Paris-Roubaix

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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.