Rediscovering Scenic America

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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.