Twilight in Paris

Taken on Saturday evening...

The Scene of the Crime

Or, maybe more aptly put: where it all started.
This is my "school house," the university in Bonn, Germany, where a scared, young kid spent his junior year abroad.   The building is a 17th century palace and the school counts among its graduates and/or professors Karl Marx, Pope Benedict XVI, Nietzsche, Heinrich Heine, and Joseph Goebbels...
Hard to believe, but it's been well over 35 years now.  The school hasn't changed a bit.  I think the student has.

Why Do I Love Germany So Much?

                      Just one look, and I think you'll see...

Quiet Memorial on the Danube

This may be the smallest, most understated Holocaust memorial anywhere in the world.  It is nothing more than about 60 pairs of real shoes, perhaps "iron-ed" and then welded to the bank of the Danube in Budapest, only a few steps from their beautiful Parliament building.  Constructed just 6 years ago, it commemorates a fateful night in January, 1945, when dozens of Jews, whom Raoul Wallenberg had been attempting to hide/save, were rounded up and brought to the banks of the river.  Perhaps unwilling to dig a mass grave in the frozen earth, the Nazi sympathizers simply lined them all up and shot them, allowing the bodies to drop into the Danube and be carried off.   There are all kinds of shoes, including those of small children.  While there is a small plaque nearby, there are no other words, sounds, or markers.  The shoes simply speak for themselves.

A Storm For the Record Books

Yesterday afternoon's freak storm was the stuff they write about in books.  At least 5 attendees were killed at an outdoor concert about an hour east of here, as tents, scaffolding, and nearly everything else that wasn't somehow welded to solid earth went flying.  I've never seen anything like it in my 13+ years in Europe.  About 3 inches of rain fell in under an hour.
At 4PM it was nothing more than cloudy.  By 5PM it was torrential rain, with hail the size of large peas bouncing all over the trampoline out back.  I could look out the upstairs window and see the house next door...any nothing beyond it.  An hour later it seemed to be all over, but just one hour after that it was back again.  If they ever got tornados in western Europe, this would have been the time for one.
Just two days ago the weather forecast was for a week of sunny weather so Mr. Dumb here spent the $13 to get his car washed (the first time in months, thanks to our dismal early summer).  Not a wise move...

Catching a Flick, Belgian Style

Lucie and I went to see "Super 8" on Sunday at a large movie complex in Brussels. It had something like 20 screens, so you can imagine how busy the place was that afternoon. First off, there is no such thing as reduced matinee prices: tickets run $13, no matter when the show. But just buying the ticket is where the real problems begin. Unlike the U.S., where there are usually humans involved and an individual can buy a ticket in, say, 30 seconds, here it is almost entirely automated, with banks of ticket-vending machines resembling rows of slots in Vegas.

To choose which language you want the instructions in, then which card you intend to insert, then which movie, etc., etc., you can see how this takes about 3 minutes per customer. With 15 people in front of every machine, well, you do the math.

But the problems continue: humans are involved in the actual ticket taking. How many would you guess are on duty, to handle the hundreds of customers? A grand total of two. So, tack on an additional 10 minutes or so in line.

You make it into the auditorium where, I do have to admit, the chairs are about the most comfortable I've ever seen in a theater. Then come the previews and, more often, the commercials. Not just 10 or even 15 minutes-worth, like at home. Nope - here the pre-game show runs a full half-hour. Only after this string of ordeals can you sit back, relax, and hopefully enjoy the movie (which I didn't even like much: it seemed like Spielberg couldn't decide whether he was shooting for a remake of Stand By Me, ET, or War of the Worlds).

But I save the best for last: a trip to the potty. I would have thought that $13 ought to entitle me to, say, one free visit. Not in Belgium, my friends. Here, you pay yet again, for the privelege of a pee.

Boy, how I wish they had Blockbuster or Hollywood Video over here...