Christmas Time on the Grand Place

Every year the Belgians doll up the Grand Place in Brussels for Christmas. They erect a huge tree with blue and white lights, a life-size creche display which is both very realistic (they use real sheep) and very unrealistic (sorry, but I just can't believe that the real Mary resembled this plastic model, which is a spitting image of Nicole Kidman!), and then project a very modern (and thus not at all traditional) light show on the facade of the city hall. It's nice to see, but on a bitterly cold and windy December night it does make you wish that Christmas, at least in Belgium, could fall in July...

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

From our house to yours: wishing you a very Merry Christmas!
- Rick, Lucie, and Robb

Monschau Christmas Market

An easy 100 mile drive to the east, through the northern edge of the Ardennes Forest (where the Battle of the Bulge was fought exactly 65 years ago), brings us to the cute little German village of Monschau, just over the border. This is a very typical small-town Christmas market, complete with chestnuts roasting on an open fire (they really do this), Gluehwein (what the Brits call "mulled" wine), traditional tree ornaments (our primary reason for the visit) and, of course, fantastic German food and beer. If this isn't the European holiday feel, I don't know what is.

Try to Top This One!

Everybody, everywhere has his own story of the coldest winter, the hottest chili, and the worst traffic jam. Everybody swears their story is the best and the most extreme. Lucie is more than willing to take you on, as far as worst traffic jam, thanks to a dusting of snow here on Tuesday.
Robb needed to take the train to Brussels to attend a concert, so Lucie left our house around 4:45 PM to drive the 3 miles to the Waterloo station. By this time about 4 inches of snow was on the ground, but it was nearly done. To say that she was headed out on the Voyage of Doom is to understate the situation.
Just how bad was the traffic? Her total elapsed driving time, covering all of those 6 miles to and from the station, was just under 6 (that's right - 6) hours! It was a horrific combination of: too many fools without a clue how to drive in even the best of conditions, but don't put even try to put them to the test in precipitation; the ridiculous right-of-way rules, where any and EVERY car coming out of any and EVERY street on the right has right-of-way over EVERY other car on the larger, main road; the complete lack of road courtesy seen all too often here; and, finally, I guess every person in the country happening to want to pass through Waterloo that evening.
The headline in the Brussels paper screamed, "3 Flakes of Snow; 510 Kilometers of Traffic Jam!" The first half might be a bit of a joke, but the second part is absolutely accurate, and that equates to over 300 miles of back-up! In a country the size of Maryland. You do the math.
Anyone care to try to top Lucie's "the worst traffic I ever saw" story? I didn't think so...

Paying the Price For a Remarkable Summer

And boy, are we paying that price! We had about 7 months of fantastic weather, from spring right through summer. How great was it? I got a tan lying in our back yard. And this is Belgium! You might recall the post from late June about how long the days were and how great the weather was.
Now, fast forward 6 months and taste reality. I believe it has rained in one form or another for about the past 15 or 20 days. We see the sun for all of a few minutes each day and, even if the skies were somehow to magically clear up (dare to dream), check out the winter sunrise and sunset times: sunrise: 8:35AM ; sunset: 4:35PM. And we've still got 2 weeks to go before reaching the shortest day of the year.
Considering I leave for work at 6:30 every morning and don't return to my car before about 4:15 every afternoon, I really am beginning to feel like a mole...or mushroom. I guess it's the price we have to pay in December for our June the summer before.

Saying Goodbye to a Member of the Family

This week we had to say goodbye to Abby, our beloved family cat of 17 years. We got her and her sister when they were crazy kittens, back in October 1992. Though we often groused about her all-too-frequent inability to keep most food down, constant begging at the dinner table each evening, and howling for no good reason (she was deaf for the final 4 or 5 years of her life), she was nonetheless a real member of the family, one whom we are all missing very much right now. Her elderly sister probably hasn't even noticed the absence, and the two younger cats are probably thinking, "Good riddance; more food and space on the blankets for us now," but those are the minority view. The humans, at least, are so sad that you're gone, Abby. We hope you are loving your new home in the Land of Catnip and Toy Mice.