stopped by seemingly healthy young couples.) We've also been able to point people to restaurants, the gun club, and the accordion festival.

I'm in Germany this week. On business. Yes, we just got back from vacation in Germany, but I did spend over 24 hours at home before returning. Sometimes it just happens like that. Anyways, tonight, on my way home from dinner, a couple of young fellers pulled up beside me and asked something I of course did not understand. I fessed up right away: "I'm sorry, but I don't speak German." Undeterred, one of them switched instantly to his best English IV English: "Can you tell me where is a place where I can find Leu?" He looked a little frustrated when he got to the Leu, and since we didn't know each other's word for the object of his query, I used my fall back: "I'm a visitor here." That seemed to bring him closure and save him a little face.

If it's not bad for him, I hope he finds it.

Castles

Linderhof is one of Ludwig's smaller castles. In fact, it's only one floor (if you don't count the basement level, where the kitchen and servants' quarters were). Ludwig had a thing for all things French so he modeled his castle on Versailles, complete with a hall of mirrors, formal gardens, a grotto, and a "play house".


Off in the distance here you can see what I think is Hohenschwangau. We were on our way down the hill to Neuschwanstein so it must be the other castle. What's most striking to me in this picture is the color of the lake. We had an absolutely gorgeous day for this outing.

Traveling in Europe

Today we came home from our Germany/Austria trip. We left Waldkirch, Germany in the Black Forest and passed through the Alsace and Moselle regions of France and drove through most Luxembourg before hitting the Belgian border; once in Belgium we drove pretty much the width of the country at its widest. Four countries in about 6 hours, including rest stops.

Living in this part of Europe is pretty cool.

Who Says You Can't Come Back?

In our quest to introduce Sarah to the Germany we love (ie, make her like Germany), we took her on a week's trip to various parts of Germany and Austria. Part of the trip echoes the trip we made in September 2006 with DeeAnne and Paige to Bavaria and the Tirol section of Austria, just across the border from Germany and within striking distance of three of Ludwig's castles. For this part of the trip we stayed at the Alpenhotel Ernberg in Reutte, Austria, where we stayed on the DeeAnne-and-Paige trip. And I'm here to say that the hotel is even better than we found it in 2006 - most of it having been refurbished - and the food is every bit as good as we remembered. So good that Sarah and I had to roll ourselves out of the dining room each night.

So in this case the reality of the return trip is even better than the memory.

Fastest ride ever

Ya know, that drafting thing I'm always hearing about really works. Tonight on my bike I tucked in behind a tractor towing a hay baler. It was pretty easy pedaling for a couple of kilometers. In fact, as I was coming back on the same road, without a baler to help, I realized that I was riding about 3 kph slower, headed slightly downhill, than I had been uphill--but behind my baler. Of course, going out I was fresher--and a little more motivated by the second tractor towing a second baler riding right behind me.

Or maybe he was drafting off me.

Road Trip to Poland

Armed with hand-drawn maps, information from the internet, and recommendations from experienced shoppers, Sarah and I drove to Boleslawiec, Poland to buy pottery. As many of you know, I already had a growing collection of items in various patterns. But I wanted to get enough pieces to feed a crowd with this sturdy-enough-for-everyday-use-but-still-pretty pottery, so we headed for the mother lode. And we found it. It's amazing we managed to buy as much as we did because it's simply overwhelming when you first get there - it seems there are stores everywhere.

Having left at 0130 Friday morning, we arrived at 1230 (every Autobahn in Germany is under construction), had a quick lunch at the hotel, and ventured out. Our first stop was Zaklady, which proved in the end to be our favorite. We also did a lot of damage (to my credit card) at Cer-Far. I ended up with 4 complementary patterns, one of which I already had several pieces of. See my four patterns below.

I also splurged on quite a few serving pieces in some of these same patterns but in others as well.

Of course we had no sooner left when I realized I should have gotten a teapot. And now that I've gone through it all at home I wish I had gotten some extra pieces of some of the patterns to make up for the inevitable breakage. Maybe there'll be another trip in the future...

Rome

The reason they couldn't get it built in a day is that the whole danged thing is made of brick! I always assumed Rome would be marble or some some such thing. But no, it's bricks. Bazillions of 'em.

I'm posting backwards. We went to Rome in late May, then Tuscany in June. (I actually started this post 6 weeks ago.) It looks like we're crazy mad about Italy all of a sudden, but it just kinda happened. We had already planned the Tuscany trip when one of Rita's brothers wrote to say he had business in Rome and asked if we'd like to meet him there, so we went to Italy twice in 3 weeks.

If you're interested in seeing Roman bricks and some other stuff, you can click on our Roman holiday picture book.

Good Belgian music

Dani Klein. Take a listen to this from Vaya Con Dios, which was her main vehicle for a decade or so. One morning going to work, we heard "He's Just a Friend of Mine," and I was instantly hooked.

And remember: stealing music is a crime.

I may never eat feta again

As regular readers will know, one of our favorite things about being in an international community is the different foods you can get. Today Sarah and I found another: manouri. It's a Greek cheese, packaged in a block like feta. Like feta, it's a sheep's milk cheese; and like feta, it's crumbly (at least I guess that's the way your supposed to eat it). It's also got its own protected appellation like feta…and champagne. The taste, though, is subtly but distinctly different. Think of sweet, less salty feta and you're about there.

We also found a frying cheese, like that stuff that's all the rage in certain NPR-listening circles in the US.

Italy pix

It's kinda weird that we wound up going to Italy twice in less than a month, since it took us so long to get around to going the first time. If you're interested in seeing pictures of our trip to Tuscany, they're here.

Pessimists aren't always wrong

As someone who's basically pretty optimistic, I often find it hard to understand pessimists. This helps. It's an excerpt from a June 2009 Atlantic Monthly article by Joshua Wolf Shenk entitled "What Makes Us Happy?"

"For 30 years, Denmark has topped international happiness surveys. But Danes are hardly a sanguine bunch. Ask an American how it’s going, and you will usually hear 'Really good.' Ask a Dane, and you will hear 'Det kunne være værre (It could be worse).' 'Danes have consistently low (and indubitably realistic) expectations for the year to come,' a team of Danish scholars concluded. 'Year after year they are pleasantly surprised to find that not everything is getting more rotten in the state of Denmark.'” 

Belgian ragtop

Now that the weather has turned nice, I've noticed several barges cruising with "the top down." The first time I saw this trick, I thought the captain and his wife were sitting on top of the wheelhouse. Mais non, the roof folds back and the sides lower so that you can sail along in a canal-going convertible. The old salt was even driving with one hand, the other arm draped over his gal's shoulder. (I didn't look to see if he was trying to cop a feel.) I suppose if you don't have Shoney's to cruise, but you do have a canal, you take what you can get. 

Poppies

I've grown quite fond of poppies, even though we don't live in Flanders fields. This shot was taken on the approach to the catacombs of St. Callisto on the Appian Way south of Rome. The site is administered by Mickey's order, the Salesians of Don Bosco. Or is it the Sicilians of Don Corleone?

The Crop Report

Last fall we got only one bale of hay out of this field. This time around we got three. The guy who owns this little field apparently has a whole bunch of tiny parcels scattered around the neighborhood because about four or five bits and pieces of land have been hayed this week.

What the...!?

I think it may be a recent addition to the repertory, but lately we've noticed that one of the songs played by the carillon in Saint-Ghislain is "Yankee Doodle." While it is a catchy tune, I'm not sure what the connection is. Maybe it has something to do with the Seven Years' War.

General Observations About Rome

David will get the pictures up eventually but here's some things we noticed about or in Rome:

- Scooters are to Rome what bicycles are to Amsterdam (except they're bigger). There also seems to be a helmet law. Given the way traffic moves in Rome, who would want to ride a scooter without one? (especially since David and Mick saw the remnants of a scooter at an accident scene being investigated by the police. Not a good sign.)

- Everything in Rome is built on a HUGE scale; buildings, fountains, and churches are grand and imposing. In fact, St. Peter's is so big it didn't even feel or look like a church. Eventually we found a Mass in progress but otherwise it just looks like a big museum.

- Priests and nuns abound in Rome, which is really no big surprise. Maybe a little surprising is that they seemed to move about the city in their clerical/nunnical garb, unlike here, where most of them blend in rather well. (But I guess in a city with that many religious, you blend in when you dress the part.)

- All those priests and nuns in religious dress have to shop somewhere. And guess what: Rome must be THE place to shop. We saw numerous stores selling chasubles and other priest gear - including some mighty fancy gold chalices and monstrances. I missed this particular window - I got stuck on some of the gold chalices - but there was even one store selling sweaters for nuns.

- And the best part: we didn't see or hear a single Russian! Amazing what a drop in the price of oil will do...

Ghent

Another of my very late posts. We spent Labor Day weekend in Ghent last year, and I never got around to showing you pictures. You can see them by clicking here.

Fleurie Again!

I feel much better now that I've got my flowers in.

We filled the window boxes and wheelbarrow weeks ago but due to travel and our schedules hadn't gotten the flowers for the front of the house. Saturday was the big flower market in Saint-Ghislain as part of the Ascension holiday festivities and I had been counting on finishing up my flower buying then. We were disappointed in the selection on offer so today after church I braved a trip to the big flower market in Mons. I say I "braved" it because it seems to have gotten much more crowded than it used to be and getting into the parking lot requires a lot of patience and finesse. But I got my impatiens (which are "impatience" in French) and got them in the ground today. They don't look like much yet but over the summer months they'll fill out and fill the space. Today I am a happy gardener.

Lies they tell us about Europe - installment 3

The trains run on time in Germany.

Lie. Pure and simple. On my first train trip through Germany I had 9 minutes to make a connection in Cologne. At the exact time my next train was supposed to be leaving, we were stopped dead a few hundred meters from the station waiting for who knows what. But it worked out okay because my connecting train was half an hour late leaving. To make up time, they skipped a station. Tough luck if you were waiting for the train there. But while we were standing on the platform in Cologne waiting, they did come around with free snacks and drinks to help us pass the wait.

Belgian trains, on the other hand, almost always run right on time, which is a little surprising if you know much about Belgium. The older stations have those clocks like we had in school back in the day, where the minute ticks backwards just a tiny bit before leaping forward to the next minute. In Belgium, the conductor blows his whistle on the backtick, the doors close, and the train pulls out as soon as the minute jumps forward.

Palm Sunday

Yeah, I'm running a little behind. I know we've been posting so infrequently that probably nobody but Donald is still reading, but we've been busy. So if you're lucky, maybe one day we'll tell you about Rome and why it took them more than a day to build it.

But until then, these are Rita's "palms." It's a sprig of box, as in boxwood. It's what the Belgians use instead of palms on Palm Sunday. It's scripturally accurate because Matthew just has folks cutting branches from the trees. They were probably palms, yeah, because that's what they had. Here we have box.

Meanwhile, at the Anglican service, we get palms already folded into crosses. And to think of all that time I spent learning how to make my own palm crosses. As Brother Bluto said, "Seven years of college down the drain!"

How small is small?

There are lots of way to measure the size of a country, and by most of them Belgium is pretty small. In area it's a little smaller than Maryland, but it may not look it because it doesn't have either the Chesapeake Bay or that bit that's about 4 feet wide. It has fewer than 11 million people, so it's only a little more populous that New York City--and a lot less populous than the New York metro area. But my favorite way to tell how small it is is the traffic reports. When they give the traffic, they give the traffic for the whole country at once. We always feel like we should understand more of what they're saying, since we speak French, but then we come to our senses and say, "Hey, we don't understand the traffic reports at home, and they're in English!"

That king…what a guy!

For a few weeks every spring the King of the Belgians (for such is his title) opens the royal greenhouses in Laken to the public. We went yesterday. At €2.50 a head it's a great deal. But how do you know it's really the king's greenhouse? Because it's got a crown on top, of course.

We went last year and never posted about it. This year, I'm offering some photos if you're interested.

Life in Belgium

Seen in the rest stop restaurant on the autoroute: two policemen having a beer.

Heard in the commissary at Chièvres air base: I drove all the way from Paris for hot dog buns, and you're out?

Adventure on the Canal

Last Friday we had a friend and his two young sons over for dinner. The riding mower won't start, and since our friend used to work on a nuclear sub, David figured he might be able to help with the mower. (Logical, n'est-ce pas?) While David and Scott examined the bad boy, Grandmother and I took the two little boys down to the canal to see if any barges were going by. There was one tied up at the landing near our house and we saw a man walking on it. As we strolled by, I greeted him and he me in French, and then he looked at the two little boys and asked, in what I initially thought was Dutch, "Do you want to be sailors?" I translated into English for the kids, and then he said to me, in very real German, "I don't speak French." I asked him (in German) if he was German, but it turns out he's from the Czech Republic. We had a friendly little conversation in German about the lack of shopping opportunities in Hautrage and how far it was to the next town (too far to walk). He told me that because he grew up in the Czech Republic, he also speaks Russian. Then he said "I speak a little English." Turns out he understands more than he speaks, as do most of us.

I felt like I should have brought David down there to meet him because the poor guy was obviously bored and lonely, as his colleague was off somewhere with the car. Maybe next time he comes through we'll go knock on his porthole and offer him a beer.

Bleeding for Belgium

Some observations from my first blood donation in Belgium today:

• The place was mobbed. Good for the Belgians.
• I got a special pink sheet because it was my first time. Here. They treated me as a first-timer in other ways too, like propping my feet up.
• Because it's the Red Cross and because it's blood, the questions are pretty much the same as those in the US. Having lived in the UK is still bad.
• I had to do the questionnaire with a special nurse for newbies too. (Language note: They referred to her as the médecin, which in French French means doctor, but I don't think she was.)
• They give you all your tubes in a little plastic basket, and you carry that around until you get to your donor station.
• I saw a lady giving while her 8ish-year-old daughter sat on Mom's belly. When she finished, the first thing Mom had to do, fresh hole in her arm and all, was lift the daughter down from the table.
• The only prep I got was a brief alcohol swab.
• The stick was fast and painless.
• They fill the extra tubes at the beginning, not at the end. For some reason, I found that interesting.
• They don't cover the needle while you're giving, they didn't say anything about clenching your fist, and you don't get that little piece of bicycle handlebar to hold on to.
• When you're done, you get a beer instead of a cup of bad coffee. They were offering Jupiler, blond or brown Leffe, and Grisette, a local fruit-flavored beer that's a spring specialty in these parts.

Did I mention how much I like living here?

What a difference a few decades make

We took my mother to the big Dutch tulip gardens in Keukenhof. In one the exhibition halls they were having a flower arranging competition and for no obvious reason suddenly played "Out on the Weekend" off  Neil Young's Harvest. My mother said, "Isn't that music relaxing?" Well, now that you mention it, yeah, I guess so.

Speaking of not possible

The Dutch are pretty relaxed in a lot of ways. While in Amsterdam, we took the tram several times. They sell tickets on board from a little booth where the conductor sits. If you're getting on with a pass or a transfer, you show it to him or her, and if you need a ticket, they tear a little paper one out of a booklet and validate it right there. One time we got on, and the conductor told us he was out of tickets. But it was okay: we could ride for free. If that had happened in Belgium, the conductor might just as easily have told us we couldn't ride because there were no tickets.

Cultural Differences

Last night in Amsterdam we observed a table of six German ladies of a certain age get their restaurant bill. They rather imperiously called the waiter back and asked - or more like demanded - to pay separately. At first the girl addressed them in English, explaining that she could split the bill six ways. The good Frauen weren't having any of that (and weren't having any of the English either). So eventually the girl had to sit at the table with them and ask each one of them what they had and then figure up their bills separately. And they each insisted on breaking big bills to pay for their portion. After all, that's what they would do in Germany! We thought the whole scene was hilarious. And reflected that in Belgium, paying separately would get the standard, "Oh no, that is impossible" response.

Update to the updates

The cows on the cemetery walking route are back in the field!

No sign of the brown cows from the field along the canal though.

Updates

We need to do a serious blog entry, but in the meantime, so you, our readers, won't be totally disappointed, I'll give you a quick update on animal and plant life around these parts:

- Shortly after the baby goats became agile enough to work their way out of the fence, they disappeared. Although I normally think the worst of such situations, I think these little ones had simply gotten old enough to be sold or given away. Mom and Dad are blissfully unaware the babies are gone. Not knowing anything about the reproductive cycle of a goat, we're wondering how soon before we see another couple baby goats.

- Our horse friends (remember the three horses who always stood so close together?) must have moved to another pasture. We haven't seen them around at all this year. But then we never saw them the first summer we were here, so it's logical to assume they're grazing in another field this year.

- The brown cows on our canal walking route and the dairy cows on our cemetary walking route had still, as of our last walks, not returned to their pastures, which means they must still be in the barns. We're still trying to figure out the magic dates for putting them away and bringing them out. The weather has been mostly gorgeous for two of the last three weeks, so it doesn't seem to be a weather thing.

- Spring is bustin' out all over. My tulips haven't bloomed yet but they're getting close. One of the rhodos in the back, a deep red one, has lots of flowers that we can see from the house. Forsythia is blooming everywhere and daffodils abound. SHAPE has set out its spring flowers in all the beds and it's gorgeous. We'll be heading back to Keukenhof soon and will try to make the amarylis show at the local chateau - in Beloeil, a scant 10 kms away - in early May.

Missed it, but...

How 'bout them Heels?!!!

Critters

You have to click on this photo to get the full effect of a field of donkies. They live not far from us, on the main road to Tertre. We see lots of farms and farmettes with one or two donkies but not usually this many. I have to wonder why one has donkies, and especially why this many.

On another critter subject, 'tis the season for babies. I've already shown you our baby goat neighbors, who are growing and getting fat (but still cute as can be). We've also seen several sets of new lambs along our walking routes. Once the cows come out we'll probably see new calves too. Never a country-loving girl (I much prefer the suburbs and Target), I nevertheless delight in seeing all these new babies arriving around me.

Sarah thinks this means I need a pet. Hmm...going home next year...

Kitchen centerpiece

This is my friteuse, or deep-fat fryer. Note that it's built in. I've been using it since we got here to make french fries (frites), but I've been cheating and buying frozen fries. Last night, though, I made fresh frites, using Belgian potatoes labeled as special for frites.

Frites are a very big deal in Belgium, which is probably where they originated. While there is another story that they were invented in Paris, that's probably just the French being French. (One of my junior year abroad French friends once claimed that turkeys were French.) Interestingly, though, even most of the French credit Belgium with having invented the frite. The french in french fries was probably a reference to the way they're cut into long thin strips, known as frenching. It was originally frenched fries and simplified into french fries, just like iced tea is now ice tea and tossed salad is becoming toss salad and cole slaw is…well cole was always cole slaw.

Armistice Day

I promised this shot a while back. It's our village's memorial to the Great War. It sits on the Grand' Place and is decked out for 11 November. The names of everyone in the village who died in that war are carved into the sides, including the poor guy who died the summer after the armistice. Gustave was a very popular name for boys in the 1890s.

Belgium had it rough during this war (the second war wasn't much better). Not only was a significant portion of the front on Belgian soil, but the Germans were playing by old-school rules: to the victor the spoils. They took everything of value, packing up whole factories--roofs, walls, machinery. But what goes around comes around: Belgium was an exceedingly wealthy country before the war in large measure because it was taking everything of value out of the Congo (Kinshasa).

The flags, left to right, are Wallonia, Belgium, and Saint-Ghislain.

My new best friend

I've been spending a lot of time with the plumber lately, as he chases the source of a big wet spot in the garage. He and I are about to conclude that it's just water oozing up though a weak or thin spot in the concrete slab. We're actually below the water level of the canal, and you can't walk in our yard without wellies until about May. You may remember the first lawn mowing last year.

The slogan on the side of the plumber's van says, complete with Belgian accent, "Who's there? It's the plumber." Only it rhymes in French. If you're not interested in a brief linguistic discourse, stop reading now.

"Qui c'est?" is the Belgicism. The French would say, "Qui est-ce? meaning "Who is it?" The Belgian is more like "Who's that?" And l'plombier, rather than the complete and written (in both Belgium and France) le plombier, is how it's actually pronounced--in both Belgium and France. So the rhyme sounds like ki say? say luh plohmbee-ay. Hilarious, n'est-ce pas?

And then there were four

Those of you who have been here know that our neighbors have goats. David, being the country boy he is, realized that the black goat is a female and the spotted one a male.

We hadn't seen the goats for a few weeks and hoped that didn't bode ill for the animals. Those of you who have been here know why we were concerned. But a couple weeks ago we walked by and noticed the two new additions. They are about the cutest thing ever and are very attached to Momma. Yesterday Momma and Papa came running over to the fence - accompanied by the babies - and I even got to pet Papa.

More like it

Now this is the way to do a steeple. It's ours here in Hautrage. It's nice and straight, unlike that raggedy butt ol' thing built by those…those…crooked-steeple builders in Pommerœul. Although it has its uses. Rachel and Stephan navigated their way home from a bike ride using the crooked steeple as a reference point.

I wrote the paragraph above months ago but for some reason never got around to posting it. It probably just dropped below the horizon of the computer screen, at which point things cease to exist in the 21st century. I was reminded to come back to it when Rita saw a notice in one of our community newspapers for a nature walk (a little boost for the authentic voice of the people for you there, Marge). The walk was to begin in Pommerœul at the clocher penché--the leaning steeple. Obviously we aren't the only ones to have noticed. I figure we don't even need to go to Pisa. We've got the leaning tower of Pommerœul

There IS a difference

Ever since we got here I've been telling people that Belgian chocolate is so superior to US chocolate that you can't distinguish between good Belgian chocolate and bad Belgian chocolate. I've discovered that's not true.

We spent Valentine's Day weekend in Bruges, where there is a chocolatier on every corner and some in between too. Several of them were advertising a kilo of chocolate for from 12 to 15 euros. We thought, "Wow, what a deal!" So we bought some of the sale chocolate - but fortunately not a kilo of it! It's not that it's bad; it's just...well, tasteless. It's missing that rich, dark chocolaty taste and rich full butterfat sensation that give dark chocolate its mood-enhancing qualities. 

It being Valentine's Day and all, we (ok, I) needed some REAL chocolate. So we went to the Leonidas and bought another box. Heaven.

 

Action on the canal

No mules, but barges still somehow get where they're going. I think it has to do with steam.

How much s*** can one farm take?

Several weeks ago we drove to work behind a tractor towing a load of manure. When we finally had a chance to get around, we noticed another load a few hundred meters farther down the road. And we met several empties coming towards us. Obviously someone was hauling a lot of…fertilizer to a field somewhere. The French word for dungheap is fumier. Driving along behind this guy you could see why: the steam coming off it looked like smoke, or in French, fumée.

We long ago noticed a difference between farm equipment on the road where we come from and farm equipment on the road here. I'm use to tractors on the road, but in the US a farmer gets on the road for a few hundred yards, a mile maybe. Here, you get behind a tractor, he may be driving 20 km away. I guess it's the way land has been subdivided over the years here. One farmer seems to have itty bitty parcels scattered all over the countryside.

$$$$...errr, I mean €€€€

In Europe Nissan sells a sport ute called the Qasqai. To me that sounds a lot like "cash cow." Maybe it does to Nissan too.

Going Back in Time

Since we haven't done anything exciting lately, I'll catch you up on Christmas in Mons.

Each year since we've been here the Grand' Place has hosted a small Christmas market and a heart-shaped skating rink. We didn't get down there in time this year to take pictures of the rink, but we did manage to take a shot of one of the brightly lit streets off the Grand' Place. (I just can't remember which one!)



Topiary features among the decorations. This year there was a giant - what, giant? troll? He was unavailable for pictures when we were there but we were able to capture this huge winged creature.


And here's the Hotel de Ville on the Grand' Place. Our Grand' Place isn't as impressive as the ones in Brussels or Bruges, but it's not bad, especially for a smallish city in Wallonia. It looks right nice all decked out for Christmas!