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.