I Stand Corrected...

OK - it's not the end of the world after all. Last night we had terrific storms, which managed to knock almost every flower box off our window ledges across the front the house. Adieu, petunias. The temperatures dropped 20 degrees in 20 hours and my nice (formerly) clean car is now a typical Belgian dirty mess. Oh well, it was nice while it lasted...

Apocalypse Pretty Soon

I don't want to sound like an alarmist here, and there is always a chance I'm wrong, but I think the end of the world is near. Something is definitely not right and all I need to do is look out the window to prove it.
Belgium is famous for 3 things: phenomenal chocolate, remarkable beer, and weather so bad that folks in Seattle compare forecasts with ours and run right out to buy new bathing suits and beach towels. In December.
So here's the current situation: this spring has been nothing short of near-perfect. Sunny and warm; warm and sunny. What is this, Brussels or Barbados? I just checked the daily weather for our area for the past two months. On just a single day did we get over a quarter inch or rain. Only 7 of the past 40 days have had even traces of precipitation. This weekend, like most of the past 6 or 7, has been outstanding. I spent a couple of hours lying on our trampoline (great exercise, right?), reading in the sun. I already have a fairly nice tan. No one back home is going to believe I really live in Belgium. I took a couple pictures of our front yard, just to prove we're really here.
So, as you can see, something is definitely amiss in the universe and, if I were a betting man, I'd put 20 Euros on a bet that the world will end sometime within the next month or so. But if it stays sunny til then, who cares?!?

Making a Political Statement... With Beer

In terms of information provided, most beer labels are like 1950s doo-wop music: skimpy on meaningful content. But I've found a fantastic Belgian beer (extremely hoppy, which means it moves right to the top of my charts!) with a label not unlike a Harry Chapin song - it tells an intriguingly complex story. The brewer, Yvan de Baets, was kind enough to share the details with me.
Borrowing from the Gogol novel, the Brasserie de la Senne in Brussels has come up with "Taras Boulba." The label shows an obviously irate man (in this case, a Flemish father, from the northern part of Belgium where Dutch is spoken) about to crack open the skull of another man (his son) with a beer barrel. The man has just learned that his son has committed the unpardonable sin of falling in love with a girl from Wallonia (the southern part of Belgium where French is spoken). He angrily calls him a "Smeirlap," akin to "bastard" in Dutch. The words in the lower right corner tell the sad story, in the unique dialect used only in and near Brussels.
The point, you ask? As Mr. de Baets tells it, he is making a humorous political statement here about the sharp divisions between the linguistic/ethnic groups in Belgium. Belgium, a somewhat artificially created part of the Netherlands thanks to the Congress of Vienna in 1815, only became independent in 1830, with a dividing line (which has become much more pronounced over the past 20 years or so) between Dutch-speaking Flanders in the north and French-speaking Wallonia in the south. Neither group seems to care too much for the other.
The joke is that a father could become so outraged over his son's love of a girl from the "other group," a la Taras Bulba in the novel, that he would actually do the boy in. Mr. de Baets assures me he is not taking sides here; next year, he says he may reissue the label, this time with a French-speaking father and son.
So there you have it, a brief history of Belgium, thanks to beer and a Russian novel!

Vienna - Happy With the Hapsburgs!

Just spent 4 marvelous days here and, as our feet can attest, we saw about as much of this huge city as you possibly can! From tombs of the famous and definitely not so famous, to palaces (two photos show the Hofburg and Schoenbrunn), to the giant Ferris Wheel, to the opera house (that's the 3rd photo), to art and military museums, to the cathedral, to skateboard parks, even to the sewers where the climactic scenes in "The Third Man" were filmed.
The food ranged from great to outstanding, with heavy emphasis on schnitzels and gulasch (one of our favorite restaurants is actually called "The Goulasch Museum," though it's only food you'll find here). Our simple hotel (bathroom and shower down the hall) was clean, convenient, and entirely adequate.
We give all thumbs up to Vienna's rapid transit system, which gets my vote as the best in Europe. Immaculate, on time, frequent departures (even on a Sunday evening), electronic signs at every stop announcing when the next bus/tram/subway will arrive, and locations near every important sight - we rode it all over 3 days for a single ticket costing just $22 per person.
I don't believe there is another European city with as much dramatic architecture as Vienna; you can't walk a block without seeing a beautifully preserved 5 or 6-story building with amazing decorative artwork covering its entire height.
All in all, a perfect trip to the Home of the Hapsburgs, to whom we say, "Well done!"

The Myth of Speed

Ask any American who's never been to Germany, especially a young male, what one of the coolest features of that country is. Invariably, the no-speed Autobahn will make the Top 10 list. I'm here to tell you that, while there are still some stretches of the famed Autobahn without a speed limit (most sections have a posted 130 km/hr limit, or 80 MPH), you rarely get a chance to cut loose in that rented Lamborghini or Ferrari. Driving back to Belgium from the Frankfurt area on Monday not in either of those two cars!) was a case in point: for about 40 miles of the 175 stretch to the border there was no posted speed limit. Cool! Now the down side: each wide-open stretch lasted no more than 5 or 6 miles and sometimes was just a 2-lane highway. Put about 100 trucks per square foot in the right lane and nearly that many cars in the left, and you can see where I'm headed here. Nowhere fast.

The sad irony is that you can't do the one thing you are allowed to and want to: go real fast. Inevitably, the minute you've put the pedal to the metal you see the infamous road sign telling you that you are approaching a construction zone. There are more of these in Germany than breweries and they're not nearly as much fun to visit. For about an hour on the Autobahn it seemed like we were alternating between 100 MPH and 30 MPH, very often and very quickly. Suffice it to say, driving in Germany is anything but restful. I like to put it this way: driving in Germany is a job, not a pleasure.

The "Blumen" Are Truly Bloomin' !

Yesterday, Lucie and I spent our 27th wedding anniversary here in Holland. Probably the world's premier spring flower exhibition, Keukenhof brings in nearly 900,000 folks, though it's only open for 8 weeks each spring. This area has long been famous for its bulb industry and, exactly 60 years ago, the mayor of the town of Lisse (just a few minutes ride south of Amsterdam) very astutely volunteered some land to local growers for their annual show.

Though tulips obviously get center-stage, other flowers on display include the crocus, hyacinth, narcissus, freesia, and anemone. Three layers of bulbs are planted one on top of another, to make sure there are new blooms throughout the season. It is nothing short of a feast for the eyes - what Rachmaninov is for the ears and chocolate-covered cherries for the tongue, Keukenhof is for the camera lens! I took more pictures of flowers in 4 hours here yesterday than in the rest of my entire life combined. Hopefully you can see why!