In Terry Pratchett's book, The Truth, he says:
"Words resemble fish in that some specialized ones can survive only in a kind of reef, where their curious shapes and usages are protected from the hurley-burley of the open sea. 'Rumpus' and 'fracas' are found only in certain newspapers (in much the same way that "beverages" are found only in certain menus). They are never used in normal conversation."
In some ways, the language I am learning in my Dutch class is the same. We are learning how to say simple things very slowly in complete sentences, with a sort of exaggerated pronounciation. Every day in class, my classmates and I sit there and have practice conversations that run something like:
(in dutch, obviously)
Me: How ARE you?
Marisa: I am good, and you, how are YOU?
Me: Good!
Me: And all of you? Are you going to Paris tomorrow?
Andrew: NO. All of us are are NOT going to Paris tomorrow.
Me: Ah, and where are of you going to?
Andrew: We are all going to Brussels.
Then, when we are talking about our actual plans for the weekend, we lapse back into English, because, seriously, who talks like that? But in a way, I have gotten used to these conversation even so. I was returning a book to the University of Gent library on Monday, and I carefully constructed a sentence that (I think) would translate to something like, "I have a book to return" that I could say to the librarian as I handed it in. I almost expected him to say something like, "Oh, you have BOOK to return? Ah, HERE is the book! THANK you very MUCH" and I braced myself to try to understand any variation thereof. Of course, because this was the real world, he took it, making a noncommittal grunting sound. I stood there for a moment feeling disappointed, and then I walked away feeling relieved. In the real world, people still communicate mostly in gestures and fragments that are pretty universal, and that is something I feel like I completely understand!
27 March, 2007
21 March, 2007
Ice, by any other name...
...is still really bloody cold.
I am amazed at the multitude of ways ice can fall from the sky. A cold snap has been rolling its way across Northern Europe since Sunday evening, bringing with it regen (rain), sneew (snow), hagel (hail), and plenty of ijs (ice).
By now I am starting to become familiar with snow:
I'm reminded of the Terry Pratchett book "The Last Continent", based loosely on Australia, where the natives don't believe that water can fall from the sky. "Water is heavy, how does it get up there?!" I'd have thought that about so much ice had I not seen it myself!
And of course, there is hail. I have seen the small hail that falls by the bucketfull, which drops from otherwise dry skies. The picture at the right features what I have dubbed "rock salt" hail, which freezes to things as if they are stale cineplex pretzels. It seems to always strike exactly when I get on my bike for the last leg to work.
17 March, 2007
The finer points
I started taking the introductory Dutch class at the University of Gent this last Wednesday. So far we have covered pronunciation, and some basic phrases most of us already knew such as "What is your name?" and "Where do you live?" My classmates hail from all over. Everywhere from Nigeria to Thailand, Canada to Portugal. When we were planning our trip to Belgium it seemed that spending my time with other expats would be silly. Why go all the way to Belgium to send our time with people from home? But it has been a huge comfort to me to talk to other people who live linguistically and culturally isolated. Interestingly, I'm the only one in the class that is there with someone from home. Everyone else is there, rather romantically, for love.
I suggested to one of the girls in class that she will likely be learning Dutch much faster than I, seeing as she can practice it at home with her Belgian boyfriend. She rolled her eyes and laughed. "It causes tension!" I guess he isn't always as...patient as he could be. They too have trouble finding certain foods, and struggle with being unemployed after successful professional lives in other countries. And there is only one other American there, so really I'm NOT spending time with people I could have met back in the States. Instead I get to meet adventurous people from all over the world! Neat!
Our teacher is really funny. She speaks Dutch, English, French, and knows some of the good swear words in Arabic. She has to teach Dutch in English and French at the same time, because not everyone in the class has a language in common. There is one girl there from Spain who doesn't speak either of those, so she tries to throw in a few words in Spanish if she can, although professor Ines admits that she really doesn't know much Spanish. The class takes twice as long because she has to go back and say everything again, but I don't mind because it is fun to try to understand what she says in French. In a very practical way, she is stressing the Flemish dialect pronunciation of Dutch.
In Flemish, I have learned, the "g" sound is very soft. It is almost exactly like an "h", and all of us in the class are struggling to distinguish them. They also differ from Netherlands Dutch with their v's and their w's. In the Netherlands, a "v" at the beginning of a word sounds more like an "f", and a "w" often sounds more like a "v". In Flemish, V's and W's are more like their English counterparts. Of course, when I started learning Dutch, I was learning from a girl in San Diego from the Netherlands, so now I have to unlearn a few things. I am sure that when my Dutch speaking relatives hear my careful Flemish pronunciation they will think, "Gee, her Dutch really isn't that good!" But if I don't learn the local dialect, I never will understand what anyone is saying, so what can you do.
On another subject, I had to go out and buy new shoes this week. When I lived in San Diego I wore sandals or flip flops when ever I wasn't at work. Since I've been here, I've been wearing boots more suited to the cold weather that apparently didn't fit me very well. I never really noticed, because I didn't wear them very often. For the past few months I was noticing my left foot hurting, and some reading online suggested that sometimes your left foot is bigger than your right, if you are right handed...and that my shoes were causing my problem. No problem. I'll just go out and get new shoes! In the land of sexy boots, this could even be fun, right? I looked up what my shoe size would be here in Europe, and went out to remedy the problem.
In the US I am usually a little bit discriminated against, shoe-wise. I have freakishly large size ten feet, which are very wide through the toe box. Most stores don't order a lot of shoes in that size for women, so they quickly sell out of any cute shoes. With fear in my heart and my foot hurting, I walked around to shoe store after shoe store. No matter what shoes I looked at, they never had it in my size. I realized after a few hours that it is because they only stock shoes up to size 41 for women here, and depending on the brand and that type of shoe, I can wear up to a 42. That's also leaving a little bit of room for thick socks, but still, it's supposed to snow on Monday, so it would seem unwise not to leave room for some decent socks! In the end I had to buy a pair of Men's sneakers. Since then, my foot has been feeling a lot better, but it's sort of sad. No sexy European boots for me.
I suggested to one of the girls in class that she will likely be learning Dutch much faster than I, seeing as she can practice it at home with her Belgian boyfriend. She rolled her eyes and laughed. "It causes tension!" I guess he isn't always as...patient as he could be. They too have trouble finding certain foods, and struggle with being unemployed after successful professional lives in other countries. And there is only one other American there, so really I'm NOT spending time with people I could have met back in the States. Instead I get to meet adventurous people from all over the world! Neat!
Our teacher is really funny. She speaks Dutch, English, French, and knows some of the good swear words in Arabic. She has to teach Dutch in English and French at the same time, because not everyone in the class has a language in common. There is one girl there from Spain who doesn't speak either of those, so she tries to throw in a few words in Spanish if she can, although professor Ines admits that she really doesn't know much Spanish. The class takes twice as long because she has to go back and say everything again, but I don't mind because it is fun to try to understand what she says in French. In a very practical way, she is stressing the Flemish dialect pronunciation of Dutch.
In Flemish, I have learned, the "g" sound is very soft. It is almost exactly like an "h", and all of us in the class are struggling to distinguish them. They also differ from Netherlands Dutch with their v's and their w's. In the Netherlands, a "v" at the beginning of a word sounds more like an "f", and a "w" often sounds more like a "v". In Flemish, V's and W's are more like their English counterparts. Of course, when I started learning Dutch, I was learning from a girl in San Diego from the Netherlands, so now I have to unlearn a few things. I am sure that when my Dutch speaking relatives hear my careful Flemish pronunciation they will think, "Gee, her Dutch really isn't that good!" But if I don't learn the local dialect, I never will understand what anyone is saying, so what can you do.
On another subject, I had to go out and buy new shoes this week. When I lived in San Diego I wore sandals or flip flops when ever I wasn't at work. Since I've been here, I've been wearing boots more suited to the cold weather that apparently didn't fit me very well. I never really noticed, because I didn't wear them very often. For the past few months I was noticing my left foot hurting, and some reading online suggested that sometimes your left foot is bigger than your right, if you are right handed...and that my shoes were causing my problem. No problem. I'll just go out and get new shoes! In the land of sexy boots, this could even be fun, right? I looked up what my shoe size would be here in Europe, and went out to remedy the problem.
In the US I am usually a little bit discriminated against, shoe-wise. I have freakishly large size ten feet, which are very wide through the toe box. Most stores don't order a lot of shoes in that size for women, so they quickly sell out of any cute shoes. With fear in my heart and my foot hurting, I walked around to shoe store after shoe store. No matter what shoes I looked at, they never had it in my size. I realized after a few hours that it is because they only stock shoes up to size 41 for women here, and depending on the brand and that type of shoe, I can wear up to a 42. That's also leaving a little bit of room for thick socks, but still, it's supposed to snow on Monday, so it would seem unwise not to leave room for some decent socks! In the end I had to buy a pair of Men's sneakers. Since then, my foot has been feeling a lot better, but it's sort of sad. No sexy European boots for me.
15 March, 2007
In Bruges
It looks like a major motion picture is being filmed now over the hill in Bruges. I fact, the film is calle "In Bruges", and is about some mobsters lying low there. It will star Colin Farrell and Ralph Fiennes. Some people I work with saw them filming about a week ago.
The Flemings are upset that apparently a French speaking actor Jeremy Renier, will be displayed speaking French, which some commentators found upsetting:
"Jeremy Renier is going to be the 'local character'. Jeremy Renier is a french speaking actor who will most likely speak French in this movie. French is NOT the local language in Bruges. I hope someone from the production team will make sure not to make the mistake of having the local characters in this movie speak French."- Nicofavo
This is followed up by numerous assenting comments decrying the fact, and demanding local Flemish be used in the movie. Which is immediately followed by Vlaamse political commentary about Belgian language issues. I do hope they use Flemish in the movie- if they don't, it will be incredibly inaccurate, and since most Americans learn geography from television, it makes it an even worse offense.
At any rate, now I'll keep my eye on this. It will be interesting to see when it comes out, since it allegedly addresses cultural exchanges between the characters and locale. The film info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0780536/
The Flemings are upset that apparently a French speaking actor Jeremy Renier, will be displayed speaking French, which some commentators found upsetting:
"Jeremy Renier is going to be the 'local character'. Jeremy Renier is a french speaking actor who will most likely speak French in this movie. French is NOT the local language in Bruges. I hope someone from the production team will make sure not to make the mistake of having the local characters in this movie speak French."- Nicofavo
This is followed up by numerous assenting comments decrying the fact, and demanding local Flemish be used in the movie. Which is immediately followed by Vlaamse political commentary about Belgian language issues. I do hope they use Flemish in the movie- if they don't, it will be incredibly inaccurate, and since most Americans learn geography from television, it makes it an even worse offense.
At any rate, now I'll keep my eye on this. It will be interesting to see when it comes out, since it allegedly addresses cultural exchanges between the characters and locale. The film info: http://imdb.com/title/tt0780536/
05 March, 2007
A Trip Home
So I just returned from a week back in the states. I flew into San Diego last Saturday, and our again one week later, for some technology and business meetings in the unit headquarters. Despite taking the camera, I managed to take exactly two pictures- both from the plane. One is in the Northeast U.S., flying over a frozen landscape, and another of Antwerp at sunrise. Maybe when I return for two weeks next month I’ll actually be able to see more people and snap more pictures. As it was, I only met a few friends for lunch and dinner, and had dinner with the family a few nights. I guess business comes first though.
I’ll post the pictures as soon as I can get them out of the camera.
It was a very busy week for work, as was the week preceding it, and so shall be the following week. In fact, I’ll be pretty slammed through May 1st as our project elements become due, so posting through April may be a bit sparse. Not necessarily because we’re too busy or lazy to post, we’re just quite sure you don’t want to hear about Dutch indefinite articles, project planning, and trips to the grocery store.
Judi and I are looking at traveling somewhere local in March, since we’re budgeting for a longer trip to Paris in April, and both of our “busy” factors will increase. Judi starts her intensive Dutch classes on March 15th. I’ll be taking the same lessons by proxy, meaning I’ll read her text book and work on the same program without actually taking the class, since I can’t actually be there (the class lasts three hours per day, five days per week). That of course, on top of our graduate classes we’re both taking. Fun!
It was nice to eat some Mexican food again. Real Mexican food. We had tried a “Mexican” place in Gent the week before my business trip, and while it wasn’t exactly “horrible” in any sense of the word, it wasn’t exactly Mexican food either. They did have pinto beans- but they were re-fried baked pinto bean chunks that kind of reminded me of those crusty Japanese mochi ice cream balls. Only bean flavored and not chilled- rather crusty and dry. The rice was bland, as if they made white rice and poured chile powder on it thinking that made it Mexican. The burritos were generic store corn tortillas with corn, lettuce, cheese, and tomatos in it, rather like a vegi pita in a tortilla. It was good, but not a burrito. It’s not Belgium’s fault they suffer from a significant shortage of Mexicans.
So it was nice to have a steaming hot plate of cheese enchiladas, a fish taco, “special” quesadilla, and some real runny beans and proper Mexican rice. Oh, and a bean and cheese burrito dripping with salsa fresca. Now I’m hungry again.
I’ll post the pictures as soon as I can get them out of the camera.
It was a very busy week for work, as was the week preceding it, and so shall be the following week. In fact, I’ll be pretty slammed through May 1st as our project elements become due, so posting through April may be a bit sparse. Not necessarily because we’re too busy or lazy to post, we’re just quite sure you don’t want to hear about Dutch indefinite articles, project planning, and trips to the grocery store.
Judi and I are looking at traveling somewhere local in March, since we’re budgeting for a longer trip to Paris in April, and both of our “busy” factors will increase. Judi starts her intensive Dutch classes on March 15th. I’ll be taking the same lessons by proxy, meaning I’ll read her text book and work on the same program without actually taking the class, since I can’t actually be there (the class lasts three hours per day, five days per week). That of course, on top of our graduate classes we’re both taking. Fun!
It was nice to eat some Mexican food again. Real Mexican food. We had tried a “Mexican” place in Gent the week before my business trip, and while it wasn’t exactly “horrible” in any sense of the word, it wasn’t exactly Mexican food either. They did have pinto beans- but they were re-fried baked pinto bean chunks that kind of reminded me of those crusty Japanese mochi ice cream balls. Only bean flavored and not chilled- rather crusty and dry. The rice was bland, as if they made white rice and poured chile powder on it thinking that made it Mexican. The burritos were generic store corn tortillas with corn, lettuce, cheese, and tomatos in it, rather like a vegi pita in a tortilla. It was good, but not a burrito. It’s not Belgium’s fault they suffer from a significant shortage of Mexicans.
So it was nice to have a steaming hot plate of cheese enchiladas, a fish taco, “special” quesadilla, and some real runny beans and proper Mexican rice. Oh, and a bean and cheese burrito dripping with salsa fresca. Now I’m hungry again.
13 February, 2007
Genre: horror
Travis likes to tell stories about our travels, but occasionally strays into politics. I like to write humor, mostly, but this time I am going to stray into horror. If you have a dental phobia, I advise that you a.) Read no further, and b.) Don't go to the dentist in Belgium.
While we were in Amsterdam I noticed a slight tooth ache. I wrote it off to the occasional tooth aches I get when my sinuses are really stuffy. Apparently that can happen, my last dentist explained to me. But as the week went on, I noticed more discomfort, until on Wednesday and Thursday nights I was waking up in the middle of the night to take ibuprofen. I had not yet found a dentist here, but I knew it was time. Friday I called a hotline that helps expats find English speaking doctors, but they didn't have any dentists listed in Gent. They gave me the web page of the phone book, and I looked up a dentist that is only a block away. The woman I talked to said she was comfortable with English, and, I'll admit, I was sort of glad that the first appointment she had wasn't until Monday. I was beginning to suspect that the tooth hurting was one that I already had a crown on, which probably meant that it would have to be a root canal. Fun. Spent the weekend on tenterhooks, which are apparently "hooked nails for securing cloth on a tenter" or so I hear.
When I went to the office on Monday, I was immediately informed that the dentist I had the appointment with was out sick (his wife), but that the husband had a cancellation at 2:30 PM. Could I come back then? Oh yes! Feeling like a condemned woman who had been granted a small reprieve, I dashed out and ran some errands. Later that afternoon I arrived about 5 minutes late, but the appointment before me wasn't done yet anyway, so I got the opportunity to look at dental flyers in Dutch (interesting!). Colgate is trying to break into the market here, I think.
At about 2:45 the gentleman rushed in, and invited me back to the patient room. I'm used to having to fill out intake paperwork, but I guess they don't do that here. I sat down in the chair, while he hurried around dumping out trays, disinfecting apparatus, and tossing instruments in another room.
"What brings you here?" he asked brusquely. "Just a checkup?"
"No, I have a painful tooth with hot and cold sensitivity." I admitted. He asked me a few questions about how long I had been feeling the pain, and tilted the chair back. A few probes later, I admitted I couldn't tell for sure which tooth it was. My whole lower left jaw was hurting, honestly. He took an xray, offhandedly asking me if I was pregnant right before shooting the film.
At this point he entered my name, phone number and address into his computer.
"This is not such a nice street, the one you live on." He said. I shrugged, and commented that it is close to the train station.
"That is the only good point about it."
Sadly, the xray didn't reveal any more information about the tooth, so he blew some cold air on my teeth. "Can you feel this?" he asked.
"Oh! God! Yes!" I cried. He took the air away.
"Can you still feel it?"
"Yes!" I said, as pulses of agony rippled through my jaw.
Then he took a piece of cotton and got it very cold with, I think, dry ice. "Oh boy." I gasped. This was going to hurt. He put it on one molar...nothing.
He held it to my crown...little tears popped out of the corners of my eyes.
Yup, that was the one.
"I don't think I am going to be able to get the crown off." He warned. And then all of a sudden he pulled out this three inch needle. Whoa, what's going on here? One minute we're trying to figure out what is going on, next minute he is pulling out a huge syringe. What is he doing?? Usually, in the states my dentist would discuss with me a little more what is going on before they just start.
I cringed and said something like, "jesus!" when I saw the needle. As my family knows, I am not good with needles. In fact, sometimes I pass out. The last dentist I had in the US didn't even use that sort of needle anymore, instead some sort of space age thing that would directly numb the gums and tooth she was working on. All of my dentists in the states would at least put a little bit of topical anisthetic on a Qtip and numb the injection site first. My heart started really pounding.
"Would you prefer to do this without this?" he asked dryly, waving the needle in my face.
"No! I'm just one of those people who really doesn't like coming to the dentists!" I said, feeling really panicky now. He made some comment about how no one likes going to the dentist. I rolled my eyes away and tried to at least not see the needle.
Then he pulled out some sort of bizarre torture device and started bashing my crown trying to get it off. Most dentists in the states don't even use those anymore, I read later on the internet, because they can damage the underlying tooth more than it is worth.
"Well, it is well made." he said. "I am going to just have to drill through it."
"Can you DO that?" I asked, my stomach lurching. "Isn't there metal in there?" (Gosh, this thing was expensive, too. Now you're going to drill through it? I thought).
"I can't tell from the xray," he answered. No more information than that, the drill just comes out. He doesn't say anything like, "if this hurts, raise your hand". After a few moments of drilling he says, "There IS metal in there." No, REEEALLY. Switches out the drill bit, gets back to work. Suddenly, more pain is stabbing into my jaw. I raise my hand.
"I can really feel this." I say. He grabs the needle, and almost with relish stabs it back into the hinge of my jaw again. Picking, of course, a new spot to jab, one that wasn't numb, so I got to feel the needle going in again.
I am sensitive to dental anesthetic. It makes my heart race, and it makes me shaky. On top of my pain and fear already, now I feel like my heart is going to lurch out of my chest and go down the hall for a brisk jog.
I draw in a ragged breath and say, "If it still hurts, I will raise my hand again, okay?"
"Tilt your head back more," he instructs. "Can you still feel anything?"
"I can still feel cold, and a feeling like stabbing pins in my tooth." I told him.
"You aren't supposed to feel anything." He sternly admonished me. Now this is my fault!
"But as long as you don't feel pain..." he starts drilling again. Okay, okay, he doesn't define the feeling of being stabbed by pins as pain. Maybe one must be crushed by stampeding buffalos for it to count as pain in this country!
Suddenly, it feels more like he is jamming a power drill directly into my tooth, sans anestethic completely. My hand flies up, more tears form in the corners of my eyes. He throws down the drill in frustration.
"It must be infected, that can keep the anesthetic from working." He packs some antibiotic into the tooth, and throws some sort of seal over the whole thing, tells me that the pain will go away in two or three days. Makes an appointment for me on the 22nd, and says, "I don't have time to do a root canal today anyway."
Well why was he fishing around in my tooth with a drill then? This will remain a mystery.
I have trouble understanding what he says when he says how much money I have to give him, and I notice my hands are shaking like a leaf as I hand him the cash.
Cut to later in the evening. I make soup, Travis gets home, we eat, and I joke about my whole left side of my face still being numb. I take two ibuprofen before the numbness wears off, because hey, it hurt before it got bashed for five minues and then drilled open, right? Gradually the feeling returns to my cheek and tongue.
7:20pm: I started to feel a distinct throbbing . I know you can take more ibuprofen then the dose mentions on the bottle, so I take two more.
8:00pm: The anesthetic is pretty much worn off. I can't sit down, can't even stay still. I walk around the apartment sobbing from the pain. We spent the next twenty or thirty minutes on the internet trying to figure out if it would be safe for me to take any more ibuprofen.
8:30pm: I tell Travis to call the emergency dentist number in Belgium, for evening and weekend emergencies. I can't take it anymore. Two or three more days like this? No. Just, no.
8:40pm: No one answers the emergency number. Travis starts calling other emergency medical numbers, tells the story to each person, and gets transferred to someone else each time. I pace, sobbing. The pain is radiating into my neck, my whole mouth, it's like the sun and my whole body is just sort of orbiting around it.
8:43pm: Travis finally gets transferred to the on-call dentist, and she calls in a prescription to a local hospital. He runs out to take the bus there to pick it up for me. I contemplate hurting myself somehow just to get my body to release some more endorphins, and to maybe distract me from my tooth hurting.
The happy ending is Travis, my hero, getting back with some amoxycillin and paracetamol with codeine. I'm also NOT going back to that dentist, we decided. Does anyone know a nice English speaking dentist in Gent who will give me some diazepam? I don't think I'm going into a dentist's office in the near future without it.
While we were in Amsterdam I noticed a slight tooth ache. I wrote it off to the occasional tooth aches I get when my sinuses are really stuffy. Apparently that can happen, my last dentist explained to me. But as the week went on, I noticed more discomfort, until on Wednesday and Thursday nights I was waking up in the middle of the night to take ibuprofen. I had not yet found a dentist here, but I knew it was time. Friday I called a hotline that helps expats find English speaking doctors, but they didn't have any dentists listed in Gent. They gave me the web page of the phone book, and I looked up a dentist that is only a block away. The woman I talked to said she was comfortable with English, and, I'll admit, I was sort of glad that the first appointment she had wasn't until Monday. I was beginning to suspect that the tooth hurting was one that I already had a crown on, which probably meant that it would have to be a root canal. Fun. Spent the weekend on tenterhooks, which are apparently "hooked nails for securing cloth on a tenter" or so I hear.
When I went to the office on Monday, I was immediately informed that the dentist I had the appointment with was out sick (his wife), but that the husband had a cancellation at 2:30 PM. Could I come back then? Oh yes! Feeling like a condemned woman who had been granted a small reprieve, I dashed out and ran some errands. Later that afternoon I arrived about 5 minutes late, but the appointment before me wasn't done yet anyway, so I got the opportunity to look at dental flyers in Dutch (interesting!). Colgate is trying to break into the market here, I think.
At about 2:45 the gentleman rushed in, and invited me back to the patient room. I'm used to having to fill out intake paperwork, but I guess they don't do that here. I sat down in the chair, while he hurried around dumping out trays, disinfecting apparatus, and tossing instruments in another room.
"What brings you here?" he asked brusquely. "Just a checkup?"
"No, I have a painful tooth with hot and cold sensitivity." I admitted. He asked me a few questions about how long I had been feeling the pain, and tilted the chair back. A few probes later, I admitted I couldn't tell for sure which tooth it was. My whole lower left jaw was hurting, honestly. He took an xray, offhandedly asking me if I was pregnant right before shooting the film.
At this point he entered my name, phone number and address into his computer.
"This is not such a nice street, the one you live on." He said. I shrugged, and commented that it is close to the train station.
"That is the only good point about it."
Sadly, the xray didn't reveal any more information about the tooth, so he blew some cold air on my teeth. "Can you feel this?" he asked.
"Oh! God! Yes!" I cried. He took the air away.
"Can you still feel it?"
"Yes!" I said, as pulses of agony rippled through my jaw.
Then he took a piece of cotton and got it very cold with, I think, dry ice. "Oh boy." I gasped. This was going to hurt. He put it on one molar...nothing.
He held it to my crown...little tears popped out of the corners of my eyes.
Yup, that was the one.
"I don't think I am going to be able to get the crown off." He warned. And then all of a sudden he pulled out this three inch needle. Whoa, what's going on here? One minute we're trying to figure out what is going on, next minute he is pulling out a huge syringe. What is he doing?? Usually, in the states my dentist would discuss with me a little more what is going on before they just start.
I cringed and said something like, "jesus!" when I saw the needle. As my family knows, I am not good with needles. In fact, sometimes I pass out. The last dentist I had in the US didn't even use that sort of needle anymore, instead some sort of space age thing that would directly numb the gums and tooth she was working on. All of my dentists in the states would at least put a little bit of topical anisthetic on a Qtip and numb the injection site first. My heart started really pounding.
"Would you prefer to do this without this?" he asked dryly, waving the needle in my face.
"No! I'm just one of those people who really doesn't like coming to the dentists!" I said, feeling really panicky now. He made some comment about how no one likes going to the dentist. I rolled my eyes away and tried to at least not see the needle.
Then he pulled out some sort of bizarre torture device and started bashing my crown trying to get it off. Most dentists in the states don't even use those anymore, I read later on the internet, because they can damage the underlying tooth more than it is worth.
"Well, it is well made." he said. "I am going to just have to drill through it."
"Can you DO that?" I asked, my stomach lurching. "Isn't there metal in there?" (Gosh, this thing was expensive, too. Now you're going to drill through it? I thought).
"I can't tell from the xray," he answered. No more information than that, the drill just comes out. He doesn't say anything like, "if this hurts, raise your hand". After a few moments of drilling he says, "There IS metal in there." No, REEEALLY. Switches out the drill bit, gets back to work. Suddenly, more pain is stabbing into my jaw. I raise my hand.
"I can really feel this." I say. He grabs the needle, and almost with relish stabs it back into the hinge of my jaw again. Picking, of course, a new spot to jab, one that wasn't numb, so I got to feel the needle going in again.
I am sensitive to dental anesthetic. It makes my heart race, and it makes me shaky. On top of my pain and fear already, now I feel like my heart is going to lurch out of my chest and go down the hall for a brisk jog.
I draw in a ragged breath and say, "If it still hurts, I will raise my hand again, okay?"
"Tilt your head back more," he instructs. "Can you still feel anything?"
"I can still feel cold, and a feeling like stabbing pins in my tooth." I told him.
"You aren't supposed to feel anything." He sternly admonished me. Now this is my fault!
"But as long as you don't feel pain..." he starts drilling again. Okay, okay, he doesn't define the feeling of being stabbed by pins as pain. Maybe one must be crushed by stampeding buffalos for it to count as pain in this country!
Suddenly, it feels more like he is jamming a power drill directly into my tooth, sans anestethic completely. My hand flies up, more tears form in the corners of my eyes. He throws down the drill in frustration.
"It must be infected, that can keep the anesthetic from working." He packs some antibiotic into the tooth, and throws some sort of seal over the whole thing, tells me that the pain will go away in two or three days. Makes an appointment for me on the 22nd, and says, "I don't have time to do a root canal today anyway."
Well why was he fishing around in my tooth with a drill then? This will remain a mystery.
I have trouble understanding what he says when he says how much money I have to give him, and I notice my hands are shaking like a leaf as I hand him the cash.
Cut to later in the evening. I make soup, Travis gets home, we eat, and I joke about my whole left side of my face still being numb. I take two ibuprofen before the numbness wears off, because hey, it hurt before it got bashed for five minues and then drilled open, right? Gradually the feeling returns to my cheek and tongue.
7:20pm: I started to feel a distinct throbbing . I know you can take more ibuprofen then the dose mentions on the bottle, so I take two more.
8:00pm: The anesthetic is pretty much worn off. I can't sit down, can't even stay still. I walk around the apartment sobbing from the pain. We spent the next twenty or thirty minutes on the internet trying to figure out if it would be safe for me to take any more ibuprofen.
8:30pm: I tell Travis to call the emergency dentist number in Belgium, for evening and weekend emergencies. I can't take it anymore. Two or three more days like this? No. Just, no.
8:40pm: No one answers the emergency number. Travis starts calling other emergency medical numbers, tells the story to each person, and gets transferred to someone else each time. I pace, sobbing. The pain is radiating into my neck, my whole mouth, it's like the sun and my whole body is just sort of orbiting around it.
8:43pm: Travis finally gets transferred to the on-call dentist, and she calls in a prescription to a local hospital. He runs out to take the bus there to pick it up for me. I contemplate hurting myself somehow just to get my body to release some more endorphins, and to maybe distract me from my tooth hurting.
The happy ending is Travis, my hero, getting back with some amoxycillin and paracetamol with codeine. I'm also NOT going back to that dentist, we decided. Does anyone know a nice English speaking dentist in Gent who will give me some diazepam? I don't think I'm going into a dentist's office in the near future without it.
08 February, 2007
Sneeuw!
It is snowing! Most of you have seen snow before, and some of you have a lot more experience with it than you want, but this has been a week of fascinating weather firsts for me. On Tuesday it pseudo-snowed for two hours. I was told it wasn’t really snow, only kinda-snow. It was snowish icy stuff falling from the sky though, which I’d still never seen, and fell in big chunks that melted moments after hitting the ground. After an hour some metal eaves and the tall grass started to build up wet slush, but that was the extent of it, though for half an hour it did come down pretty fast. I was surprised by how heavy these little snow-ice-chunks falling from the sky were. They made a clicking sound when they struck my jacket. And I think they had it out for my eyebrows and eyelashes.
On Wednesday morning everything was covered with thick ice and frost. The slush from Tuesday had re-frozen over everything creating a very white, slippery world. The fog was still thick, and the naked trees were white and icy, creating the eerie gray and white frostscape I’d only ever seen in pictures. It was much more exiting to see it in person. That morning I learned about sleet on my bike ride to work through some brutally cold wind. It was microscopic frozen rain, very quietly hissing against my jacket as I challenged the ground ice at top speed. The elevated ruffles on my outer jacket layers collected the particles, and by the time I got to work I looked like a cobalt tiger with jagged white stripes. And white eyebrows.
This morning I left a numbingly cold Gent, and stepped off of the train in Harelbeke into about a centimeter of snow (apparently even Flanders has microclimates). It had been falling there for a little while, and was continuing to pick up. This snow was smaller than the Tuesday ice drop, and was coming down in interesting, swooping ways following little contours in the wind. I picked up a fluffy pile of snow and tossed it into the street (by then already a chocolate slushy). It still “clicked” off of my jacket and got in my eyebrows and eyelashes.
It was coming down even faster as I tore through Zwevegem on my bike, and I learned that while riding very fast, snow in the face stings, and wow does it jab you in the eye constantly. By then the squares and lawns in Zwevegem were thoroughly covered. The Markt looked like a huge flat sheet of quilt batting, and all of the grass expanses looked like they’d been replaced by polystyrene. It was interesting to see how the powdery phenomenon behaved- sticking into the bark on the windward side of trees, gathering on the tops of juniper branches in little tufts, collecting on eves and windshields. I crunched through the biggest piles I could find when I got to work (which weren’t terribly deep, since I guess this is pretty mild snowfall). Still, this is the first time I’ve ever seen it snow all the same, and quite exciting. Still, even the so-called "fluffy" snow isn't so fluffy- I'm surprised by how hard and heavy it is.
As soon as I got to work a coworker took a few pictures of it. The snow won’t leave my eyebrows alone even in pictures! It's supposed to stop snowing and rain later on, but then snow more and stronger tomorrow.
06 February, 2007
Most fun..and for none of the reasons you are thinking
Hello all, this is a picture of the Central Station in Antwerp, another beautiful train station here in Belgium. I took this picture on the way back from Amsterdam this weekend.
We went up to visit our friend, who we know online as "Allieboo", on his way through the Netherlands on a business trip to India. I took the train up to Schiphol station to meet his flight on Friday, while my other half had to stay at work for a long meeting. As Boo is currently on crutches, he didn't get to see too much of Amsterdam, but I managed to get him a cup of coffee in a genuine Amsterdam cafe using my small stock of Dutch. It made me look like quite the expert, although if we had done anything more complicated the illusion would have collapsed!
On Saturday, after dropping off Boo at Schiphol again, Travis and I went into town to visit the Anne Frank house. It was lucky we got there pretty early. When we went in, the line was about twenty people long. When we left, the line stretched all the way down the block and around the corner! The library I worked at in San Diego hosted a traveling model of two of the rooms from the Anne Frank house, so I was curious to see how the traveling exhibit matched up to the real thing. It was...different. The actual Anne Frank house was not restored to resemble how it did during the war, furniture-wise. But we did see the actual pencil marks they made on the wall where Anne and Margo had been measured while they were in hiding. There was a guest book to sign on the way out, and we left our names, the date of our visit, and a short note. I confess, as I signed, I got pretty choked up.
After a cup of hot chocolate to fortify us, we went on to see Rembrandt's house. Like most houses in old Amsterdam, the actual building was narrow. There were four floors, each leading up to the next through a very steep, dark staircase. When we finally got to his studio on the top floor, it was amazing how airy and full of light the room was. We also got to see a big collection of his etchings, which were absolutely gorgeous.
This one was my favorite. At only 5.1 x 4.6 cm, it was also very tiny. But Rembrandt can really work an area that small!
For lunch we went to an Indonesian restaurant and had Gado Gado, a coconut vegetable dish, and Nasi Goreng. We also had fun trolling through some of the neat shops in Amsterdam, including a great used book store. Out of all of the cities we've visited, Amsterdam is probably the best loved. It's got such an interesting combination of historic and modern things all together. Yes, there are sex shops and marijuana cafes, but anyone who goes there just for that misses out on some really awesome stuff!
02 February, 2007
Our Civilization has Advanced far Beyond what 100% of your Brain can Comprehend
I have really wanted to stay away from non-personal, non-travel, or non-European related topics in this blog, but some recent events in Boston have prompted me to comment on the high profile activity in that city at this time, since I am quite familiar with the issue as well as the subject material involved. Do I take it seriously? Yes. Do I think it is funny? Yes. Most importantly, there is a lesson to be learned here.
As many of you by now know, an ad campaign launched by Adult Swim (a late night adult themed block of Cartoon Network), involved hiring the third party viral marketing firm Interference Inc. to launch an ad campaign. The firm, in turn, hired two young urban performance and video artists to create installations, which they were to publicly display in ten cities across the United States in promoting the surreal cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force and its upcoming movie. The installations were, in effect, four batteries on a blackened poster board powering some LEDs. They were LiteBrites. The images were none other than Iknignokt and Err, “the Mooninites”, a popular pair of returning characters, flipping the bird at passersby.
On Wednesday afternoon, a call regarding a “suspicious package” was made to the police in Boston. When I went to bed here in Belgium, I was aware that some “suspicious packages” had been found in Boston, and it snarled traffic and transportation as bridges and such were shut down. I knew right then, when a dozen of these things had been found, that there was more to the story. I was shocked to learn in the morning that the whole hubbub was about glowing posters, and had nothing to do with bombs or packages, or anything resembling bombs or packages. (Though those that look silly will disagree). I was doubly shocked- and doubled over laughing, when I read an early article on the topic stating that they were ads for a cult cartoon. They explained the show poorly and didn’t name it at first, but as soon as they started referencing delinquent moon men, I knew exactly what they were talking about.
By then, the “oh, shit” game had already started. Now I won’t ever criticize law enforcement authorities for responding to and investigating a threat, but they should have been much more surreptitious about it. Had they investigated it immediately and quietly, they should have been able to determine that a poster board of a cartoon character flipping you off isn’t a bomb. As far as I know, terrorists also do not generally advertise the location of their weapons with glowing lights. Had they kept it on the low down (i.e. dome some cursory investigation and fact checking before panicking), then the media would never have known to report “suspicious packages” that were not packages. Only when the local news service started propagating rumors and quite frankly, false information, did all of the other “mysterious packages” begin popping up. I place a lot of the blame on those entities for providing feedback to the situation. (Note, this kind of thing happens all the time in airports, subways, and rural streets where kids just want to play live action Mario Brothers, with five teenaged girls being threatened with a law suit in the latter case. It fizzled.)
So it snowballed into a huge, snarling fiasco, and every official and their grandparents became involved, sweeping pronouncements were made- all over some glowing posters. So naturally, when Turner finally realized what was going on, and informed the authorities, it was chalked up as a bad misunderstanding and ill-advised ad campaign, right? Hello no. Apparently when you make the Boston police look stupid, somebody has to pay the piper, and the two artists who hung the poster boards up are being tried as felons- Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens. And here is where it gets interesting. This is now a PR spinfest, and its spinning rapidly and aggressively down into my skin. The tactic of Massachusetts is to now hit hard and fast, focus the blame intensely on these two young artists, and control the language and debate used to discuss the issue.
Assistant MA Attorney General John Grossman said “if they had been explosive, they could have damaged transportation infrastructure in the city”. Um. If your glasses had been explosive, it could have caused damage to the infrastructure of your face. The level of desperation and absurdity in this statement is self apparent- what kind of Attorney General makes an argument that doesn’t exist? A desperate one. “Sure your honor, our officer tackled an old man they thought had a gun. I mean, it did turn out to be a cell phone, but we’re going to try him anyway because if it had been a gun, he could have hurt someone.” Grossman insists on calling the LiteBrite poster boards “bomb-like devices”. Oh noes!!1!! Every pixel board, neon sign, matinee, and well- anything with glowing lights or wires is now a “bomb-like device”. Stay clear of Las Vegas, that place is a mine field! It was comforting to hear that the first time he showed the posters during the arraignment hearings yesterday and said “these bomb-like devices”, snickers rippled across the entire courtroom, and not just from people sympathetic to the defendants. He’s clearly trying to frame the terms of the case, but he isn’t fooling anyone, including the judge apparently (more on this later).
Among the other fun elements of the PR damage control spin machine: Said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, "this is a product of “corporate greed”"? Really? Check your facts you ignorant tool, the show is the product of a handful of art school graduates that were given a budget of a couple thousand dollars by Williams Street to work on what was supposed to be a short-lived, badly animated, and absurd series of shorts. As a goof-off project. It just happened to attract a cult following and more episodes were made, and even now the artists cater directly to the fans and it was never intended to be main stream. They said as much to us in their panel at the 2005 Comic-Con. It isn’t Paramount, New Line, or some big network TV show or Showtime. It’s absurd sub-culture. You can’t slap down the “corporate greed” card on a show that generates comparatively little revenue and caters to animation geeks. Until yesterday, most people in the USA didn’t even know what the hell Aqua Teen Hunger Force was!
It’s also funny who calls them what- pay attention to who calls them “ads” and “posters” and “light boards”, and who calls them “devices” and “implements”. And who calls this a “stunt” and who calls it an “ad-campaign”. I don’t need to explain it to you.
My greatest irritation is the use of the word “hoax” to describe the advertising campaign, a term all other news sources have stopped using except for Faux News. A hoax implies intent to deceive. These were glowing posters of a cartoon character… advertising the cartoon. Orson Welles’ “The War of the Worlds”? That’s approaching a hoax. The Proctor and Gamble belongs to the Church of Satan thing? That was a hoax. These were simply ads, representing exactly what they were, and that Fox is still calling it a “hoax” after even the Judge presiding over yesterday’s hearing stated “it appears the suspects had no such intent” to deceive is ridiculous. Of course, Faux is already telling us how we should feel as they describe the “SHOCKING” video of the artists perpetrating the “HOAX”. Shocking? A video of a couple of guys hanging up LiteBrites is shocking? Faux news can go to hell.
And those young men are lucky they posted that video. Both the artists and the firm they were working with documented the plan and process very well, and it is clear that it was intended to be an ad campaign, with absolutely no intent to cause a panic. That video and the communications between the artists and Interference Inc. are going to help them a lot, because it shows Faux and the MA officials are full of crap. The hilarious part of all of this is in the fact that these posters were hanging up for three weeks before someone called the police- in ten cities. Hundreds of these things were hanging in Portland, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago… and in the entire three weeks not a single other city freaked out and caused a bomb scare. New York and Philadelphia only started taking them down after they learned of the panic in Boston. Indeed, in laid back Portland the police intend to leave them up, even after the circus in Boston. Portland Police Sgt. Brian Schmautz said to CNN “At this point we wouldn't even begin an investigation, because there's no reason to believe a crime has occurred.” (Lena and Lisa, did you happen to see any of them? They are selling for hundreds of dollars on e-bay now). I guess Portland wins the Free Speech award of the day.
So Boston is angry because they freaked out at a Mooninite flipping them off. Now as someone on the Adult Swim forums pointed out: “They claim that removing the (first) device “took three hours and cost thousands of dollars. If it took the bomb squad three hours and thousands of dollars to defuse a LiteBrite, Bostonians have a lot more to worry about than glowing ads”. So now I am going to buy my hilarious shirt to support the two scapegoat artists: here (It took all of two hours for that shirt to appear on e-bay)
I look forward to when this case is thrown out and/or, the men are acquitted. Because when this is said and done, there is no way that the felony charge is going to hold water. Everything the officials in Boston are doing is sound and fury, and the worst they can do is fine the artists for hanging up objects on municipal property if such an ordinance exists. They are already on record as being 100% cooperative. End of story. I’m sorry that the Boston Crew reading this had to suffer as an example of America being afraid of it’s shadow, but there is an important lesson to be learned here.
Do you see this Faux news? I hope you do because I'm doing it as hard as I can.
As many of you by now know, an ad campaign launched by Adult Swim (a late night adult themed block of Cartoon Network), involved hiring the third party viral marketing firm Interference Inc. to launch an ad campaign. The firm, in turn, hired two young urban performance and video artists to create installations, which they were to publicly display in ten cities across the United States in promoting the surreal cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force and its upcoming movie. The installations were, in effect, four batteries on a blackened poster board powering some LEDs. They were LiteBrites. The images were none other than Iknignokt and Err, “the Mooninites”, a popular pair of returning characters, flipping the bird at passersby.
On Wednesday afternoon, a call regarding a “suspicious package” was made to the police in Boston. When I went to bed here in Belgium, I was aware that some “suspicious packages” had been found in Boston, and it snarled traffic and transportation as bridges and such were shut down. I knew right then, when a dozen of these things had been found, that there was more to the story. I was shocked to learn in the morning that the whole hubbub was about glowing posters, and had nothing to do with bombs or packages, or anything resembling bombs or packages. (Though those that look silly will disagree). I was doubly shocked- and doubled over laughing, when I read an early article on the topic stating that they were ads for a cult cartoon. They explained the show poorly and didn’t name it at first, but as soon as they started referencing delinquent moon men, I knew exactly what they were talking about.
By then, the “oh, shit” game had already started. Now I won’t ever criticize law enforcement authorities for responding to and investigating a threat, but they should have been much more surreptitious about it. Had they investigated it immediately and quietly, they should have been able to determine that a poster board of a cartoon character flipping you off isn’t a bomb. As far as I know, terrorists also do not generally advertise the location of their weapons with glowing lights. Had they kept it on the low down (i.e. dome some cursory investigation and fact checking before panicking), then the media would never have known to report “suspicious packages” that were not packages. Only when the local news service started propagating rumors and quite frankly, false information, did all of the other “mysterious packages” begin popping up. I place a lot of the blame on those entities for providing feedback to the situation. (Note, this kind of thing happens all the time in airports, subways, and rural streets where kids just want to play live action Mario Brothers, with five teenaged girls being threatened with a law suit in the latter case. It fizzled.)
So it snowballed into a huge, snarling fiasco, and every official and their grandparents became involved, sweeping pronouncements were made- all over some glowing posters. So naturally, when Turner finally realized what was going on, and informed the authorities, it was chalked up as a bad misunderstanding and ill-advised ad campaign, right? Hello no. Apparently when you make the Boston police look stupid, somebody has to pay the piper, and the two artists who hung the poster boards up are being tried as felons- Peter Berdovsky and Sean Stevens. And here is where it gets interesting. This is now a PR spinfest, and its spinning rapidly and aggressively down into my skin. The tactic of Massachusetts is to now hit hard and fast, focus the blame intensely on these two young artists, and control the language and debate used to discuss the issue.
Assistant MA Attorney General John Grossman said “if they had been explosive, they could have damaged transportation infrastructure in the city”. Um. If your glasses had been explosive, it could have caused damage to the infrastructure of your face. The level of desperation and absurdity in this statement is self apparent- what kind of Attorney General makes an argument that doesn’t exist? A desperate one. “Sure your honor, our officer tackled an old man they thought had a gun. I mean, it did turn out to be a cell phone, but we’re going to try him anyway because if it had been a gun, he could have hurt someone.” Grossman insists on calling the LiteBrite poster boards “bomb-like devices”. Oh noes!!1!! Every pixel board, neon sign, matinee, and well- anything with glowing lights or wires is now a “bomb-like device”. Stay clear of Las Vegas, that place is a mine field! It was comforting to hear that the first time he showed the posters during the arraignment hearings yesterday and said “these bomb-like devices”, snickers rippled across the entire courtroom, and not just from people sympathetic to the defendants. He’s clearly trying to frame the terms of the case, but he isn’t fooling anyone, including the judge apparently (more on this later).
Among the other fun elements of the PR damage control spin machine: Said Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, "this is a product of “corporate greed”"? Really? Check your facts you ignorant tool, the show is the product of a handful of art school graduates that were given a budget of a couple thousand dollars by Williams Street to work on what was supposed to be a short-lived, badly animated, and absurd series of shorts. As a goof-off project. It just happened to attract a cult following and more episodes were made, and even now the artists cater directly to the fans and it was never intended to be main stream. They said as much to us in their panel at the 2005 Comic-Con. It isn’t Paramount, New Line, or some big network TV show or Showtime. It’s absurd sub-culture. You can’t slap down the “corporate greed” card on a show that generates comparatively little revenue and caters to animation geeks. Until yesterday, most people in the USA didn’t even know what the hell Aqua Teen Hunger Force was!
It’s also funny who calls them what- pay attention to who calls them “ads” and “posters” and “light boards”, and who calls them “devices” and “implements”. And who calls this a “stunt” and who calls it an “ad-campaign”. I don’t need to explain it to you.
My greatest irritation is the use of the word “hoax” to describe the advertising campaign, a term all other news sources have stopped using except for Faux News. A hoax implies intent to deceive. These were glowing posters of a cartoon character… advertising the cartoon. Orson Welles’ “The War of the Worlds”? That’s approaching a hoax. The Proctor and Gamble belongs to the Church of Satan thing? That was a hoax. These were simply ads, representing exactly what they were, and that Fox is still calling it a “hoax” after even the Judge presiding over yesterday’s hearing stated “it appears the suspects had no such intent” to deceive is ridiculous. Of course, Faux is already telling us how we should feel as they describe the “SHOCKING” video of the artists perpetrating the “HOAX”. Shocking? A video of a couple of guys hanging up LiteBrites is shocking? Faux news can go to hell.
And those young men are lucky they posted that video. Both the artists and the firm they were working with documented the plan and process very well, and it is clear that it was intended to be an ad campaign, with absolutely no intent to cause a panic. That video and the communications between the artists and Interference Inc. are going to help them a lot, because it shows Faux and the MA officials are full of crap. The hilarious part of all of this is in the fact that these posters were hanging up for three weeks before someone called the police- in ten cities. Hundreds of these things were hanging in Portland, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago… and in the entire three weeks not a single other city freaked out and caused a bomb scare. New York and Philadelphia only started taking them down after they learned of the panic in Boston. Indeed, in laid back Portland the police intend to leave them up, even after the circus in Boston. Portland Police Sgt. Brian Schmautz said to CNN “At this point we wouldn't even begin an investigation, because there's no reason to believe a crime has occurred.” (Lena and Lisa, did you happen to see any of them? They are selling for hundreds of dollars on e-bay now). I guess Portland wins the Free Speech award of the day.
So Boston is angry because they freaked out at a Mooninite flipping them off. Now as someone on the Adult Swim forums pointed out: “They claim that removing the (first) device “took three hours and cost thousands of dollars. If it took the bomb squad three hours and thousands of dollars to defuse a LiteBrite, Bostonians have a lot more to worry about than glowing ads”. So now I am going to buy my hilarious shirt to support the two scapegoat artists: here (It took all of two hours for that shirt to appear on e-bay)
I look forward to when this case is thrown out and/or, the men are acquitted. Because when this is said and done, there is no way that the felony charge is going to hold water. Everything the officials in Boston are doing is sound and fury, and the worst they can do is fine the artists for hanging up objects on municipal property if such an ordinance exists. They are already on record as being 100% cooperative. End of story. I’m sorry that the Boston Crew reading this had to suffer as an example of America being afraid of it’s shadow, but there is an important lesson to be learned here.
Do you see this Faux news? I hope you do because I'm doing it as hard as I can.
31 January, 2007
On the Subtle Distinction Between Syllables: Part 1
In as much as Highland English is often perceived as confusing and garbled by the average American, such is the case with Flemish spoken in Zwevegem versus that in Antwerp or Gent. Learning a new language is difficult enough, but there is something particularly confounding about wading through no less than eight regional Dutch dialects, some strongly influenced by German and French. At least San Diego and the Outer Hebrides can claim to be in different countries 12,000 miles apart. Zwevegem is in the adjacent county to Gent.
It wasn’t a huge surprise to see that the Hollandic Dutch we spent a few months reviewing (with a native of Amsterdam) was so dissimilar from Flemish. It was, however, surprising to learn that Flemish dialects vary even more amongst themselves. When I worked for two weeks in and near Eindhoven, even in Flemish Limburgh I could hear the “Limburgh” dialect- strikingly more similar to the Brabantian and Hollandic dialects than anything I’ve yet heard in West Flanders (even if spoken somewhat slower). It sounded more like what I’d heard before moving to Belgium.
The complications stem partly from the fact that French is scattered in many of the Flemish dialects and regions, and partly because of enunciation particulars. My biggest problem is the lack of distinction between syllables that largely permeates most Flemish dialects. I believe Judi already mentioned the “heen en terug” moment, where I asked for a ticket “heen en terug” (return trip) at the counter. I received a blank look as a reward for my painstakingly crisp interpretation of Hollandic pronunciation. Finally, the lady at the counter asked “Ah, hn’tr’h?” in a heartbeat. Apparently you need to sort of slur the term and say it really, really fast if you want to be understood at the Kortrijk train station. It kind of complicates the process when people say things you would have understood on paper, but can’t understand when spoken (most Dutch and Flemish dialects are nearly indistinguishable in written form). In that return ticket sentence, I know now I should have gone softer on the “G” as well, which the Flemish either pronounce a “G” as an “H”, or gargle it, depending on the phrase.
With no offense to Flemish people, I must say it sounds a bit as though they take a Dutch sentence, soften the “G” to an “H”, and gargle the rest if it quite fast. I have nothing against gargling. The running joke in Belgium is that Dutch has a “G” and “H”, while Flemish has a “hoog “H” en laag “H”. (The up “H“and down “H”- referring to the letters hg). For reference, Hollandic Dutch scratches the “G” in the throat. My co-worker, Ric here, is now laughing and telling me that “Flemish people like to be quick and to the point. The people from Holland sound like they want to sing to you.”
The eight main Dutch dialacts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dutchdialectpic.PNG
It wasn’t a huge surprise to see that the Hollandic Dutch we spent a few months reviewing (with a native of Amsterdam) was so dissimilar from Flemish. It was, however, surprising to learn that Flemish dialects vary even more amongst themselves. When I worked for two weeks in and near Eindhoven, even in Flemish Limburgh I could hear the “Limburgh” dialect- strikingly more similar to the Brabantian and Hollandic dialects than anything I’ve yet heard in West Flanders (even if spoken somewhat slower). It sounded more like what I’d heard before moving to Belgium.
The complications stem partly from the fact that French is scattered in many of the Flemish dialects and regions, and partly because of enunciation particulars. My biggest problem is the lack of distinction between syllables that largely permeates most Flemish dialects. I believe Judi already mentioned the “heen en terug” moment, where I asked for a ticket “heen en terug” (return trip) at the counter. I received a blank look as a reward for my painstakingly crisp interpretation of Hollandic pronunciation. Finally, the lady at the counter asked “Ah, hn’tr’h?” in a heartbeat. Apparently you need to sort of slur the term and say it really, really fast if you want to be understood at the Kortrijk train station. It kind of complicates the process when people say things you would have understood on paper, but can’t understand when spoken (most Dutch and Flemish dialects are nearly indistinguishable in written form). In that return ticket sentence, I know now I should have gone softer on the “G” as well, which the Flemish either pronounce a “G” as an “H”, or gargle it, depending on the phrase.
With no offense to Flemish people, I must say it sounds a bit as though they take a Dutch sentence, soften the “G” to an “H”, and gargle the rest if it quite fast. I have nothing against gargling. The running joke in Belgium is that Dutch has a “G” and “H”, while Flemish has a “hoog “H” en laag “H”. (The up “H“and down “H”- referring to the letters hg). For reference, Hollandic Dutch scratches the “G” in the throat. My co-worker, Ric here, is now laughing and telling me that “Flemish people like to be quick and to the point. The people from Holland sound like they want to sing to you.”
The eight main Dutch dialacts:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Dutchdialectpic.PNG
19 January, 2007
Screaming Winds
Yes, it was bad. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/18/europe.storm.ap/index.html
The wind was howling… screaming past my second story office all day. I’ve read that clichéd metaphor a thousand times, but when you hear it actually doing exactly that, the truth of it grips you. I couldn’t even ride the bike from BTC to Zwevegem, as was threatening to hurl me into traffic, and I made zero progress anyway. The strong wind was about to pick the bike right up and toss it into the fields, and would have done so had I not gripped and leaned on it to walk it back to a rack. Even when walking I was literally nearly knocked off of my feet by a few of the intense gusts, and had to keep my head poked forward toward the wind so it wouldn’t rip my wool hood cover off of me like tissue. Walking into it was like walking on the bottom of a pool with weights on your feet. One older man here at BTC fell down on the stairs after a sudden pulse. Tree limbs were snapping throughout the day (they didn’t have far to fall since it seemed every tree had decided to lie down), and arriving this morning I notice the foliage look quite haggard, and the ground quite littered with plant detritus. On the way home through Zwevegem, I noticed fire and electrical crews scrambling to clear fallen power lines- many of which were lying about in the streets (the article notes Eurostar was held up by fallen power lines in Lille- a stones throw from Zwevegem). Trains were delayed, trains were cancelled. My bus was late to the station, and I was delayed an hour. I’ve never seen wind that strong in my life.
Every once in a while a sudden “burst” of rain, scarcely a second long, would fall as if someone dumped a bucket on your head. I watched in awe as a large pool of water slithered rapidly through the gutter all the way down the block past the bus stop. The stone trash cans in Kortrijk were knocked over, and the huge tarp sign from Café Cinquenta-Six in Kortrijk had ripped free and was pinned against the side of the building across the street, like one of those flat green chitins you can never peel off the rock in the tide pools. It looked like someone had painted it on the facade.
Fortunately, nestled among the urban buildings in Gent the wind was dampened, and settled for a reasonable dull roar. But get this- the meteorologists are certain it is going to snow in Belgium. Starting Sunday, there are supposed to be eight days of sub zero temperatures, dipping to -8 °C. I’ll finally get to see it snow! Hopefully it will be kinder to Europe than the wind.
More pictures (local news): http://www.standaard.be/Kanaal/Index.aspx?KanaalId=316
The wind was howling… screaming past my second story office all day. I’ve read that clichéd metaphor a thousand times, but when you hear it actually doing exactly that, the truth of it grips you. I couldn’t even ride the bike from BTC to Zwevegem, as was threatening to hurl me into traffic, and I made zero progress anyway. The strong wind was about to pick the bike right up and toss it into the fields, and would have done so had I not gripped and leaned on it to walk it back to a rack. Even when walking I was literally nearly knocked off of my feet by a few of the intense gusts, and had to keep my head poked forward toward the wind so it wouldn’t rip my wool hood cover off of me like tissue. Walking into it was like walking on the bottom of a pool with weights on your feet. One older man here at BTC fell down on the stairs after a sudden pulse. Tree limbs were snapping throughout the day (they didn’t have far to fall since it seemed every tree had decided to lie down), and arriving this morning I notice the foliage look quite haggard, and the ground quite littered with plant detritus. On the way home through Zwevegem, I noticed fire and electrical crews scrambling to clear fallen power lines- many of which were lying about in the streets (the article notes Eurostar was held up by fallen power lines in Lille- a stones throw from Zwevegem). Trains were delayed, trains were cancelled. My bus was late to the station, and I was delayed an hour. I’ve never seen wind that strong in my life.
Every once in a while a sudden “burst” of rain, scarcely a second long, would fall as if someone dumped a bucket on your head. I watched in awe as a large pool of water slithered rapidly through the gutter all the way down the block past the bus stop. The stone trash cans in Kortrijk were knocked over, and the huge tarp sign from Café Cinquenta-Six in Kortrijk had ripped free and was pinned against the side of the building across the street, like one of those flat green chitins you can never peel off the rock in the tide pools. It looked like someone had painted it on the facade.
Fortunately, nestled among the urban buildings in Gent the wind was dampened, and settled for a reasonable dull roar. But get this- the meteorologists are certain it is going to snow in Belgium. Starting Sunday, there are supposed to be eight days of sub zero temperatures, dipping to -8 °C. I’ll finally get to see it snow! Hopefully it will be kinder to Europe than the wind.
More pictures (local news): http://www.standaard.be/Kanaal/Index.aspx?KanaalId=316
09 January, 2007
Happy New Year, everyone!
We have emerged from the holidays this year unscathed, and I hope that everyone else has too!
I have discovered a new bus line with a stop that is very convenient stop to the local grocery store, and a branch of our bank. Waiting at the stop outside the Delhaize with my bag of groceries has brought me into contact with some of my elderly neighbors. I can only hope that I will be as spry as the 90 year woman I saw dash like a gazelle for the number 9 bus this morning, with a large grocery bag in each hand. The bus drivers here are relatively peremptory, and this gentleman in particular seemed almost disappointed that she made it.
We received our new combination washer/dryer yesterday. The delivery men managed to get it up the stairs with ease, and within a few minutes had it installed in our tiny kitchen. They helpfully gave me some tips on how to use it. At one point the impenetrable Language Barrier of Bewilderment fell between us, as they tried to remember the English word for "fabric softener". We all smiled and shrugged, and I was much relieved to find that there was an English language section to the instructions that they left on our kitchen counter. It really is an interesting thing. It uses relatively little space, electricity and water compared to American appliances. The capacity is a princely 4.5 kg, which I think is equal to roughly two of the super-sized towels that we got as wedding presents. Once you are done washing, the very same machine then dries your clothes, using some mechanism to condense the water. It doesn't even have a vent outside. It's not as big or fast as I was used to from the US, and I think it will take me a week to feed all of the mountain of clothes we had managed to create through it, but I don't mind in the least! No more wheeling a heavy, bulky suitcase full of dirty clothes for a twenty-five minute walk through two construction zones to the Laundromat! Hooray!
I have discovered a new bus line with a stop that is very convenient stop to the local grocery store, and a branch of our bank. Waiting at the stop outside the Delhaize with my bag of groceries has brought me into contact with some of my elderly neighbors. I can only hope that I will be as spry as the 90 year woman I saw dash like a gazelle for the number 9 bus this morning, with a large grocery bag in each hand. The bus drivers here are relatively peremptory, and this gentleman in particular seemed almost disappointed that she made it.
We received our new combination washer/dryer yesterday. The delivery men managed to get it up the stairs with ease, and within a few minutes had it installed in our tiny kitchen. They helpfully gave me some tips on how to use it. At one point the impenetrable Language Barrier of Bewilderment fell between us, as they tried to remember the English word for "fabric softener". We all smiled and shrugged, and I was much relieved to find that there was an English language section to the instructions that they left on our kitchen counter. It really is an interesting thing. It uses relatively little space, electricity and water compared to American appliances. The capacity is a princely 4.5 kg, which I think is equal to roughly two of the super-sized towels that we got as wedding presents. Once you are done washing, the very same machine then dries your clothes, using some mechanism to condense the water. It doesn't even have a vent outside. It's not as big or fast as I was used to from the US, and I think it will take me a week to feed all of the mountain of clothes we had managed to create through it, but I don't mind in the least! No more wheeling a heavy, bulky suitcase full of dirty clothes for a twenty-five minute walk through two construction zones to the Laundromat! Hooray!
22 December, 2006
Obfuscation and the city
At the behest of the English-speaking women’s club in Gent, I did some volunteer work for the University of Gent on Sunday. Volunteers were needed to help run a large symposium, “Making sense of the city” that brought together people from all over the world to discuss concerns about urbanization. Concurrent with the symposium was an art exhibit on the same theme, and I volunteered to help monitor the exhibit to ensure its safety.
The first part of the opening ceremony was held in the assembly hall they call the AULA, an interesting 19th century building in the heart of Gent. At the heart of the building is a dramatic, round auditorium with a high, domed ceiling, but as a volunteer I also got to see some of the more private rooms in the building. They spoke of a former grandeur, with heavy, somewhat frayed golden curtains covering high windows, cracked panels with detailed botanical carvings covering the walls, and a beautiful parquet floor. I sat on a bench with a thick velvet cushion waiting for the other volunteers, looked at the wires that had been added some time after construction to modify the ornate chandeliers for electricity. Some of the wires were hanging off the wall slightly, and I couldn’t help but notice that a number of holes had been punched through the wall panels at one time or another, and not been repaired. A frigid draft whipped through the panel behind me, and considering the scale of the building and the fact that it leaked cold air like a sieve, I never did take off my jacket for the rest of the day. It would have cost a fortune to actually heat the place.
The art exhibits leaned heavily towards the very modern. For example, in one curtained alcove a short black-and-white film played to some high-pitched techno music. A woman in a black leotard, with no expression on her face, was jumping up and down in a concrete, steel, and glass building. Because each jump exactly replicated the last, I surmised that they had filmed one jump, and had looped it. Over about five minutes, two additional scenes were added to the montage, until three different people were all jumping up and down monotonously. Then it would start again. Other exhibits included blurry pictures that had been Photoshopped to incomprehensibility, and a sculpture of a skull with little heads for teeth. There was a small pamphlet that listed the artists and their works, but most of the works were not actually labeled, so we all played a guessing game as to which was which. Ultimately, it all seemed to obfuscate the relationship of man to the city more than anything else, and the techno music gave all of the volunteers a headache.
After the first “We welcome you to Gent” speech was over, they had a reception in the main hall, handing out wine and drinks to all of the attendees. If I had known what was coming next, I would have grabbed a drink myself. They were an interesting crowd, though. Many of the women had artistic asymmetric hair cuts, and wore flowing, unique outfits with (as is required in Belgium) very exciting boots. All of them were thin, elegant, and looked very urbane as they wandered around looking at the art exhibits cradling glasses of champagne and wine. One gentleman from Algeria was wearing a white suit printed with photographs. A young man all in black leather with blue hair who looked vaguely like Trent Reznor, had on a green badge, which signified that he was one of the artists. I asked him which piece was his, and he handed me a flyer to “Meta bo”. That’s the musical show of “neuro techno” that finished off the whole conference on Wednesday.
Anyway, the next step for the volunteers was to direct all of the participants to a _different_ theater a few blocks away. The brilliant way they decided to do this was to dress us all up as ambulatory, demented traffic cones, so we could stand on various street corners and direct everyone. Yes, I was given a bright orange vest, a bright green construction helmet, and a blinking orange traffic light. They paraded the volunteers out in front of the mingling crowd, and advised them to follow us…at which point the head man of Meta bo took out his digital camera and immortalized us in our outlandish gear forever. But this is not the end, NO! Sunday was the last day of the last shopping weekend before Christmas! The streets of Gent were literally packed with thousands of shoppers. As I stood on my appointed corner, directing conference participants towards the NTG Gent theater, it seemed like each holiday reveler that passed me stopped short for a moment, and then examined me curiously with a look of mingled horror and amusement. Small children goggled and pointed. An attractive woman in a magenta scarf shook her head when she saw this awful display, and quickly rushed past me with her bags. A drunken man from a nearby bar stopped and heckled me in Dutch. At that moment, I would have given anything to be one of the people rushing by with the last of my Christmas shopping neatly tucked under my arm, or at least, I would have happily given the vest, the hat, and the blinking traffic light.
The first part of the opening ceremony was held in the assembly hall they call the AULA, an interesting 19th century building in the heart of Gent. At the heart of the building is a dramatic, round auditorium with a high, domed ceiling, but as a volunteer I also got to see some of the more private rooms in the building. They spoke of a former grandeur, with heavy, somewhat frayed golden curtains covering high windows, cracked panels with detailed botanical carvings covering the walls, and a beautiful parquet floor. I sat on a bench with a thick velvet cushion waiting for the other volunteers, looked at the wires that had been added some time after construction to modify the ornate chandeliers for electricity. Some of the wires were hanging off the wall slightly, and I couldn’t help but notice that a number of holes had been punched through the wall panels at one time or another, and not been repaired. A frigid draft whipped through the panel behind me, and considering the scale of the building and the fact that it leaked cold air like a sieve, I never did take off my jacket for the rest of the day. It would have cost a fortune to actually heat the place.
The art exhibits leaned heavily towards the very modern. For example, in one curtained alcove a short black-and-white film played to some high-pitched techno music. A woman in a black leotard, with no expression on her face, was jumping up and down in a concrete, steel, and glass building. Because each jump exactly replicated the last, I surmised that they had filmed one jump, and had looped it. Over about five minutes, two additional scenes were added to the montage, until three different people were all jumping up and down monotonously. Then it would start again. Other exhibits included blurry pictures that had been Photoshopped to incomprehensibility, and a sculpture of a skull with little heads for teeth. There was a small pamphlet that listed the artists and their works, but most of the works were not actually labeled, so we all played a guessing game as to which was which. Ultimately, it all seemed to obfuscate the relationship of man to the city more than anything else, and the techno music gave all of the volunteers a headache.
After the first “We welcome you to Gent” speech was over, they had a reception in the main hall, handing out wine and drinks to all of the attendees. If I had known what was coming next, I would have grabbed a drink myself. They were an interesting crowd, though. Many of the women had artistic asymmetric hair cuts, and wore flowing, unique outfits with (as is required in Belgium) very exciting boots. All of them were thin, elegant, and looked very urbane as they wandered around looking at the art exhibits cradling glasses of champagne and wine. One gentleman from Algeria was wearing a white suit printed with photographs. A young man all in black leather with blue hair who looked vaguely like Trent Reznor, had on a green badge, which signified that he was one of the artists. I asked him which piece was his, and he handed me a flyer to “Meta bo”. That’s the musical show of “neuro techno” that finished off the whole conference on Wednesday.
Anyway, the next step for the volunteers was to direct all of the participants to a _different_ theater a few blocks away. The brilliant way they decided to do this was to dress us all up as ambulatory, demented traffic cones, so we could stand on various street corners and direct everyone. Yes, I was given a bright orange vest, a bright green construction helmet, and a blinking orange traffic light. They paraded the volunteers out in front of the mingling crowd, and advised them to follow us…at which point the head man of Meta bo took out his digital camera and immortalized us in our outlandish gear forever. But this is not the end, NO! Sunday was the last day of the last shopping weekend before Christmas! The streets of Gent were literally packed with thousands of shoppers. As I stood on my appointed corner, directing conference participants towards the NTG Gent theater, it seemed like each holiday reveler that passed me stopped short for a moment, and then examined me curiously with a look of mingled horror and amusement. Small children goggled and pointed. An attractive woman in a magenta scarf shook her head when she saw this awful display, and quickly rushed past me with her bags. A drunken man from a nearby bar stopped and heckled me in Dutch. At that moment, I would have given anything to be one of the people rushing by with the last of my Christmas shopping neatly tucked under my arm, or at least, I would have happily given the vest, the hat, and the blinking traffic light.
19 December, 2006
Last Week's Big Story
Several people have e-mailed or commented on a significant Belgian story that emerged last week. CNN covered it on their front page, and mom H. also sent me this article. This was definitely shocking news in Belgium, and the aftermath gripped the country on Friday. It was the talk of the day, and everyone had something to say about it.
In essence, an unannounced, unlabeled “joke” about Flanders declaring independence ran for thirty minutes on a Wallon news station, by a reputable anchor. The stunt included prefabricated scenes of people getting off of the train at the Flanders border to take the bus, people rallying outside of the Royal Palace, the royal family leaving Belgium by plane, and politicians in both regions commenting on the “event”.
Of course, most people on both sides of the border did not find this funny. Embassies sent messages about “developments” in Belgium, people called hotlines crying, stunned people in pubs started yelling, and politicians were confounded. Only deep into the “joke” did the news station print “this is fake” at the bottom of the screen. The whole ordeal has been compared to H.G. Wells’ famous broadcast. In the aftermath, there are already indications heads will roll, and this is going to have some lasting impact.
I suppose now is as good a time as any to comment on the structure of Belgium, and her politics. Belgium declared independence from the Netherlands in 1830, owing largely to religious differences- the Netherlands has a Calvinist Protestant heritage, and Belgium is solidly Catholic. (There are other reasons, consequences of the Napoleonic Wars which ended at Waterloo near Brussels, but that is another chapter). Yet Belgium itself is made up of two major and two minor regions. Flanders, where we now live, is the “Dutch” part of Belgium, next door to the Netherlands. One official language of Belgium is Dutch, though the thick dialect spoken here is called “Flemish”. The other area, Wallonia, is the “French” part in the South. French is a second official language of Belgium. These two components are the “main” parts of Belgium. The “German Cantons” near Eupen are small, but primarily speak German, thus German is the third official language of Belgium. And lastly, in the center there is Brussels, which kind of defies classification, and has its own special status- all Belgium populations are represented here, and it is a very heterogeneous city. Furthermore, 20% of Brussels residents are non-Belgian.
The Flemings and Wallonians have always had a diplomatic relationship, tense at times, and warm at others. Some earlier points of contention were the fact that French was once the only official Belgian language (and the language of the elite), and the French area was once wealthier. Things have changed, and now Flanders is Belgium’s economic powerhouse, which is growing rapidly (case in point: Bekaert). The main current point of conflict at this time is that Wallonian economy is flat, and unemployment is high, while Flanders continues to grow and prosper. Many Flemings resent that they pay very high taxes for their industry, which disproportionately go to pro-socialist Wallonia. There is some truth to this. There is also some truth to the argument that the current spending agreements are inefficient and artificial. For instance, if the government spends 6 million Euros on additions or improvements to the rail lines in Flanders, the government is obligated to spend 4 million Euros in Wallonia. Despite the fact the infrastructure is not needed there. This is of course to create “equal job opportunity” and “development” parity between the two regions, but can be seen as contrived nonetheless.
Of course, there are also counterarguments. There are important agricultural and mineral commodities that come out of Wallonia into Flanders, even if the economy is much slower. The argument that Flanders enjoys the advantage of being next to the sea is also true- Antwerp is the second largest commercial port in Europe, and the ports of Gent and Oostende see much commerce. This has created huge shipping and chemical industries in those areas, among other opportunities. Exactly how much the economic disparity is related to cultural and opportunistic differences is open to debate, but I suspect, as do most Belgians, that the country will adjust to the situation as it has been- slowly granting more autonomy to individual regions until things balance out.
I must take issue with the contention of one of the articles which describes Belgium as a “fragile democracy”. That simply isn’t true- the CIA World Factbook describes Belgium as a “stable, modern democracy”, and the overwhelming majority of citizens in all regions want to maintain a united, federal Belgium. “Complex federation” is a better term. I note the underhanded qualification in the CNN article that reads "Elections show strong support-", which is misleading. Only a few significant political figures favor full independence, most Flemings simply want more autonomy. Suggesting otherwise is not only wrong, its poor journalism.
There are many things that unite Belgians- their common history is one. They all remember Waterloo, their bid for independence, their (shady) history in the Congo, standing up to the Germans (and stopping their advance) in WWI, the underground resistance in WWII. They are united by national symbols such as mussels and chips (the national dish), chocolate, waffles, and the Royal Family. All of Belgium shares Brussels- the capital of Europe, a unique world class city of polyglots and multinationals. Belgium is the headquarters of the EU and NATO, and many other international groups because of, not in spite of, its unique diplomacy and structure.
In essence, an unannounced, unlabeled “joke” about Flanders declaring independence ran for thirty minutes on a Wallon news station, by a reputable anchor. The stunt included prefabricated scenes of people getting off of the train at the Flanders border to take the bus, people rallying outside of the Royal Palace, the royal family leaving Belgium by plane, and politicians in both regions commenting on the “event”.
Of course, most people on both sides of the border did not find this funny. Embassies sent messages about “developments” in Belgium, people called hotlines crying, stunned people in pubs started yelling, and politicians were confounded. Only deep into the “joke” did the news station print “this is fake” at the bottom of the screen. The whole ordeal has been compared to H.G. Wells’ famous broadcast. In the aftermath, there are already indications heads will roll, and this is going to have some lasting impact.
I suppose now is as good a time as any to comment on the structure of Belgium, and her politics. Belgium declared independence from the Netherlands in 1830, owing largely to religious differences- the Netherlands has a Calvinist Protestant heritage, and Belgium is solidly Catholic. (There are other reasons, consequences of the Napoleonic Wars which ended at Waterloo near Brussels, but that is another chapter). Yet Belgium itself is made up of two major and two minor regions. Flanders, where we now live, is the “Dutch” part of Belgium, next door to the Netherlands. One official language of Belgium is Dutch, though the thick dialect spoken here is called “Flemish”. The other area, Wallonia, is the “French” part in the South. French is a second official language of Belgium. These two components are the “main” parts of Belgium. The “German Cantons” near Eupen are small, but primarily speak German, thus German is the third official language of Belgium. And lastly, in the center there is Brussels, which kind of defies classification, and has its own special status- all Belgium populations are represented here, and it is a very heterogeneous city. Furthermore, 20% of Brussels residents are non-Belgian.
The Flemings and Wallonians have always had a diplomatic relationship, tense at times, and warm at others. Some earlier points of contention were the fact that French was once the only official Belgian language (and the language of the elite), and the French area was once wealthier. Things have changed, and now Flanders is Belgium’s economic powerhouse, which is growing rapidly (case in point: Bekaert). The main current point of conflict at this time is that Wallonian economy is flat, and unemployment is high, while Flanders continues to grow and prosper. Many Flemings resent that they pay very high taxes for their industry, which disproportionately go to pro-socialist Wallonia. There is some truth to this. There is also some truth to the argument that the current spending agreements are inefficient and artificial. For instance, if the government spends 6 million Euros on additions or improvements to the rail lines in Flanders, the government is obligated to spend 4 million Euros in Wallonia. Despite the fact the infrastructure is not needed there. This is of course to create “equal job opportunity” and “development” parity between the two regions, but can be seen as contrived nonetheless.
Of course, there are also counterarguments. There are important agricultural and mineral commodities that come out of Wallonia into Flanders, even if the economy is much slower. The argument that Flanders enjoys the advantage of being next to the sea is also true- Antwerp is the second largest commercial port in Europe, and the ports of Gent and Oostende see much commerce. This has created huge shipping and chemical industries in those areas, among other opportunities. Exactly how much the economic disparity is related to cultural and opportunistic differences is open to debate, but I suspect, as do most Belgians, that the country will adjust to the situation as it has been- slowly granting more autonomy to individual regions until things balance out.
I must take issue with the contention of one of the articles which describes Belgium as a “fragile democracy”. That simply isn’t true- the CIA World Factbook describes Belgium as a “stable, modern democracy”, and the overwhelming majority of citizens in all regions want to maintain a united, federal Belgium. “Complex federation” is a better term. I note the underhanded qualification in the CNN article that reads "Elections show strong support-", which is misleading. Only a few significant political figures favor full independence, most Flemings simply want more autonomy. Suggesting otherwise is not only wrong, its poor journalism.
There are many things that unite Belgians- their common history is one. They all remember Waterloo, their bid for independence, their (shady) history in the Congo, standing up to the Germans (and stopping their advance) in WWI, the underground resistance in WWII. They are united by national symbols such as mussels and chips (the national dish), chocolate, waffles, and the Royal Family. All of Belgium shares Brussels- the capital of Europe, a unique world class city of polyglots and multinationals. Belgium is the headquarters of the EU and NATO, and many other international groups because of, not in spite of, its unique diplomacy and structure.
14 December, 2006
In Flanders' Fields
Ieper (Ypres) is a city with a grim past- the site of a vicious four year struggle during World War I, which reduced the city and everything within miles to rubble. The battle was largely fought by Commonwealth forces, along with the escaped Belgian army and some French and French North African units, in the Westhoek- the last piece of Belgium not overrun by the Germans. Ieper has the dubious distinction of being the site of the first poison gas attack in modern warfare, launched by the Germans in April 1915 as the onset of the Second Battle of Iepers. I wanted to get the pictures out of the camera before I posted about my trip there, but I don’t really know why since that doesn’t really do it the justice it deserves.
I set out early by train from Kortrijk on the 11th of November- Veteran’s Day/Armistice Day/Remembrance Day/Jour de’armistice and of course, Wapenstilstanddag. It is just over the hill from Kortrijk, so I arrived just in time to catch the packed Poppy Parade start past the “new” cloth call, and followed the procession to the Menin Gate.
The Poppy Parade was motivated by Lt. John McCrae's iconic poem “In Flanders’ Fields”. If you have never read it, you are obligated to do so now. The Menin Gate, a large dome arching the Menin road in the center of Ieper, is a memorial to the almost 60,000 Commonwealth soldiers who fell at Iepers and have no known grave. To put this into perspective- this represents only people whose bodies were never found, who died at this specific town, among the Commonwealth forces alone. That number is equivalent to U.S. losses during the entire Vietnam War. The names blanket the walls of the memorial- inside and out.
Since the end of the war, the local fire brigade has dutifully stopped traffic at the gate, and played “Last Post” each evening. At 11:00 A.M on the 11th of November each year, this is played by the bands of military units that have a history in the battle. After this moving event, I went to the cloth hall to the “In Flanders’ Fields” museum, which is an excellent exhibition of the horrors of this battle and WWI. Rifles and gas masks, shells and shovels, mud stained uniforms and more accompany interactive multimedia explaining the major events.
To round out my day, I took a bus outside of the town proper to walk in the trenches of Hill 62, a preserved section of trenches and battlements. It was quite chilling to kneel on the firing step and peer over the placid Flanders countryside. Adding to the ghastly mystique of the place was the knowledge that in adjoining sections there are bodies and weapons still buried in the ground above which I walked. There are long lists of specific soldiers that anthropologists know died in certain areas and were never found, and many bodies are still recovered every year, making the “Great War” of almost a century ago seem uncomfortably recent and tangible.
I set out early by train from Kortrijk on the 11th of November- Veteran’s Day/Armistice Day/Remembrance Day/Jour de’armistice and of course, Wapenstilstanddag. It is just over the hill from Kortrijk, so I arrived just in time to catch the packed Poppy Parade start past the “new” cloth call, and followed the procession to the Menin Gate.
The Poppy Parade was motivated by Lt. John McCrae's iconic poem “In Flanders’ Fields”. If you have never read it, you are obligated to do so now. The Menin Gate, a large dome arching the Menin road in the center of Ieper, is a memorial to the almost 60,000 Commonwealth soldiers who fell at Iepers and have no known grave. To put this into perspective- this represents only people whose bodies were never found, who died at this specific town, among the Commonwealth forces alone. That number is equivalent to U.S. losses during the entire Vietnam War. The names blanket the walls of the memorial- inside and out.
Since the end of the war, the local fire brigade has dutifully stopped traffic at the gate, and played “Last Post” each evening. At 11:00 A.M on the 11th of November each year, this is played by the bands of military units that have a history in the battle. After this moving event, I went to the cloth hall to the “In Flanders’ Fields” museum, which is an excellent exhibition of the horrors of this battle and WWI. Rifles and gas masks, shells and shovels, mud stained uniforms and more accompany interactive multimedia explaining the major events.
To round out my day, I took a bus outside of the town proper to walk in the trenches of Hill 62, a preserved section of trenches and battlements. It was quite chilling to kneel on the firing step and peer over the placid Flanders countryside. Adding to the ghastly mystique of the place was the knowledge that in adjoining sections there are bodies and weapons still buried in the ground above which I walked. There are long lists of specific soldiers that anthropologists know died in certain areas and were never found, and many bodies are still recovered every year, making the “Great War” of almost a century ago seem uncomfortably recent and tangible.
07 December, 2006
Still life in cardboard
The unpacking is...Progressing. Apartments in Belgium tend to share certain, well, traditional aspects. The stairs are wide enough to allow the passage of a human body, but not, say, actual furniture. There is as much storage space as you bring with you. They generously provide as many as one electrical outlet per room! The refrigerator can hold roughly the same volume as a small picnic cooler, and don't think that this is humorous exaggeration, because it isn't. It's so cute though! I really like this place.
I took a short, (and, apologies, blurry and shaky) video of the place before our stuff arrived. It looked so nice before the army of half-empty cardboard boxes arrived! I finally managed to find the cord so I could get some of the pictures out of our camera, which was a little backlogged to say the least.
We also took some pictures of the movers getting our stuff into the apartment :
Also, you can see in the background of the photo that the street we live on is cobbled. I would go outside and take some more pictures of our street, but it is raining buckets and small sea animals out there.
From our apartment you can hear the trains running, which seems like a comforting sound to me. It's like the ocean.
I took a short, (and, apologies, blurry and shaky) video of the place before our stuff arrived. It looked so nice before the army of half-empty cardboard boxes arrived! I finally managed to find the cord so I could get some of the pictures out of our camera, which was a little backlogged to say the least.
We also took some pictures of the movers getting our stuff into the apartment :
Also, you can see in the background of the photo that the street we live on is cobbled. I would go outside and take some more pictures of our street, but it is raining buckets and small sea animals out there.
From our apartment you can hear the trains running, which seems like a comforting sound to me. It's like the ocean.
30 November, 2006
Dinner out
I am so tired of packing up and partially unpacking our belongings! Right now it seems like we will never be finished, as we inch into our fourth move this year. Normally I like moving, but I guess you can have too much of a good thing. Also we are struggling with the bureaucrat side of this move--it's not so difficult, really. I mean, we are here, right? but the devil is in the paperwork.
We got a break from all this last Friday as Travis' employers organizes periodic expatriate dinners for all of the employees from other countries. This time, everyone met at a Tapas restaurant in Gent. We took the train up to Gent and walked up to the restaurant, which was about a 45 minute walk. In that area of town, restaurants abound. Within a couple of blocks we saw some Mexican food, a Thai place, and Italian place, and too many others to list.
Over twenty-five people came to the dinner, filling up the entire first floor of the smallish establishment. The only language we all had in common was English, so Travis and I got to enjoy a small island of our own language. Even so, we were the only people from the US. At one point in the evening someone counted, and we had 13 different nationalities there! We were at a table with people from England, France, China, India, and Brazil. But there were also people from Russia, Indonesia, Sweden, Luxemburg, and, well, others I can't remember off the top of my head, plus one female employee brought her Belgian boyfriend. Everyone was very friendly, making lots of jokes, and generally being pretty loud.
It was comforting to find that some of the other expats have had some of the same experiences that we have. For instance, one gentleman from Brazil was commenting that the Dutch you learn in class is not the same as the dialect that people actually speak in the area. He related a story about a time when he went to order a sandwich, asking for a "brodje" and the woman behind the counter didn't understand him at all. "Oh, you mean a brOHdje," she finally said, with basically the exact same intonation that he thought he had just said. We laughed pretty hard at that one, because on the way there, Travis had asked for two roundtrip tickets to Gent, and had the exact same problem with the word "terug" (which means return). His pronunciation sounded perfect to me, but it was met with the same puzzlement. The woman behind the counter eventually said something that sounded more like "Trg".
The food was very good, too. We started out with bread and a plate of goat cheese, olives, and salad as a cold platter. Then the hot dishes were potatoes in a tomato sauce, fried calamari, some shrimp, stuffed mussel shells, and more salad. We finished up with a nice cup of coffee. They do take their time over dinner in Belgium, though, and we ended up having to get a ride back to Zwevegem because we would not have been able to catch the last train. There are a lot more expat activities in Gent in general, and I think that when we live there we will get out and participate.
We got a break from all this last Friday as Travis' employers organizes periodic expatriate dinners for all of the employees from other countries. This time, everyone met at a Tapas restaurant in Gent. We took the train up to Gent and walked up to the restaurant, which was about a 45 minute walk. In that area of town, restaurants abound. Within a couple of blocks we saw some Mexican food, a Thai place, and Italian place, and too many others to list.
Over twenty-five people came to the dinner, filling up the entire first floor of the smallish establishment. The only language we all had in common was English, so Travis and I got to enjoy a small island of our own language. Even so, we were the only people from the US. At one point in the evening someone counted, and we had 13 different nationalities there! We were at a table with people from England, France, China, India, and Brazil. But there were also people from Russia, Indonesia, Sweden, Luxemburg, and, well, others I can't remember off the top of my head, plus one female employee brought her Belgian boyfriend. Everyone was very friendly, making lots of jokes, and generally being pretty loud.
It was comforting to find that some of the other expats have had some of the same experiences that we have. For instance, one gentleman from Brazil was commenting that the Dutch you learn in class is not the same as the dialect that people actually speak in the area. He related a story about a time when he went to order a sandwich, asking for a "brodje" and the woman behind the counter didn't understand him at all. "Oh, you mean a brOHdje," she finally said, with basically the exact same intonation that he thought he had just said. We laughed pretty hard at that one, because on the way there, Travis had asked for two roundtrip tickets to Gent, and had the exact same problem with the word "terug" (which means return). His pronunciation sounded perfect to me, but it was met with the same puzzlement. The woman behind the counter eventually said something that sounded more like "Trg".
The food was very good, too. We started out with bread and a plate of goat cheese, olives, and salad as a cold platter. Then the hot dishes were potatoes in a tomato sauce, fried calamari, some shrimp, stuffed mussel shells, and more salad. We finished up with a nice cup of coffee. They do take their time over dinner in Belgium, though, and we ended up having to get a ride back to Zwevegem because we would not have been able to catch the last train. There are a lot more expat activities in Gent in general, and I think that when we live there we will get out and participate.
28 November, 2006
On the Move
It’s been awhile since we’ve posted, though we’re getting ready to move again this week. We’re headed to Gent where we’ll be until we leave Belgium in late 2008. I’m sure Judi will post all about it after the dust cloud has cleared.
I’ve been traveling quite a bit for work. Last week I was in Antwerp for a seminar in optics, and had a meeting in Deinze. The week before that I spent a lot of time in Zulte and Deinze at company facilities at a foundation technology conference and training for my business division. Tomorrow I’ll be working in the Netherlands all day at the research campus of one of our partners, and next week (immediately after the move) I’ll be working up near Eindhoven for the entire week. At least I get a rental car again for that! Hopefully things will then calm down a bit.
In other news, Judi’s brand new notebook computer has just about bit the dust. At less than three months old it started having problems, and barely runs. I think it is a memory or MOBO problem, but tech support for Cyberpower PC is worthless. After three phone calls and three tech support tickets we’ve gotten no response whatsoever. We finally just took it to a local place to at least determine what the problem is. Oh well, we’ll have to suffer with only one computer? Goodness, what we have become!
I’ve been traveling quite a bit for work. Last week I was in Antwerp for a seminar in optics, and had a meeting in Deinze. The week before that I spent a lot of time in Zulte and Deinze at company facilities at a foundation technology conference and training for my business division. Tomorrow I’ll be working in the Netherlands all day at the research campus of one of our partners, and next week (immediately after the move) I’ll be working up near Eindhoven for the entire week. At least I get a rental car again for that! Hopefully things will then calm down a bit.
In other news, Judi’s brand new notebook computer has just about bit the dust. At less than three months old it started having problems, and barely runs. I think it is a memory or MOBO problem, but tech support for Cyberpower PC is worthless. After three phone calls and three tech support tickets we’ve gotten no response whatsoever. We finally just took it to a local place to at least determine what the problem is. Oh well, we’ll have to suffer with only one computer? Goodness, what we have become!
13 November, 2006
The Louvre
We went to the Louvre on All-Saints day, which in many European countries is a nationally recognized holiday. Once again we locked ourselves into the Paris metro system, and rode the line down directly to the museum. The building itself is enormous, stretching on for hundreds of feet parallel to the Seine. We walked under one of the arches leading into the square that we identified as a good route, as we could see “The Pyramide” from across the street. The line appeared to be moving already, and we took our place behind the many hundreds of people already queued. The wait was short, and in no time we filed passed the guards (who held automatic rifles) into the great lobby beneath the glass of the Pyramid.
The scale of this museum is evident as soon as you begin walking around in it. There are four levels, situated in two great wings that despite their linearity still offer plenty of forks, nooks, crannies, and walls to confuse you during your trek. Just ambling into the gallery you wish to see requires nautical skill or an orienteering merit badge, and I say with no sarcasm that a GPS would be useful in there. It is impossible to scan the entirety of the Louvre in even one week, so as European residents we decided we’d spend one day at the Louvre during each of our trips to Paris, and view only two sections per trip to allow ourselves time to really view the art and get acquainted with an area.
I chose the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan sculptures and antiquities section, and Judi chose the Flemish, Dutch, and German paintings section. We went into the classical area first, and were greeted on arrival by the Winged Victory of Samothrace statue, impressively framed by a domed wall and reflected lighting. From there we saw ancient Greek and Roman statuary, pottery, terra cotta figurines, jewelry, sarcophaguses, and an assortment of tools, idols, and decorations. The one section took several hours, after which we were ready for lunch. We ate at one of the indoor cafes overlooking the courtyard and pyramid outside, which was actually reasonably priced and had excellent food. From there, we set off to another several hours in our second section.
The Flemish and Dutch masters produced some amazing work, and really seemed to perfect realism. I find it hard to believe such paintings could have even been made hundreds of years ago, without modern technology. There are many famous examples of paintings from the masters, but it was very interesting to see the recurring themes in the works that aren’t really represented in the “textbook examples” of the lowlands. Dogs are very common in the paintings, in almost every kind of scene- working dogs that were ubiquitous back then, I suppose. There are many scenes with a catch of game fowl or rabbits, and many specifically of baskets of birds and other game. It’s kind of like the modern still life painting stereotype, only instead of fruit it’s a bunch of dead birds and conies on a string, hanging from a tree. We saw the famous De Kantwerkster (The Lacemaker) by Vermeer, which was indeed quite impressive to see. I also liked Jan Victors Jong meisje aan het venster as much (Young woman at her window). We also saw Rembrandt and Seghers self portraits. Of course we also went into the Reubens room, the vaulted chamber dominated entirely by the massive flats painted by Peter Paul Reubens, which were extremely grand in scope.
We crossed the street and had coffee and dessert; a lemon tart and a something-or-other with vanilla ice cream that is apparently a French national dessert. We ended the day by hiking to the Cathedral of Notre Dame- a fitting end to a Halloween/All Saints Day trip we decided. It is an easy walk from the Louvre. The gargoyles were quite awesome, and the building is much more impressive in real life than in pictures. A definite neck-craner. We finally caught the train back to Lille and then home.
The scale of this museum is evident as soon as you begin walking around in it. There are four levels, situated in two great wings that despite their linearity still offer plenty of forks, nooks, crannies, and walls to confuse you during your trek. Just ambling into the gallery you wish to see requires nautical skill or an orienteering merit badge, and I say with no sarcasm that a GPS would be useful in there. It is impossible to scan the entirety of the Louvre in even one week, so as European residents we decided we’d spend one day at the Louvre during each of our trips to Paris, and view only two sections per trip to allow ourselves time to really view the art and get acquainted with an area.
I chose the Greek, Roman, and Etruscan sculptures and antiquities section, and Judi chose the Flemish, Dutch, and German paintings section. We went into the classical area first, and were greeted on arrival by the Winged Victory of Samothrace statue, impressively framed by a domed wall and reflected lighting. From there we saw ancient Greek and Roman statuary, pottery, terra cotta figurines, jewelry, sarcophaguses, and an assortment of tools, idols, and decorations. The one section took several hours, after which we were ready for lunch. We ate at one of the indoor cafes overlooking the courtyard and pyramid outside, which was actually reasonably priced and had excellent food. From there, we set off to another several hours in our second section.
The Flemish and Dutch masters produced some amazing work, and really seemed to perfect realism. I find it hard to believe such paintings could have even been made hundreds of years ago, without modern technology. There are many famous examples of paintings from the masters, but it was very interesting to see the recurring themes in the works that aren’t really represented in the “textbook examples” of the lowlands. Dogs are very common in the paintings, in almost every kind of scene- working dogs that were ubiquitous back then, I suppose. There are many scenes with a catch of game fowl or rabbits, and many specifically of baskets of birds and other game. It’s kind of like the modern still life painting stereotype, only instead of fruit it’s a bunch of dead birds and conies on a string, hanging from a tree. We saw the famous De Kantwerkster (The Lacemaker) by Vermeer, which was indeed quite impressive to see. I also liked Jan Victors Jong meisje aan het venster as much (Young woman at her window). We also saw Rembrandt and Seghers self portraits. Of course we also went into the Reubens room, the vaulted chamber dominated entirely by the massive flats painted by Peter Paul Reubens, which were extremely grand in scope.
We crossed the street and had coffee and dessert; a lemon tart and a something-or-other with vanilla ice cream that is apparently a French national dessert. We ended the day by hiking to the Cathedral of Notre Dame- a fitting end to a Halloween/All Saints Day trip we decided. It is an easy walk from the Louvre. The gargoyles were quite awesome, and the building is much more impressive in real life than in pictures. A definite neck-craner. We finally caught the train back to Lille and then home.
07 November, 2006
The Eiffel Tower
After we checked into our hotel, Travis and I were driven by two needs. Food, and the desire to make the most of our short time in Paris. We took the metro south to the Champs Elysees/Clemenceau stop, and during the ride, we decided to walk to see the Eiffel tower. Most of the museums and other attractions would be closed, it seemed like something that we could do no matter what the time.
We climbed the stairs up to the street, to find the sun sinking as we walked between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais (believe me, small is a relative term here) towards the Seine. All of the buildings were bathed in a glowing, warm light, and we had to zig zag along the sidewalk as hordes of tourists took advantage of the last light to take one last group photo. The bridge we picked to walk over the Seine was very dramatic. It arched over the river (The Seine is bigger than I thought it would be, Travis commented, delighted) on the other side we could see the Hotel des Invalides, which is a complex of truly grand buildings. And on our right, we got our first peek at the Eiffel tower through the trees, already lit for the evening!
This brought us to the next great question: What does a starving vegetarian eat in Paris? I studied the hand-written menus outside of each restaurant we passed, but either I couldn't tell what exactly they were serving, the place seemed very expensive, or both. Increasingly low blood sugar made it harder for my brain to try to figure out what each menu offered, until with great relief we came to a deli-style Asian food place where we could make our selections by pointing, and all of the prices looked very good. "Je voudrais le riz au curry" Travis said, pointing at the curried rice, and sure enough, they got a spoon...Then they asked us a question which neither of us understood. Wondering if they were asking us how big of a portion, I gestured with an inquisitive look on my face. They repeated themselves, and I realized there were asking us if we wanted to take out, or eat there. "Ici!" I replied, amazed that I had figured it out. We finally settled down to some curried rice, vegetable chop suey, shrimp, and two egg rolls for only a little more than 20 Euros.
Much improved, we walked the rest of the way to the tower, which looks even prettier at night than during the day. There are three platforms to visit, and each one is a different price and amount of waiting time. We decided to splurge and go all the way to the top, figuring that when we go back to Paris, we will probably be occupied with other things. Travis and I held hands while we waited at the bottom for the elevator to the second platform, where we would wait to go to the top. Somewhat less romantic were the signs informing us in four languages to watch out for pick pockets. Stepping out onto the second level, I wondered if we should have spent the extra money to go all the way to the top. The view just from the second floor was amazing! All of Paris was spread out before us, lights blazing! Travis and I leaned against the railings with our map on each side, identifying landmarks (the Arc de Triomphe was certainly easy) and taking pictures of the view.
The line to go all the way to the top was about twenty minutes. As each elevator came, people rushed to cram in, sometimes shrugging as they were separated from the rest of their party by a closing door. We finally managed to elbow our way into a car. It started to rise...and rise...and--Oh my god, this thing is really a lot taller than it looks from the ground! A cold wind was picking up, and I could actually feel the tower swaying back and forth with each gust.
"This is fun!" Travis said, as stepped out of the elevator, and suddenly were much higher. I find heights mildly vertiginous, so I think "thrilling" is the word I would use.
I'll try to post the pictures of us at the top later today. I think we both look pretty thrilled. After that, we walked down to the first level from the second level, took the train back to the hotel, and had some Belgian chocolate, with a bottle of champagne that we had saved after our wedding. I'll tell you about our trip to the Louvre next!
We climbed the stairs up to the street, to find the sun sinking as we walked between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais (believe me, small is a relative term here) towards the Seine. All of the buildings were bathed in a glowing, warm light, and we had to zig zag along the sidewalk as hordes of tourists took advantage of the last light to take one last group photo. The bridge we picked to walk over the Seine was very dramatic. It arched over the river (The Seine is bigger than I thought it would be, Travis commented, delighted) on the other side we could see the Hotel des Invalides, which is a complex of truly grand buildings. And on our right, we got our first peek at the Eiffel tower through the trees, already lit for the evening!
This brought us to the next great question: What does a starving vegetarian eat in Paris? I studied the hand-written menus outside of each restaurant we passed, but either I couldn't tell what exactly they were serving, the place seemed very expensive, or both. Increasingly low blood sugar made it harder for my brain to try to figure out what each menu offered, until with great relief we came to a deli-style Asian food place where we could make our selections by pointing, and all of the prices looked very good. "Je voudrais le riz au curry" Travis said, pointing at the curried rice, and sure enough, they got a spoon...Then they asked us a question which neither of us understood. Wondering if they were asking us how big of a portion, I gestured with an inquisitive look on my face. They repeated themselves, and I realized there were asking us if we wanted to take out, or eat there. "Ici!" I replied, amazed that I had figured it out. We finally settled down to some curried rice, vegetable chop suey, shrimp, and two egg rolls for only a little more than 20 Euros.
Much improved, we walked the rest of the way to the tower, which looks even prettier at night than during the day. There are three platforms to visit, and each one is a different price and amount of waiting time. We decided to splurge and go all the way to the top, figuring that when we go back to Paris, we will probably be occupied with other things. Travis and I held hands while we waited at the bottom for the elevator to the second platform, where we would wait to go to the top. Somewhat less romantic were the signs informing us in four languages to watch out for pick pockets. Stepping out onto the second level, I wondered if we should have spent the extra money to go all the way to the top. The view just from the second floor was amazing! All of Paris was spread out before us, lights blazing! Travis and I leaned against the railings with our map on each side, identifying landmarks (the Arc de Triomphe was certainly easy) and taking pictures of the view.
The line to go all the way to the top was about twenty minutes. As each elevator came, people rushed to cram in, sometimes shrugging as they were separated from the rest of their party by a closing door. We finally managed to elbow our way into a car. It started to rise...and rise...and--Oh my god, this thing is really a lot taller than it looks from the ground! A cold wind was picking up, and I could actually feel the tower swaying back and forth with each gust.
"This is fun!" Travis said, as stepped out of the elevator, and suddenly were much higher. I find heights mildly vertiginous, so I think "thrilling" is the word I would use.
I'll try to post the pictures of us at the top later today. I think we both look pretty thrilled. After that, we walked down to the first level from the second level, took the train back to the hotel, and had some Belgian chocolate, with a bottle of champagne that we had saved after our wedding. I'll tell you about our trip to the Louvre next!
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