David and Rita's Big Belgian Adventure

When the moon hits your eyes...

2011-11-09T20:24:00.003-05:00

Regular followers may recall my Moondance posting 3 years ago--almost to the day. We had a similar experience tonight on this side of the water. We went for a walk late under a gorgeous full moon. We didn't need flashlights, partly because we're now in a more urban area with more ambient light and partly because we went to the optometrist this afternoon and had our eyes dilated. Boy was it ever bright out! I feel like I now know what a cat sees.

Not exactly Marlon Brando

2011-10-11T19:33:00.003-04:00

Overheard at the Starbucks yesterday: Four middle-aged motorcycle "hoodlums" preparing for a multiday ride into the mountains of Maryland and Pennsylvania. One was a banker, a fact that came out when the others started complaining about tight credit. One was excited because the company he and his wife own (it involves yarn) had just landed a half-million-dollar order from Macy's, which was going to increase their business by 30%. One was going to have to leave the ride a day early because he had something to do at home. The fourth one never said a word. Yarn guy also called his mother-in-law to apologize because his bike had torn up the yard when he tried to get it up a hill. Yarn guy was chatty.

A Distressing Realization

2011-09-21T20:02:00.005-04:00

Day before yesterday I failed to smile at a pretty girl. That disturbs me because it means the Yankees may have finally beat me down.

For the benefit of our non-Southern readers--if readers we still have at all--I should explain that the Southern lady (and Southern men afford all women that status until they prove otherwise) considers it her sacred duty to smile at any man she passes in a public place. This she does simply to spread the joy of her particular loveliness. The Southern man grows up expecting, prepared for, these pleasant little encounters. So imagine my shock when we moved north (and don't kid yourself, Maryland; culturally you are the North) and ladies did not smile when we met. Once when I was out jogging, a lady--another exerciser no less--actually crossed to the other side of the street, where there was no sidewalk. presumably to avoid having to acknowledge my existence. I doubt it was because I exude masculine menace. I have a house full of females. You can smell the estrogen on me, fer cryin' out loud.

Anyways, it appears that I have been away from home long enough to have grown accustomed to not being smiled at by the ladies. In fact, I seem to have gone to the opposite extreme and now try to avoid eye contact, so as not to upset those of the gentler sex forced to share corridors or sidewalks or grocery store aisles with me. So when I met a pretty girl, whom I actually know, by the way, I was not prepared to smile. That depresses me.

I hate to do this to you, but...

2011-07-29T16:28:00.003-04:00

I apparently don't hate it enough to not do it to you. Our rate of spam comments has been increasing, so I've turned on the word verification step for comments. I'm sorry. Blame those who don't know how to behave in polite society. Are you listening, Japanese pornographers?

My Personal War Against Chinese Products

2011-07-26T16:39:00.002-04:00

Alternate title: reducing the trade deficit one item at a time.

Last night I went to Target to pick up a few items and found myself consciously choosing NOT to buy two items made in China. I've long been put off by reports of Chinese products that contain stuff that's bad for you, or even lethal. I've rejected kitchenware made in China for fear of potential lead poisoning. But up until last night I hadn't really decided to make a real effort to choose non-Chinese products as a matter of course. So I spent considerably more on a cosmetic item by selecting the American product (hey, it was Neutrogena - that's a no brainer) and got what are most likely superior, name-brand Irish-made toothbrush heads rather than the Target-brand item made in China.

We have disposable income, so it's easy for me to choose to spend more to not buy Chinese. Still, if everyone made just a little bit of an effort to consider alternatives, maybe together we could make a dent in that massive trade deficit.

One Year Ago

2011-07-17T17:09:00.003-04:00

One year ago today we returned to the US from our almost three and a half years in Belgium.

With the passing of this year, we have adjusted to full-time life in the suburbs, although not always easily and not always happily. After the initial feeling of being no longer fully American but not really Belgian either - because although we'd assimilated really well, we are in fact not Belgian - we have settled into our former American-ness but with an appreciation for what we were privileged to experience in Europe.

We miss European cafes and Belgian coffee and Belgian chocolate, but despite Belgium's claim to some of the best beer in the world, we do have good microbrews in the US that satisfy us as well as Belgian beer.

Life was slower in Belgium, but also more frustrating at times as we had to learn to adjust our expectations to meet the reality of life there.

We miss the peacefulness and safety of walking along the canal, but we do not miss those big horseflies that inflicted such nasty bites.

We miss the cool summer weather but revel in being able to wear summer clothes and summer shoes during the summer months.

We miss the long, long summer days but do not miss the long, long winter nights that encroach upon the day in Belgium.

We can no longer say "We just got back from three years in Belgium" because we're no longer just back. So now we look back and smile at the wonderful memories and realize we would not have traded our time there for anything. We are back in the US, but we retain a part of Belgium in what we have lived and who we have become.

Maybe it's time to rename the blog to something like "Life After Belgium".

Blooming in the front yard

2011-07-03T17:50:00.003-04:00

In case anyone is curious as to what some of the landscaping looks like up close, here are two of the lily varieties.

One of the hydrangeas is bravely producing pink flowers, despite the hot, dry weather. The other isn't nearly as hearty and threatens every other day to succumb to the elements.

We also have small yellow lilies blooming. But what I can't wait for is the amazing azalea display we're going to have (if they all survive the summer heat and winter cold.)

Sand and Trees

2011-06-25T12:01:00.003-04:00

Seen recently in Paris: this sign announcing that the city administration is putting in a temporary garden. Installation was ongoing as of 17 June, and the trees were to be there, in front of the hotel de ville or town hall, or until 17 July.

As part of the tree-planting process, they brought in bales of hay and tons of sand.

This end of the place in front of the town hall was already planted.

I find the planting of a temporary garden - sort of a temporary art exhibit - just a little puzzling in an era of high unemployment and budget problems. But what do I know? I'm just a culture-less American who doesn't appreciate the finer forms of art.

But now it's gone

2011-06-16T20:14:00.004-04:00

Well, the whole beard for Belgium thing got kind of old, and I shaved it off Sunday night. But this is what it looked like before I did. Koen Fillet of Radio Één had said that day 365 without a government was long enough. I agree.

At last...

2011-05-03T21:42:00.003-04:00

The porch is now finished. My brother and his son came up and worked like Trojans (no offense to Trojan-Americans intended) on the landscaping for 5 days . I don't know how they feel, but I think it was worth it.

Snow and Sea

2011-04-28T17:53:00.003-04:00

Our City House

2011-04-26T19:23:00.005-04:00

Remember I said the road in front of our townhouse in Saint-Chinian was under construction? Like totally torn up.

This is a view of the back of our little house. It wasn't fancy and it wasn't big but like I said, the location was great.

They don't hate everything American

2011-04-25T21:22:00.006-04:00

They pick and choose. Somehow they manage to love Ben & Jerry's. We were in Bruges on Free Cone Day.

In fairness, you hear less anti-Americanism in Belgium than you do in France, and even there it's all among the political pundits. Most ordinary Frenchmen have a pretty positive view of American culture. Of course, it's about as distorted as our view of French culture.

That ol' timey feel

2011-04-24T10:59:00.004-04:00

I guess you can say that the porch is now officially finished, since they came and took the lock box off the front door day before yesterday. And this is exactly the reason we wanted it, to give our house that old-fashioned feel of days long gone when we all had time to sit and relax. And surf the web.

An Experiment in "City" Living

2011-04-22T16:31:00.004-04:00

During our recent trip to southern France (pictures to be posted soon, we promise!), we stayed in a townhouse just a short walk from the main square in the village of Saint-Chinian. In past week-long vacations to France and Italy we've stayed in nice accommodations outside of town, which meant we had to drive to buy groceries, eat out, or do anything. But this time we decided to try living in town. And we liked it. While "town" was pretty small, there were several restaurants and cafes, three bakeries (although I never saw the third one), and a decent Sunday and Thursday morning market. Best of all, though, was the wine store almost across the street from our house. David and our friend Steve made a habit of visiting almost daily to have the conaisseurs there pick out a wine for our dinner, whether it was roast chicken from the market or asparagus (from the market) rolled in ham (from one of the butchers in town). Since Saint-Chinian has its own appellation (AOC) for wine from the region, there were a lot of wines to choose from, and almost everything we drank was really good, even to this diehard beer drinker!

As for our experiment in city living, we gave the house mixed reviews, but the location was ideal. Of course, the road in front of the house being totally torn up and thus closed to traffic made it quiet, in the front. It was a little noisier from truck traffic at the back of the house, but since that traffic was not immediately behind us, it wasn't all that bad. The house itself was adequate for the four of us but it was a good thing none of us is big or we wouldn't have fit in the showers. Can't beat the price though - we got an off-season rate of 275 euros plus a 60 euro cleaning fee for the four of us for a week.

We look forward to continuing our research into the many vacation accommodation possibilities in southern France (most of which, interestingly, seem to be owned by Brits...).

Babies

2011-03-22T19:46:00.003-04:00

We had a visit over the weekend from a long-time family friend who just had her first baby. It's hard to imagine our children were ever that small. This was not a particularly small baby at birth, and the little one is now a month old, so she's grown. Wow. It never ceases to amaze me, though, how wonderful it is to gaze at a baby, to look at her perfect hands and little (or big, as the case may be) feet and little rosebud mouth and think about what a precious gift this little life is.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not yearning for days of yore. I'm perfectly happy with the empty (or almost) nest stage of our lives. It's just something about the innocent and simple perfection of a baby that fills me with awe.

Springtime, Grey Skies, and Windows

2011-03-16T17:56:00.005-04:00

What the heck, why not plagiarize myself?

It's been a grey two days. Ok, you already know I don't like grey (and I can't seem to decide if I should spell it gray or grey). As I sit here in my Mom room (not quite a man-cave but it serves the same purpose) gazing out the windows, I'm looking at a grey sky. As I look a little closer I start to wonder: is it really all that grey, or are my windows just that dirty? The answer lies somewhere between the two. But it does remind me that one of the functions of spring is renewal, and renewal - when it comes to houses - involves at least in part that infamous ritual called spring cleaning.

In theory, it's a good idea. I would love to have Belgian-clean windows. (Yes, folks, windows in Belgium are CLEAN. Those ladies are out there every week with a squeegy.) But I'm more in love with the theory than with the practical aspects of how you get clean windows. When I get truly inspired, I can manage to clean all the windows in one room. That leaves only, oh - what, 8 more rooms? not counting the basement, which hasn't seen clean windows since at least 1985, when we moved into the house. Maybe when I retire...

Springtime!

2011-03-15T18:27:00.003-04:00

With the time change this past weekend, it's like a dark cloud has been lifted. We had two gorgeous early spring days, the kind where, even though it's still cool, you know winter is on its way out. The grass is still sparse and we have only one lonely crocus up, but that one crocus is the sign that we made it through the winter.

Meditating on spring brought me two realizations:

- This is the our first spring in Maryland in five years, since we moved to Belgium in February 2007. It's been so long, we've forgotten what's planted in our yard. We're waiting - somewhat impatiently - to see which bulb flowers will come up and where.

- As cold as this winter was, I have the impression it wasn't all that bad. We didn't get a lot of snow, especially compared to what this area got in the winter of 2009-2010. But I think it's more than that: it occurs to me that I've been comparing this past season with the three long, dark winters we spent in Belgium, where the only daylight we saw during the week was when we emerged from our cave to go up to the main building for coffee each morning. And more often than not, it was a gray daylight. Gray is the default setting for sky in Belgium. Here, we wake expecting a sunny day, and it's the exception when it's not.

I don't miss gray, but I sure as heck will miss those long summer days!

Animals

2011-03-04T18:50:00.002-05:00

A couple weekends ago we went to Portland, Maine to visit my college roommate, whom we hadn't seen since Becky's college days. She and her significant other have two cats and a dog, so we got a good pet fix while we were there. Below you see Annie, who is one of the sweetest dogs I've ever met. She and Ollie need to get together to see who can run the fastest and the furthest.

Then there was Jack and Quinn. Jack is the redhead, Quinn the grey and peach one. I've never seen such a color combination, and I was quite taken with Ms. Quinn. If we hadn't been flying, Quinn might have been taken too.

We do miss having pets - sometimes. On dark, wet, or icey mornings, we don't miss it at all. Most of the time we're glad we can just pick up and leave without having to worry about making arrangements. But still, there's something uniquely comforting about stroking a loving pet. Sigh.

As Promised

2011-02-19T11:46:00.003-05:00

Porch furniture yet to come...

Stay Tuned!

2011-02-16T17:55:00.002-05:00

I was going to post this yesterday, and the title was going to be "Almost, But Not Quite". That is, the porch was almost, but not quite finished. They'd put up the lattice, installed the lights and fan, and smoothed out the big piles of dirt in the front yard. All we lacked was reinstalling the two shutters they took down and removing the lock box from the front door (for some warranty-related inside work they were also doing). Unfortunately I got called to dinner before I could post. Fortunately, however, the guys came back today and hung the shutters. So - one of these days - and soon, I hope - we'll take a pictures of our brand spankin' new front porch and post it. Maybe we'll even get around to getting furniture for it...

Oui, on peut! Ja, we kunnen!

2011-01-29T19:27:00.006-05:00

Yes, we can. Since the raging Belgian political crisis (no government for 230 days and counting) may be sliding by under your radar, I call your attention to an article on the crisis and what some Belgians are doing to protest the failure of their elected officials to actually…well, do what they were elected to do: govern. I appeal to all the leftover campus radicals and the never-had-a-chance-to-be-a campus radicals to join the protest and grow a beard for Belgium. It may not make much of a difference to the politicians who refuse to step up to the plate, but at least you can sleep the extra few minutes you would otherwise spend shaving every morning.

Winter Wonderland

2011-01-27T09:15:00.002-05:00

Hooray! We finally got some snow. We've had a series of teasers over the last several weeks, with minimal snow and some ice. Yesterday morning we awoke to a couple inches of snow and slogged our way into work on unplowed roads. Then it rained throughout most of the day, with the rain turning suddenly to snow around 4:00, and boy, did it come down! We hunkered down in the house with a fire to enjoy it.

Views of the backyard, which is far prettier than the front yard these days - although the Porta-Pot has a lovely mantle of snow draped elegantly over its rounded roof.

Take that, old man!

2011-01-17T19:48:00.006-05:00

My father is so proud of the port-a-pot they had across the street from their new house for a couple of weeks. But they never had one in their front yard like we do. At least it's out there during a cold spell. Imagine if we hadn't dawdled about getting the new porch under construction. So we see, once again, that procrastination pays.

Christmas Minus One

2011-01-09T17:14:00.005-05:00

Better late than never - and since we heard in church this morning that the feast of Jesus' baptism marks the end of the Christmas season for Catholics, this one is gonna just squeak in under the not-to-late-to-post-about-Christmas rule.

Christmas 2010 was the first year we have celebrated without our intact nuclear family. Even though Rachel moved out long ago, she's always been with us or we with her for Christmas, whether in Columbia or Hautrage or Rochester. This year was different, with Rachel and Stephan staying in Rochester, and Becky and Sarah didn't like it. They decided that, since our family order is now immutably different, we also needed new traditions. So instead of waiting at the top of the stairs for the parental go-ahead to check out what Santa left, they came downstairs on their own. Instead of the ritual "open presents, pause for breakfast and to make monkey bread, and then open some more gifts," and in view of the smaller, more adult Christmases we'll now be having, they opted for opening all the gifts before preparing a big Christmas brunch - with no monkey bread. (We saved that for Repeat Christmas a couple days later with Rachel and Steve in Rochester.) It was a little sad for all of us to realize that life changes as the girls grow up and establish their own families. It made me think about how our parents must have felt the first time we didn't "go home" for Christmas because we'd realized it was time to start our own family traditions.

Life changes, but if we're lucky, it goes on. We hope that, as our girls move on to new phases of their lives, we will have the opportunity to share in the rituals and traditions they and their families establish.

And we wish all of you a happy and blessed 2011.

It's Not All Bad

2010-12-13T18:54:00.002-05:00

Although I absolutely love Christmas in Europe, I willingly admit that there are some advantages to being here in the States for the season. For one thing, stores are open when working people can shop. Maybe the biggest advantage I've noticed, though, is that I have choices. I went to Target to buy Christmas cards and felt like a kid in a candy shop. I ended up buying far more than we need, simply because there were so many to choose from. I also marveled at the selection of wrapping paper, bags, bows, ribbons, tags, and tissue - all of which were in limited supply and of limited selection at our PX (and way too expensive on the economy). So while I'm missing the German Christmas markets, at least I have Target!

Le Coin belge

2010-12-05T15:51:00.005-05:00

Several weeks ago I mentioned I was getting ready to paint the kitchen, hoping that lightening the color (it was a medium blue) would brighten the eat-in part. While it's still dark in my corner (I sit at the end of the table by the window), I'm pleased nonetheless with the result. For the first time ever, I managed to keep my wall-meets-ceiling lines straight. I realized some time later that the tape worked so well because I was taping a flat ceiling. The ceilings in most of the rest of the house are textured, so the tape doesn't adhere well. Be that as it may, here's what we have:

Our new beer glass cabinet features most of our Belgian and German beer glasses, plus a few particularly pretty Polish pottery pieces. The picture above the cabinet is one of the canal near our house in Belgium. On the other wall you see are my speculoos molds. These wooden molds are still used all over Belgium to make delicious cookies. I haven't had much luck with my much smaller mold - at least with getting a distinctive design on my cookies - but the cookies themselves were pretty good.

Along with the beer glasses and the speculoos molds you also see a Belgian lace curtain on the lower half of the window. This is a very common effect in Belgium and in many other parts of Europe.

I've dubbed this part of the kitchen "le coin belge" - the Belgian corner. It helps with the nostalgia for the good ole days in Belgium.

Worth checking out

2010-12-05T10:50:00.004-05:00

One of our semi-adopted daughters is in France now. She has the gig as a high school English language assistant that I had 33 years ago. She's even in the same general area. She's blogging her experiences, and we've added a link to her site, Étang. If you like good writing, you might want to check it out.

Advent

2010-12-02T18:24:00.007-05:00

This is what last year's Advent wreath looked like. We got it at the German Christmas market at SHAPE. In case we neglected to tell you, Germans do Christmas up right. And the Germans at SHAPE are no exception. To make sure no one has to go without their Christmas market, they take over the high school cafeteria and transform it into a magical wonderland of yummy things to eat and drink and these hand-made wreaths, which the German ladies put together. These wreaths are so popular that people - us included - race to get there as soon as the market opens because they sell out so quickly.

This year - maybe because we spent Thanksgiving week in Texas - Advent crept up on me and I was totally unprepared. At some point in our movings - either before we went to Belgium or before we returned - I apparently dismantled our trusty old wreath that had, admittedly, seen far better days. So this is all I could dig up from the bowels of the basement:

Pretty sad, huh? I think I need to go back to Belgium...

And The Paint Goes On

2010-11-11T11:55:00.006-05:00

When we left our house in February 2007 the painter was in the process of painting most of it off-white. The walls in our house in Hautrage were all white. We came home craving color. We were also very taken by the color schemes we saw in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna, where vivid reds and yellows were highlighted. So we decided to try our own little Schönbrunn combo in the dining room.

The pictures are a little fuzzy but you get the idea. The framed item on the wall to the left of the china cabinet is a piece of embroidery we picked up in Bratislava. I loved the colors and the craftsmanship. It was only later that I got so attached to our neighbors' goats, so it is purely coincidental that this is a picture of a goatherd and some of her charges.

This big baby is a depiction of the Doudou festival in an earlier century. We knew we wanted this to be the centerpiece of the dining room because it's a huge poster. Plus the Doudou is like the center of culture in Mons. On the right-hand wall are three plates and a tile, more souvenirs from our travels. I didn't go about selecting them with this color scheme in mind but they all match beautifully. That is probably not coincidental, since I just like red.

Since this is a holiday weekend for us, I'm set to tackle another painting job: the kitchen. This one won't turn out as dramatic. Our primary objective for this project is lightening the eat-in part of the kitchen, which, after our fabulously large, light and airy kitchen in Hautrage, is dark and small. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Life in Suburbia

2010-10-27T19:40:00.002-04:00

Seen today strolling through our backyard: five deer, followed a few minutes later by three more.

When we went out to walk about 10 minutes later, six of them were grazing in a front yard down the street, unfazed by a dog being walked by.

Transitions

2010-10-25T17:13:00.004-04:00

We've been back in the US for over three months now, and back at work for about 6 weeks. We've adjusted to some things quite well, like stores that stay open in the evening and on Sundays, although I do find myself wondering occasionally if a particular store - like David's barber, for instance - will be open on Monday. We love having reliable electrical service in our home, but, again, sometimes when we drive up to the house and haven't quite hit the garage door opener squarely and the door doesn't open, we both suck in our breath while thinking, "Oh crap, the power's out again" until we realize that that was a Belgian phenomenon. Still, we don't realize how much of life in Belgium we had internalized as normal until we are startled by the realization that normal is different here.

One transition that has been harder has been going back to work. Not just the getting up, getting dressed, and slogging through traffic part, but adjusting to a different job. It's not a new job, since it's one I did before going to Belgium, but I find that my experiences at SHAPE and working with the military have changed me in ways I'm not even really conscious of. Maybe I just like working with guys in uniform. Whatever...Without going into any detail, I'll just say that I'm still looking for what excited me about this job in the past.

On the home front, we had another light-bulb moment this weekend. Sarah was off having a girls' weekend with friends so we found ourselves home alone in our house for the first time since coming back. Between the gorgeous fall weather - temperatures which resemble those of summer in Belgium - and the knowledge that it was just the two of us (oh boy, we can eat in front of the TV!), we realized that maybe some (or a lot) of what we liked so much about our life in Hautrage was not so much being in Belgium but just being empty-nesters. After all, we'd had little empty nest time between Sarah's departure for college in fall 2006 and our departure for Belgium in February 2007 - and in those few months we'd had kitchen/bath remodelers crawling all over the house. So while we're happy to have our little girl here until she can get her own apartment, we are definitely looking forward to the peace and quiet and uncluttered living that comes with having raised your kids and seen them go out on their own.

Lessons

2010-10-17T17:56:00.002-04:00

This doesn't really have anything to do with our big Belgian adventure, so if that's all that interests you, you can stop reading now.

Lately I find myself worshiping and hearing homilies through the prism of our nephew Emmett's battle with cancer. Last week in North Carolina we heard about healing from a priest who had been diagnosed three years earlier with terminal bone cancer. While he didn't say that he was cancer free, he was indeed still here three years later, thankful for the power of the prayer offered by his friends and relatives.

Today in my home church in Columbia one of our favorite preachers - in the sense of one we like to hear preach - encouraged us to engage in persistent, passionate, and purposeful prayer. He led us through the following three utterances:

- My persistent prayer will be answered;

- My passionate prayer will be answered;

- My purposeful prayer will be answered.

Perhaps my mind is striving to see a connection between these two church experiences, a connection that speaks strongly to me of hope. I want to interpret this hope as God speaking to me about Emmett. As Emmett prepares to participate in a new treatment trial, I hope that this hope and he are connected, and not just in my mind.

She forgot the best part

2010-10-12T20:29:00.002-04:00

We drove our new diesel VW on its first extended trip: 52 mpg. That's 4.5 kg/hectare in metric.

Rediscovering Scenic America

2010-10-12T19:59:00.005-04:00

If any of you are still checking our blog after our two-month hiatus, here's for you:

Last week we drove out to a farm in rural Howard County to pick up a whole bunch of green beans to freeze. We drove through some beautiful rolling hills featuring farms, valleys, streams, and winding little roads that Esmerelda the GPS would have loved. The scenery reminded me of some of the areas near our Belgian village that we had grown to love, and I felt like I had my little piece of Belgium right here in HoCo, complete with cows and horses and sheep (no goats though).

Later in the week we drove through the Shenandoah Valley down to the mountains of North Carolina through miles and miles of farmland, forested mountainsides, and deep valleys with clear streams. If I tried, I could make myself think Germany. I didn't need to, though, because I was OK with this being our country and our scenery. I thought about what Europeans must see - besides magnificent autumn leaves - when they drive through the Shenandoah: a vastness that speaks of the incredible size of our country, the fact that we drove for 8-9 hours and never left the Eastern part of the US. How do Belgians and Luxemburgers even process a country of that magnitude?

Back to those leaves: between Thursday, when we went South, and Monday, when we returned north, there had been a lot of change: lots of orange and yellow with some red sprinkled in. It was gorgeous.

Culture clash

2010-08-09T20:35:00.005-04:00

People have asked what differences we're noticing between our lives in Belgium and our lives here in the States. We've talked about the traffic. That's one. But an even bigger difference is between the coffee cultures. Europeans drink coffee often but in small amounts, especially in Mediterranean countries. France and Italy are the Med countries I'm familiar with, and folks there have a 1-oz coffee several times in the morning, once or twice in the afternoon, and after every meal, often instead of dessert. Actually, if you drink it like they do--short with a couple of sugars--it makes a really nice, light dessert on its own. In Belgium and The Netherlands, they drink a slightly weaker coffee, somewhere between expresso and American coffee, about 4 or 5 oz at a time. And the only time they'll drink out of paper is when they go to Starbucks, which does exist over yonder.

What we've noticed about our compatriots since coming home is that we tend to like our coffee like we like everything else: big. The smallest cup we've found is at Dunkin' Donuts, where a small is 10 oz. Most places it's 14 oz. And try to find find someone who'll serve you in a ceramic cup. Yeah, Starbucks will do it…if the two cups they own aren't already in use…but they sometimes seem puzzled by the request. And they don't heat the cups for the expresso, which means you're drinking it lukewarm. Sorry if it makes me a Eurofag or something, but it's nice to sit at a table, have someone take your order, and bring it to you in a proper cup, on a saucer, with a cookie on the side. And yes, I also like my beer in a glass, not out of the bottle.

I think it has to do with the basic reasons the two sides drink coffee. Europeans tend to do it to slow down and take a break, while us Americans tend to want it so that we can speed up and accomplish something. Neither side's right or wrong. I guess that's just the way it is.

By Special Request

2010-08-08T10:38:00.000-04:00

The recently assembled work bench. The gray pieces to the left are part of a shelf I still need to put together. The Belgian movers broke it down, I guess to make it fit in the crate.

Picnic gone bad?

2010-08-06T02:08:00.000-04:00

I didn't brew a lick while we were in Belgium. I looked at all those great beers (tax free for Shapians at the GB on post, no less) and decided it just wasn't worth the trouble. So when I unpacked my brewing equipment a day or two ago, it hadn't been used in almost 4 years. Now, faithful readers of this column may remember that the ladybugs in our neighborhood had sorta over fulfilled their quota. A bunch of 'em even stowed away in this plastic tube and made the journey to America. Unfortunately, none of them thought to bring provisions.

Extra points for anyone who understands the picnic reference.

An All-American Moment

2010-08-04T21:45:00.004-04:00

We stopped at a Popeye's for lunch today. A lady named Deepak took our order, turned around, and shouted it back into the kitchen…in Spanish. I love America.

Hi, my name's David

2010-07-29T16:28:00.003-04:00

And I'm a procrastinator. Many, many years ago Rita gave me a pretty nice woodworking bench. It has sat in the basement in its box ever since, waiting patiently for me to assemble it. It even went into storage--in the box--during our time in Belgium. I finally put it together this morning. It took about 30 minutes.

Not exactly nonaggression

2010-07-28T00:31:00.000-04:00

Let me start by saying that Belgian drivers have plenty of flaws. I liked driving there in some ways, but not in others. They tend to tailgate a lot, even at crazy high speeds. But in general I feel more pressure on the roads here in the Balto-Wash Corridor. I was thinking that, even with the tailgating there, the style of driving here was more aggressive. But I've decided that that's not exactly it. Corridorians are not so much aggressive as competitive. It's like a big contest in which you lose points for letting someone in front of you or being passed or leaving a hole unfilled. Relax, people. I'm driving this slow because there's a line of cars in front of me that stretches to the Capitol steps. Getting ahead of me gains you nothing. Well, I mean except points in this game I'm obviously losing.

Bike vs. electric car

2010-07-21T11:21:00.003-04:00

I've been watching lots of Tour de France coverage. Have you seen the ad in which Lance Armstrong is doing a training ride behind the Nissan Leaf electric car? He says that for the first time ever he doesn't have to smell exhaust. Sounds great. Except…any professional on a training ride would need at least two Nissan Leafs (Leaves?), whose range is about 100 miles (160 km). For a professional in training 100 miles is a warmup. Nice try, Nissan advertising dudes.

Strangers in our own land

2010-07-20T13:21:00.003-04:00

Coming home after several years overseas is, in some ways, like going to a foreign country. While a lot is familiar, other things have changed. For example, do you realize how busy TV is anymore? It seems like no matter what the program, there is so much going on on the screen that you can barely watch the show: ads, web links, promos for upcoming shows, stats, more ads. I guess it's that multitasking thing I keep reading about.

Signing off from Belgium

2010-07-15T16:44:00.004-04:00

I feel like I should post once more from Belgium, and tonight is my last chance. Tomorrow afternoon we move to the fancy Sheraton at the airport. Fancy hotel means of course that you have to pay for everything, including wireless, and we're too cheap to do that, so this is it. It's hard to believe that our 3 and almost-a-half years are over and that this is our last night in the Mons area. We knew this day would come, but not that it would come so quickly. While we're naturally sad about leaving all that we've become so accustomed to here, we're trying to approach it as another phase in our big adventure. We worked in such proximity to each other that we have actually been sharing a desk for the past few days. And we're still married. So that bodes well for the the next phase of our life. We'll see what that holds for us. It will include lots more friends and family, that's for sure. We look forward to that.

Talk to you on the other side.

Those French!

2010-07-14T11:06:00.003-04:00

As many of you know, today is French National Day. The French contingent at SHAPE celebrated by offering a glass of champagne to everyone who passed through the cafeteria.

Organist humor

2010-07-14T01:02:00.005-04:00

We went to an organ concert at the collegiate church of St. Waudru Sunday evening. The organist announced that if we heard trumpets in any of the pieces, we could rest assured that they had not added any new pipes to the organ. It would just be the sound of vuvuzelas outside the church as people got warmed up for the World Cup finals. And we all went, "Hahahahaha!"

The Cup final was a big deal. Even though it's been years since Belgium made it to the tournament, there are lots of folks of Spanish extraction here, and it is truly a big worldwide event (outside North America). Oh, and they still kinda remember the Dutch as their former overlords. Several big screen TVs on the Grand'Place, crowds so think you couldn't get through, and lots of horn honkin' and vuvuzela blowin' when it was all over. We felt very close to the action at our hotel just yards from the action.

In transition again

2010-07-08T16:12:00.004-04:00

Despite a not very promising start, the movers finished up today, and we are now back where we started: in the Infotel in downtown Mons. The temps have dropped to the mid 80s outside, but not in our unairconditioned 3rd floor room. I can see by the clock in the belfry that it's 10:20 pm.

I mentioned the movers. On day 1 of a 2-day move, the packout crew arrived at 9 am. One guy. At 1 pm two more showed up. The next day, two guys arrived. Just after noon, a second pair came with the truck. They loaded seven crates in about 5 hours. I sent them away with a eight-pack of Jupe, which is what we call Jupiler, the local favorite pilsner. It's brewed by AB-Inbev, the folks who bought Anheuser Busch. Even the driver had one. I wasn't wild about the idea, but he did. I even said, "Yours will be for tonight at home." He said, "Aw, just one." I've drunk beer on a hot sweaty job before. In the heat, it feels like it's not even affecting you. And you don't have to pee.

David

How 'bout them refs?

2010-06-27T15:29:00.002-04:00

We're sitting here watching the Belgian coverage of Mexico-Argentina, and the half-time analysts are about to come to blows over the use of instant replay. The discussion was provoked by Argentina's first goal, scored by a player who was clearly offside. The only thing that kept the analysts from each other's throats was the commercial break.

Thumpelina

2010-06-21T11:36:00.004-04:00

Some of you have heard me complain about my wandering washing machine. I had the appliance guy out three times to "fix" it; the last time he said there was nothing more he could do. He even went so far as to imply that it was my fault because I was putting too much laundry in it.

Yesterday I washed two bath towels, two washcloths, a hand towel, and a bath mat in one load. The machine was pretty much full. It usually stands against the wall where the hoses are attached. This is where it ended up after 51 minutes (that's on rapid) of vigorous washing and rinsing and spinning. It stopped walking only because it ran up against the laundry baskets against the wall.

Thumpelina goes back to the Army in a few weeks. She'll go to another home, where another somebody will develop the same love/hate relationship with her. I will go back to my gigondo US washer where I can wash a set of queen-sized sheets and towels for two in one load. In 20 minutes, no less!

We're back in Belgium

2010-06-20T15:23:00.001-04:00

What? You say you didn't know we were gone? That would be because we forgot to tell anyone. But you can check out the photos here.

Belgian lumberjacks

2010-06-17T01:59:00.011-04:00

In Europe they have domesticated the forests. Whereas we're still largely hunter-gatherers, chopping down wild free-roaming herds of tree, the Europeans raise them in pastures. For 3 years we've had one of these domesticated tree flocks across the street from our house. It's a lovely copse of poplars, and we've enjoyed hearing the wind in the leaves and seeing the sun rise through the trees.We got home yesterday to discover that they had started logging it. It is a crop after all, but we had hoped it wouldn't go to the slaughterhouse while we were still here. Our landlord had announced that he was trying to buy the lot and log it off to make a "prairie." (He seems to hate trees. He cut down the big oak under which we dined in nice weather.) So we don't know if it's him doing it or the original owners, but either way our woods are going.
In a sense, it's making it easier to leave. Everything seems to be changing, so we're going back to where things never change: suburban America.

2010-06-16T16:53:00.003-04:00

I took this shot at 10:27 PM tonight. It's going to be hard to return to the southern latitudes.

Three degrees of preparation

2010-06-13T15:32:00.001-04:00

The bachelor's hood seems to be a recent addition to academic regalia. Rita and I were both like, "Hey, we didn't git wun of dem when we grajiated!" For Sarah's commencement our girls organized a family academic procession: left to right, Rachel, master's from Ohio University; Sarah, bachelor's from Randolph-Macon College; and Becky, master's from the University of Texas. Becky and Sarah received their degrees 8 days apart. Rachel is an old master.

Driving Us Cuckoo

2010-06-12T02:39:00.004-04:00

The cuckoos are back.

They call in the morning. They call during the day. They call at night. On and on and on.

Wouldn't you think they'd get just a little tired?

Truth be told, though, hearing the cuckoos is one thing I'll miss when we move back to suburbia next month.

Parents of young children, beware!

2010-06-11T15:24:00.002-04:00

When you raise your children on rock and roll, this is the result. Photo taken by Uncle Mickey at Rachel and Stephan's wedding reception, the swingingest party this reporter has ever had the privilege to attend. With apologies to John Wesley, may they always sing their love lustily and with a good courage.

We made it!

2010-05-31T18:47:00.002-04:00

With Sarah's graduation from Randolph-Macon on Saturday, we have seen all three girls through college and have survived the experience! Not that we ever doubted we would; it just seemed like a long, long road when they were itty-bitty and we were struggling with balancing work and family life, along with worries about day care, school holidays, illnesses, and making sure each girl got to her various activities.

Now our girls are all more or less happy and well-adjusted, and we thank God that despite our mistakes, they turned out to be such fine young women. Chapeau, les filles!

If I wudda knew

2010-05-15T12:06:00.005-04:00

If I'd known this was going to turn out so well, I'd have kept filming. As it was, it was totally by chance that I filmed a few seconds of driving under Charles de Gaulle airport on our way to southwestern France a couple of weeks ago. I know: it just looks like a tunnel. But there are runways and airplanes over our head!

See? But the plane on the runway didn't turn out half as well.

Marketing a seed

2010-05-13T15:36:00.004-04:00

I don't know why, but this stuff fascinates me. This, dear readers, is the plant that produces what you know as canola oil. It's English name is rapeseed, which is hard to market of course, so the Canadians decided to call it canola, an abbreviation for Canadian oil, low acid. This particular field is outside Tours, in France's Loire Valley (slogan - "It's not just about the wine and the châteaux anymore"). driving through central France and much of Germany, you see vast fields of yellow when it's blooming in the spring. It's gorgeous. Years ago, when I asked a Frenchman what it was, he said that it was commonly referred to as mustard. Turns out it is related to mustard. And to turnips and to broccoli.

The Frozen Saints

2010-05-12T15:49:00.003-04:00

Before the Vatican traded 'em in on different models, 11, 12, and 13 May were the feast days of Saints Mamertus, Pancras, and Servatius. Because northern Europeans noticed that there was often a cold snap around this time, the three are referred to as the Ice Saints and implored for protection against late freezes. The French call them les saints de glace, and, Vatican revisionists notwithstanding, modern Belgians are still aware of the folk wisdom and will not put out tender plants until after what they refer to as les saints de gel. Our morning drive time radio announcers were talking about them the other day, as they announced three days of icy temps and rain. It was about 40F yesterday and 42 today. Tomorrow, though, for Saint Servatius' day it's supposed to get all the way up in the low 50s. I plan to go to work in shorts and flipflops.

Noteworthy is that Servatius was the 4th century bishop of the Roman town of Tongeren (Tongres in French), which is now in eastern Belgium and is famous for its weekly antique market. That's where we got the monks bench.

Lies they tell us about Europe - installment 4

2010-05-09T05:14:00.001-04:00

In honor of yesterday's 65th anniversary of V-E Day, we offer another installment of "Lies they tell us about Europe."

Be careful calling from Europe. It's very expensive!

Lie. As told by Ma Bell. It's cheap to call from Europe to the States. If, of course, you think that totally free qualifies as cheap. With Belgacom (the former state monopoly and still biggest telecomms provider in Belgium), you can pay a one-time fee of €5 and call any one foreign country of your choice for free on nights, weekends, and Belgian holidays up to a couple thousand minutes a month. Even if you call outside these hours, each call, no matter how long it lasts, is one euro. Even before such deals, it was cheap. In 1998 Rita and I made a series of transatlantic business calls from France--using a hotel phone no less!--and it worked out to a couple of bucks. So forget the rumors. It's cheap.

Unless of course we've never called you from over here. Then it's prohibitively expensive. So don't expect to hear from us anytime soon.

Not quite clear on the concept

2010-05-03T11:16:00.001-04:00

We just got back from a week in the Dordogne, a part of France we didn't know at all before this trip. It's part of Aquitaine, which was English territory until the Hundred Years War. We noticed that almost every village had a sister city…in France. That's not normally the way it works, but there may be a reason. Most of the sister cities were villages in Alsace and Lorraine. A lot of people either fled from or were forced out of those two provinces at the beginning of WW II and wound up in the Dordogne, so I guess finding a sister city over yonder was a way of keeping folks close to their roots. Besides, the rest of France considers them kind of foreign anyways.

SHAPE fashion report

2010-04-21T11:56:00.006-04:00

I've mentioned before that some nations at SHAPE don't seem to have regulation footwear for their female troops, at least not when they're wearing something besides cammies. And today we saw the most extreme example yet. We were in line behind a young Slovak Air Force Captain who was wearing blue suede boots with very, very, very pointy toes, stiletto heels, and a silver filigree fan design on the heel. They matched her uniform great, but they weren't exactly the sensible shoes American or Canadian or British lady officers have to wear with their class A uniforms. They did look nice, though.

Biker nation

2010-04-20T14:34:00.002-04:00

I've been talking a lot about cycling lately, but it's the season. (The Flèche Wallonne is tomorrow!) But this post is about ordinary cyclists.

Belgians are very much at ease on their bikes. I imagine the Dutch and the Danes are too, but I don't live there, so I'm not writing about them. It starts at an early age. Last summer I was crossing the canal bridge near our house and saw a young teenaged girl and her little brother who had stopped to watch something go by on the canal. When they were done, they got back on their bikes and headed out. She pedaled a few feet then sat up and let go of the handlebars. I think she was eating candy or an ice cream. She rode down the bridge sidewalk, shifted off the sidewalk into the street, rode 50 meters, hit a cobblestone intersection, turned and headed down a side street. All without hands.

And her mother probably would not have warned that she could put her eye out doing that.

2010-04-18T06:23:00.003-04:00

We assume that Goons Quad is the band we hear practicing in the warehouse down by the canal every Thursday evening. They are, ummm, improving. Somebody in the band must know enough English to make jokes. Or maybe not.

The warehouse is owned by "the junk man." That's what we call him because his yard on the other side of the canal is full of junk and because he sells used appliances and furniture. He's at the same number Left Bank of the Canal as our house number on our street, and people are forever showing up at our door saying things like, "We're here to pick up the washing machine," or "Are you the guy with the table?" We have to point them to the correct street.

So we were relieved to see the second sign for the Goons Quad concert. Otherwise, people might have been showing up at our door at 2 AM wanting to see a concert.

Unless they don't connect the Goons Quad with the Goonsquad.

Paris-Roubaix

2010-04-16T14:43:00.001-04:00

Again with the cycling.

Sunday I went to see Paris-Roubaix, a race first held in 1896. Roubaix (pronounced roo-bay) is between Lille and the Belgian border. This race's schtick is cobblestones. There are 27 or 28 (depending on the year) sections of cobbles that together make up roughly a fifth of the course. And they haven't done anything to fix these spots up either. The section you see here is in exceptionally good condition, but it breaks down at the far end. All the cobbled bits have huge ruts and dips and holes, producing many spectacular crashes and lots of flat tires and busted wheels. Think of NASCAR run on gravel roads. Adding to the excitement is that most of these sections are so narrow that the team car can't get to you if you have trouble. If you're important, like the team leader, one of your unimportant grunt teammates (les domestiques in French) will take his wheel off and mount it on your bike for you. We actually saw two guys doing this on the TV coverage. The teams also send guys on foot with spare wheels down the narrow sections, and fans stand around holding wheels, just in case their hero breaks down in front of them.

So anyways, a couple thousand of my closest friends and I went to one of the more famous sections of cobbles: the Trouée d'Arenberg. The third stage of this year's Tour de France will finish here. The cobbles are rated from one to five stars for degree of awfulness. Arenberg is one of three five-star sections. If you're interested in seeing the scenery, the crowd, and a couple of bad action shots, check out my photos.

Incidentally, Belgium totally rocks this race with 53 wins out of 109.

Weirdest walk ever

2010-04-14T14:27:00.004-04:00

Rita and I took a walk this afternoon, as usual. But that's where the usual ended. First there was the cute little kid and mom (yes, they were both cute--in fact she was so blond pony-tailed soccer girl cute that we thought she was an American) who were walking past the sheep pen, and for some ovine reason all the sheep decided they would start bleating and run over there to see the kid. Then a couple kilometers later, we saw this little runt lamb we've been tracking for a couple of weeks (we think we first saw him only hours after he was born) who had somehow gotten through the fence and was running back and forth trying to get back in where Mommy was. We stopped at my poultry lady's place to ask if they were her sheep. I know she has sheep because we'd talked about them before, but these weren't hers. She assured us the little fellow would eventually find his way back in. "Finding holes in the fence is their specialty," was the way she put it. Okay, next I kept going while Rita peeled off to go home, and all the goats at the house up the street had wandered outside their fence and all decided to follow me. A couple of teenaged boys on a scooter rode by and yelled, "Hey, he's stealing the goats!" Whitey, Momma, Buttspot, and Gert gave up fairly quickly, but Daddy followed me for several hundred meters, bleating and shoving his head against the back of my leg. I think he just wanted attention. Then while I was watching an empty barge pass a laden barge in the large (which means "the wide" in French, not "the big"), this enormous Newfoundland (I know: Is there any other kind?) who had been swimming in the canal (gag!) ran up to me and jumped on me. After that I made it home without much incident.

Spring our way

2010-04-06T15:41:00.002-04:00

We hear it was 85 degrees on the East Coast today. It was 55 here, and we were happy to have it. And there are no bugs yet. We ate outside for the first time this year, and for the first time on our new deck. Our landlord finally replaced the old one, which I liked to call "the amazing exploding deck," with a new one in teak and granite. On the down side, he removed a gorgeous old oak tree that used to shade our al fresco dinners because, "It makes a lot of leaves."

Another sign of spring here in Belgium: the sun didn't go down until 8:30 PM. It wasn't totally dark until about 9:30. We will miss that.

Invasion of the Ladybugs!

2010-03-26T06:05:00.004-04:00

They're everywhere, they're everywhere! In the bedroom, on the floor, on the walls, on our clothes. OK, not swarms of them. But enough that it requires getting out the vacuum to clean up the carcasses when they inevitably move on to ladybug heaven. They manage to come in through the closed French doors in our bedroom, which is apparently their favorite place, since when it's sunny, we get afternoon sun.

We kind of like having the little critters around. At least during the day. Not so crazy about it at night when things flutter or crawl past our faces ... It could be worse though: at least we're not talking some nasty Florida bug.

The Boucherie

2010-03-10T14:29:00.003-05:00

This one is for Kirsten: today we drove past one of the butcher shops in Tertre and noticed this sign: "Cheval danois de premier choix." It made us laugh. No old nags for our butcher shop, no siree!

Wildlife

2010-03-06T10:07:00.005-05:00

I saw an ermine last weekend. Rita and I were on our way to the commissary. The ermine ran across the road and into a field, so I suppose it may have been its way to the ermine commissary. Rita didn't see it because I was so flabbergasted I couldn't get a word out in time. I have seen ermine stoles in paintings but never a live ermine in its white winter coat. It's interesting that even around here, where it doesn't snow much, they turn white in the winter. And it was really white! I don't know how it stays that clean, because it had rained every day for 10 days and all the fields are either mud or muddy water.

The Wild West

2010-03-05T11:33:00.004-05:00

West Luxembourg that is. Earlier this week the police in Luxembourg City surprised some thieves in the act at a jewelry store. The thieves fled, by car, into Belgium. The cops either did or did not ask permission to pursue them into Belgium, depending on which version of the story you hear, but pursue them into Belgium they did. Then the thieves either had a blowout or got a tire shot out, again depending on your version, jumped out of the car, and fled on foot. It's pretty well agreed that the police wounded one of the perpetrators, though they may not have had permission to discharge their weapons in Belgium, and first reports in the early morning used the marvelously ambiguous term "neutralized" for what the police did to the guy. It means he was taken out of action some way some how. An investigation has been started to clear up the confusion, hopefully before Albert II, King of the Belgians, is forced to declare war on the Grand Duke Henri, who happens to be his nephew. Film at 11.

2010-02-25T12:05:00.002-05:00

The French supermarket chain Carrefour announced Tuesday it was closing 21 stores and laying off some 1600 people in Belgium. The grocery store GB is part of the Carrefour family. And our GB on SHAPE is one of 5 stores in Wallonia slated to close by June. This is pretty disturbing news to those of us who shop there regularly - and to those of you who benefit regularly from the benefits of our shopping there. No more tax-free beer, chocolate, or speculoos.

I suspect there is some kind of agreement between SHAPE and the Belgian government to provide us with tax-free shopping but have little hope that if that is the case, a contract can be arranged with a new grocery store and the new tenant take possession of the space in anything less than 6 months, if even that quickly. Change happens at glacial speed on SHAPE. Correction: good change happens at glacial speed; bad change seems to move much more quickly.

We don't know when the GB will close definitively but it may be sooner than June. Rumors are flying that it will close as of 1 March. The employees have been on strike for 2 days. We heard the store would open back up tomorrow, but Carrefour employees have called for a general strike Saturday, with some stores closed starting tomorrow. So we may have shopped our last in our favorite place to shop.

Curling

2010-02-22T15:11:00.002-05:00

As we've mentioned before, we get most of our US TV fix from AFN, which has to take what the networks give it, because it doesn't pay for it. As a result, there's absolutely no Olympics coverage but curling on during European prime time, since those of you with honest jobs in the US are at work then and not watching TV. So we watch French TV on our Belgian cable. It's as francocentric as US coverage is US centered, but since France has some good athletes in some interesting sports, we see stuff. We saw Bode Miller win gold, for example. Live. Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe you didn't know that because NBC was saving it to show next Friday.

Doing it wrong - first impressions

2010-02-16T14:39:00.003-05:00

We just got back from 4 days in England, which was our first experience with driving on the left. My first experience, I should say. Rita declined to have anything to do with it. It wasn't as bad as I expected, maybe because what I expected was death in a giant fireball. Low expectations triumph again. As others had assured me, it wasn't too bad on divided highways. Rita had to remind me a couple of times that the right lane was the fast lane, not the slow lane, but other than that it went okay. The traffic circles were a little weird because you go through them clockwise instead of "anticlockwise," as you do in the driving-on-the-right world. What really took some getting used to, though, was meeting oncoming traffic on two-lane roads. It was okay as long as you were behind another car and felt protected, but the first few times you meet someone all by yourself, it's just…wrong.

In case you're in the area

2010-02-11T14:45:00.002-05:00

Just saw a commercial on AFN for the annual best sapper competition to be held at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in late April. Who knew?

Problem solved

2010-02-07T07:32:00.002-05:00

Rita wrote recently about all the potholes that have formed as a result of the snow and the cold. Well, on the autoroute they have now "fixed" the problem by lowering the speed limit from 120 to 90 (75 to 55 mph) and putting up signs warning that there are potholes. No need to spend money on silly repairs when you've got this kind of brilliance at work.

Snow envy

2010-02-05T13:54:00.002-05:00

We hear the mid-Atlantic is expecting another big snowfall today/tomorrow. This makes what - 50 inches or so for the year? I am so, so jealous. Or as a colleague put it, snow jealous. Yes, we've had our little snowfalls in Belgium this year, but nothing on the scale of one of those great big ole storms coming up from the south, full of moisture, that dump about 20 inches. No one here rushes to the grocery store to stock up on milk and toilet paper. Funny the things you miss.

Nid de poule

2010-01-31T13:28:00.004-05:00

That's French for pothole. Which we're seeing a lot of these days, especially on the autoroute, due to the unusually cold winter. Big stretches of the middle lane are almost undriveable because of the round holes created where the 2-inch top layer of asphalt has disappeared. (Especially on the stretch between St-Ghislain and the R5,where the right hand lane has been closed for some mysterious reason for over a year, forcing the trucks to drive in the middle lane.)

Belgian roads are notoriously ill cared for. You can do some serious damage to your alignment on them. We joke, only we're not really kidding, that Strassenschaeden ("damaged road surface" in Germany) equates to "a really good road" in Belgium. That's how bad it is: what's considered a bad road in Germany is like freshly paved to us.

More from Berlin

2010-01-30T12:20:00.004-05:00

One of the things we did on our recent trip to Berlin was go to the Loxx model train exhibit. I'd seen video of this and thought it was fascinating. I don't remember how many kilometers of track they've laid but it's a lot. They've basically recreated Berlin in miniature.

This is obviously not a scene from downtown Berlin, but you get an idea of the amount of detail that's gone into creating this exhibit.

This was one of David's favorite parts of the exhibit.

All in all, it was pretty cool. But pretty expensive too. Museums are not cheap in Berlin.

Who's here?

2010-01-29T13:12:00.003-05:00

We had an after-work office get-together tonight in a part of the SHAPE Club we had never been to before. One wall was hung with personalized pewter beer mugs. There was SACEUR's mug, his deputy's, the chief of staff's, and one for each of the NMRs (national military representatives). They were almost all still hanging there, meaning they were unused. Conspicuously out, and therefore in service, were the mugs of the Czech and the Slovak NMRs.

It's funny if you know what great beer-drinking nations the components of the former Czechoslovakia are.

Better late than never, I guess.

2010-01-26T14:05:00.004-05:00

We went to Berlin over the recent long weekend and did something we had never done before in all our travels: we took a walking tour. It was cold as a Norwegian well digger's… It was really cold, and there were about 4 inches of snow, which the Germans are only slightly more adept at clearing than the Belgians, and we near 'bout froze our feet standing in it listening to history lectures. But the lectures were interesting and good, and our guide was knowledgeable, and the group was congenial, and we saw the old city and heard cool stories, and we got a discount with the Berlin Welcome Card.

So now that we've been to a dozen or so cities and are nearing the end of the Big Belgian Adventure, we've decide this is the way to go.

Chrismas is over

2010-01-12T12:54:00.002-05:00

Back in early December we watched the workmen set up the gigantic Christmas tree in front of the main building at SHAPE. It took a crane and a lot of men (a lot of supervisors...).

Yesterday we noticed them removing the lights.

Today we saw them take the tree down. This was a majestic beauty from the town of Malmedy over in eastern Belgium. And they unceremoniously chopped at it until it fell and then they began cutting the branches off so they could haul them away. We left before the trunk was completely nude. It was sad, not just for the wasted tree but because this was our last Christmas in Belgium.

Not Just No Longer Fun But Downright Hard

2010-01-05T12:13:00.003-05:00

We put three girls and a fiance on three planes this past weekend.

Anyone who has tried to fly to the US from outside the US since the Christmas Day event has experienced the new procedures, which Brussels National is implementing with vigor: only one carry-on item is allowed because of secondary screening of all carry-ons for all passengers to the US.

We watched while passenger after passenger approached the Delta pre-check-in counter and expressed dismay and incredulity at being told their computer bag or purse had to be stuffed into their carry-on, or the extra bag would have to be checked - at 50 euros a bag. That's euros, not dollars, since these passengers are departing from a euro zone country. In the US they catch a break: it's only 50 dollars.

Delta seems to be taking advantage of the heightened security measures. It would be reasonable - and customer-friendly - for an airline to allow passengers returning from the Christmas holidays to check that extra bag for free. They carried on on the way over; what are they supposed to do - leave all that extra stuff behind?

I am not looking forward to my next flying-to-America experience. They've just made it too hard.

Talk about inflation!

2010-01-04T14:10:00.003-05:00

The postage rates went up today while we were conducting a transaction! We had done two packages, when the supervisor came out and told the clerk that they were changing the way they calculated postage. They were no longer to enter the zip code but a zone number. And guess what. It calculates a higher rate. Go figure. It was about 0800 back on the East Coast, so maybe that's when the new rates were supposed to take effect.

The clerk was Rich's wife. That's one of the goofy things about being at a small overseas post: all the ordinary working people--postal clerks, store clerks, etc--are family members of the people you work with. It's kind of fun. Doesn't keep them from insisting on seeing your ID on every visit, though.

And no, we did not have to recalculate the postage for the first two packages, so I guess when you look at it the right way, we got away with one. Or two.

Bizarre Belgian church experience no. 931

2009-12-25T07:00:00.004-05:00

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

2009-12-23T01:56:00.001-05:00

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?

2009-12-17T15:29:00.002-05:00

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

2009-12-14T11:42:00.003-05:00

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?

2009-12-04T13:48:00.006-05:00

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

2009-11-22T13:48:00.004-05:00

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

2009-11-12T14:20:00.003-05:00

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!

2009-10-26T16:41:00.001-04:00

Summer time

2009-10-25T01:50:00.001-04:00

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

2009-10-22T13:30:00.004-04:00

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!

2009-10-18T02:20:00.010-04:00

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

2009-10-13T12:29:00.004-04:00

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

2009-10-12T12:39:00.003-04:00

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

2009-10-07T14:17:00.002-04:00

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.

2009-10-04T11:15:00.012-04:00

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.

2009-09-29T14:33:00.004-04:00

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.