Springtime in Belgium...last week it hovered near 80 degrees for 4 days. It hasn't rained at all in weeks and weeks. This isn't at all what it was like last year, but I'm not complaining. Well, not about the weather at any rate.

While Appalachia has ramps, garlicky greens that sprout in spring and are consumed by the local community, Western Europe has ramsons, essentially the same thing. First we noticed the aroma as we crushed it underfoot in a park in one of the communes to the NW of the city, and shortly thereafter (in the park across the street) we saw an interpretive sign indicating that it was "l'ail des ours", or bear's garlic. It was blanketing the ground and crowding out any other life forms in this second park, and putting up a pleasantly biting aroma when disturbed. I didn't find out it was edible until we arrived home and I did some research. The next time we tramped around in the woods, this time to the south of the city, I made sure to bring my pocket knife for collecting purposes, because who's going to notice that the amount sufficient for pesto has gone missing, and sure enough there was none in this park.

Here's a photo of Jesus on a hilltop in the garlicky park. Jesus has taken the gold, while a towel draped on a chair receives the silver. Congrats, Son of God!

Sunday by all accounts started simple enough: walk to the park for a drink at the cafe there. So we made our way out into the world.

The first stop was by a row of carriage houses that fronted the street--fairly unusual for this area, where most garages are built into the ground floor in the front of the residence. There was one that had brown vines growing down the front of it, not yet leafed out, and cropped straight across above the entrance. The place looked for all the world like Moe from the Three Stooges. Nice.

Arriving at a side entrance to the park, I noticed that a building next door was having an open house. I thought the company might have something to do with our water service, so I convinced Jack to take a look. Sure enough, it was the company that provides water to the Brussels region.

We went in and they immediately started chattering at us and handing us folders of information. We indicated that we couldn't understand, and they got someone who spoke a healthy amount of English. They said that they were having tours of the laboratory facilities, something they did only once every five years, for their clients. Since we just pay a certain portion of the bill that our landlord receives, we never heard anything about it. We got a personalized tour by a woman who runs one of the lab stations.

It was an interesting tour, much of which was familiar to me. They seem to do testing of all the normal and some unusual constituents, such as radioactive fallout. They alternately treated us like water quality professionals, answering my detailed questions about the analyses, and like consumers, telling us that water hardness wasn't dangerous to our health. By the end, we were pretty sure that they believed that we were spies of some sort, as they were much more defensive than they should have been. We kept insisting that we just happened upon it on our way to the park, but even to me that sounds fishy. But it was nice that they were so open about what they were doing--with all the fears of terrorism and theft, I don't see any of the labs in the DC area letting the general public in. It probably helped that the lab was off-site rather than at a treatment facility.

At the end of the tour, we saw that they had converted the break room to a reception area, where tap water and coffee were available. Since we really were on our way to the park, we declined the invitation from our tour guide to sit and drink. However, the woman monitoring the reception area caught up with us on our way out and again asked if we wanted a beverage. We again said no, and she insisted that we each take a to-go bottle of delicious tap water. Our water at home is pretty gross and extremely hard, but if you go a couple streets away in either direction they get it from a different source (presumably because each of the communes originally produced their own water before it was consolidated under one roof), and so the bottled tap water was much tastier than what arrives at our faucets. Thankfully.

Then over to the park, where the groundcovers are taking advantage of the fact that the trees are still mostly dormant, producing a riot of tiny blooms. The cafe, alas, hadn't yet opened for the season, but I considered it a victory that I even found it, since the winding paths mostly circumvent the area and I visited the park several times before coming upon it. So we'll have to go back.

Exiting the park in a different location, we encountered two brick water towers. The doors at the base were open so we went in. The structures had been put out of service and repurposed as art galleries. They didn't seem to be making effective use of the space, although they could have if there had been more vertically-oriented art, but it was nice that the towers weren't torn down.

Using a hand-me-down map from 1989, I pointed us in the direction of some other green spots on the map. Observatory: closed to the public. Chateau Zeecrabbe: closed to the public, occupied by Russians. One day I'm going to find a more recent version of the same map (which is a good one because it covers more territory than most), and hopefully they'll have straightened all this out. [Update! They have not distinguished between public and private green space on the newer map!]

Verdict: Sunday was probably not stranger than Saturday, but it had its own charms.

Another weekend that practically defies explanation: 3/24-25.

Saturday we went to CERIA, a trade school (and yet so much more) that was having an open house. I wasn't sure if it was more for people considering enrolling or everyone, but there were all kinds of tempting items in the announcement, so we had to check it out. Plus I had been intrigued by it since I first came across it (as described here). What was it? Why did it look abandoned yet under renovation? It was time to find out.

Disciplines covered at some level that we saw or were mentioned:
- chocolate, candy, pastry, bread, other food making
- chemistry, including beer making, odors, and paint
- microbiology
- hotel school
- phys ed
- floral arts
- photography
- decorative food arts: swans out of vegetables, inedible sugar sculptures, full-size landscapes of fruit
- and so on.

There were young people in black suits and red ties passing out brochures at the front gate, looking like they were straight out of an MTV video from the 80s. We followed the flow of traffic into a building containing a room filled with chocolate sculptures, including this full-size depiction of Einstein in a classroom of chocolate (the theme of the open house was "Alimentary, my dear Einstein!" ["Alimentaire, mon cher Einstein!"]). Then we went up the stairs and saw some chocolate making, and were offered the meltiest chocolate ever--your fingers just oozed right on in. Very sloppy eating. After some soft-serve ice cream, marshmallows and caramels, the latter of which we bought after sampling (after all, we are not total mooches), we went on and saw some bread making. They put the dough in a machine called a roller to make...rolls. It was pretty cool: the guy pus a loaf-sized piece of dough on a plate in there and pulls down the outsized handle (like one for an olde-tyme water pump) to close it. The thing vibrates around wildly for a few seconds, and the plate comes out with a bunch of perfectly formed spheres. Rad.

There was a room where a woman was making delicate sugar hearts as if they were blown glass. There was a corridor full of breads made into crustaceans. There was a waffle stand. Jack bought a waffle and we lumbered off to the building across the street. I'm not sure how the skills taught in this one differed from the first, except that they were making more complicated foods there: quiches and cakes and tarts and such. I had a bite of tuna served on a spoon, like an amuse bouche in a fancy restaurant.

Then we wandered off the beaten path and visited the chemistry/biochemistry building. Whereas the other parts were full of people of all ages buying delicious treats, this one seemed to contain only prospective students. We went up to one lab where they offered us a bite of whipped cream mixed with coconut, and then dipped into liquid nitrogen for an instant freeze. That's lab safety for you. That particular room was dedicated to odors, and they claimed to have solved a problem that Chimay was having with off aromas in their beer. We went into the microbiology lab and the guy went through his spiel in French, which was okay since many of the techniques were familiar. Then...the Paint Lab. Man, could that kid talk. It's not that his discussion (in English) of the vagaries of paint adherence and color matching wasn't interesting, but. There. Was. No. Food.

Downstairs was the beer lab, where another talk in French netted us a glass of pilsner. Since most of the group was leaving as we were arriving, we got singled out for some extra attention with an explanation of the beer ingredients, not too difficult to understand since we knew what everything was. At the end, in French, the woman asked if we had any questions. We said no, she seemed to think this was inadequate, so I added "C'est bon," and she said "C'est bon? Bleh, bleh, bleh". I don't know what. But at least she left us alone then.

After that, we mainly wandered around and saw the rest of the campus, and saw people swimming in the pool, checked out a photo exhibit and some other decorative arts, mostly trying to avoid being talked to or at. Many of the exhibits were shutting down at this point, as it was towards the end of the day. On the way out there were two giant bins of apples, and as a parting gift, the school offered one per person. I took my one while the woman next to me filled her shopping bag.

We wandered around the southern part of Anderlecht, the commune where I've increasingly come to conclude that everything interesting takes place, and then caught the metro home. As perhaps mentioned, all the metro stops have different art in them. This one had a colorful flying craft.

Sunday: even weirder?

There was an article in the weekly English-language magazine that described a company near Brussels that had constructed some buildings to show us what the future will look like. There's a house that is clad in a skin of metal slats that helps control the internal light and temperature. Sounds like a good idea! They haven't really focused on how life will improve for the average denizen of Belgium, though. My crystal ball predicts that life will be radically different for Belgians in the future. Changes may include:

+ Window screens. This major technological advance keeps flying insects from entering the house, and in particular mosquitoes can't get in and bite your face while you sleep.

+ Extended store hours. While this revolutionary idea isn't exactly "state-of-the-art", it would allow working people to shop for groceries at their leisure rather than cramming the aisles between 7-8 in the evening, pushing through the crowds with a half-crazed gleam in their eyes. It might cause a drop in revenue for the restaurant trade (and, in fact, they might be the shadowy cabal behind this conspiracy), but if restaurants themselves offered better food and/or service (newsflash: it is not a good business plan to open a middling Italian restaurant 2 doors down from a middling Italian restaurant), perhaps even takeout or (gasp!) delivery, they'd probably be fine. [This is not to say that there aren't good restaurants here; there are plenty, but there's also a lot of really terrible ones that are probably a front for the criminal underworld. How else would they stay open and yet remain always ominously empty?]

+ Street signs. This safety innovation specifies exactly who has the right of way at intersections. Ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking the law, but ignorance also causes accidents. UPDATE: Belgium recently passed a law that cars driving the wrong way down a one-way street do NOT have the right of way when entering traffic from the right. This is a step in the right direction!

+ Clean sidewalks free of multiple tripping hazards. I don't get the old-world charm of small paving stones and dog poop. I'd rather have clean, hazard-free concrete. Press in some patterns if you like to stare at squares. They make some really nice sidewalks out of recycled tires, for those who are ecologically conscious. For those who like to stare at turds, I got nothing.

+ Hoverbikes, Star-Trekky outfits, talking computers, gelatinous super-foods in tiny packets, all the normal Epcot-y stuff.

I know this is a radical vision, and it will take time and money and perseverance to achieve, but if Belgium wishes to enter the 21st century at long last, then they're going to have to make some changes around here.

Weekend in review.
(3/3 - 3/5 was the arts fest known as BRXLBRAVO, where €10 gives you entry into dozens of places around town [many of which normally charge admission] as well as free public transport for the whole weekend.)

Friday
0. Swung by ISELP to see their photo exhibit and they weren't open yet, even though they were supposed to be.
1. Went to Place Royale and saw the giant sandwich board entitled "Dear Prudence". It was up, but all was still very quiet.
2. Down the hill to check out the genetically-modified strawberries in "Strawberry Fields", but they were absent. I thought maybe the kids in the orange hats were supposed to be representative of the strawberries, which is not that far-fetched once you get to know these European arts fests, but it soon became clear that they were merely a tour group.
3. Went to the bookstore and purchased "Germs, Guns and Steel".
4. Gave directions to 2 groups of people in French. I hope they got where they were going.
5. Went to the Asian grocery and got Assam tea for Jack and shrimp chips for me.
6. Saw the maze set up in Place St. Catherine, but didn't go in for fear that the cluster of people outside it was just waiting for someone to get up the nerve to check it out, at which point they'd pounce and get all performance-arty on them.
6. At La Centrale Electrique, viewed a wonderful exhibit of photos by African artists of all nationalities. It was large but not overwhelming and very well put together.
7. Over in St. Gilles, checked out the "moving portraits" installed on the glass of a storefront.
8. Got home in time for lunch. I was wiped out.
9. Took a break in the mid-afternoon to take a look at the architectural installation at Flagey--it appeared as if the plastic houses were still getting their finishing touches.
10. Convinced Jack to visit the plastic houses a second time in the dark, but there wasn't much more to look at.
11. Ate pizza.
12. Bed.

Saturday
1. Went to ISELP again. The exhibit was small, and the photos were behind tables in a cafe, so it was difficult to see them without getting in people's faces.
2. Back to the giant sandwich board. Now they had a bunch of mattresses piled at the bottom, and the ladder up to the top was open. People seemed to be enjoying the view from the top, but no one got up the gumption to jump while we were there.
3. The GM strawberries were hung, but sadly were not that interesting.
4. Across the street, the music museum was hosting a display of an "interactive room". It was small, interesting, and strange, but we mainly were awed by their collection of mundane and bizarre instruments (mechanical people on a player piano are shown). We didn't spend much time there, due to our punishing arts schedule for the weekend, but we'll be back.
5. Stopped by Pierre Marcolini to pick up some chocolates.
6. We almost missed "Cars and Composers" in Place Poelaert because of the distraction of the music museum, but we caught the tail end: souped-up hot rods blasting classical music. Some of the car owners had already gotten bored with the concept and had rolled up the windows so as to enjoy their own choice of tunes.
6.5 Took the tram from one stop to the next because we could.
7. Over to Molenbeek to see if we could catch up with one of the parades, but we were too late. And, by this point, starving. We wandered around for a while until our next event started.
8. Encountered a playground with all handmade equipment--the swingsets featured giant cutlery and fried eggs, one could climb on a turtle's back for a vantage point about 2 feet off the ground, and there was a hand protruding out of the ground, holding a knife, cutting a piece of cheese. If only the Belgian children realized how hilarious this was!
9. To the Molenbeek community center, which was hosting a trippy art exhibit as well as dancing and drumming demonstrations for kids. Jack was accosted by mimes while I was in the bathroom, which is apparently his greatest fear, and then on to...
10. Pancake Fest! Pancakes from around the world. Stuffed with potatoes and deep-fried from Tunisia; stretched to windowpane-thinness, refolded and pan-fried from Morocco; nearly-American from Russia (except toppings were jam, honey, concentrated sugar in a tube and/or cream); Breton crepes from France filled with cheese, greens, egg and mushrooms; dry buckwheat pancakes from Belgium topped with brown or powdered sugar; quesadillas from Mexico with homemade guacamole; and blinis. They only charged us one euro each for all this! The Russian women apparently thought Jack looked too thin, because they forced an extra one on him when he came by to borrow some cream for a Moroccan 'cake. As nothing ever, ever starts on time here, we got there a few minutes after the appointed hour and they hadn't really gotten the system down yet. But the first wave of people were the cheap young ones who typically show up at places featuring free or low-cost food. I commented to Jack afterwards that, had it been in DC, we probably would have at least recognized someone, since the same group of people seems to travel from one low-cost event to the next. Later came the people with children and others from the community who had a greater bond to the place and to each other. Everything about it was fab except the timing--we were supposed to arrive at a friend's house for dinner in another 3 hours!
11. Got on the train for the ride to Rixensart. At the second stop, the car filled with 8 year old scouts. The ones that sat at our seat were playing an elaborate version of "Pierre, Papier, Ciseaux" (rock, paper, scissors) in which one kid would show his hands first and then the other, and then the first would react in some comical fashion. Like kids everywhere, they were drawn to Jack and were showing off for his benefit. About 10 minutes into this display, the ringleader caught a bit of our conversation and discovered that we weren't speaking French. This caused a lot of sideways glances like we were some kind of talking animals. He tried to play it off as if everything was still cool, which was going fine until Jack sneezed, and the boy's eyes flew open and he stared at Jack as if he had suddenly sprouted a second head. It was pretty funny.
12. We arrived at our destination and managed to consume our meals without exploding, even though it included individual cheesecakes, birthday cake, and cloudberry and lingonberry liqueurs. The chocolates were a big hit. We kept an eye out for the lunar eclipse as we listened to old-school tunes from Cat Stevens and Sly and the Family Stone. I had promised everyone that the moon was going to be a spectacular blood-red, but apparently NASA was only predicting what it would look like in the US. We did see it, but it was just the regular color. Towards the end there was kind of a brownish cast over it, but that might have been more wishful thinking than anything else.
13. Ride home.
14. Bed.

Sunday
1. Up early with no breakfast aside from coffee to go to the Horta Pavilion to see the "Human Passions" bas-relief and listen to a concert. We got there a few minutes before the start and were surprised to discover the place wasn't packed. The sculpture was lovely and in good condition considering that it had been cooped up in the decaying building for the last hundred years. The string trio played a selection of short pieces by Bach, and it was great to sit in the front row and experience the intensity of the performers.
2. Breakfast and people-watching in the Galleries St. Hubert.
3. Visit to the 13th century archaeological excavation under the Place Royale featuring an earlier palace, road, church, and assorted other buildings. We've wanted to go there for some time, so this was a good opportunity since it was essentially free. It was interesting to see how the area had changed over time.
4. We had only visited the merest fraction of the things set up for the weekend, and only about half of the items I flagged as worth checking out, and it was still early afternoon, but we were wiped out and our brains were full of new information that needed to be processed, so it was time to call it a day.
5. Washington Post, lounging, napping in some cases.
6. Dinner.
7. Bed.

We finally met our downstairs neighbors, due to the fact that we had locked ourselves out of our apartment. What began as an idea to go pick up some beer ended with our wallets lightened by €114.

As soon as Jack closed the door to our place, he turned to me and said "Do you have your keys?" Turns out I hadn't thought to grab them. Neither had he. As we hadn't yet exited the building, we woefully made our way downstairs to see if the people below us were home. Thankfully they were, and they were kind enough to let us use their phone and impose on them for a half hour while we waited for the guy to show up. Their place is much nicer than ours, probably due to the fact that they own more than secondhand trash and Ikea furniture. I told them they were welcome to lock themselves out of their place and hang out with us at any time, but they had to give us a half hour's advance notice.

When the locksmith finally showed up, he was, naturally, a burly tattooed guy who looked like a criminal who had been convinced to go straight at some point. He pulled out the tools of his trade, sorted through them for the perfect implement, and came up with...a piece of plastic. Essentially he used a credit card to jimmy our lock open. It was actually a bit more flexible than a credit card, and he sprayed a little WD-40 on it, but the technique was the same as in the movies. We jokingly said that we'd have to try that ourselves next time we locked ourselves out, and he countered defensively that it was a special kind of plastic and we wouldn't be able to do it. Thankfully our main front door is a bit more secure.

One blustery Sunday in February we made our way over to the Antoine Wiertz museum. This guy did some of the most epic and ghoulish paintings from the 19th century as I've ever seen, many with strongly moralistic themes: a woman who went crazy with hunger and chopped up her infant for the stew pot; people shooting their own or others' heads off; a woman vainly preening in a mirror while the devil leers at her; and a monumental work entitled "Last Thoughts and Visions of a Decapitated Head". Not terribly subtle, but interesting. He was also somewhat of an eccentric, rejecting Paris as the center of artistic thought and re-envisioning it as a suburb to the new artistic capital of Brussels. He also did away with oils in many of his works in favor of a recipe of his own creation that gave his paintings a more matte appearance. While the pieces done in oil are well-preserved, the other works are slowly reverting to darkness, like Polaroids in reverse. He somehow scammed Belgian government into housing and displaying his art in perpetuity, and it's clear from the water stains on the deteriorating paintings and other signs of disrepair that they've resented the imposition ever since.

It's true what they say about waffles: indoor ones are better than outdoor ones. Why is that? If you buy one from a van or stand with no seating, they're sweet and dense. My teeth practically hum their displeasure at me. If you get one in a restaurant, they're significantly less sweet and airier. Is this because you can't keep eggs fresh in a vehicle? Is there some Guild of the Wafflers that has a code of conduct specifying the exact ingredients to be used by the different purveyors? I'll have to look more closely at the symbols on the guildhalls in the Grand Place to see if any includes the telltale cross hatch of the Wafflers. Maybe I can infiltrate their ranks by flashing their gang sign--three fingers of both hands overlapping each other at right angles--and blow the cover off their whole nefarious operation.

Things we learned in French class last week.

+LOL = MDR (mort de rire, dead of laughing)
+not to be confused with MDF (mort de froid, dead of cold)
+which might be more likely to occur if you are SDF (sans domicile fixe, homeless)

How any of this is relevant to my ability to get by in Brussels is unknown. If I could just learn the phrase "We are collectively paying you over €70 per hour for the privilege of being here so could you please stay on topic" I'd probably be all set. But until that day comes, I'll be learning things such as that a one-legged person is known as a "unijambiste".

On Saturday we went to a party where a cute 5 year old boy was doing the hair of all the women. By "doing the hair" I mean he would drag a comb through it regardless of obstacles, not very enjoyable when one has not really done a thorough job of brushing one's hair that day. At any rate, he came around to me and started combing, and was making some hairstylist's banter, consisting of "do you speak French?" I replied "a little", but it was startling that he addressed me in the familiar form, even though we had never met or spoken before. I was under the impression that that just wasn't done! Maybe for children the rules are different. How bewildering. The exchange was soon over, and after I swept the large mass of hair on the cushion behind the couch, I spent the some time with his 1.5 year old brother, who was terrified of the small dog belonging to the owners. He and I could communicate more equally, and essentially our dialogue consisted of me saying "c'est bon" everytime he started freaking out about the dog. It was very effective.

January started out full of drear, with illnesses all around. Jack even took the highly unusual step of taking a day off work to recuperate! Practically unheard of. In spite of this, we managed to start our French class and begin readjusting to life in Brussels. It was tough to get back in the groove, though: I forgot to apologize in French to people I nearly impaled with my umbrella on the street, and I got turned around three times on my walk to class on the first day. Apparently being away and speaking English for two solid weeks takes its toll.

Much to my chagrin, I purchased a 5-lb. cookbook while I was at home. I had a gift card I needed to take advantage of before I left, but didn't want to purchase anything that I might otherwise receive for Christmas. Nearly all of my cookbooks were relegated to storage to decrease the weight of the goods being shipped when we moved here, and I was desperate for some fresh ideas. The one I bought is by Bittman and contains his favorite international recipes. The very first recipe I tried in the midst of the winter blahs was for Caribbean plantain soup, which contained a mere 5 ingredients. I had to make a special trip to the African quarter to get the plantains in a small shop that seemed primarily to feature dried, smelly fish, but it was definitely worth it. The soup was hearty and satisfying, thickened by the grated plantains until it was nearly (but not quite) gelatinous, with a kick from limes and cayenne. Truly a revelation.

Weather has generally been gray and damp and in the upper 40s, but one day there was a terrible wind storm (for some reason the German meteorologists felt it was worthy of a name, "Cyril") with gusts locally up to 100 kph (and 160 kph elsewhere) that resulted in a number of deaths across the continent and some downed trees and a toppled statue in Brussels. There was little evidence of damage in our neighborhood, if you don't include my umbrella's loss of another pin (and subsequent gain of another paperclip). Since I acquired the umbrella secondhand in 1991, I try to maintain it in working condition. More recently, the weather has turned colder for the first time and we had flurries!

On a squally Saturday, we finally got around to checking out the Porte de Hal (Jack prefers the Dutch name "Halleport"), the last remaining gate to the city that comprised part of the second ring wall enclosing Brussels. It is being used as a museum, and they had an exhibit of life in rural Morocco. The artifacts were interesting, but the space itself was the real draw. There was an elaborate spiral stone staircase framed by stained glass windows (through which the photo above, showing the Atomium and Basilica in Martian-miniature, was taken) and containing statues in niches in the center . Each floor had a room with a vaulted ceiling, and bits of other demolished buildings were located throughout. The top floor was the most interesting, as it was located under the eaves and held the cafeteria, shrouded from view by curtains set up in the doorway. There were picnic tables set up under the beams and in one corner there was a rustic cabin that housed the snack bar. Most people who came up there probably reacted like we did ("Huh?") and left. Rumor has it that they'll let you up to the overlook on the roof if you ask, but we only discovered that afterwards. We also later learned that the building was renovated in the 19th century in the "Romantic Medieval" style after the city wall was demolished, which explains why, if you entered the city through the exterior door, there is no corresponding exit on the interior side, since the spiral staircase blocks your path.

To complete our Moroccan-themed day we went and saw "Babel". A mistake, naturally, due to the fact that 5 or so languages are spoken and none of them were translated into English. But we managed to get the gist. We ordered a large coke from the concession stand, thinking it would be a refreshing way to quench our thirst after walking all over tarnation, only to be reminded when we saw the girl filling up the cup that They Don't Do Ice Here. Not quite as refreshing as I had hoped. The whole movie experience reminded us once again that we really had forgotten just about everything we had learned about living here.

We've done some more walks from the book I got and located the spot where the Tsar drunkenly fell in a secluded fountain in 1717 and found the scandalous 1894 statue by Lambeau that resides, partially hidden behind shrubbery, in front of the adjoining community's town hall.

Being in the States over the holidays was nice, although a bit overwhelming what with all the running around. We managed to eat an obscene amount of delicious food while in the DC area, such as Five Guys burgers and fish & chips from the new Eamonn's in Old Town. We went with my parents to Layalina for dinner one night and supped on a fine Middle Eastern feast washed down with Syrian wine. We had a fantastic Chinese repast with MA and her family at a restaurant with a table for 15 that had a giant lazy susan upon which we passed secret notes to the aforementioned N, who was celebrating her birthday. All this food got me to the point that I was eating dinner leftovers for breakfast, since all my other eating opportunities were spoken for. My mom also made some noteworthy meals, and my dad whipped up a batch of perfect pancakes one day. What a country!

On Christmas Eve Eve we met up with some pals to catch up, drink beer, and play a game of croquet lit by candles and assorted fireworks. Team Strelsch couldn't manage to beat our host, who had the home field advantage. As a consolation prize we got a couple of books by this fellow. He claims to live the life by only teaching classes two days a week, but this website makes him look like he keeps pretty danged busy.

Sunday was supposed to be our family gift exchange day, but my brother became violently ill earlier that morning, so the remainder of us just ate brunch and Jack and I hit the road for OH to visit his family and friends. It was nice to see A at the gathering, since the last time we met up was in Rome. He had gained some weight since then, but since it was the holidays I didn't mention it.

We arrived at Jack's parents' house in time for Christmas Eve dinner, at which I made the mistake of consuming a half can of jellied cranberry sauce. Turns out that's just a wee bit too much for me.

We received a movie-themed game from Jack's parents for Christmas, and we played it with his mom, and they both beat the pants off me. Jack's parents received their 4th calendar, among other delightful surprises. Lunch was with Jack's brother W and family, and much bustle ensued over a repast of sloppy joes. We finished off the meal with some cookies from the amazing variety that Jack's mom makes every year.

The next day Jack's brother R and his family arrived, usurping our spot in the limelight (they brought some grandchildren, after all) and the guest bedroom. Dinner was Ham in a Blanket, and the annual holiday sentiment of "you ate the blanket?!?" was shared. Ah, tradition! R got some chili-flavored beer from his sister, and being that the entire family (including, apparently, some non-blood-related members) are a bunch of spice wusses, I was the only who could drink the stuff. It was no Belgian beer, but it was drinkable.

We moved over to the B&B for the night, and were greeted by the proprietor at the door, who encouraged us to come back down from our room for a nightcap of sherry and some Christmas music. We did, and to our surprise it was the owners and two of their children and their spouses. Jack and I definitely felt like outsiders as we listened to Dylan Thomas' "A Child’s Christmas in Wales", a first for us but an annual event for them. Verrry civilized, what with the sherry and the chuckling and sighing at all the appropriate points. The next night the family members were all congregated in the common room again, and seemed a little crestfallen that we didn't join them, as if we had been the only thing preventing them from rehashing their annual holiday disagreements. Tradition!

The next day we took a stroll to visit the big park in the town center where many of Jack's most colorful childhood stories took place. For some reason I had never been there, and had imagined it in a totally different location and on a smaller scale. In the lifelessness of winter, it looked pretty tame, so it was difficult to overlay the exciting adventures on the scene at hand. But it was nice to see it, and hopefully I’ll come back during a more temperate time of the year and get a better sense of it.

Jack's sister B arrived with her three kids a bit later, for a total of five youths in his parents' tiny condo for the day. It was quite a scene of mayhem. We managed to beg off for a while for a lunch appointment with J&D, who were driving back to NYC and agreed to meet us for lunch. We ended up at a pizza joint with an extreme draft problem. The pizza, however, was quite tasty. It was nice to see those guys even if it was for such a short time.

We went to the movies with B's family the next afternoon to give the grandparents some time off, and saw "The Pursuit of Happyness". It was pretty good, and although you knew the protagonist was going to come through okay in the end, it was at times difficult to see how he could possibly struggle back up to the top. The kids were all very good during the film, and I don’t know if it was because they were bored or being polite or what, as they didn't seem to enjoy the movie much (although they had picked it out). Later we went out to Belleria for wedding soup and pizza and beers in frosty mugs, all of which were enjoyable.

And then we were on the road again. Having not been able to pass up the fruit and coffee that we had already paid for at the B&B, we stopped off for second breakfasts with Jack's pals A&N in Kent on our way to Columbus. A. was working 12-hour graveyard shifts as a nurse, so by the time we arrived he was running on empty and pretty slap-happy. They took us to a fantastic place with delicious homestyle breakfasts, and I had coffee and biscuits and eggs and mashed potato pancakes and bacon...mmm. A&N had both recently finished their schoolin' and were out in the real world with new jobs and a new house. The house made me a little homesick for ours, as it was a tiny one with warm wood floors and orange paint on the walls and lots of windows. Sniff. They had a lot of cool furniture they’d gotten secondhand that gave it a retro feel, which is more than I can say for our home furnishing style, the polite term for which is "eclectic". (Our current residence is decorated with what could be not-so-euphemistically termed "recovered trash".)

We arrived in Columbus around mid-afternoon to stay with Jack's sister M's family for a couple of days. We were greeted by her and her two daughters, R, 1.5 years, and S, 4 years. S gave us the grand tour of the house and then asked if we wanted to see "the back forty", and led us out the door to check out the yard, compete with a creek running through it and evidence of deer, birds, and other wildlife. Husband D came home and joined in, occasionally calling into question our minimal French skills by speaking fairly fluently. The favorite game of the afternoon was superfast Ring Around the Rosy, in which the two girls would end up flying through the air while holding hands with me and then be delicately stacked on top of one another like cordwood made of spun sugar.

Jack's other sister MK and her family arrived for dinner and we enjoyed a pleasant meal and good conversation. D built a fire early on, so later we digested in front of the warm glow.

We decided to take in Columbus' Franklin Park Conservatory the next day with the women folk. In addition to the wide variety of interesting flora, they were featuring a glass blowing artist who made beautiful swirls of luminescent color and interspersed them with the plants. Superb.

And then we were off again, after starting the day with breakfast at the Waffle House. I got the pecan waffle with a side of grits, and the grits, I'm ashamed to say, had so much butter in them that I couldn’t finish them. I would have never guessed that such a thing was even possible.

Having some time for the drive, we decided to cut a straitish course by taking some back roads. This placed us a short hop from the Prabhupada's Palace of Gold in WV, which is some kind of focal point for Hare Krishna in the US. The guided tour of the palace cost a $6 "donation", and we didn't feel like paying it, so we checked out the grounds. Their website, which has lots of photos, says that the building was crafted by unskilled devotees. Although the building is very nice from a distance, there are large chunks of the exterior plaster that are missing upon closer inspection, giving it a dejected appearance. Plus, there was a large lattice structure covering the stairs to the building with a sign saying "DEER FENCE". Could they have come up with something that, I don’t know, fit in a little better with the overall motif of fanciness? There was a temple, living quarters, and a lake across the street. We entered the temple, removed our shoes, and watched some guys playing mystical music and sweating and dancing, as people stood around and took pictures and generally looked happy to be there. I had never seen so many Indian Hare Krishnas in one place before, and I knew that they took their religion seriously so I felt a bit intrusive. We exited, took in the sight of the two giant statues of dancing ladies by the lake, who looked like they had just executed a high five because their cricket team had won, then hit the road again.

We arrived back in Arlington on New Year's Eve evening, and spent the remaining hours of 2006 in front of the tube with a bottle of bubbly. It was nice to chill out for a while in such a peaceable fashion. I was quite disturbed to discover that Carson Daly is beginning to look a lot like Dick Clark in his younger years. Dick Clark should really just retire. He must have an airtight contract or something.

New Year’s day was Christmas Part II, so we trekked out to C&J's house again and had chili and mac & cheese and presents. A good time was had by all, even though Jerk-ass didn't seem to believe my mom's protestations that the tiny ceramic basket with the words "to a favorite daughter in law" on the side wasn't from her. It's a mystery.

And then, back to Brussels for 2007...

They do the St. Nicholas thing here on December 6th, so they start in on the holiday happenings pretty early (but not TOO early—there’s an official start date, and some retailer got in trouble for jumping the gun this past year) and everything emerges fully realized rather than crescendoing up to a frenzy. The lights and decorations and market were installed by the 1st, so the next day we went downtown to check things out. We encountered the following:

- Booths selling everything from churros to handmade jewelry to cell phones
- A section of the market devoted to the 2011 cultural capital of Europe, Tallinn, complete with Estonian mulled wine, Estonian gifts, and an Estonian brass band playing carols
- Ice skating rink, Ferris wheel (a view overlooking the rink at left), two carousels and an inflatable, monster-shaped house of horrors where you entered through the mouth and exited near where you’d expect to find the cloaca
- Nativity scene with live animals and fake people
- Light show on the Grand Place that projected “snow” onto the buildings using mirror balls while simultaneously changing the color of the buildings’ faces
- Mannekin Pis dressed as Pere Noel
- Young Americans wherever we turned

There was also a parade of people in green windbreakers through town, which at first we thought was the Santa Claus parade that had been scheduled for the previous day. The large number of police cars and the armored police vehicle parked nearby told a different story, though, and we figured out that it had something to do with the closure of the local VW plant that had been announced. (Under intense pressure, they backed off the closure later.)

As we ate rather divine Vietnamese food for lunch, we watched a guy across the street painting the long stretch of plate-glass windows of an Irish bar with holiday words and images, and each time I glanced over he had done all his detailed artistry in one color and was on to the next. Before we knew it, he was gone. Man, did he work fast.

Another festive event was the holiday party given by Jack’s Finnish coworker, featuring mulled wine with almonds and raisins steeped in it and a variety of traditional and non-traditional sweets. People were strangely interested in what we had done for Thanksgiving--I have no idea what holidays are celebrated in other countries, so it was odd that they knew about this one. There was an Actual Belgian at this party, so I took the opportunity to ask about the holidays, and he said that December 6th was for kids, so I guess the more general celebration is on Christmas.

Not so enjoyable were the crowds in the stores. We did our best to stay in the small, homegrown shops, but unfortunately that’s where everyone else wanted to be, too. As holiday shopping usually makes me hate everything, I think I did a pretty good job of maintaining a positive attitude. It didn’t hurt that my family changed their gift giving scheme this year to something a bit more manageable. The only item that I regret not snapping up was a set of nesting dolls featuring Vladimir Putin, which I spotted at a Ukrainian and/or Russian general store. When I decided to go back and get it a few days later, it was gone. I got a bottle of vodka shaped like Attilla the Hun (or somebody) instead.

Jack participated in a teambuilding thing for work one night that involved wine tasting and preparing Thai food. The idea was to pit two teams against one another and see which was the best at doing the assigned tasks. Jack felt it was unstructured and chaotic, and he didn’t learn much about either cooking or wine, although he did get to brown some chicken pieces and chop onions. The other team, somewhat arbitrarily, won the competition. This cooking school has a huge storefront on a major thoroughfare in our area, and I think it’s only a matter of time before they go belly up if his experience is at all representative of how they do business.

What does your Domino's Four Cheese pizza have on it? We recently received their flyer in our mailbox, and in addition to the two special pizzas, which were turkey and salmon, they had their regular assortment. In the Classics portion of the menu, they listed the Four Cheese, which consists of Swiss, goat, mozzarella, and blue.

Although they apparently deliver, at €17.50 for a large, I think I'm gonna pass. There's better and cheaper pizza to be had nearby. Plus they probably wouldn't understand my order if I called.

November.

As previously mentioned, we went to Ikea and bought some furniture, including a desk for my office. The desk is egg-shaped and yolk-colored, an immense and cheerful improvement over the brokeback box. I celebrated its existence by creating this lovely diorama of a kid who throws like a girl playing catch with his sky-frog. As you can see, it is also a desk organizer. Handy!

J came and stayed with us for a few days in mid-November. She’s a world class traveler due to her employment at the State Department, so she knows how to get through security, can get a business class seat at the government’s expense, and has less need for companions than most visitors. This last bit was fortunate, since I got sick AGAIN while she was here, and she took day trips to Ghent and Bruges. We did, however, manage to have some memorable experiences.

J had been in town for a conference and therefore had already perused most of the downtown tourist attractions, a nice break from the routine for me. We took some time to visit the EU quarter, with the immense government buildings, triumphal arch, and parks with autumnal trees. I had earlier spied a Tunisian-Columbian restaurant in the neighborhood, so I convinced her that we should check it out. We peeked in the windows and there was a couple in there at one of the tables, giving us confidence that there might be hope for it. We entered and...the couple was the waitress and the cook. I confirmed (in French) that they were serving lunch, and the waitress handed us menus and took our drink order. After perusing the menu we decided on a South American appetizer and North African entrees. I attempted to order, only to be told that the empanadas “are finished”. All the appetizers were finished. Everything on the menu was finished! There were paper notes taped to the windows indicating the existence of tagines, so we asked about those. After consulting with the cook in the back she returned to inform us that they were available. They were not, however, very good, particularly considering our incredible tagine experience of a few months back. When she brought the check, the price was €4 more than stated in the window. I pointed out the discrepancy, and she said it was some kind of Sunday special that was no longer valid. While we were pulling out money and grumbling, she went over to one of the pieces of paper and cut out the price, leaving the rest taped up. A very unsatisfactory start to J’s visit!

The rest of the week was somewhat hazy due to my ailment, but we did have dinner from the Italian delicatessen down the street one night, which was very tasty. We also went to a Korean/Japanese restaurant and to a Brazilian place for nourishing feijoada (festooned with plastic palm trees!), both of which were delicious. J enjoyed her sojourns into the countryside, taking the transit systems all by her lonesome, and surviving mostly on beer and waffles during the day.

Saturday I was feeling a bit better, and what else can one do when recovering from an illness than go on a bender? I did it for the antioxidants. Actually, it was just an amazing coincidence that our favorite brewery was having their semi-annual open brewing day, in which they’re actually producing the beer, and that a wine shop near our place was having a tasting.

The tour featured a wiseacre guide and an extremely large group of people who spoke something other than French or Dutch, so the default was English. At one point I was standing next to a guy with a Virginia Tech t-shirt. They were boiling the wort when we walked through, so we didn’t get a chance to see the cooling liquid being inoculated by airborne yeasts. We did, however, see them loading large, steaming vats of the used grain into trucks for shipment to farms.

After having lunch with more beer and wandering around some less touristy spots, we made our way back to our neighborhood for the wine tasting. This was no ordinary wine tasting, though: this was like an open bar with as many 1/2-ounce beverages as you could consume, including some potent liqueurs with up to 40% alcohol. The first room we went in had a tasting quiz (Jack won) and some interesting Eastern European wines, but as we moved onward the pourers gave up the charade and didn’t tell us anything about the beverages. There were some young American women, clearly out on a spree, that made me cringe, so we left without ever even getting to the end of the long, long list. For that I donated €5 to Amnesty International? Bah!

The next day J departed and I celebrated my birthday. There’s no denying I’m in my mid-30s at this point. I had to come to terms with the fact that, by pretty much every measure, I am considered a full-fledged non-young adult, more depressing than the actual number. Now I have to start acting all mature and stuff. That’s, like, so not me. Jack gave me some book-related things and concert tickets to see Yo La Tengo the following week. We went and saw “Scoop” at the multiplex out by the Atomium, with a side of Stella Artois and popcorn.

The next day we went out for dinner with N, who was in town briefly in the midst of her tour of the Low Countries and Germany. The restaurant we went to was one that Jack had been to for lunch before, and he swore by their lunch specials. Their dinner options weren’t all that interesting, though, and so we got pizza and pasta. For an appetizer we ordered some kind of chicken in sauce, which bore an uncanny resemblance to chicken wings. How can they eat such an undignified dish in Europe and still think they’re better than us? It’s a mystery. N regaled us with her trip tales, including the scary friend she made at the laundromat, and told us about the new job she was taking in the NC (like the OC, but the other coast). We wish her the best!

Yo La Tengo rocked. What more can I say?

Oh yeah. For some reason the tour was called “Psychedelica Now!” even though there wasn’t much evidence of psychedelic-ness among the 5 bands, particularly not YLT. So what if they like to take uncharted excursions in the land of heavy guitars for several minutes? That doesn’t make them “far out”. During the intermission between bands we saw Georgia and Ira sitting at a booth, unattended, and I wanted to practice my French on them (with hilarious results, naturally) but apparently Jack doesn’t like talking to famous people. There was a Scottish guy in front of us during their performance who seemed extremely eager to identify other English-speakers so he could chat with them about how awesome everything was. He roped some English-speaking Spaniards into discussing the acoustics of the place. Somehow, even though he turned around to glance our way about half a dozen times, he never got up the gumption to talk to us, perhaps because he didn’t hear us actually speaking and decided that we might be Belgian or something.

Two interesting things about the venue: first, there was a 20-cent deposit for the plastic cups, which resulted in just about everyone cleaning up after themselves rather than throwing trash on the floor. The cups were that rigid, breakable type of plastic, and were washed and reused. A genius idea, if you ask me. Second, we learned that the concert hall (Ancienne Belgique) is Flanders’ place for big acts in the capital. The one we had been to before, the Botanique, is Wallonia’s venue. Neither headliner had anything to do with Belgium (NJ and TX, respectively), so I’m not sure how they determine who goes where. Do the artists have to write and essay describing their affinity for the region? I have a suspicion that the opening acts may have hailed from the sponsoring region, but I can’t recall who preceded Jolie Holland so I can’t be sure.

As mentioned in the previous post, we went out to Lake Genval one weekend and hit the Water and Fountain Museum, which had this creepy mannequin of an African woman with a baby on her back standing in the middle of a sand pit, and the woman would swivel her head and the baby would silently slide up her back like a spider. I have no idea what they had to do with the water situation in Africa. There were a variety of experiments relating to water movement designed by professors at the local university, many of which were choked with the crystalline residue of the minerals from the water’s hardness, causing them not to work properly, if at all. The best was a bunch of tennis balls with a hole cut into each one and attached to a rope. If you pulled them through the pipe fast enough they’d make a great thwocking noise and splash water all over.

One of the things I got with the gift certificate Jack gave me was a book of walking tours of Brussels. It’s got a ton of tidbits on Brussels through the ages, so you can determine whether the place where you’re standing was bombed in the 1500s or where Charlotte Bronte’s character was stoned on opium in Villette or where Brueghel the Younger got married under duress. We’ve done a couple of walks so far and made some interesting discoveries, including this statue of a guy who appears to be using a crucifix as a steering mechanism. Definitely a winner.

Jack had to work on Thanksgiving, as we were saving up vacation time for the big December trip home. We briefly considered going to one of the many restaurants that cater to people like us by serving turkey and the trimmings, including the American bar around the corner that was going to be showing NFL games, but in the end we just prepared an enormous salad with all kinds of good stuff in it and called it a night. It was a little sad knowing that everyone was having a four-day weekend and hanging out with loved ones at home, even though the salad was particularly festive.

Festive, though, would be a good way to describe December in Brussels...

Various things not related to visitors.

1. It was a big day for Jack and me. We had finally gotten the letter saying that our ID cards were ready. So that morning, we went over to the commune's office and picked them up. It was very exciting given that we had started the process before we even left the states: getting married, sending fingerprints off to the FBI and birth certificates off to our originating states to get notarized. We submitted the voluminous paperwork in May, and here it was mid-October when the documentation was finally coming through. They didn't even fake us out, either--the guy at the window had our cards (heavyweight paper: Jack's a cream-colored tri-fold and mine a orangesicle-y bi-fold) ready for us to sign. We were glad to finally be done with it, although somewhat disappointed to discover that Jack's was only valid until next May, at which point it would need to be renewed. Argh.

2. Encountering art in this city is no big chore; like music, the hefty taxes we pay go to various demonstrations of stuff, many of which are further subsidized by companies.
a. Art in A Garage.
We assumed it would kind of have that Art-O-Matic rogue art flavor, given the setting, but it was nine artists, one per floor, who had created installation pieces, including this pink dripped latex foam. And the garage was still open, so you had to dodge moving vehicles to get to some of them. The best part, undoubtedly, was the view from the top, which was several stories above the original skyline.
b. Truc-Troc. We encountered this one by accident, when we saw a parade of people walking by with free stuff in their hands. We followed them to the building they were trickling out and were told that the art in the temporary gallery was ours for the taking if we "proposed" something to the artist that he or she was willing to exchange for. They set us loose with a pad of sticky notes. The mood of the crowd was rather gleeful, and people were proposing all kinds of stuff, most of it better than what we had to offer (cases of champagne, weekend use of second homes, etc.). The art was of varying quality, but there were some very nice pieces. Jack suggested I offer up the recently-acquired head of Jesus in exchange for an ethereal street scene. "Je propose le tete du Jesus." Another piece had a magazine that was exploded outward at the viewer: "Je propose une nouveau magazine." We left with free coffee drinks in our bellies and free chocolates in our pockets.
c. Bozar's India Festival. The exhibit on the religious artifacts of India had a different theme every weekend, and we chose to go when they were having a bazaar to scout for possible Christmas presents. I didn't enjoy the exhibit itself much at all, as it was dry as unbuttered toast, but the expo featured puppets, Bollywood dancing, henna tattoos, a cricket workshop, Indian goods and food. It smelled fantastic. We got a wrap with lentils and seasoned rice and a piece of gulab jamun. Mmmm. There was also, inside the museum, a live elephant. The children were ecstatic.
d. Freebie. Jack discovered a lovely impressionistic painting on a board that of a bilious green nude being hovered over by an ominously reptilian character someone put out for the trash. Can you imagine? It's now over the fireplace in the living room.

3. Wanderings can be somewhat limited when you're reliant on public transportation, but we took an outing to visit the sculpture garden at the University on the edge of the metro system some time ago. The pieces were not very numerous or interesting, for the most part, but there was a garden of herbal remedies bordering it on one side and a double-wide old-school Pizza Hut on another. The former was empty and in a state of late fall decline, but the latter was absolutely packed on that Sunday. It looked like they had table service and wine and everything--definitely worth checking out at some point. We decided to head for another section of the transportation system to catch a tram back, and we found a shopping mall, a house with a thatched roof, the store that carries English and American products, an old-school mill converted to a fancy restaurant, natural watercourses, unnatural ponds, birds, trees...pretty much a little of everything, depending primarily on what side of the street you were on. A few weeks later we went out to visit Lake Genval, just a short regional train ride away. This was a former resort community with a variety of grand old houses around the lake, reminding me a bit of a miniature Lake George. We took in the Water and Fountain Museum, which showed us how they moved water through the ages. Thankfully, they had an old pipe made from a bored-out tree trunk--no water-related museum is complete without one. We had lunch in town at the restaurant La Clé where I found the following scrawled in ballpoint pen on the bathroom stall door: "Je t'aime mon lapin" (I love my rabbit).

4. The Balmoral Milk Bar is a "50s-Style diner", and is nearly always packed. We wandered by one day when there were a few free tables and so we stopped in. We each ordered some of the most expensive hamburgers ever (more than €10), but they were enormous. Jack's was so filled with stuff that he gave up handling it after a couple of bites and attacked it with knife and fork (which is probably more European, anyway). They were quite tasty, although I was unable to finish mine due to the size. Jack also got an almond milkshake, which seemed to have been thickened with not only ice cream but also ground almonds and was a delicious treat. I got a Dr. Pepper, because how often do you see Dr. Pepper in Belgium? There was a large mural on one wall with James Dean doing his normal smoldering gaze thing. He was being pursued by a train, for some reason.

5. We took the opportunity of the lull in visitors to take a trip out to Ikea, where we bought some desperately-needed additional storage and a desk to complete my fabulous office-nook (I had previously [for 5 months] been using a corrugated box). Jack took some convincing, but we were really out of places to put stuff, and I had gone earlier in the week to scope things out, so I knew we could keep prices reasonable. What I didn't know was how to get the stuff home. We researched the options before purchasing and learned there was a system called Taxis Verts that would deliver your stuff (and you, if necessary) to your house. A pleasant gentleman who spoke good English explained how it worked. So we bolstered ourselves on €1 hotdogs (terrible, again) and made our purchases. Once we got back to the Taxis Verts stand there were a number of people waiting around for someone to tell them what to do. One of the trucks pulled up and people thronged the guy when he came in. He didn't speak any English. He was writing people's name on a form and I was pretty desperate not to lose my place in line, so I let him know as best I could that I was waiting as well. I got the message across somehow, since he wrote down my destination and my name, "Annette". He left and another guy showed up, and I indicated that I was me, and we loaded the stuff in the truck and headed out down the road. It was the most circuitous route imaginable, during the afternoon rush hour, but he got us home in amazingly short order. Now I have a lovely spot from which I type, complete with a decorative homemade organizer, and all I need is a lamp and a taller chair to make it perfect. But I'm getting there.

I ask you, does this look anything like me? For those who are pondering this question a leeeetle too long, I'll give you a hint: no. After an excessively long but fairly satisfying lunch at a Bruges cafe that was comprised of pieces of like 3 different buildings strung together (you had to go up the back stairs, down a corridor, through a glassed-in passage overlooking the back garden to get to the bathroom) and that had really bad art embedded in all the tables, we walked the major landmarks in town on our way to the B&B. There were many, many gewgaws for sale, including this doll. G said it looked like me, so I responded by calling her a "Jerk-ass". I apologized to her for speaking so hastily; I meant to say "Jerk-wad". But the name stuck, and we called her Jerk-ass for the remainder of the trip.

We checked in at the B&B, Absoluut Verhulst, at which G had booked a 2-storey loft space that slept 5. It was very nice and peaceful; good choice, G! Not having a TV at home, the first thing I did, naturally, was turn it on. We chilled for a bit and had some caffeinated beverages, and then headed out for some more sightseeing. On the way out the door we encountered the proprietor and told him we thought the place was lovely. I employed the one word of Dutch I know and said it was "very gezellig". He asked if I knew Dutch, I told him no, and he then said something in Dutch. Whatever. What appeared to be a pretty standard residential living room was filled with bikes and a wheelchair, and the latter, he told us, was in case any of us got too tired and needed to be pushed around. I put a pin in it, knowing it was going to be a long day of looking at stuff.

You may recall from the last Bruges stay that they have a relic of Jesus' blood in the aptly-named church of the Holy Blood, but Jack and I didn't visit it. G, being into that sort of nasty stuff, was excited so we each got a handful of change and got in line. (They should probably just put up a sign that says "no money, no lookee" because they practically force you to give them some, as J found out on a trip a few weeks later. Churches are a great way to get rid of all the low-value change that accumulates so I have no issue with it.) The relic was contained in a glass cylinder into which a smaller cylinder containing the blood was placed. It looked to me like a piece of porous bone with a reddish-brown splotch on it. Although many people were kissing it or laying on their hands, I found it pretty repulsive and gave it a brief touch so the priest-lady wouldn't scold me for being disrespectful.

After that, it was on to Choco-Story! This museum was somewhat cheesy and overpriced, but I can't say it wasn't informative. I learned that:
- cocoa beans being removed from their pods look very gross and slimy, like intestines or something
- the reason Leopold II's offspring didn't continue the royal line was that he didn't have any male heirs
- Belgian chocolate is ground to a finer powder than in any other country, which is why it is so smooth and delicious
- large chocolate sculptures are a bad idea, no matter what country you're in (cross reference to the trip to the super-stinky Chocolate Kingdom in Sharon, PA)
- chocolate doesn't make people fat; people make people fat (chocolate, however, DOES lower cholesterol and prevent acne, not people)
- and much, much more!

It really was quite interesting, although a bit silly due to its over-serious tone. At the end, a couple of surly teens demonstrated how make filled chocolates. I had to leave due to a coughing fit, but thanks to G's severe nut allergy she gave me her hazelnut-filled praline shaped like that talking starfish on that cartoon all the kids are talking about these days. Score!

More wandering commenced and we ended up at the Jerusalem church, which was built by Italian merchants back in the day and had a wooden sphere on top instead of a steeple. It was a refreshing change of style from most of Bruges, and so we paid the entry fee to check out the interior. There were no signs to show how to get anywhere in the compound, and after getting trapped in a warren of tinier and tinier rooms containing the lace museum, we popped back out into the courtyard and just began trying to open doors into the church. We finally managed to find one that was unlocked and were greeted with an unusual interior that contained a double-wide raised tomb in the middle of the floor where the congregation would normally sit, an altarpiece with skulls, bones, and snakes carved into it, a tiny chapel behind the altar, and an even tinier room behind the chapel that you had to double over to get in which contained a full-sized statue of a dead Jesus in a glass coffin.

Back out in the courtyard, we crossed the path to get into another building that used to be an almshouse for impoverished women. Through another series of doors where it looked like you weren't supposed to go, a lacemaking demonstration was taking place. In reality, it was several women (and one baby) in a room together as if at a quilting bee, going about their business and chatting to each other. They ignored us, but it was nice to see this dying art being carried on by people, young and old, who were doing it because they liked to, not because they were on display in a shop window to attract customers. They all seemed to be doing traditional pieces, but there were some more modern themes in a small gallery in the back: snow on trees, colorful abstractions, naked ladies, etc. Before leaving I made sure to try all the other doors to make sure we weren't missing out on, say, Elvis playing poker or levitating ponies or anything.

Following some recuperation at the B&B we went out to find us some grub. The restaurant we went to was virtually empty at such an early hour, so our waiter took his time with us and was very pleasant. He suggested some beers that really hit the spot. I got the eel sauteed in butter, a simple but delicious preparation. S got the giant head-on shrimp even though I warned him about it, but he seemed to enjoy messing with it, at one point blowing on a shrimp body as if it was the mouthpiece for the trumpet he played in grade school. They gave him one of those narrow meat removal forks, which is more help than I got when I ordered it the previous week. If I had to guess, Jerk-ass probably got mussels and fries, but I could be wrong.

We took an evening stroll around town and took in the sights under cover of darkness: the Beguinage, Minnewater, city gate. Then we went back to our place and found a pretty entertaining current events comedy panel show on the BBC, like "Whose line is it anyway" except funnier and more topical. Then off to bed to rest up for some more intensive touring.

The breakfast the next morning was fantastic. They just kept bringing stuff out in addition to the items on the table that you were to help yourself to: deli meats, cheeses, rolls, nuts, dried fruit, yogurt, fresh fruit, and an egg dish. There was also cereal if you were still hungry. There were two other couples staying there, both from the States, so we chatted with everyone about various stuff. It was all I could do to get up from the table after eating, not even having tried many of the things they'd put out. I could have stayed there until checkout, digesting and watching TV, but there was so much more to be seen! Onward!

We went over to the bell tower and took the long, spiraly climb to the top. It was chilly and windy up there, but the view was excellent and the bells did their thing at like 10 minutes past the appointed time, and although I had been hoping to be down on the level with the giant music box mechanism when it went off (along with a father who had dragged his two bored-looking sons up there), it was still a sound to behold.

Then it was time to visit the chocolate shop and get treats for those who had been left behind. I got some chocolate-covered ginger, chocolate-covered cherries, and a bottle of chocolate advocaat, a beverage I'd seen advertised several times before in restaurants but never ordered because I thought it was some kind of avocado or lawyer milkshake. According to the label it was a type of eggnog. The best thing they had in the shop was a white chocolate goblet of appropriately golden Duvel beer, with a big head of chocolate foam on the top--very realistic. S got a white-chocolate ghost, just in time for the upcoming Halloween holiday (although he doesn't really like chocolate and G doesn't like white chocolate that much, as it turns out, so who knows if it was ever consumed). G spent a good while in there picking out stuff for the peeps back home. S stopped in next door to the skate shop and got G some black wristbands with a pink skull and crossbones motif...awww.

We went back to the B&B to get our luggage, then a quick trip to the Our Lady church to check out the Michelangelo statue, then on to the train station. First, though, we stopped at the old St. John's Hospital to visit the restroom. It was G's first encounter with a Madame Pipi, so she was a little nervous, but it went fine. Parts of the hospital are apparently now used for a conference center, so as I wandered the halls I could have sat in on some biotechnology presentations, but instead I investigated some large styrofoam celtic crosses. Had there been someone else with me I could have gotten some excellent photos. Oh well. Unfortunately we missed our train, but there was another one in a half hour so we sat on the platform and I nibbled on the chocolate-covered waffle they had gotten from the grocery store before we left. It tasted remarkably like an Entenmann's chocolate-covered donut, so it was reasonably tolerable in small quantities. I think I ended up eating the one waffle over a period of 6 days, a little at a time.

Once we got back on the train G had a confrontation with a young boy who was begging her in French for her bottle of water, which she refused to surrender on the grounds that (a) she had already drank out of it and didn't want to pass on contagions and (b) the whole thing was just weird and the kid wouldn't take no for an answer. I tried to explain in French that she was sick, but the kid wouldn't look at me or talk to me, but was fixated on G. After a few minutes of pleading he gave up. It seemed like it was going to be one of those things where the kid is distracting you so another kid could get your wallet, but that would have been difficult as we were all sitting facing each other, unless the other kid happened to be a snake that could slip between the cushions from behind and snag your wallet in his fangs.

When the ticket taker came around we discovered that the tickets I had purchased from the machine were not valid for an overnight stay, just for an up and back journey. Oops! The guy let us use them, though, since it was clear we were just stupid Americans. Kind of annoying that they have an automated system at the train station for in-country travel, but you can't specify your return date. If you buy and print out your tickets on the web, though, you can. I just don't get it.

Once we got back into Brussels and had a delicious gyro repast (and they bought me a much-coveted toaster as an early b-day present [yay toast!]), we did some running around to pick up souvenirs and cram in a very quick visit to the Cantillon brewery, which didn't allow us much time to look at the process before having to head back down for a beer so we could get our money's worth before they closed for the day. The gueuze, as always for those who are trying it for the first time, was a bit of a surprise, but it doesn't take long to cotton to the flavor. When we got back to the house, we discovered that Jack had found a Jesus head on the street the previous day and brought it home, becoming fast friends. Jesus backed him up several times, although no one but Jack could hear what he was saying so we just had to take his word for it.

Later that night, after dinner at a beer restaurant that featured more gueuze and frites, we visited a coffin-themed bar off the Grand Place that had coffins for tables and expensively-priced Jupiler in skull mugs. The atmosphere was lightened by the pop music playing in the background and the jovial bartender. After a couple of skull-skis, we made our way back to the hacienda and G had to pee "really, really bad". There were several conversations like "I'm serious, you guys" and "don't make me laugh!" It WAS pretty funny, though, since those types of evenings tend to occur less and less frequently as one reaches maturity. As all the green spaces were locked up at night there wasn't much a female could do in this situation aside from finding a doorway to squat in and having a Jeanneke moment. Fortunately she made it through the unpopulated stretch back into our neighborhood so we could stop at a bar. We had another beer and everyone took the opportunity to visit the facilities.

The next day we sent S&G off on the train to continue their sojourn in London. Sayonara, suckers!

[Photo #2 courtesy of S. His award-winning work can be found here. The homepage is VERY noisy; you have been warned.]

After a day for cleaning and replenishing of goods, S&G got here. Brussels was the first stop on their multi-capital Euro-tour of Brussels and London. They flew through London on their way here, and their plane was cancelled so they had to get on the next one. Not ideal when one is suffering from sleep deprivation, and when S called me from Heathrow to give me the news, I discerned that he had made a credit card call so I quickly got off the line. When you're trapped at an airport for an indefinite period, there's a tendency to want to kill time by whatever means possible. Jack and I learned the wrath of the operator-assisted credit card call before we moved, when I was in the US and he was in Brussels, and I didn't want to inflict the same pain on them.

It was S's first trip to Europe and even through his sleepless haze it was obvious that he was verrry excited. G was a bit more bleary-eyed, more befitting of someone who has been abroad before. We had lunch at the delicious salad place next to the train station, and then got home after an exciting tram ride where the tram in front of us broke down, causing substantial delays and resulting in the tram being towed uphill in front and behind by what looked to be dump trucks.

After napping for them and working for me, it was time to hit the town. We went to the beer-themed restaurant downtown and had the same waiter as last time. The restaurant was a bit fuller this time, so he didn't lay on the charm as thickly, but he did select some enjoyable beers for us. He immediately pegged S as the...uh, "gregarious" one amongst us, giving him the most alcoholic brew. To my surprise, no one objected to an order of escargot to start. G had been talking about the fried cheese practically since I met them at the airport, so we got an order of that as well. For an entree I had the waterzooi, a creamy chicken stew, and everyone else had mussels prepared various ways. Everything was delicious. Later we took in some of the sights under cover of darkness and then headed home.

The next day we...went to the Atomium. Because of the high pricetag and the fact that I had already been, I wasn't interested in going in. Once they saw how cool it looked in real life, though, they insisted and paid my way. A good time was had by all. It wasn't nearly as crowded as last time, and I was able to show them where the secret free bathroom was. There was also a new exhibit of original barbie dolls doing things that barbies did back when the Atomium opened in 1958: holding giant surfboards, wearing cat-eye sunglasses, and generally looking stiff and ill at ease.

We lingered in the cafe at the top for a bit, taking in the scene at Mini Europe far below, and eventually made our way over to the palace and then to a lunch joint for beers, food and frites. After nourishment, I was looking for the tram line home when we came across the Jette cemetery. We spent a bit of time checking out that scene, which wasn't as nice, restful, or large as the Ixelles one, and then made our way home. Dinner that evening was at a place near our house that had been recommended by the guidebook they brought. It had gargoyles on the front and a richly-decorated interior visible from the street, so we figured we couldn't go wrong. They seated us in the cavernous ballroom in the back, which had none of the charm of the front rooms, which we decided were either for those who had made reservations or those who were better-dressed than we were. The food was okay, but thematically all over the map and not really worth the price. I'm pretty sure there were frites involved, though.

Thursday we lit out of town for Bruges, sans Jack...

Funny soccer game incident I forgot to mention.

At the end of the game, when it became clear that the other team was likely to lose, the Liege supporters began to sing:

Heeeeey, Baby!
I wanna know-oh-oh
If you'll be my girl!

Why they thought that was an appropriate tune I don't know. I can only assume that the majority of fans didn't really know what they were singing, or perhaps they were referring to the opposing team as a bunch of women. Naturally we joined in.

The day after my return from the US, T arrived. This was his first trip abroad and we were delighted to be able to share it with him. Having not slept on the plane, he was pretty zombie-ish the first day. We went out for a late breakfast and he was mesmerized by all the different cars here, stopping at several and gazing at them with a rapturous look on his face.

He took a long mid-day nap, sleeping through Jack's lunch hour (although waking long enough to say hi), which sadly didn't seem to help his tiredness any, and then we went out to visit the royal residence and the Atomium. What he needed was...a good long haul to wear him out so he would sleep well. Yeah. We stopped at a fritterie to pick up some fries for the walk, and there were a bunch of guys hanging around it, mostly drinking Jupiler beer. One was smoking pot, however, which was the first time I'd seen someone doing that in public here. Most of the group (although not the reefer dude) were dressed in uniforms that suggested that they were municipal workers, but I choose to believe that by that time they were off the clock rather than taking a beer break. On the way back to the tram stop we got a peek at the Japanese Tower and the Chinese Pavilion, which were part of Leopold II's ambitious plan to construct buildings of the typical architecture of many places around the globe. He only got around to building these two. That man seemed to lack focus--interesting architecture, destruction of his African colony, public green spaces--he just spread himself too thin.

The tram ride home was uneventful primarily due to T's napping, although we did have a hard time finding the stop to get on, as it was in a narrow cut in the terrain one level below grade, disguised as a naturally landscaped area. That night we went to the Irish pub for dinner and happened upon their quiz night. Although we didn't play, it was fun to follow along. Being only three of us, I don't think we would have won, but we did manage to answer a fair number of questions correctly. I was so excited at times that I'd call out the answers, possibly giving a leg up to the table of people next to us.

T made it clear that his goals for the trip were to investigate the chocolate and to find the only beer he had ever enjoyed, the Duchesse de Bourgogne. The chocolate research was very systematic: he would start at the bottom in terms of quality and work his way up. We stopped off at a night shop before concluding the evening, thinking that we could find some bad chocolate there, and we three panelists agreed that it was pretty awful. Thankfully, T was good enough to consume it all before he left.

Tuesday morning, Jack and I had an appointment at the Commune to complete the paperwork for our ID cards. The contractor Jack's company had hired to usher the process along met us there with an armload of cookies. Apparently she had been there for someone else's appointment earlier in the day, and was returning prepared for another go. The cookies were the cheapest grocery store variety, which just goes to show that even if they make excellent chocolates and pastries here, government employees will scarf up any free junk that is given to them. Reminded me of home. The woman processing the paperwork somehow managed to forget about my existence, even though my name was right there on the file in front of her, but our helpful contractor was able to get her straightened out. The staff person was a bit flustered in the change in routine, though, and neglected to ask us for our photos, so the contractor had to return later on and hand them in.

Later that day T and I wandered some more. Eventually we ended up at a bar for some mid-afternoon loitering. We had a pleasant surprise when we discovered that T's beer was on the menu! He ordered it only to have the wrong beer brought out. He took it back to the bar to tell them it wasn't what he had ordered, but they told him that the brewery had just changed the label (the beer was also named some kind of Bourgogne, but not Duchesse). It was no real shock when he had his first sip and learned that the wait staff had misled him. T put on a brave face and drank it down.

That evening we went out for dinner at a bar/restaurant that Jack and I thought might have his beer. And lo, they did! It was the perfect accompaniment to T's spaghetti bolognaise. I got what I thought was going to be lobster in a packet, but turned out to be gigantic whole shrimp that were by and large inedible with the tools I had been provided. It was okay, though, and T left happy after his second beer. That day's chocolate, purchased from the grocery store earlier on, was also a step above the last. Double success!

As if the beer and chocolate weren't enough, T also took on the tasks of rating the waffles purchased from various locations (vans, metro stations, restaurants, etc.) and seeing what Belgian fast food had to offer. How he managed to juggle it all at once I'll never know. Wednesday we went out and looked at some key touristy spots and he got one of the waffles that is so piled with toppings that it's almost as high as it is wide. A nightmare for wusses like me who don't like the waffles in the first place, but he enjoyed it. We also visited the Quick Burger chain, where he got a "Demoniak" burger (the tagline for which translates to something like "go to hell") with a suspiciously deep-orange bun, as if it had been canoodling with some carrots. Were there vegetables hidden in there? He also discovered that the condiments giddily distributed in such vast quantities in the US were not, in fact, free here. I had a hot dog, which was rather limp and grey, although it did come with a piece of cheese and some grainy dijon mustard, so it wasn't a total loss. Later in the day we stopped by the weekly market and he tried a waffle at a stall that had been recommended by Jack, but didn't think that the value to quality was up to par. I got a lovely persimmon, shining with ruddy ripeness.

Thursday I came down with what has now become my monthly ailment of sore throat, fever, and runny nose. Could it have to do with the wall that quietly moulders above my head while I sleep? I don't know, but it certainly is annoying. I sent T off on his own with a map, a camera, and instructions to visit the Herbert Hoover exhibit at the Military Musuem so I could rest. (Did you know Hoover was instrumental in feeding the Belgians during WWI, when their food supplies were cut off by the Germans? He was. They love him for it.) On his outing T conducted more chocolate research and visited our local branch of McDonalds to see if the fries were consistent around the world, as he had been told. He found them to be surprisingly similar.

The next day Jack took off work and he and T headed for Antwerp. Not having been there I can't comment on what went on, but they brought back some nice pictures of some kind of wacky bicycling bar that seated 10, a public toilet constructed to look like you were sitting on a stack of large books, and a restaurant that had religious tchotchkes in crammed into every available space and good waffles. T was somewhat disappointed that the length of his stay didn't lend itself to visiting another country, so it was nice for him to get out of Brussels for the day. He brought back a 750 mL bottle of his favorite beer so he could enjoy it again before he left.

That night we went to the American bar around the corner for burritos, and the owner dude recognized us and conversed briefly with our new guest, this one from the DC area. T was very particular about his burrito needs, and the extremely young-looking chef came by and listed the ingredients for him. T requested that there be no tomatoes in the vicinity of his food. Needless to say there were tomatoes, but he managed to overcome and chatted with the waitress about the use of different glasses for each type of alcoholic beverage.

Saturday we made plans to go to Liege to see the soccer team Standard Liege play. Jack and I had always been interested in going to a soccer game, but there were restrictions on the availability of tickets for the good team in Brussels, the Royal Sporting Club of Anderlecht. It was our understanding that you had to live in the commune and present ID to that effect in order to buy tickets. Not knowing anyone who lived there, we were stymied. But the Liege game was open to anyone, and further, there was a kid from Bethesda who played for the team.

We headed out on the train around mid-day, and wandered around town for a bit to see the sights. Liege got the heck bombed out of it during WWII because they were an industrial center, so there aren't as many pretty old buildings, but they do have a nice river through the center of town, and various shops and eateries and a sprinkling of old stuff. Also, apparently, a square named after Hoover, but I don't recall seeing it when we were there.

We stopped off at a restaurant and Jack had the Liege-style meatballs, which were quite good. After some additional wandering, we went back to the train station to catch our bus. There was some confusion about the correct bus to take, but there were a lot of people around sporting the team colors so we suspected that we were in the right spot. The bus dropped us off at a grassy slope on an exit ramp for a thoroughfare, which didn't seem right, but again we just followed the red scarves. The streetlights around the stadium all had orangey-red coverings, giving the twilit walk a bit of extra drama. As we crossed the river to get to the stadium, Jack noticed that the scene to the west was reminiscent of Youngstown 20 years ago, with smokestacks and molten metal visible on the horizon.

We got our tickets and entered the stadium to wait for the game to start. I got scolded by security for having a bottle of water in my pocket--the woman took the cap and handed the bottle back to me. Clearly they had had problems with people throwing stuff on the field in the past. We took our seats and settled in for the game. There seemed to be three separate fan groups on the north side of the stadium. The opposing team's fan base was cordoned off in a small section on the south end by a tall chain-link fence, as if they were on a recreational release from prison and had a high potential for escaping. The Liege fans were upbeat so we were hoping for a good performance from the team and from their supporters.

The good thing about sports, as opposed to, say, live theater, is that there is no need for translation. We were able to enjoy the game without subtitles. Subtitles would have been helpful for Jack, though, since his neighbor kept nudging him and making comments like "primier boot!". At halftime, Liege was down one, and Jack and I went to check out the amenities. They were selling chips and Jupiler beer from coolers, although you couldn't take the beer back to your seat and it appeared that they would shut it down when the game started again. The beers were only 2 euros, which is on par with the prices that I've seen at other event venues, surprising given the gouging you usually get in the States when you're a captive audience. I visited the bathroom and discovered the cleanest stadium bathrooms ever, thanks to the mindful attendant. While a lot of the time I begrudge them my 30 cents, this was one of the times where it was evident that the woman was actually doing some work. Of course, given the paucity of alcohol and females within the stadium, it may not have been that hard.

The game resumed and, after initially being behind, Liege came back in the second half to win 2-1. The fans went wild-ish, but not as wild as I had hoped. There was confetti and one flare or firework, but that was it. We hopped back on the bus for the ride to the train station, and then took the train home. Jack commented on the way back that he had had a good time, but there was too much stress trying to time everything correctly: the hurried sightseeing and meal, the bus ride to the stadium and back, the train ride home, which, if we had missed, would have meant getting stuck in Liege or getting an extremely expensive cab back so that T could be sure to get on his plane the next day. What he failed to mention until later was that, probably while gleefully jumping around at a Liege score, he had somehow managed to lose our train ticket. This wouldn't have been the end of the world, since you can buy tickets on the train itself, but it does heighten anxiety. The ticket taker never came around, though, so it all worked out. When we got back, we shared the Duchesse beer from Antwerp.

T left the next morning, but not without leaving us with several mementos of his trip: uneaten chocolates, a European Coke and two shirts. It took us a long time to work our way through all the leftover chocolates, particularly the lavender one, which was like milk chocolate mixed with perfumey soap. Yech. I hope T made a note not to get that one again.