For Tomb the Bell Tolls

If you go all the way back to my post from May 2010, you'll recall that in many places here in Europe you don't "own" a final resting place at a cemetery; instead, you simply lease it, usually for a couple of decades or longer.  If, at the end of the lease period, you (well, maybe better put: your living kin) don't choose to "renew your subscription," well, the cemetery simply "reuses" the plot for some other poor stiff (sorry, it was there; I had to use it).  What exactly happens to your headstone, remains, etc., etc., well, I've never really known.  Until now.I can at least offer an on-the-scene report of what happens above-ground.  I happened to be walking through our local cemetery this afternoon and discovered that a large section, measuring something like 100x100 ft., had been "cleared" of the massive, flat marble monuments often used here in Belgium to cover a grave (in many cases, these are used in lieu of a headstone, probably at an enormous cost, considering the marble slabs are about 8 inches thick, and certainly larger than the largest coffin).  What once was a field of tombs was now a barren patch of dirt.  All the marble was gone, except for a chunk here or there.  As for what had happened beneath the surface, well, here I choose to not even ask.
I'm guessing that, within a matter of weeks or months, we will start to see some new graves and marble slabs, as fresh tenants move into the space now so unceremoniously "vacated."  Oh, these unusual European ways...

Ach, wie schoen!

If it's peace and serenity you seek, my suggestion has to be Berchtesgaden, in the extreme southeastern tip of Germany.  This is one of our favorite places, anywhere.  Hopefully, for obvious reasons.

A Solution to Crappy Airplane Food?

It seems like a crafty German may have a solution to the age-old problem of crappy in-flight meals.  This rather unusual item moving around the baggage carousel at the Munich airport is, I believe, a huge pair of Weisswursts with mustard.  While this is certainly better tasting than what is served on the plane, you do have to wonder what's the point, if you don't bring the food with you, but instead check your meal with your baggage.  At least your luggage can't be confused with anyone else's.  Unless Samsonite now sells a Brats-and-Sauerkraut line of luggage.

 

Move Over, Julie Andrews

Maybe it's only natural, when in Salzburg, to get really caught up in the whole Sound of Music thing.  There are numerous tours you can take, visiting many of the filming sites.  You can actually stay at the von Trapp mansion, now a hotel (see post below).  But in one museum in the city you can get even closer to the movie than all of this.  You too can truly hear the sound of music...

The Hills Are Alive!

Turns out that Hollywood tricked us...twice.  In The Sound of Music, the von Trapp mansion in Salzburg, Austria, was actually two large estates, neither of which had any connection whatsoever to the family.  One was used for filming the lake/boat/terrace scenes; the other, for Maria's entry off the road as she first lays eyes on the house.  Recently, however, the real von Trapp mansion has been opened as a hotel; we stayed there just a couple of nights ago.  While it perhaps lacks a bit of the grandeur of the Hollywood version of the home, the marvelous family photos on the walls inside and the furnishings made the place special.  Here are photos of all 3 locations.  The real house is at the bottom.

  

So Many Beers; So Little Time...

It's true, both about the beer and the time.  In just seven weeks we will head home from our four years here in Belgium.  Tempus really does fugit, as they say.

Mosque Colors

The mosques in Andalusia in southern Spain are nothing short of amazing.  Besides the remarkable architecture, there is the color. Everywhere color!

Bone Appeteat

Far be it from me to poke fun at any Europeans' English.  With the exception of the German-speaking countries, nowhere is the locals' English worse than my abilities in their own language.  This, however, couldn't keep us from a smile or two (alright - also some belly laughs) when recently reviewing the English-language menu kindly provided to us at a small tapas bar in Seville, Spain.

It all started with: "Clouds of Chicken" .  We've all seen clouds with shapes that remind us other things, but fowl?  And on my plate?
Then we had: "Muffled Shrimp".  Makes sense to me: if there's anything I hate it's a loud-mouthed little guy.
This was quickly followed by: "Mussles to the Garlic".  And, right behind: "Eggplant to the Oven".  What is this - a menu order, or some twisted Hitler Army order?
Up until this point, all seemed well.  I'm sure I could have enjoyed any of these unpredictable meals.  But the final entree remained, I'm afraid, off limits: "Cream of Scum". 
It was about at this point that we asked where the nearest McDonalds was...

I Admit It...I Really Like Beer

                                And here, the proof positive.

Maybe He Should Use the Partner's Name

While it may not be as bad as a barber shop named Sweeney Todd, I'm not convinced this hair dresser in Brussels has chosen the ideal name for his undertaking...

Another Tough Day...

Maybe if we're good, really good, in this life, in the next one we'll get to come back as cats.  We can only hope!

Sunset in Split

    Taken from my hotel room balcony in Split, Croatia, last week...

Woman's Best Friend

OK, sure: he may lick himself at times and in places that are not always appropriate.  But I think that a few minor character flaws can be overlooked when he's willing to hang out the laundry to dry.  Hey Fido: sic sheets!

It'll Never Get Off the Ground, Wilbur!

I guess every generation since 1903 has been astounded at the size of aircraft, wondering how the laws of physics can possibly allow something so large and heavy to get off the ground.  I remember as a boy in the 1970s staring in awe at a Boeing 747 at the San Francisco airport.
Well, 747s are certainly no big deal anymore and these days are used more for cargo than passengers.  Now we have even larger aircraft, carrying more people greater distances, and forcing any rational person to wonder, yet again, how something this size could ever fly.
I got a chance to see one of the new Airbus A-380s up close and personal at the Frankfurt airport recently.  If your jaw doesn't drop when to see one of these behemoths, I think you're just bored with life.  So now the obvious questions about comparisons with 747s.  The 380 is only about 7 feet longer than a 747 and about 16 feet taller.  But the width is hard to believe: the Airbus's wingspan is a full 50 feet longer than the Boeing!  The new double-decker can carry well over 500 passengers, while the older 747, "only" about 340.  One can only wonder how long it takes to get your luggage after landing, you and the other 500 tired fliers... 
One final stat: the maximum take-off weight of the A-380 is 1.2 million pounds.  What hath the Wright Brothers wrought!

The Other Golden Gate

It turns out that Lisbon, Portugal, also has a Golden Gate Bridge (they don't call it that which is good; otherwise, they'd be guilty of what teenagers call "posing," since ours was built long before theirs).  True, they have one thing nearby that ours does not: a memorial to explorers going back as far back as the 16th century.  I guess we'd have to admit that San Fran was not exactly a world hub of exploration 500 years ago...

April 12th Quiz Question Answer

You'll find the quiz question in an earlier post, below.
As an astute reader (you might call him a cheater, in that he lived only a few miles from this odd building for four years!) has correctly noted, this strange contraption is a barge elevator, for lifting or lowering large ships over 250 feet from one canal in central Belgium to another.  Traditional lock-system canals over time could not handle the new, massive ships carrying coal and other cargo across central Europe.   Enter the elevator.  The concept seems just too simplistic to possibly work, but it does: a ship enters a small, deep pool on one side of the elevator, then is lifted/lowered (the water stays in the pool, keeping the ship afloat) well over a dozen stories in just under three minutes.  The gates open up and the barge heads along its merry way once again, no worse for the wear.  Boat traffic actually seems to flow far better via this complicated water route than any cars possibly can on all major roads in Belgium.  I wish I could travel to work every morning via canal...

Right of Way Rules...on the Baggage Carousel

Leave it to the Germans!  It's well known how important their cars are to them, as well as their rather arcane right-of-way rules on the road.  But now they've come up with a way to safeguard another important piece of property using similar ideas: luggage.
At the Munich airport, the baggage carousels appear, at first glance, to be just like any others that you'd encounter at any large airport.  But there is a difference.  Here there are small electronic sensors which monitor bags as they head down the arrival "chute" before dropping onto the oval carousel itself.  When the sensor detects that a bag is already moving counter-clockwise on the carousel as a second bag approaches on the chute, ready to be plopped down on top of the other bag, it actually halts the incoming bag temporarily, putting it in a holding pattern until such time as there is a sufficient gap on the carousel between pieces of luggage to allow the new bag to drop safely without touching any other, earlier-arrived bag.  In effect, the rule of the road is that a bag already on the carousel has the automatic right-of-way over any new bags attempting to enter the "carriageway" from the left.  Just like on the roads.
Amazing...

Istanbul by Night

It's official: I really don't think we're in Kansas anymore!

Istanbul was absolutely fantastic; all I hoped it might be.

Half Europe; half Middle East; half Asia, as Yogi Berra might say.

Quiz Question!

Guess, just guess what this building in central Belgium is all about.  If you get this one right, you're smarter than us!

Critters of Istanbul



There are semi-wild cats and dogs to be found all over Istanbul, Turkey.  I say semi-wild because of the dozens of street cats and the couple of street dogs I saw, not one appeared to be going hungry or afraid of humans.  On the contrary, everyone of them couldn't be more friendly and relaxed.  They seem to have mastered the art of peaceful sleep along the Bosphorus...

How's Your Alma Mater Looking?

This is the view taken last week from the school in Oberammergau in Bavaria where I get to give lectures every once in awhile.  Yah, we can do this!  Or, in German: Ja, vie kann do ziss!

Pompeii - Housing Alternative?

If you've seen the street scene in downtown Naples, you have to wonder if the residents there don't heave a sigh when they visit Pompeii.  When Vesuvius blew its stack nearly 2,000 years ago, it left behind a scene of everyday Roman life that might make Neapolitans envious,wishing perhaps they could move to these suburbs.  The excavated ruined town is immaculately clean, there's no incessant honking of car horns, no air pollution, no crime.  Sure, none of the dwellings here have a roof, but that just might be a price the nearby residents of Naples would be willing to pay, considering they'll never have to worry about getting slammed by a wild driver while crossing a street ever again.

Death at a Funeral

As I recall, that was the name of two Hollywood movies, released within a couple of years of each other.  Maybe it's true that life is a reflection of art: here's a recent news article that is nothing if not a bit odd.It also goes to prove that you can turn just about anything into a statistic.
It was announced in a Flanders newspaper that during the month of January three elderly people died while attending funeral services (I'm guessing not each other's).  As the article concludes, "One victim, aged 75, was overcome shortly after carrying the casket into the church."  Hell, I'm nowhere near 75, but I think if I tried to sling a coffin (fully loaded, no less) onto my back and haul it into a church, maybe I too would keel over.  One obvious thought here: what the *&^%#$ is a 75 year-old doing, carrying anything larger than, say, a box of All Bran cereal?

How Cold Is It in Europe?

       So cold that even the statues at the airport in Rome, Italy, freeze!

Driving in Southern Italy: Nuts in Naples!

I just returned from a business trip to Naples and it is nearly impossible to adequately describe the utter chaos there known to many as "driving."  The only place I've ever seen that was remotely comparable was Cairo, but there they have an excuse: "my other car" is usually a camel.First is the honking: in Naples, you are taught to drive with one hand on the wheel (actually, this is just a suggestion, not a requirement) and the other tooting on your tiny horn, so to speak.  You might be the 10th car in line, waiting at a red light, but the instant the light turns green, it is your job, as a resident of Naples, to begin incessant honking, just in case all 9 vehicles ahead of you somehow had fallen asleep in the last several seconds.  When driving the wrong way on a small, one-way street, honking evidently serves as your get-out-of-jail-free card.  Ditto for running a red light or passing using a sidewalk.
Fascinating is the role played by religion in all of this: the very first thing my taxi driver did when I plopped into the back seat was to lovingly touch a circular decal of Jesus on the inside of his windshield, say a few words quietly, then cross himself and turn to me in the back, with a knowing look, as if to say, "I think we both could use all the help we can get."  The man obviously knows his city.
The rules regarding passing on roads in Naples clearly state that...this is a trick statement.  It is abundantly clear that there are no such things.  You pass where you want to, when you want to, and regardless of width of street.  Again, "utter chaos" simply doesn't do this situation justice.
You might ask about the condition of the cars there.  As my sons would sum up in a single acronym: POSs, one and all.  You can count the dents by the dozens and only Stevie Wonder would consider driving a nice car into the city center.
The amazing thing is how many police cars there are in downtown Naples.  The one thing they most clearly are there *not* to do is enforce anything resembling a traffic law.  Let's just put it this way: being a traffic cop in Naples is about as rewarding and fulfilling a job as being, say, a visiting rabbi in downtown Teheran...

No Longer Cool at All

Sure, in high school it may have been very cool to smoke in the boys' room - a clear sign of one's toughness and willingness to thumb a nose at any authority figure.  But let's face it; we all should have outgrown this decades ago.  Not so in the airports in Brussels and Naples, Italy.  These remain the only two airports I've seen in all of the Europe where laziness and complete selfishness have come to replace youthful silliness.  Here, men evidently find it all simply too difficult to smoke outdoors, where they're supposed to, and so instead use the convenient toilet stalls in the cramped, nearly oxygen-free airport bathrooms.  It is sadly, at least in my view, a clear symbol of how, in both locations, the individual decides on a daily basis that his own particular needs, wants, or impatience trump all other considerations, to include politeness and thoughtfulness.  What may have made one smile as a teenager in high school now can only make one frown in anger and disgust. Is it all that difficult to do what you know is right?

Cold But Beautiful

              Winter time in the Bavarian village of Oberammergau...

Wind Power...and Hot Air

While America continues to wring its hands over the perceived esthetic ugliness of wind turbines, Europe continues to make the most of this eco-friendly, eternally renewable energy source.  We are apparently terrified that these fields of what the Germans call "wind wheels" will ruin the countryside.  From personal experience, Lucie and I can tell you that, having seen hundreds of the turbines in 3 countries, it is no big deal.  Not literally: these things are enormous.  The latest models are 600 feet high, with a "wing span" diameter of the propellors of nearly 400 feet!
At present, the total energy produced by wind power in Germany alone is 29 Gigawatts which, if memory serves, is just about what Doc Brown needed to power his DeLorean back to the future.  It's a lot of power, about 15 times what Hoover Dam is capable of.  And the number will rise to 51 Gigawatts by 2020, with the introduction of many new wind farms off the northern coast.
I'm not sure what it will take for America to start to think about the future, and about modern solutions to old problems.  Europeans focus on wind and the sun; we focus on more offshore drilling and maybe a new natural gas pipeline or two from Canada.

How Cold Is It?

Maybe you've read about the hundreds of deaths across Europe caused by this extended cold wave.  I think the tally is up over 400 now, mostly in eastern Europe.  Even here in balmy Belgium this is how bad it is: for the month of February we have not made it as high as freezing yet.  And there is no relief on the horizon.  Brrrr

7 Months and 70 Degrees

What a difference a couple of seasons make!  One picture of Linderhof Palace in Bavaria was taken this past summer, with temperatures near 70.  The other was taken two days ago, with temps just barely below zero.  Both beautiful, but in very different ways.

Riding the Rails, The Hard Way

Here's a rather weird news story from the Belgian press that leaves you wondering whether you should be happy or still stay sad.  It turns out that in 2011 there was a drop of railroad suicides in Belgium by something like 20%.  Just over 100 people took their own lives in this manner.  They don't elaborate but I assume this is the result of throwing yourself in front of a moving train and not, for example, trying the Chef's Surprise in the dining car.  The fact that 70% of the rail suicides took place in Flanders, the more well-to-do northern half of Belgium, is puzzling.  Wallonia, the much poorer, French-speaking southern half of the country, would seem the more likely place for despondency.  But I think I've figured this one out: the trains are so habitually late in Wallonia that it's nearly impossible to know when to be waiting on the tracks for the next train.  In Flanders things run much more smoothly, so your chances of success naturally go up dramatically.  And, I guess, deadly. 
Here's one more odd bit of news from the same article: an additional 73 people tried to commit suicide last year by this means, but were unsuccessful.  Boy, talk about having a bad day: you finally decide you've had enough and want to end it all by throwing yourself in front of a train, and yet still find a way to mess up.  The train was going too slowly, or didn't weigh enough?? In this case, I believe Someone is telling you that you really were meant to keep on living.

Filly Filet - The Quarterhorse Pounder

Europeans find it extremely curious that the U.S. only a week ago removed the ban on the selling of horse meat for human consumption.  They've been pounding down ponies here for centuries, evidently without any terrible side-effects.  I've seen horse meat in the store; it doesn't look all that different from beef and, at least here in Belgium, costs about the same as good beef.  Seen it, yes; tried it, not yet...