July is the sales month in Brussels (and from what I understand elsewhere in Europe as well). The stores are trying to get rid of all their stuff before to make way for the new merchandise. The local English-language magazine recommends that you dress comfortably (obvious), wear nice underwear (for fitting rooms that "go communal"), go to stores where you know your size fits you like it's supposed to (so you can grab stuff to buy without trying it on), and get in good with smaller boutiques throughout the year (so they will include you in the invitation-only pre-sale). With this information in mind, I went looking for a corner to huddle in somewhere out of the fray. But, thinking it wouldn't be so bad at opening time on the first day, we set out to get some shades to replace the curtains that were held up by packing tape in the bedroom. We had already seen some that were tolerable and cheap at a Pier One Imports equivalent, so we headed there. Once inside the store we realized it wasn't so bad, with just a normal amount of customers. Unfortunately not many of the sale items appealed to us, although Jack did come away wiith a 5-euro bedroom lamp. I got a big non-sale pillow for the couch.

We managed to be proactive about getting our shopping done by skipping breakfast, so we proceeded to a tea-room down the street to get a bite to eat and to celebrate our successful morning thus far. We perched in a 2nd storey window to view the foot traffic at the stores across the street. We were across from an H&M that was doing brisk business by this time. Their security guard, looking ex-military and taking his job very seriously, watched us watching him and made a mental note of our appearances in case we were casing the joint. By the time we left we were refreshed and ready to take on the shopping madness once again, so we stopped in to the H&M to see if there were any shirts for Jack (the security guy had left his post, thankfully). There were enormous lines snaking everywhere: every register was open and manned, and yet there were lines 20 people deep blocking access to many areas. The lines to the fitting rooms were not as bad, probably because people had taken the advice of the aforementioned article and were just buying stuff off the rack. After going upstairs and realizing it was just as packed as the floor below, we left. I think I lost about two years of my life going in there, realizing it was a horrible mistake, and then trying to make our way back out. You really have to enter a certain state of mind to shop like that--keep focusing on the fact that you're getting a good deal and not worrying about how miserable you are in the present. Some music would help, no doubt. Music and alcohol, perhaps.

We continued shopping at our own speed at the neighborhood thrift store, Spullenhulp (also known as Les Petits Riens, but Spullenhulp is more fun to say). Building on Jack's earlier find of the yarn lampshade, this time we came away with a stylish plastic wall clock and and a vintage European version of Stratego. Usually the prices are pretty decent, but the cashier, having sized us up as non-Bruxellois (earlier his colleagues were forced to explain to us in English that he had taken a 5-minute break to use the toilet), he charged us 3.00 for the ancient, tatty game after inspecting the box closely and apparently noting that all the pieces were there. I think I could have talked him down, and in fact he almost seemed like he wanted us to, but I hadn't geared myself up for haggling that day so we let it pass.

Back home we worked on various projects. Jack finally succeeded in getting the retractable clothesline to stay attached to the wall thanks a high powered drill he borrowed from one of his coworkers, so we can stop liberally distributing socks and underpants throughout the house to dry them. We'll see if it lasts--after the curtains fell, I lost faith in the walls of the house being able to hold anything heavy for long.

Saturday night we went to see Apocalyptica and the accompanying light show at the Grand Place. The band, comprised of 4 cellos, has made a career of covering Metallica songs, and they were in town to celebrate the Finnish ascension to the EU presidency. It seems that they rotate presidents every 6 months, so I look forward to a series of culturally-oriented concerts from the ones who are up next: Germany, Portugal and Slovenia. Since Finnish cultural music seems to be of the metal/hard rock genre, if this concert and Eurovision can be said to represent an adequate sample, I hope to god Germany's is not bad pop music that constantly name-checks the likes of David Hasselhoff.

The crowd was large and well-mixed: tourists who had wandered down not knowing what was going on, the goths taking up one large area after being magnetically drawn to one another, regular people, bureaucrats and invitees on a balcony overlooking the peons, and so on. In front of us there was a group of middle aged women who looked straight out of Wisconsin, wearing their tiny backpacks and trying to cop a European vibe, shaking their thangs to songs (albeit without the lyrics) that they confiscated from their teenage sons after coming home early from their bridge club that one time and hearing it playing. The band members were sitting in high-backed chairs with skulls carved in them, reminding me of the chairs they had in the conference room on the Death Star. The light show mostly consisted of strobes, smoke and flashing spotlights, disappointing when I was expecting something involving lasers or explosions. Due to having had a long day already, we left after about 3 songs and headed up the hill towards home, the roar of the crowd occasionally rising over the rooftops behind us.

Sunday, after delicious french toast, we got the shades up. It was quite an ordeal, with lots of eyeballing, measuring, marking, etc. The paper shades don't cover the 210 cm windows completely, so we came up with the genius idea of installing the hooks in the ceiling and then dangling the shades by short lengths of raffia. This was all well and good until it came time to operate them, as the lack of a fixed position allowed the shades to swing away when you pulled on the cord, distributing the weight unevenly between the hooks. Not being terribly high-quality in the first place, it came as no surprise when one of the cords got stuck in the wheel it passes over, leading to yanking and then falling. So now we only handle them gingerly and with the greatest reverence, as if they were 15th century scrolls that had been entrusted to us for safe keeping.

Later we played Stratego, notable primarily for the strongly defensive maneuvers of both teams, resulting in an extremely drawn-out game. Afterwards we went out for Mexican food which we ate in their back garden area, and, thus fortified with fajitas and Walloonian Courage (in this case margaritas), we went to see what we find out about the video store. It was all very straightforward, and the employee spoke good English, telling us that 90% of the films they carried were in our native tongue. The best part, though, was that they had not only the normal movie-watching treats (including marshmallow-flavored popcorn), but also more substantial stuff like real food and wine. I envision Jack stopping by there on his way home from work and picking up dinner and a movie. So convenient! We got "Grand Magasin" by the Marx Brothers.

We spent the past week getting our Euro-culture on. We started out Friday by eating at a tiny restaurant called La Canne en Ville housed in a former butcher shop, as we had a gift certificate from Jack's family. It was a nice space, elaborately tiled. The glazing on the tiles had cracked, presumably from age, and a brownish stain had permeated the cracks. Jack said he would have liked the tiles better if they didn't have the aura of having been spattered with years of animal blood. We started off with the suggested aperetifs, which were white wines mixed with fruit liqueurs. A woman who was perhaps the owner came over and translated the menu, and knowing full well what he was getting into, Jack ordered the snails for an appetizer. They were really good! I know, I know, if entire countries consider something a delicacy it's probably quite tasty, but that still doesn't make it any easier to stare down a plate of, say, sea cucumber, and take a bite. While I consider myself an adventurous eater, I'm not, as it turns out, an adventurous orderer. I guess that's what separates the boys from the men: anyone can try a bite of duck tongue on someone else's plate, but not everyone can envision themselves eating the remainder of said plate. Kudos to Jack. The remainder of the meal was equally good, with one of the highlights being a potato gratin with just enough cheese to hold the thing together and form a lovely brown crust on the top. Mmmm.

Even though we had made our reservations for 8 p.m., an almost impossibly long time for me to wait to start dinner, there was only one other couple in there when we got there. The place really started filling up around 9, an by the time we left at 10 or so it was packed. The two waitstaff managed to be attentive to all the patrons, surprising given the neglect we've suffered at other places with twice as many staff members.

Saturday we attempted to work on the apartment a bit, getting a printer cable and assorted sundries at the hardware store. After we set up the printer following the French directions, Jack began installing our retractable clothesline. It was, unfortunately, not a success: not having a drill makes it extremely difficult to make appropriately-sized holes in the wall. Who knew? Now we'll probably have to get a drill. I suggested getting an old-school hand-powered one that resembles an egg beater, but I don't think he's going for it.

Sunday we headed downtown to the big art museum. We saw a lot of art from the 15th to 18th centuries. Most of it was religious in nature or portraiture. "Still life" in French is apparently "nature mort". There was a Hieronymus Bosch of the temptation of St. Anthony, one of those classics of his with a bunch of crazy stuff going on. And, on the next wall over, another painting of his that was a straight-up portrait. Never would have guessed it was by the same guy. There were other paintings by other artists of the same temptation scene scattered about, also featuring a variety of beasts not found in nature, so I'm not sure how Bosch got to be known for this style. Perhaps people went wild for it when it came out, and subsequently that's the genre he chose to pursue.

It appears that wealthy art patrons back in the day used to demonstrate their piety by having their likenesses painted into scenes from the Bible and displaying them in a prominent place. There were many of these paintings in the churches of Bruges, and more in this museum. I'm not sure what they were trying to convey by showing their family (adults: full-size, grown-looking children: half-size) kneeling at the foot of a dying Jesus on the cross, the family's patron saints hovering behind them like mother hens. It's not as if they were attacking the guards and saving Jesus from his horrible demise, just mostly staring at some mid-range point that conveyed the unfocused boredom of the sitter. Maybe the sin of pride was only written into later versions of th Bible.

One of the interesting things about viewing paintings in a roughly chronological fashion was being able to see the development of painting techniques, notably correct perspective. The flat religious iconography of the earlier years, employing lots of gold and oddly-shaped faces and babies that resemble scaled-down adults on a plain background, gives way to scenes of people in a room, figures overlapping yet the same size as if they're crowded up against each other, but you can see the room's walls slightly receding behind them, gives way to advanced techniques of outdoor scenes of gardens with fancy trellising in the mid-distance telescoping to a hazy glimpse of a town far off in the background.

For lunch we strayed from the museum, which has a cafe run by Aramark (the folks who do such a wonderful job with RFK stadium), and went down the street to the Musical Instrument Museum, which is housed in a former store called Old England that is a paean to the Art Nouveau style: lots of ironwork curlicues. While not particularly drawn to the museum itself, they have a restaurant on the top floor that has nice views of the city. Last time we had tried to go there it was packed, but on this day it was about half full. I ordered the "pain viande", thinking it would be some kind of sandwich like a cheesesteak without the cheese. It was meatloaf. It was very tasty, so no complaints. On the way back home we encountered a shop that had a bunch of international papers, including a scanned, printed and glue-bound copy of the Washington Post for 4.25. It was the District-Maryland version of the home delivery paper, not even the Final, so we passed it up. I'm not sure what the legitimacy of this was, since the Post certainly doesn't offer home delivery here although they could if they were in on this operation.

Tuesday we started French lessons with a class of 5, including a couple that hails from Canton, OH. The "professeur" speaks exclusively in French (unless 100% of us are staring at her blankly, and then she'll sometimes give us a single word of English), which makes Jack and me founder to various degrees since we probably each understand about 1/4 of what she's saying and can get the gist of about 3/4. On the one hand I feel like I'm falling behind at times, with everyone else nodding and taking notes while I repeat her words in my head for some semblance of meaning, but on the other I get to practice my French accent, which seems super-fake to me when I'm trying to communicate out in the world but is apparently some approximation of the real thing.

Ramen update:
I went into the grocery around the corner yesterday primarily to replenish our sadly depleted cache of alcohol. The store is about twice the size of a 7-11. Given the size, they have an amazing array of products. This is due in a large part to the fact that you're limited in the options between brands; they might have regular sugar, turbinado sugar, brown sugar, powdered sugar, light corn syrup, honey, and other sweeteners I haven't been able to translate yet, but they're all the generic variety. That's okay with me since that's what I would normally buy. So I was wandering around and I came across a section I'd never noticed before. It was almost as if a Brigadoon aisle had appeared before my very eyes, strange given the fact that the store is only three aisles deep. Not only did I find the ramen there ("noilles instantanees", 45 cents for a smaller-than-normal packet), but also capers, which I had looked for and not found before and had assumed would be close to the pickles and other preserved vegetables. Given the long list of ingredients, I'd hazard a guess that the Belgian ramen are just as unhealthy as the regular kind (although of a reduced portion size), but since they don't have anything resembling nutrition facts here it's hard to say. There's 18.6 g of fat and 460 kcal of energy. Oh wait--that's for 100 g serving size, but the package is only 60 g. You can do the math for yourselves as a take-home problem. Bonus question: how much sodium is in the shrimp flavor ("gout crevettes")?

I started working on the 12th, which has drastically cut the amount of time I have available to run around and get all the stupid little things done that I need to do by about half: buying groceries, washing a mountain of dishes, going to the bank to sign aNOTHer document. As a consequence I'm generally more tired than before. It will take some getting used to. The upside of working is I don't dwell as much on what needs to be fixed/altered in the house to get it to my liking. That, and I have something constructive and purposeful to do for several hours a day which has the added bonus of bringing in income.

Mid-week, we went to a restaurant at the end of our block that had been mentioned in a NYT article that my mom sent me. Eat-cetera looked a little upscale for us, but we were encouraged by the interesting choices on the 30-euro fixed price menu. We sat in the garden (really more of a patio) that was overlooked by office buildings on all sides. They had thoughtfully provided a chalkboard by which they could convey the scores of the World Cup games without anyone having to run out and check them. I had a tuna trio (grilled, raw, and smoked) followed by swordfish with grilled peaches. Mmmm. In between the courses was a palate cleanser of tomato-basil sorbet. To end they provided long cookie sticks to be dipped in chocolate, banana foam and rice krispies. All in all, very tasty. Since the 4-course menu changes monthly, Jack wants to become regulars there. It'll be just like Cheers, except people will call him "ZZZhaaaque!" instead of Norm, and of course he won't be nearly as husky. And we'll drink wine.

Saturday is the day of commerce: it's essentially the only time that people who are employed full time can buy stuff since most places close at 6, so everything's humming with activity. We went to the secondhand store again to see what was new, and Jack found an awesome lampshade to put on our living room ceiling light. Then we went into the city center to check out the electronics superstore in order to get various items deemed necessary for the home office and general comfort (speakers, wireless router, headphones w/ mic, printer, and PC laptop). Before hitting the store we went waaaay out of our way to go to Passage to India, recommended by one of the guidebooks. I was excited because I like Indian food a lot, but there seems to be a dearth of it in our neighborhood. (As a side note, I honestly don't get people who don't like Indian food; the cuisine is so varied that you can't possibly write it off until you've tried a good sampling of the northern and southern dishes.) So we go there and it's totally empty except for one Indian family of four, and the owner/waiter guy was very kind and gracious, and I got the chicken tikka masala and a mango lassi, both of which were fantastic. Jack got the butter chicken, which was also excellent. It fortified us for our arduous task ahead. We detoured through an extensive fabric store which I predict I will make good use of at some point and through the Botanic Garden's gardens, where the photo of the vulture statue was taken.

At the electronics store, after some intense soul-searching Jack picked out some speakers he could live with. The office-related items were all a bust: the microphone has a standard jack whereas the Mac has no mic port (a USB converter is necessary), there were no printers that were Mac compatible, and all the laptops had crazy keyboards. I later learned from the lady at the bank (we should really become best friends, based on the amount of our contact) that the keyboards are the French version and the Dutch ones, which they didn't have on display, are the standard qwerty and all you have to do is ask for them. So now I have to go back. In an effort to find a bright side to everything, I must say that they had a pretty good bookstore in there, and I got a ton of books (well, actually just four). One is some kind of mystery that takes place in the London sewer system back in the day--I look forward to getting started on it. Also they had McSweeney's, which was surprising and looked awesome, but with the rest of the day's purchases I couldn't justify the additional 30 euros. Lastly we got a 5.99 copy of "Raising Arizona" to test out the Belgian DVD capabilities of Jack's computer.

That evening was the USA-Italy game of the World Cup. This was possibly the US's last chance to redeem itself due to its shockingly bad opener against the Czech Republic. The Irish bar we went to, The Bank, housed in an old bank (the security deposit boxes line the walls of the basement bathrooms), had about half US and half Italy supporters. It was an extremely intense game, with Italy scoring early on, a self-goal by one of Italy's players to even the game, the second US goal disallowed due to an obscure off-sides call, and the final number of players on the US and Italy sides being 9 and 10, respectively. We were on the edge of our seats the whole time. The tie meant that the US wasn't completely out of the running, depending on the outcome of their game against Ghana on Thursday. The bar itself put us at ease, in that the wait staff greeted you in English and there was no apprehension about a language barrier. I'm always ready to have encounters that I can't fully comprehend, so I was surprised when I reflexively replied "hi" instead of accidentally saying "bon soir."

After securing some real maple syrup (O'Canada brand; who comes up with these names?) a few days prior, we had pancakes and bacon for Sunday breakfast. We went to a market down by the Ixelles lakes and I started working on my balcony plant plan by buying some flowering vine seeds and a petunia. That evening we took the tram down to the end of the Bois de la Cambre (where I had been propositioned a few weeks ago), which is heavily forested on its border with the Foret de Soignes, a much larger greenspace to the south of the city. Jack had never ridden a tram or been to the Bois, so we took a picnic of leftover caponata, bread from the market we visited earlier in the day, and wine. The tram was much less crowded than the last time I had ridden it, thankfully. We got off and headed down a trail with a column of old trees running on either side of it. The trees behind it were younger, making us conclude that at one time it was probably a carriage road with fields behind the treeline. We headed up to the lake to enjoy our repast as well as the muted sounds of a drum circle floating over the hill. We saw a young boy, probably 8 or so, having a bike ride with his dad. The boy was wearing a helmet and safety vest, and yet he was riding on his dad's bike rack rather than in a child's seat. After sufficient relaxation we began the journey north to go home, and passed not one but two other drum circles in the park, and supposed that they were probably rival percussion gangs that had fights straight out of "West Side Story".

Le weekend, pt. 3-

After a good night’s sleep, surprising because our room was on the street side and because the only covering was a comforter so it was all or nothing temperature-wise, we got up with plans of getting to the 13th-15th century belfry in the Markt Square, which is accessible via a set of 366 stairs, before the crowds set in. Our breakfast of juice, coffee, pastries, rolls, sliced meat and cheese, and fruit arrived around 8:30. We ate the pastries and planned on making a picnic lunch with the rest later on in the day.

The people across the hall from us took the opportunity of the free bathroom to spend an hour in there. Together. Not sure what the deal with that was, but I was pretty steamed about their disrespect for the unspoken rules of bathroom sharing. We ended up getting a later start than we were hoping to, but the line for the belfry wasn’t very long in the end. The spiral staircase to the top is interrupted at various points by rooms, the first of which was the treasury, which housed the town’s important documents behind a series of wrought iron gates. The gates had 9 keys that had to be opened simultaneously, and each guild had one key in its possession. I believe the documents ended up being destroyed in a fire, probably because the guy from the brewer’s guild who had the key had a tiff with the blacksmith guild guy and wouldn't be caught dead in the same room with him or something. Seems like a bad system, if you ask me.

The interesting thing about the spiral staircase was that there was a number of switchbacks in it, so that you’d be plodding along in one direction for a while and then suddenly you’d be forced to…um, spiral in the other direction. It was nearly motion sickness inducing, but fascinating nonetheless. The second stop from the top contained the works for the clock and for the carillon. The bells are operated via a giant wheel with prongs in it to activate chains that lead to the hammers for the individual bells, similar to the way a music box works. The top floor contained the bells themselves, which went through their quarter-hour routine while we were there. The view was fantastic, and someone had thoughtfully taken the time to chisel the direction and distance to various points from the tower. Brussels: 89 km. London: 230 km.

Following that we checked out the Beguinage, which at one time housed the flirtatious nuns that provided the inspiration for the song “Begin the Beguine”, although now it contains contemplatives. It was a very peaceful place, as there were signs all over it exhorting visitors to be quiet. We didn’t actually see any nuns, although we did see some random non-nun people hanging out around the buildings as if they were staying there, leading us to believe that they have really loosened the requirements for entrance into convents these days, allowing men, children and attractive women in. One thing they apparently didn’t condone was weak ankles, evidenced by the round cobblestones that were a sure recipe for disaster if you weren’t careful.

Our last stop of the day was the Church of Our Lady, which housed a Michelangelo sculpture of the virgin and child. We checked out the statue and then noted the fact that the folks who had been buried in the floor directly in front of it, surely a prestigious spot, probably had not anticipated that their tombstone inscriptions would be rubbed into oblivion by the feet of many visitors. There were also tombs of Charles the Bold and Mary of Burgundy (aka Duchess de Bourgogne, who has a delightful beer named after her that Jack had at that beery restaurant), which had lifelike effigies of the deceased in brass on top of them. They had excavated some tombs under the church which contained early frescoes. In an amazing feat of prescience, there was not only a fresco containing the image of Bobby from the show King of the Hill, but also a painting of the visitation by the three wise men, one of whom looks remarkably like Congressional Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton. Creepy. We lit a candle to a statue that resembled St. Francis, and Jack wanted me to wish for a future free of robot invasions, but instead I wished for a peaceful end to the war in Iraq.

After a beer overlooking one of the canals to prepare us for the journey home, we headed off to the train station, where we discovered much to our delight that there was a train waiting for us. Apparently the fact that it was already running 45 minutes behind schedule wasn’t a good sign. We got seats even though it was mostly full, and started up a few minutes later. The platform at Ghent was packed with people, and soon after they boarded an announcement was made that led the passengers to let out a collective groan (the announcement was made only in Dutch; they switched to Dutch and French after we entered Brussels). We could only assume that another delay was anticipated. We made an unscheduled stop at a station for about a half hour, and once we started up there was another announcement and another groan: it appeared by the lack of familiar landmarks that we were taking a different, more roundabout route to get into the city. We didn’t even know if we’d be stopping at the train station that we left from, since there are three and we were heading closer to the northern one than the southern one we started from. But everyone knows that the train system in Europe is amazing, so we made a lot of turns and ended up back where we started. Back into the heat, up the hill, and home.

Le weekend, pt. 2-

Saturday morning we headed out for the train station. Since there were trains approximately every half hour to Bruges and we could buy tickets at the station, we didn't really have a set time for leaving. It was supposed to be the first really warm weekend since we've been here, with highs in the 80s. Due to the cold of a few weeks before, I was definitely on board with the heat, particularly since it lacked the oppressive humidity of the Washington area. The train arrived at about 11 and were fortunate enough to get seats. The ride took about an hour through the scenic countryside.

One of our worries was that Bruges was going to be totally overrun with tourists, and when we exited the station there were clots of people everywhere. Fortunately, once we crossed the canal that rings the city everyone spread out in every direction and it wasn't nearly as crowded as I had anticipated. The city was also somewhat larger than I had expected, which helped as well. Our first order of business was to get some lunch. We ate at a spot overlooking one of the canals. The food was just okay, but we got to try out some different beers. Jack had previously stated his preference for a "cauldron of hot cheese" for lunch in honor of the warm weather, and he ended up getting some lasagne that fit the bill pretty well. There were little fuzzy things flying through the air, which I later discovered were probably from one of the numerous cottonwood trees (or the European equivalent) around town, but I thought Jack had let the sun and heat go to his head when he said that there was a Santa Claus in his drink. However, this is apparently one of those "family words" that creep into one's vocabulary and unbeknownst to the speaker they are uncommon to the rest of us.

After that we headed over to the Burg, a plaza which contained the Basilica of the Holy Blood, which in turn contained some amount of Jesus' blood available for veneration. The church was interesting in that it was built during a decorative period where as many various patterns that could be thought of were painted on a wall. It was nice because it seemed that you'd be able to let your eyes drift during a service and keep noticing new things for quite some time. People were going up to Jesus's blood and touching and/or kissing the glass case, and there was a woman up there in priestly robes who had the job of smiling benevolently at everyone and wiping the glass after each person's visit. We chose not to participate in this ritual.

As the afternoon grew warmer, it became clear that one of the reasons that Bruges may be considered "Venice of the North" is that, like Venice, it seems to have some issues with odors in the heat. I'm not sure that the sulfurous smells came from the canals themselves rather than a poorly-tended sewer system, but there was definitely a great deal of stagnant water around. Everytime we saw someone on a canal tour sticking their hands in the water we shook our heads sadly.

We arrived at our B&B, the Lady Jane, a few minutes after our scheduled check-in time and, although the front door was open, there was no one around. The majority of the first floor of the building was taken up as storage for beer, with some bikes, a folded ping-pong table, and a punching bag thrown in for good measure. We wandered upstairs to the rooms but didn't find anyone. I vaguely remembered something about a store, so we decided to go to the shop across the street and ask if they knew anything. We entered into a scene of mini chaos: the 3 people who appeared to be staff kept walking quickly back and forth from the front of the store to the back, talking to each other in Dutch but not to us. We stood around, waiting till whatever crisis was going on ended, so we could ask someone to help us. When the lights came on we figured out what happened. Our host came out of a door and informed us that he had been trapped in an elevator for the duration of the outage, and he was hot and rather flustered.

He showed us to our room, which was on the top floor of a house built in 1673. Our room had a canopy bed, breakfast table and TV, along with two large windows overlooking the street. At three storeys, we could see over the tops of most of the other non-religious buildings in the neighborhood, with the spires of churches and governmental follies peeking out over the vast plain of terra cotta roof tiles. The door to the room, which had been painted in kind of a translucent whitewash, had wood grain added on later in pencil (as did all the doors, upon further inspection; I can't imagine what kind of person would have the patience to do that). Additionally, a childish hand had written "love room" on the door in clear nail polish. We rested up a bit before heading back out.

As our previous meandering route took us through the heart of the city on our path to the B&B on the NE end of town, we decided to wander back along the eastern path of the canal that surrounds the city like a moat. There were a few old-school windmills on a rise by the canal, sadly not in operation when we went by. There were also some fortified city gates that traffic entering Bruges had to pass through. It's amazing to think that such thick walls were penetrable, but I guess if one person can think of a way to build a strong wall, someone else can think of a way to get through it.

At the south end of town we spotted the Minnewater, also known inexplicably as the Lake of Love. Minnewater is just a stretch of canal with one of the few parks within the city walls, so it's more verdant than elsewhere. I didn't really get the appeal, since it was the same dirty water as elsewhere in the city, but it was a pleasant swath of green nonetheless. We stopped for a icy cocktails and peanuts nearby to refresh ourselves, then we worked our way back through town to the restaurant we had picked out. Sadly, it was closed for a few days. Not having the guidebook with us and not wanting to fall prey to eating overpriced, sub-par food (it was pretty much all overpriced), we decided on ice cream and waffles for dinner. We had been forewarned that the waffles in Bruges were different than those found in Brussels, in that they were less sweet. My hope was that they'd be more delectable to me, since I find the ones in Brussels to be overly sweet with a density approaching that of a red dwarf, so that I'll have a bite or two and not want the rest. I wanted waffles that tasted like...well, tasted like my own, I guess, waffles that it wouldn't be inappropriate to top with something sweet, such as syrup, chocolate, or ice cream. The Bruges waffle was prepared fresh and took ages to cook, and the young lady behind the counter chatted with us about the medieval-style jousing tournament going on in the Markt Square. Finally it was done and once it had cooled down enough to eat, we discovered that it was definitely less sweet. It still had a strangely dense texture, though, so I just ate my limoncello sorbet and let Jack have his waffle. We headed back to the room to wait for darkness. On the way we saw some birds that appeared to be doves but that let out a short, strangulated cry like they needed to clear their throats. We contemplated what this meant for Prince's song, and concluded that perhaps this was the type of dove he was referring to.

Nighttime is when Bruges is supposed to be at its best. As darkness fell (around 10:30 p.m.), a large moon rose over the rooftops. A windmill visible in the distance was lit from below, almost ghostly in its skeletal appearance. It is true that the town is a different place at night, primarily because it seemed like everyone over 30 had retired for the evening and everyone under 30 was packed into bars. So the streets were quiet until you turned a corner and encountered one of these hives of activity, and then it was like a third place, separate from both its daytime and nighttime selves. We wandered the churches and canals, snapping up photos of shadowy spaces. It wasn't very ominous, though: you could still tell you were in a tidy little town, where people took great pride in their doorbell pulls and flower boxes. The most alarming thing we encountered was a gravestone in a wall of a church. Although these are common around town, this one was bulging outwards as if its occupant was attempting to walk amongst us once again. Thoroughly foot-weary, we returned to the B&B to explore the joys of the shared bath, cable TV, and room lights powered by remote control.

More photos of our Belgian adventure can be found at http://www.flickr.com/photos/squink/.

Le weekend, pt. 1-

Jack took Friday off due to having worked through the previous weekend, so he made some excellent biscuits for breakfast and we headed out into the world. We went and contemplated shades to replace the curtains I had pulled down in the bedroom, which unfortunately were not the right size so we're back to rigging up the original ones over the window using packing tape and staples. We got a blender and a trash can from a local cheap store, like Wal-Mart except smaller. Both appliances that we've purchased came with a two-year warranty, and that makes me wonder if that's some kind of EU standard. If so, it makes me feel a lot better about buying items that I would normally consider to have about a 2 year lifespan. Even though that's probably how long I need them to last for, it's nice to know that someone's looking out for those who have to buy the cheap stuff for other reasons. I also bought a package of 70 cm-long drinking straws.

Following a trip to the grocery, we went and visited a secondhand shop around the corner from Jack's office. The store had 3 large floors of everything: furniture, housewares, art, games, clothes, beds, etc., etc. I purchased an iron there a couple days before and had been overwhelmed by the sheer amount of stuff they had. So overwhelmed that I had to enlist Jack's assistance to just take it all in. We didn't end up buying anything this time, but he's going to keep an eye on it during the week so we can swoop in and get things shortly after they arrive, because I'm sure the pickings are better at certain times of the day/week.

Later we had lunch featuring gyros, french fries and sodas, and tried out a straw, which turned out to be much too long to be any use. I was thinking that I'd be super-lazy and never have to lift a glass to my mouth again, but the only way I could really get this to work was to lay on the couch at a specific angle and put the glass on the floor, and knowing me like I do, this is not a good idea. I'm sure there's some trick to using them that I just haven't figured out yet, like having a really low table and a really high stool to perch on. Also not a very good idea, come to think of it.

That evening we went to Jack's coworker's house to watch the inaugural games of the World Cup series. It was all "football" this and "football" that. His office had a betting pool going, and Jack had every confidence that the US would clean up until he discovered that the game was actually soccer. Fortunately this occurred before the initial games so he had time to change his entry. The games were pretty predictable (at least for those who follow soccer) and not very animated, as if the presumptive winners were keeping all their flashy moves in reserve for the later games against stronger competitors. There was one extremely tall and gangly player (I forget which team) who was interviewed during halftime and who has a very silly dance that he does when he scores a goal, like the robot dance done by someone who just doesn't "get" the robot dance at all, and thinks that merely moving your arms at right angles to your body would suffice. It was kind of like the worst halftime show of all time, but it was pretty funny.

I brought the straws with me and during the festivities I tried to use one to drink a beer, but strangely the bottle began to foam immediately and spilled over before I could reach the sink. I have no idea what would cause this, since it wasn't a problem with the soda--perhaps the shape of the neck wouldn't permit the carbonation to dissipate quickly enough. Thus ended that little experiment. I guess if I'm ever sick and drinking quiescent beverages I might be able to use them, but until that time I'll just have to come up with other ideas.

We went home that evening excited to hit the road the next morning for Bruges.

By request...this is the scary train bridge I went under on Sunday.

As for Monday's visit to Tour and Taxis described in the entry below, you really can't get a sense of how big this place is unless you go there. Just for fun I looked at satellite images of the city, and it's the most visible landmark aside from the Royal Gardens. There's all these discrete buildings on the property, only some of which seem to be partially occupied. Then there's the burnt-out shells and the vine-covered shells. I found two horseshoes rusting next to each other in the drying mud, both still sporting their original nails as if the horse had just stepped out of them for a minute to take a quick shower, but he was coming right back. I put them, luck-side up, on the window ledge of one of the ruined buildings hoping they'd bring some good fortune to whomever might happen upon them. I wonder why the land hasn't been put to better use? Really by "better" I mean more profitable, since if they had been charging at the front gates it's unlikely that we would have gone in, which would have been worse from our perspective. Plus if they were paying attention they would have put more secure fencing around the ruins, which would have taken some of the wonder out of the place. That there is an attractive nuisance, if I've learned anything from Jack.

Jack here! It was another 3-day weekend here on account of the pentecost. Unfortunately I ended up having to work through almost the entire thing. I finished my project today at about 1:30 so I had to cram an entire weekend into one afternoon.

We went on a excursion to go look for a place called "Tour and Taxis" which was supposed to be an old railway depot that has been fixed up into shops and restaurants and such. After briefly getting side-tracked by a giant (but kinda boring) basillica and wandering around awhile we eventually came to the place. At first it seemed completely abandoned except for a small circus school housed in one corner. But after we walked and walked and walked around the perimeter of the place we eventually came to the part that had been fixed up and we able to actually get inside. It WAS kind of nice inside, but it seemed to be mostly just offices in the one fixed up building and it was pretty much deserted since it was a holiday. But we had a good time exploring around the grounds and looking at a bunch of burned out industrial wasteland kind of stuff. S. came up with an excellent plan to squat there.

We walked back through the center of town and had an early dinner at a really cool beer-themed restaurant called In T' Spinnekopke (or something like that). All of the dishes we ordered featured beer in some fashion. As you can see in the picture I dined between two duelling mannequin pis's. Our waiter spoke pretty good English-which was a huge plus. We let him pick out our beers for us. ("Do you trust me? Okay. You're dead!") I can highly recommend the Nostradamus, if you ever get the chance.

--Jack

June 1 was another frigid rainy day here. I turned on the heat when it got down to 63 in the house and felt terrible about it for a number of reasons. The next day dawned clear and bright, with highs predicted to be in the 60s. Jack had just received one of Belgium's favorite tax dodges, food vouchers (paid by one's company pre-tax), so I went to the store to stock up. The vouchers (or "food stamps", as we call them) come in 6 euro increments and can only be used for food items (including alcohol), as I discovered when I attempted to pay for mouthwash along with the rest of my groceries. Although in a few months' time I hope to be able to argue the point of whether something that CAN be swallowed for intoxicating purposes but is not should be considered food, on this occasion I just paid the remainder of my bill with cash and lit out.

Earlier that day I noticed a black and white cat in the back yard, the first time I had seen one since our arrival. I thought it very charming how it was walking atop the high walls dividing the yards, going from one to the next via the landscaping. Later on Jack and I had lunch in a park which was practically overrun with cats--we saw several of them within a few minutes' time. Later still, Jack opened the bathroom curtain to discover an orange one staring back at him, sitting on the 2nd storey ledge in hopes of getting at a noisy bird. That evening we went for a walk and sure enough, more cats. I decided that June 1 was probably the annual Release of The Cats from Their Interior Confinement Day, but since it had been so nasty out everyone had observed it on the 2nd. I'll have to keep an eye out in the fall for the annual Gathering of The Cats Day, which I'm sure is a much more difficult operation. Perhaps they dedicate a whole week to it.

Sunday I took the metro out to the end of the line. My nominal goal was to go to the Erasmus Museum. Erasmus was some philosopher dude who lived in Brussels for a handful of months about 500 years ago. Apparently he made enough of an impact on the city that they made his home into a museum, one of the cheaper ones around town (when you think of it, not so different than places that crow about how Washington slept there for a single night). I decided to go past the museum to the end of the metro line and walk back to it, hoping to find out more about the character of the sprawling Anderlecht community, which I am told has a proud working-class character that is not always visible to us non-natives.

Imagine, if you will, hopping on an Orange Line Metro train at Federal Triangle and riding it out to Vienna. It may take a half hour or so, depending on the time of day and other factors. Okay, a half hour if you're lucky. Perhaps my ride was more like to West Falls Church. At any rate, it was not a long trip. I stood the whole way without fatigue. So I got off at the Erasmus station (the museum is actually located at the St. Guido stop in order to confound tourists), which is designed like a long, white circus tent--each of the stations here has a different style created by a local artist. I had alighted at a location that was off the edge of my map, so I started walking back in the direction of the metro line, towards the city center. There was a hospital and a university campus located at the stop, but then...nothing. A wheat field bordered the wide sidewalk, empty save for me. The next field contained cows! Unbelievable that the city is so small and so compact that you can encounter bovines within walking distance. I assumed that they were somehow affiliated with the school, but the tumbledown shacks adjacent to the road suggested otherwise.

As I continued on, I decided that at some point the Brussels area had done some serious thinking about future expansion plans and had built massive infrastructure to support it, but that time has apparently not yet come. There were a few detached homes sprinkled about and some large car dealerships. A little further on I entered a bedroom community, with houses and a cemetery and more wide, wide roads, but not much else. The whole place was creepily quiet, but it is a 3-day weekend and I'm assuming that most people were out of town. After passing some big box stores (Ikea!) I entered an older area, with row houses sporting tidy front yards and a young family tending a fire in an oil drum in their back yard. Rounding the corner I came upon a decaying campus of some sort (CERIA) surrounded by a fence and shrubbery. The signs seemed to indicate that it was under renovation, but if so they had a long way to go (see the photo). Past this was an attractive canal (unlike the more utilitarian one in town), with pleasure craft motoring up it and the boathouse for kayakers nearby.

After crossing the canal I entered an area with a number of new-looking low office buildings, and then passed under the railroad tracks to arrive at the more urban portion of the community. The railroad bridge was somewhat terrifying to behold, as it was comprised of a series of small brick arches perpendicular to and supporting the track bed. Holding it all up were these decorative metal columns that didn't look like they were very strong. It looked very old and, as a train passed overhead making a low rumbling I could feel in my gut, I quickened my pace so that I wouldn't get crushed under the collapsing structure (surprisingly, it held together). Not having any idea where I was at that point, I kept pushing forward in the general direction of what I thought was the city center and eventually ended up somewhere I recognized. I never made it to the museum, but that's okay; I find that having a destination in mind helps me get motivated to leave the house whether or not the end result is that I go there.

Later on, looking at the map, I found that I had walked right through an area called "Poxcat" and I hadn't even known it.

As a side note to all you sci-fi fans AND bibliophiles, I'm reading "The Poisonwood Bible" right now which is about a missionary family in the Belgian Congo around the time of its independence. Very timely. One of the characters makes reference to "klatu barada nikto", which is very similar to the line that the hero flubbed in "Army of Darkness". I googled it and Wikipedia says that this phrase has been an inside joke for a good many years, showing up in such films as "Tron" and "Return of the Jedi". I never knew. The book is good, too.

Week 1 in the new place has come and gone without any major incidents, aside from a few items that were damaged in the move (which we will hopefully be reimbursed for, since some are essentially vital to our existence: pie dish and popcorn maker) . We've spent a lot of time unpacking and turning boxes into furniture items that we suddenly discovered that we need with the arrival of all our stuff. With any luck these will be replaced by real furniture in the future. The rest of the boxes are stacked to the ceiling so that they effectively block out the majority of the light to the living room. Trash day is Wednesday, though, so we should be rid of them shortly. Unfortunately, this means that I will have to give up my nest. It heats up in there pretty quickly, and all you can hear is the rustle of paper resulting from your breathing. It's very soothing, and it makes me understand why homeless people seem to sleep so much--I mean, how could you NOT sleep under those conditions?

Friday Jack had the day off because Thursday was a holiday (the Ascension) and he switched it. We went to a matinee of "Da Vinci Code". Here's a tip for you: if you're living in a foreign country where you don't speak the language, don't go see an American movie where some of the dialogue takes place in another language, since they will translate it into the language you don't speak, not into English, if they translate it at all. The movie has Latin, Spanish, and a good deal of French, so the only reason we were able to follow it was that we had both read the book. Otherwise it might have been very confusing. My expectations were pretty low so I thought it was not bad.

That evening we went to see Jolie Holland at the old botanical garden. It was an interesting venue, in what would have been the central round section of the glass building usually reserved for the tallest plants (the "rotunda"). A room had been constructed inside so that you couldn't see the sky. Half of the semi-circular space was taken by the stage and the other half by the seating. It was designed for 125 sitting or 250 standing, but that would have made it pretty danged crowded, and since most people were sitting on the risers it was a good thing a huge crowd didn't come. They had beer available next door to the rotunda at a bar, and due to the size of the room it was difficult for someone to slip out, get beers and return without being a distraction to those of us who were trying to watch the show since you had to walk in front of the audience to exit. Would it have been difficult to carve a little nook out of the overly-large stage to facilitate easy beer purchasing? Sadly, we will never know. Jolie sings in a thick, warbling southern accent, but she talks just like the rest of us. It was a strange split-personality thing; I wasn't sure if that was how she learned to sing or if it was an affectation or what.

Saturday we bought some necessaries, such as a free-standing rack for hanging garments and a vacuum, both of which we promptly made use of. The vacuum is made by Daewoo and puts out a nice hot-plastic aroma, which almost makes me believe that we've got a toxic fire going in one of the two non-working fireplaces. It's so homey. I made couscous on for dinner with onions and peppers and pine nuts and it was good to have a home-cooked meal without a lot of pre-processing (I did not, however, make the couscous from scratch). Sunday, the first sunny day in the 60s in like a week, Jack and I went to watch some of his coworkers race in a 20k. There was something like 50,000 people participating, and from our vantage point about 3 km from the start, where we could see the runners milling about and heard the starter pistol go off, a sea of people came surging towards us. It was a little alarming, actually. I kept cheering people on in English, and then realizing the futility of it. Most people were dressed like runners, but there was a waiter in a bow tie carrying 3 bottles of water on a tray, some cavemen, two giant pink babies, etc. All of the people we were supporting managed to make it, in spite of supposedly lackluster training efforts on some of their parts. I got to feel like I was really part of the action when one of the women running passed me her sunglasses to hold. Unfortunately it was already at the 15k point, but I'm sure the reduced weight helped her finish.

Tarragon is "estragon" in French and "dragon" in Dutch, so I kept encountering these bottles of what appeared to be vinegar with "dragon estrogen" in the store. Thankfully I finally remembered to look it up. Crazy languages.

Sunday: move day #2 + 1.

9:00 a.m. We slept surprisingly well, given the curtain fiasco of the previous day and the fact that the mattress was about 4" thick. I woke up with one leg asleep but was otherwise fine. That combined with the chilliness and the fact that there was only one pillow between the two of us (I usually have four and Jack has two), it was almost like camping. After hearing how difficult it was to get things through customs, we went on an extensive search for a grocery store of some size that would be open on Sunday and would carry things we might need, such as paper plates, forks, spoons, etc. It was also time to start building up the food collection. Our survey of the tri-Delhaize area yielded nothing. We ended up getting pastries from Croissant d'Or (surely a play on the nearby area of Toisson d'Or--how droll) and heading back to the homestead for some tea drinking. So we heated up some water in the frying pan and drank out of the tumblers. We haven't come across anyplace that has takeout coffee yet (perhaps the McDonald's is open Sunday morning...).

11:30 a.m. Jack tried to find out how to work the manual-less washer/dryer in our bathroom (a photo of the neighbor's yard from the bathroom window at left). The mop immediately came in handy, as the water supply to the washer was dripping all over the floor and had left a big puddle which was discovered upon stepping in it. We felt great satisfaction in having anticipated such an eventuality by buying the mop. This was quickly dampened when we figured out that the W/D is a W (I don't think this was disingenuousness on anyone's part, but rather miscommunication and lack of familiarity with front-end washers). As the woman who had transported our goods on Saturday had confirmed that I had, indeed, purchased detergent and not fabric softener, we eventually just put some detergent in and set it on "coton - 60" degrees C. There is a digital readout on the washer, and once we turned it on it read 2:30. After one minute we realized that this was the countdown timer. Two hours and thirty minutes to wash a small load of clothes? Sheesh. These front-loading washers may be water-efficient, but they don't skimp on power usage, apparently. The other setting was the spin cycle speed, from 0-1200. Given that we wanted the clothes to be as dry as possible, we set this for 1200. K. had mentioned that the open-top pipe that the flexible drain hose was put into would sometimes overflow, so it was best to leave it in the bathroom sink. Once the rinsing cycle began it pulled the hose out of the sink and onto the floor, necessitating the use of the mop again. Fortunately there is very little water involved so not much spilled. We put it back in its original spot and it was fine.

3:00 p.m. Inaugural showers commence. Given that the kitchen sink hot water stays hot for maybe about 2-3 minutes before going cold again I worried that the shower would do the same. It is actually okay, though, because the heater turns back on once it realizes that you are serious about wanting hot water. Not sure how to deal with this, as it makes things like hand and dish washing less sanitary, but hopefully we can figure it out how to adjust it at some point. It really defeats the point of buying high efficiency appliances when you have to let the water run for such a long time to get the hot to stay on. So there's that for me to be sullen about in case I ever run out of other things.

p.s. The movers called yesterday (Tuesday) and are supposed to deliver our goods today. Because our staircase is narrow and paying for a lift to transport things to our 2nd floor window would be prohibitively expensive for them (we've already settled our bill on the shipment), they are going to bring the boxes onto the ground floor landing, open them, and then walk our goods upstairs. It's kind of like being evicted in reverse: the whole world has the opportunity to see what kind of junk you paid obscene quantities of money to transport. Fortunately, most items should be safely wrapped in paper, although people might wonder why I chose to bring over the purple bridesmaid dress. Hey, you never can tell. (Real answer: I didn't get a chance to go through my closet before the movers showed up).

-s

Saturday: moving day #2.

10:30 a.m. Made some of the Fauchon coffee I had purchased, which was a good way to start what was certain to be a long day. Walked over to the house with a couple of smaller bags with some linens and other random things, thinking we could start organizing before moving in the afternoon (Jack had agreed to purchase the K.'s furniture, as she was moving to the US and it wasn't worth storing or shipping, and most of our large items are being stored). Entered the house and...it was still full of junk everywhere. All we could do was stare. Was this garbage they had left for us to dispose of? Were these the items that they meant for us to keep? We sat for a while in somewhat stunned silence and then headed back to the apartment, leaving our 2 bags behind. Got caught in a downpour on the way, which my umbrella was unable to handle completely successfully. Back at the apartment, I called K.; she indicated that her parents would be back to retrieve the remaining items. I told her we were planning on moving at 2, and she was confident they'd be done by then. I was skeptical, given their prior progress. Drying out and naps ensued.

2:30 p.m. Between the intermittent rainstorms, we managed to cram all our remaining stuff in a tiny car and head over. The house was empty, much to my surprise. Not clean, but at least all the trash and remaining items were gone and we could start making the place our own. K.'s parents had left us: 5 tumblers, 1 tiny coffee spoon, a colander, and a badly scarred frying pan. We went to the grocery store to load up on cleaning supplies and then to the hardware store to see if they had any vacuums. They were out of the cheap one so we got a mop and bucket (came with free nail polish!) and a whisk brush and dust pan. I started cleaning the kitchen while Jack tried to access the internet using the cable modem.

4:00 p.m. It's been chilly here recently, with highs in the low 60s and wind and rain. The apartment was consistently above 80, the one window that opened providing little in the way of ventilation. Here, where the rooms are taller than they are wide, all the heat that we generate must be riding in a thin cloud around the (12 foot? higher?) ceiling. The thermostat says it's 70, but that seems somewhat optimistic. I tried to open the bedroom curtains using the pull cord to get some more light in and they fell out of the ceiling. Sigh. Managed to rig them up so they give us a little privacy from the apartment building on the other side of the block, the back of which faces the back of ours. Jack had the foresight to think that some of our tools would come in handy, so eventually we should be able to re-hang them. They are a strange fabric, kind of a midnight blue of the stuff you might use for the outer layer of a winter jacket. In fact, they remind me of the one I was issued at my last job.

7:30 p.m. Our ride to the party (coincidentally the same woman who helped us only hours ago) arrives. On the drive, our first time out of Brussels proper, we chat about various things and it comes to light that a laptop computer and a book, both mailed from other European countries, took significant amounts of time to arrive: 2 months and 6 weeks, respectively, for having to go through customs. Two months! That's almost unthinkable. I have already begun to think of the movers as some type of uber-professionals, as they will have to deal with the municipality to get the temporary no parking permits, and will probably have to deliver the large boxes through the 2nd storey windows rather than the narrow staircase. "They do this all the time; they know how to handle it," I find myself frequently muttering. Hopefully they can usher our items through customs quickly. Hopefully. Yes.

1:45 a.m. The Eurovision party was great, Jack's colleagues were nice (our hostess let me borrow 4 books!), and the Pizza Hut pizza with white wine really hit the spot. Although I had favored the Maltese to win prior to the start of the program, they really were quite terrible and ended up receiving only a single vote. I would like to think this is because they have no neighbors (other terrible entries got a lot of points), but Israel, inexplicable participants in the contest, received four if I recall correctly. The winners were the Finns. They were the only one who did a straight-up rock song (appropriately entitled "Hard Rock Hallelujah"), and they dressed in wacky GWAR-like outfits that also might have received some inspiration from satan and the Lord of the Rings' orcs. The Lithuanian entry, a catchy ditty with the primary lyrics of "We are the winners...of Eurovision" failed to sway even though they did pretty well. Back at home, I discovered that someone had miraculously thought to pack a blanket, just what was needed for these cool spring nights.

-s

The Eurovision song contest is some kind of cultural phenomenon over here. Everyone seems to have grown up watching it. It's kind of like American Idol only much, much cheesier. The BBC announcer (its broadcast in every nation) appeared to be drunk and made sarcastic remarks about all of the groups. They were all pretty aweful. Then the voting started and it took as long as the singing as they went through each country's votes. I think we perhaps lucked into the first year where groups that didn't take it so seriously actually did well.

It was nice to see that European culture isn't all opera and symphonies.

--Jack

Friday: moving day.

4 p.m. Received an email from the shipper saying our items would arrive at customs on Sunday. No estimate on when they'd be delivered.

8 p.m. We called K., the former renter, to ask her when she'd be able to turn over the keys to us. She had previously mentioned she'd be working late and would not be likely to be available before 9. So we touched base to confirm, and she told us she wasn't going to be out until 10. We could meet her at her office, which was near where we were staying, to sign the remaining paperwork, or meet at her place at 10:30. She wouldn't be ready to leave the house until much later, so she'd come by in the wee hours to drop off the keys. Jack then spoke to his colleague, who had graciously offered to drive us over with our many bags, to tell her we weren't ready. She wasn't feeling well anyway so we arranged to meet her at 2 p.m. Saturday for the move.

10:30 p.m. We went to the house to sign the papers, which would transfer the utilities to us. There was not a lot of evidence of progress. K.'s parents were there as well as a friend, and we stayed for about 1/2 hour so K. could show us how some things worked, but while we were there everybody mostly stood around. I thought they wouldn't be done till 4 a.m. at the earliest. It also looked like they wouldn't be able to fit everything in their van--from experience I know that people always have more stuff than they think they do. K. asked if there were any housewares they could leave with us, and I responded "whatever you can't take with you". I figured that the items she left would be enough to get us through until our shipment arrived. Managed to convince K. to let us take a set of keys with us rather than dropping them off.

11:00 p.m. Arrived back at the apartment, somewhat disheartened by the evening's progress. Had a couple of Marcolini chocolates, which were a present for Jack (thankfully he has shared), and which have flavors like "patchouli and tonka bean" and "pear and oak shavings". Although the former is a little strange on the palate, in general they're very tasty and a bit more distinctive than their more traditional rivals.

--s.

Yesterday I failed to go to the sewer museum (Le Musee des Egouts). Sadly, it's been closed since January for renovations. No expected date of completion was given, but having wandered inside I suspect they have a ways to go. Yes, there was no one to prevent me from going into this active construction site; the one guy who was there was leaving as I entered, probably for his lunch break, and he had left the door open. I could've taken all the drywall I could carry! Being the honest person I am, however, I just went back down and sulked.

The route there is a pretty good cross section of the city as a whole, and it is a direct shot from our neighborhood to the museum. Starting at fashionable upper Avenue Louise, you proceed past the very intimidating Palace of Justice (located on 4 Bras Street), take the elevator down to gentrifying Marolles, and then through the quarter where much of the immigrant population shops and lives. All this while essentially staying on a straight path, although the street has 6 names over the course of about a mile. This particular stretch didn't include any peeing statues, though, and no tour of Brussels can be complete without at least one of those.

I then headed over to the Botanical Garden on the north side of the downtown area. It has some nice outdoor gardens but the greenhouses have been turned into a performing arts venue. It was a decent respite from the business end of the city, although it was surrounded by large buildings on all sides and one of the city's major arteries runs next to it, so you really couldn't lose yourself in it like some of the other larger parks.

Today I continued on my quest to find Afternoon in Paris tea. No place I've been to that's carried Fauchon has had it, for some reason, outside of their only US store in New York. There was a place not too far away that carried Fauchon goods so I went to check it out. The new loose-tea tins are super cool and do a totally radical job of keeping your tea fresh (as the proprieter explained to me in French--or at least that's what I presume he was saying). Alas, no Afternoon in Paris. So I bought something else and told him I'd be back, and he gave me a frequent buyer card! That was after we had switched to English, though; no way would I have been able to figure that out in French. They had some fantastic-looking jarred homemade soups that I need to check out once I get situated. Maybe once we are bosom buddies I can suggest that he get some of my tea.

Tomorrow we move. Jack has secured the car of a woman he works with, which was very generous of her. And then everything's going to be different from the vantage point of 4 blocks SSE of here. I'm sure of it.

-s

Today at work my boss showed up with a new haircut. It made him seem like a little boy.

--Jack

On Saturday went to the old Brussels city slaughterhouses which S. had discovered in her wanderings. It had been abandoned when S. saw it before, but on Saturdays it is teeming with people. It was by far the largest market either of us had ever seen. It was acres of people selling everything from produce to underpants. The best part about it was that a lot of the vendors were trying to lure you by calling out there wares and prices in sing-songy voices.

After that we toured the Cantillon Brewery which is the last operating brewery within the Brussels city limits. The building was ancient and they still make their beer the old-fashioned way. They beer is fermented only with natural air-borne yeasts that filter in through holes in the attic. Unfortunately for us they weren't brewing when we were there because they have to stop from May to September because there are too many bad microorganisms in the air. It was a self-guided tour, so we were pretty much left on our own to wander around the old (possibly haunted) brewery. Then we got to have a couple of glasses (a gueuze and a kriek) on the way out.

Then we checked out the Zinneke Parade--which is possibly the most incomprehensible and insane parade of all time. The theme of the parade was Brussels in the future--or something like that. People marched in all kinds of crazy costumes, for instance from a time when bugs will rule the earth. Another group envisioned a time when tango-dancing kitchen implements will rule the earth. Also it seems there will be a lot of face-painting and drumming in the future. And it's just possible that strange characters riding pink fur bicycles will rule the earth.

--Jack

Also we had a fantastic gyro with Andalusian sauce at the slaughterhouse market. Jack was worried I'd get the meat in the standard unleavened "pitta", which is actually more of a tortilla, but I resisted his efforts to get me to order it with bread, since I have enough trouble ordering off the regular menu and I hadn't actually had the tortilla yet and thought it might be interesting. However, it arrived tucked inside a large circle of fluffy and delicious bread with the top cut off. With a side of fries. Heavenly.

The gueuze beer style is something one must become accustomed to, because it really doesn't resemble other beers much at all and can be quite a shock. Jack had gotten one prior to my arrival that we drank shortly after. The Mannekin Pis is featured on the label of the Cantillon beer, joyfully peeing out what one can only imagine is the gueuze (or perhaps lambic). Initially neither of us liked the flavor, which can only be described as sour, but we managed to finish the entire wine-sized bottle that first evening. So we knew what we were getting into. The kriek, on the other hand, is a different story. We had purchased one of those (perhaps St. Louis brand) during the EU open house, and it tasted kind of like a light beer mixed with cherry kool aid--sweet, but not wine-cooler sweet, and not entirely as refreshing as I would have hoped. The one at Cantillon was very different: the gueuze was dialed up and the fruit dialed down. Another surprise, but not altogether unpleasant.

The best thing about the parade, in my opinion, was that it was composed of the citizens of Brussels, divided into 5 neighborhood groups. Each group had a separate sub-theme and materials they were supposed to focus on (electronics, plastics, natural materials, etc.). Lots of community organizations participated, and there were a lot of kids of all ages. It looked like some of the costumes and other items broke right off the bat, and some of the kids were pooped by the time they got around to us, so you definitely got the sense that it was an amateur production (Jack's photo notwithstanding). One of my favorites was one that my neighborhood participated in, with a gigantic papier mache man sitting on top of the float, drinking water, and, well, creating new water out the other end. It's a cycle that most people don't seem to appreciate as well as they should. Didn't get a photo of it, unfortunately, but did get one of the tangoing toothbrush and whisk.

-s

Tuesday was get-out-and-wander-around day. Actually, most days are get-out-and-wander-around days for me, but the specific intent was to go to a small art museum that the guidebook said was free, and to revisit a park I went to in March to see if it had changed at all in the interim.

First I went to a small park that took up about half a city block that Jack had recommended to me. It had a lot going on for such a small area--lots of plants in bloom, a basketball court, two ponds, a grassy area for picnicking, various secluded nooks with benches. It was very pleasant, especially given that you couldn't hear the traffic from nearby streets in certain spots, just the birds and the shouts of children (who were surely excited about the fact that somehow their truancy from school had gone unnoticed).

Then I crossed over to the Abbaye de la Cambre, which had been a monastery from the 13th century until the French Revolution. Now it houses the National Geographic Institute and the Decorative Arts College, but still maintains the buildings and grounds as if for the former contemplative purpose. There were snow flurries and almost no people last time I was there. Now everything was starting to come to life, although most of the plants are greenery or roses, so there wasn't a lot of flowering. Still not many visitors, however. I took a picture of the same (or perhaps just very similar) amputated tree with and without leaves, and I still don't get the appeal.




From there I headed to the Constantin Meunier Museum, which is housed in the artist's home and is still free, I am pleased to note. He created paintings and sculptures depicting the plight and heroism of the worker prior to the turn of the 20th century, so there's a lot of dark and moody paintings of threshers and miners and the like. The books call him "under-appreciated", and I thought that perhaps this was because he apparently had a singularly unremarkable life, with a wife and four children, building a respectable yet non-descript house once his art began to sell where he lived out his days. It seems that most artists who are popular today have a more interesting life story. My favorite painting was of a factory full of women in Seville making cigarettes; they look like they're making the best of it, smoking and chatting with their neighbors and such. It appeared to be "Bring Your Offspring to Work Day", given the number of children around, but I question whether the infants could really appreciate what their moms were doing. There was another painting that depicted a Good Friday procession where the participants were dressed like members of the KKK, which is the third or fourth time I've seen such an image.

Last on my list was the Bois de la Cambre, a large, woodsy park formerly owned by the Abbey until purchased by the city. I enjoyed the lush greenness that contrasted well with the muddy, dispirited look of early March. There's numerous paths through the park and I took one that lead to a pleasant-looking cafe in a clearing (a theater and roller-skating rink are nearby). I headed towards an open, grassy area thinking I would spend some further time reading the biography of Meunier that had been provided. I found a spot on a protruding root under a large tree. Shortly after my arrival, I was approached by a gentleman in his 50s who asked me what I was reading (after the usual discussion about how I didn't speak French). He then asked me what I was doing in Belgium and I replied, although perhaps not slowly enough for him to catch all the words, that my husband got a job here and so we had moved and I was trying to better acquaint myself with the area and learn French. He then told me he had a French-English phrasebook I could have. I thanked him for his generosity but told him I already had one, and then deciding that my quiet respite was probably over, I started to pack up my things and walk away, telling the man to enjoy the rest of his day. To this he responded, "So do you want to make love?" I said no thanks and continued on my way. Upon further reading I learned that the park has a designated "conversation bench", where a person who wants to chat can sit down and await a second person, and they can discuss whatever. Now I wonder if I had accidentally stumbled upon the "making love tree", in which willing parties link up. Really there should be more signs about this sort of thing.

On the way back I saw an elderly gentleman steal what I hope was a free newspaper that was stuffed halfway into a mail slot. He perused the headlines and then slyly waited for me to pass him on the sidewalk, but it was pretty obvious what he was doing, especially considering that I was only a couple paces away when I heard it being removed. I also saw a crowd of about a dozen people waiting resignedly outside the Indian Embassy's Consulate Services door. I wondered then if India's government, which is notoriously slow and corrupt, had been designed to mimic that of the inefficient government of its European occupiers. But I'll save that story for another day.

-s

Things I've learned thus far from living in a furnished efficiency that I might not have appreciated otherwise (somewhat dark photo showing kitchen on left with toilet room behind the dividing wall, tub and sink through door on right):

1) it is nice when the toilet is not separated from the rest of the bathroom, forcing you to walk all the way around the room to go from the pot to the sink.

2) butter is not a seasoning. While one of my favorite things in life is a grilled cheese on rye, it turns out that butter (particularly the unsalted variety) is just a carrier for the other flavors and allows the bread to crisp properly on the outside. Even a grilled cheese can be improved by the addition of dried garlic chips, which would count as a proper seasoning. But potatoes sauteed in butter, for example, just isn't all that. I've been avoiding buying a lot of foodstuffs so that I don't have to haul it to the new place, but when you think about it a head of garlic, some salt and some olive oil don't really constitute a huge investment in terms of weight. Plus we could probably finish the garlic before moving. And maybe the salt, too. (Full disclosure: I impulse-bought a basil plant the first time I went to the store--an extremely wise investment it turns out.)

3) there's not a lot you can do with 1.5 working burners and a microwave, yet some of our neighbors seem to be here for the long haul. The people next to us have a clothes line, some pot hangers with geraniums in them, and a very large satellite dish on their balcony. How can they stand it?? First, judging by their conversation they're probably Russian spies (cuisine not that great, so they probably microwave a lot and don't care). Second, as with many urban areas, eating out seems to be much more prevalent than it is elsewhere. Third, if in addition to sending secret messages they can pick up better TV on their dish than is available on the cable provided by the hotel then they probably aren't forced to find other things to do, such as attempting to cook good food.

4) I'm probably that greedy American capitalist pig everyone's always talking about. While generally speaking I try to only buy things that I know I can use, try to eat in season and locally, and be responsible about my purchases, the lack of beverage options is hurting. Whereas usually I have a couple bottles of wine, beer, various liquors and liqueurs, filtered water, carbonated water, tap water, orange juice, coffee, and perhaps some soda or kool aid or whatnot available to me at any given time, in addition to an almost infinite variety of tea, here I have tap water, refrigerated tap water, OJ, one wine and/or beer, coffee, orange pekoe tea, and scotch. Somehow this is seriously inadequate, verging on criminal. I look forward to the arrival of my tea collection so I can have a tall glass of mango iced tea, slightly sweetened, using the kind C. & M. brought me back from the islands. Or a gigantic pot of colonille vanilla, with a second steep available upon request.

It will be obvious to the casual reader that most of these observations are food-related.

-s

A lot of the apartments here advertise that they have American kitchens ("cuisine americaine equipee"). I never knew what it meant other than that the kitchen actually came with appliances, which isn't always the case here. I asked a guy at work about it the other day. He said he didn't know what it meant, but I should know since I'm an American. I said, "Where I come from we just call the kitchens." He then suggested that maybe it meant "American sitcom kitchen"--one that's open to the other room so there can be banter between the mother cooking away while he father sits and reads the paper.

We're moving on May 20, so all will be set right then.

-Jack

On Sunday we went to Fete de l'Iris which was half psychedelic carnival for the kids and half jazz festival. We started off by attending a concert of a guy who was billed as the Belgian Django Reinhardt. It was actually a couple of guys playing acoustic guitar in a small theater. We walked in late and had to lean up against the wall. After a couple of songs we shifted position slightly. In the process I managed to hit a lightswitch with my elbow and bring up all of the house lights. I then pushed another button to try to turn them back out, which worked but only for a second and then they cam back on again. Eventually after a bit of frantic random button pushing I was able to restore the theater to darkness. One of the guitarists made some kind of comment about it--but we have no idea what he said. After the next song we made a discreet exit. My embarrassment was eased by the free glass of wine they were offering downstairs.

We took a break from the festival for a while and S. showed me some of the sights she had discovered during the week. Later in the afternoon we caught a few excellent groups playing in this really cool tent that was impressively set up like a jazz club in the middle of one of the city squares. Complete with table service of delicious Belgian beers.

--Jack

There was a young girl, perhaps 6, at the acoustic guitar concert who was obviously the daughter of one of the performers. She sat on the stage with them on a small stool most of the time. At various points she got up and looked out the windows behind the stage that looked down onto a courtyard below, wandered around aimlessly, and whispered to her father between songs. He was very patient with her, and on the one hand I thought it was cool that he would bring her with him to "work", but on the other it was somewhat distracting. Probably the most exciting thing for her was when the house lights came up unexpectedly thanks to Jack.


Following that was kind of a hippie big band/marching band featuring dreadlocks and a banjo, neither of which are common for either genre as far as I know. I love a good marching band, but as I was just getting into it, following the bass drum down the street and waving at the people on the sidewalks (there was not a huge crowd yet, not that that would've stopped me), they finished their set.

After wandering around to see my previously-visited sites, we stopped at the Grand Cafe, which is one of those places that is done up elaborately in the old-school style inside but is also somewhat of a tourist trap. It was across the street from the only McDonald's I've seen so far, if you know what I mean. After a somewhat unremarkable meal, I headed down to the basement to use the bathroom. At the bottom was a T intersection, with the men's room on the left and the women's on the right. Also at the bottom was the elderly "bathroom attendant", who insisted that I give her 30 cents before entering the bathroom. Having explained to her using the international sign that I didn't have any change (patting the pockets), she shrugged as if to say what's it to me, and when I went to pass her she repeated her demand in a sharper tone. So I went back up and got it from Jack. As I think tips are based on a job that's been done, and she didn't do anything for me (aside from yanking on the locked door when I didn't come out of the stall quickly enough and there were people waiting), I was quite miffed. I theorized that she had installed herself down there by sheer force of will and was not actually a member of the restaurant staff, but they couldn't make her leave for some reason--maybe squatter's rights. It was a very charming Old World scene of perseverance.

-s

Saturday was the EU Parliament open house, in which you could go in all the EU buildings and view the cubicle of your local representative and get a bunch of informative handouts on just about any topic. This year's theme was "mobility" and the featured countries that were battling full-out for the right to join the EU were Romania and Bulgaria (mostly using hand-to-hand combat, but also free wine tastings, beauty pageants and bribery (all culturally correct means of garnering votes in those countries, mind you)). There were also people sauntering around in traditional garb of various nationalities, booths for regional foods, music, art, tourism, kids' activities, etc. The whole thing was huge and spread out over many parks and city streets. Most of it was unintelligible, although I did get a sticker protesting GMOs (which is OGM in French, but I was cleverly able to figure out what it meant). I had been making jokes about why the US hasn't yet joined the EU, and then we passed a booth for the special delegation from the province of Quebec, so maybe those guys are angling to be the first Western Hemispherians to be admitted. I think we Americans need to consider giving them a run for their money--we are, after all, number one.

We got a sausage sandwich from one vendor of Italian goods, and then went back for some churros, which are apparently a regional specialty of Catalonia. Thank god for the Catalonians and their deep fried delicacies! I thought Taco Bell had invented those things. There was a coot in a nest in the middle of the pond in Leopold Park (in case you were wondering, about 1/2 of the places here have some Leopold association) where we ate lunch. It was like a mini beaver dam that didn't hold any water back. While we were eating, the male came to relieve the female on the nest, and she went off to find some food or stretch her legs or something. It was a very touching scene of the division of domestic labor, although the male could be heard muttering under his breath about maybe not coming back AT ALL the next time he went out for a pack of smokes.

After lunch there was more fair to visit. There was one section that was devoted to the handicrafts of the Belgians. Many were similar to vendors everywhere at these types of events, with chunky jewelry, scarves, etched glass, turned wood shaped like toadstools, etc., etc. However, one booth featured taxidermy, and I was morally obligated to get a photo of this lovely naturalistic scene. In case you were wondering, the bunny is NOT riding the deer. Who's ever heard of such a thing occurring in the wild?

-s

Yesterday was my first experience with the public transit system. Brussels has subway, tram and bus systems, which all accept the same card that you must purchase and validate before riding. I wanted to ride out to an area of town (conveniently referred to as "Brussels II--The Comeback" on my map) where there is a giant swath of green in the middle of which lives the royal family. The farecard machine was a little confusing at first, until I realized how similar it is to the voting machines in Alexandria. So I got a card good for 5 rides and was on my way (I think I might have also voted to separate Flanders into Wallonia into autonomous European states--wasn't too sure about that bit).

The Metro system wasn't difficult to navigate once I was in it. With my multitude of maps I was able to assist a young man from Antwerp in finding the location of his dermatologist's office and getting him on his way. The royal gardens were a bit of a disappointment given that they were largely hidden behind a high brick wall topped by barbed wire, which for some reason they fail to mention in the guidebook. However, it was in a park-y district, so I just went to another, less fortress-like area directly across the street. I saw the Atomium, one of those crazy buildings you find scattered about the planet which were put up for some World's Fair or Expo or something and which are frequently rounder or more spherical than normal buildings, which is currently being restored to its former shiny glory (here's a self portrait--I'm the bright dot in the center). Had lunch near these musical sculptures, one of which was very lulling as the water dripped on various lengths of closed pipes, creating muted tones. Visited the monument to King Leopold I, which had a pretty boss stone spiral staircase up the back. People were probably wondering why I was photographing the wrong side of the monument, as the statue was obscured from my perspective.

Down the hill from here was the Royal Homestead. I saw that they were letting people onto the grounds so I figured I might wander around a bit and maybe I'd bump into His Royal Highness and could ask him to intercede on behalf of the Americans unhappy with the current administration. Maybe he'd agree to stage an intervention or something. But no, they get you all the way in there (like a 1/4 mile walk) an THEN they hit you with the 2 Euro charge. I decided, partly out of laziness and partly out of a herd mentality, to go ahead and pay the fee since it wasn't too outrageous. Where did I end up? The spectacular royal greenhouses, which are open a short time each year when everything is in bloom. It was pretty awesome. There were acres and acres of indoor plantings of palms, ferns, begonias, fuchsias, geraniums, hydrangeas, and on and on. Part of the tour was outside, so you could see the beautiful yet inaccessible lakes shown on the map. There was a ton of extremely elderly people, forcing me to walk at a pleasantly contemplative pace. Probably for the best. There was a bathroom with an attendant in a black and white uniform...probably the King in disguise out to hear what the commoners were saying about him these days. Also, at the gift shop, among the various items featuring plants, were some postcards of family portaits of the royals. One appeared to have been taken circa 1989 at a JC Penny's in a mall somewhere--it just had that vibe.

I took the tram back, which was noteworthy both for its extreme slowness and stifling lack of ventilation. It was recommended as a way to get around town while getting a chance to see the sites, but good viewing can only occur if you get a seat (since the windows stop at approximately eye level when standing), and since the cars are so narrow there aren't a lot of seats to go around. Part of the ride was underground, and the tram stopped in the tunnel for prolonged periods and the airlessness became more airless when there wasn't even a breeze from outside to get in. This in spite of the fact that all the windows were open, but I think since they're all on one side no cross-ventilation could occur. Perhaps I'll give it another chance when (a) it isn't in the 70s and sunny, and (b) it's not during the afternoon rush.

Oh, and "boulevard" means "avenue" and vice versa. Crazy!

I went north and west of the city center on Tuesday, an area seemingly indifferent to the tourism trade. There were some great-looking shops and other sites, including a large variety store that appeared to sell everything from clothes to housewares to industrial meat slicers as well as hoagies and a building labeled something like "Pest Elimination School". I went by the slaughterhouse, which to my surprise is actually still a slaughterhouse. I had no idea, given the complete lack of offensive odors. From a quick web perusal, it looks like they had to go modern to get approval of the European Commission to export, and this was followed by a fire 9 years ago which resulted in more modernization. I visited the canal, Brussels' only waterway since they enclosed their river for the purposes of sewage conveyance. It was tiny, with space for just two boats to pass with only inches between them. Two abreast (one named "I Love You" in English) were passing through a lock as I went by, and the one kept bumping the other and the wall of the canal as it exited.

There's tons of places around that bear further exploration, including the building across the street from the John the Baptist Church that had not coats of arms on it but coats of hairstyles throughout history. They started with the hairstyles of the ancient Greek goddesses and went right up through the 1920s, with dates included where appropriate (no dates were given for the goddesses' hairstyles, because, let's face it, they're timeless). (There were no hairstyles given for the first 1600 years of the Common Era--this was known as the Dark Ages for hair salons everywhere.) Not sure what happened after the Roaring '20s, whether hair styling became so uncomplicated that it wasn't worth discussing ("Le Bob - 1930" just doesn't have the same cachet) or they ran out of space on the wall. The building looked like it was gutted inside, so hopefully they're remodeling it rather than tearing it down. Across the street was a piece of the city wall and turret that had been uncovered in the 1950s, which is surrounded on 3 sides by a much taller building. I can just see Rapunzel leaning out her window to see if she can spot Prince Charming's imminent rescue, when he calls out to her from 10 stories above in his bachelor pad with a hottie on each arm: "Up here, baby! Bring some Courvoisier when you get out!"

--s

I went to work all day and sat at a desk.

--Jack

Entree, pates, legumes.

All words you think you know the definitions of, since they were imported as-is from the French. But no, they really mean appetizer, pastas, and vegetables, respectively. As if there aren't enough ways to confuse us non-French speakers, there seems to be this sub-set of words that we picked up a little bit wrong, as if we just didn't hear correctly when we were told what they meant. A nation-wide game of telephone was involved, perhaps, leading to great miscommunications. Probably the French and Indian War resulted from something like this. I'm sure there are others that I'll encounter as time goes on.

It rained and hailed yesterday, and sprinkled today. Didn't do much today besides go to the movies and research utilities that needed to be cancelled. Yesterday we went to the big flea market in town (in the gentrifying Marolles district) and looked at all the junk people were trying to pass off as treasure. I could have really enhanced my record collection. I'm trying to hold off buying anything until we get established in our new digs so I don't end up having to move more stuff than I arrived with, but it's tough. There was a trio on one side of the market playing saxaphone, accordion and upright bass (amplified via megaphone), doing that kind of french-infused jazz reminiscient of the soundtrack from "Triplets of Bellville". It was pretty awesome. We had some so-so lasagne in a art nouveau bar on the Sablon, but it was a neat setting.

--s


Regular adults probably don't find this sort of thing as funny as I do.

--Jack