Belgium

TO ALL

One of Mike’s fellow students from the Family Life School at Ft. Benning is now stationed at S.H.A.P.E. (Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe) near Brussels, Belgium. For some time now we have been trying to nail down a weekend to go up and see Jeff and his family and do some exploring in Belgium. It finally happened over Veterans Day weekend. We took our friend Marion with us and the 7 us (4 Waldens, 2 Strohms and Marion) had 4 really fun days together.

Two things you need to know about the Waldens: (1) they live in a mansion and (2) they have incredible kids. In Europe we have something called leased government housing. It is housing that is built by nationals, owned by nationals, more or less managed by nationals, and located in the community (not within a government compound), but leased by the US government and assigned to military personal when there isn’t enough of the government owned stuff available. Typically the housing office “shows” you two or three leased houses and you pick
which one you want. Jeff and Rosalyn actually live in a little town called Mons (pronounced moans) which is about 30 minutes from Brussels. As luck would have it, among their housing options was a huge house that had previously been
occupied by a US general. The amount of money they are allotted for housing based on their rank and number of dependents doesn’t quite cover the lease on this “mansion” so they have to shell out some additional money every month for rent and utilities, but they decided it was worth it. So there they are – four huge bedrooms, a huge living room, kitchen, dining room and family room, complete with chandeliers in almost every room and elegant window coverings -- the whole nine yards. Also a convection oven that doesn’t work quite right, a huge heating bill, and a few other quirks, but . . . . oh well. It’s once in a life time opportunity.

The Waldens have 2 kids: Jesse who is 12 and Lily who is 10. As I said before they are incredible. For starters, they let us take over their bedrooms for the weekend without a hint of a whimper. Both of them are friendly, intelligent, easy-going, good-natured, flexible, extremely computer savvy, willing helpers in the kitchen, etc, etc, etc. Plus—they get along with each other! Not a hint of any friction between them the whole time we were there. Jeff and Rosalyn, how exactly did you do this? Jeff, do all your counselees walk out of your office with the formula for replicating this phenomenon in their own families?

A couple of other notes about living in Belgium before I go on to the sights themselves. Half of Belgium is French (the half that Jeff and Ros live in) and the other half is Dutch. And then there are the Gypsies. They live in caravans and maintain their lifestyle, apparently, by breaking into unsecured housing. The problem is significant enough that the US government reimburses American military personnel for the cost of having a security system installed in their homes. And -- a security system typically includes “hot buttons” at various places in the house. If you accidentally press one of these you get a call from the security company immediately and if you cannot tell them the appropriate password, they assume you are being physically threatened and send help immediately. Aside from the Gypsy problem, apparently the Belgians themselves are not all that ethical. Ros says that she’s learned to always count her change carefully when buying anything. More often than not it’s wrong. And when the guy comes around to replenish their supply of heating fuel, there are always mysterious charges on the bill that no one can really explain adequately. But of course arguing isn’t terribly practical when he has already put the fuel in your tank and he doesn’t really speak English. Hummmm . . . . apparently the 21^st century dynamic equivalent of Titus 1:12 is “Belgians are always liars.”

Now that I’ve given you all sorts of warm fuzzy feelings about Belgians, let me tell you about the city of Bruges. Depending on your native tongue, “Bruges” can be pronounced a number of different ways. I chose broozh. Bruges is on the coast of Belgium – well sort of. Bruges was one of Europe’s leading cities in the 14^th and 15^th centuries, but then in the 16^th century the harbor silted up and the economy collapsed (sounds a bit like Ephesus). It was pretty much of a backwater town

from then until the 20^th century when it was discovered by tourists. Unfortunately, the prosperity that has come to Bruges through tourism hasn’t necessarily hit the rest of Belgium. Mons
(where the Waldens live) has sort of a depressed feel to it.

Rick Steves describes Bruges as “pickled in Gothic.” Apparently some of its Gothic architecture is “made for tourists,” but there is plenty of the real stuff around as well.

Bruges is an incredible city. Jeff says that if he could pick only one city in Europe to see, it would be Bruges. That might be overstating things just a tad in my opinion, but only a tad. Bruges is truly a fun city to explore. There aren’t any really specific must-see sights in Bruges. The sight is just the city itself. And whichever direction you walk, the rewards are great.

Rosalyn was aware that there was flea market in Bruges on Saturday that typically had Delftware for a steal (which was of interest to me). So, as soon as we arrived in Bruges, we found a place to park and hurried off to the flea market under the assumption that it would end at a particular time. The walk from the car to the flea market couldn’t have been more than 6 blocks, but it was a challenge to cover that amount of ground with any degree of timeliness. Things beckoned to us from every corner: pictures that just had to be taken, chocolate that had to be sampled, and lace that had to be admired, etc, etc. As it turned out the flea market lasted longer than we thought and there wasn’t any cheap Delftware, so we didn’t miss anything as a result of indulging our senses along the way. In fact, we had time to backtrack a little and do some souvenir shopping before the next thing on our agenda which was a guided walking tour of Bruges.

Rosalyn is an incredible sightseeing detective. I think I have a fairly good handle on how to plan a sightseeing trip, but Rosalyn operates on a whole new level far above the one I live on. She just seems to have a nose for where to go and how to get the most out of her time and money while she’s there. One of her flashes of inspiration led her to hire a private guide to take us on a walking tour of Bruges. The Rick Steve's books often suggest doing this and even offer names and phone numbers of people that Rick thinks are especially good and reasonably priced, but somehow I’ve never had the guts to try it. Thanks, Rosalyn for breaking new ground for me. It was a great success. Our guide’s English was great. He was able to craft his itinerary on the spot to take into account what we had already seen when we linked up with him and where we wanted to end up. He was a wealth of information, a good communicator and enthusiastic about his subject matter. And the price was reasonable.

I can’t resist a rabbit trail at this point. When we were in Rome last September . . . . at the Forum . . . . . taking a potty break, we all independently observed a young lady (mid - 20’s probably) giving a guided tour to a middle aged couple. We couldn’t hear much of what she was saying, but she was definitely enthusiastic. As we were discussing this sometime later, Alan shocked us all by commenting that he really wanted to go up and ask her if she was always that enthusiastic about what she was doing and then, if she said “yes,” ask her out. Yikes! Someone please find an appropriate mate for my son. Quickly! My hair is turning grey FAST!!!!

So, maybe I can just wrap up my comments about Bruges by listing (and illustrating with pictures) a few features of this town that intrigued me.

(1) The canals – not as many of these as in Amsterdam or Venice (which is still on our “To Do List”) but still they are a significant and picturesque feature of Bruges. Europeans seem to be more comfortable

then Americans with allowing water and buildings to rub shoulders with each other. How exactly does that work? Aren’t there huge maintenance problems?

(2) Lots of brick buildings – and really nice brick at that, none of this cheap stuff covered with stucco like in Germany, Italy, Austria, and Switzerland.

(3) Stepped gables - these are common all over Europe but typically they are interspersed with other styles of gables. In Bruges it’s common to see a whole row of stepped gables.

(4) Snickelways - this is a new word I learned from Rosalyn and it actually has British origins, but it describes a feature of European architecture that always gets my attention wherever we go – Bruges no more or less than any other place. Wikipedia defines a snickelway as a small path or lane between buildings, not wide enough for a vehicle to pass down, but having a name as if it were an actual street.

(5) Horse drawn carriages – most touristy European cities have these. In Bruges, as in other cities, they are strictly a tourist attraction. Not for normal everyday use. But somehow there were more of them in Bruges. And, probably because of it being off-season, the ratio of horse-drawn carriages to cars was higher which created an atmosphere that was neat. Possibly also the fact that the horse-drawn carriages moved really fast, instead of painfully slow as they often do in other cities, made the “clip-clop” have more of an authentic feel to it. Several times during the day, usually when I was really focused on trying to take a picture of something, I would suddenly become aware of the sound of horses hooves on cobblestone and someone calling “Look out!” and there would be this momentary sense of having gone back in time to the setting of one or another of the pre-1900’s novels that I’ve read over the years. Our guide warned us at the beginning of our walking tour that there are two things in Bruges that don’t stop for pedestrians: bicycles and horse-drawn carriages. Just want you to know that some of the pictures you see here were taken at the risk of my life!!!!!

The next day, after our day in Bruges, we went across the border into France. Actually we went almost to Paris, which is only a couple of hours from Belgium, to a place called Chateau Chantilly (say shan-TEE-yee but swallow the last syllable). Rick Steves calls this “Versailles without the lines or crowds.” As you might guess, Chateau Chantilly is near a little town in France call Chantilly, the home of Chantilly lace.

The original Chateau Chantilly was ruined in the French Revolution, but it was rebuilt in the late 1800’s by Henry d’Orleans, the duke of Aumale. It houses an art gallery which supposedly contains one of the finest collections of historical paintings in France, second only to the Louvre. I guess I must be getting art galleried out. At the time I remember thinking that the art gallery was neat, but now I don’t remember a thing about it. The Chateau itself, however, is an impressive not-to-be-forgotten structure. The setting is really picturesque and the grounds around it are extensive and very lovely.

The Great Stables which are on the same grounds as the chateau are also very interesting. Supposedly one of the princes of Conde, who owned the estate prior to Henry d’Orleans, believed that he would be reincarnated as a horse and asked his architect to build some stables suitable to his rank. He clearly got what he asked for. These are some fancy stables – no heat but just about anything else you can imagine.

The Great Stables are still actively in use as such, but they also house tons and tons of exhibits on everything imaginable related to horses and the history of horse related activities. I’m not particularly a horse enthusiast, but it was all very interesting. One last bit of trivia about Chateau Chantilly: it is the setting for the James Bond movie “A View to Kill.” We watched part of that movie at Jeff and Rosalyn’s house the night before our visit.

We ate 2 meals out on our Chateau Chantilly excursion. Both times the food was wonderful, but we were reminded again of all those stories you hear about the French refusing to speak English. When you’re with a group of 6 people (Jeff wasn’t with us for the Chantilly trip) and the waitress doesn’t speak even one word of English during the entire ordering process or appear to understand a word of anything you say in English, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this is at least as much about not being willing to speak English as it is about not being able to speak English.

It’s also hard sometimes to not be offended at the abrupt manner with which the French go about doing things. At the place where we ate supper, the waitress was really insistent about taking away the utensils that had been laid out ahead of time, that we weren’t going to need based on what we ordered. We were in a booth and she couldn’t physically reach everything on the table. She kept telling us in French what she wanted and then when we would pick up the wrong thing and offer it to her, she would say “No” rather abruptly and tell us in French again what she wanted. After several rounds of that, I found myself wanting to snap back at her. It seemed so rude and totally unnecessary. There is a Disney World near Paris. I’ve been told that it has not been as successful as Disney Corporation had hoped and at least part of that is because the French have refused to adopt American standards for how to treat customers. That’s not hard to believe.

Jeff and Rosalyn each have (or had) solutions to the French-waitresses-not-speaking-any-English problem. Jeff does what he calls “sightseeing with his tongue.” He just points to something on the menu and then finds out what he ordered when it arrives. Unfortunately, he has had to give up that form of sightseeing recently because of some health issues that require dietary restrictions. Rosalyn’s solution is to learn French. She hasn't had any formal schooling in French, but she’s done an amazing job of picking up handy words and phrases here and there. I still haven’t gotten my brain to accept the sound “wee” OR the spelling “oui” as being a legitimate way of saying “yes.” Maybe I’m just as stubborn as the French?

So that’s our trip to Belgium.

Now, just so you don’t think that the Strohms always have to go several hours from home to find anything interesting to see or do, I’d like to include a short paragraph before I close out this travelogue about a closer to home adventure we partook of recently. The last weekend in October, another of Mike’s fellow students from Ft. Benning came to visit us. (You’d think this was a class of 30 but actually there were only 4 of them.) Bob and Diane Wido and their son Bob have recently moved to Spangdalem AFB which is about 2 hours from Heidelberg. Bob is an Air Force chaplain ---- but we don’t hold that against him! We had a really delightful weekend with them at our house. We did the Heidelberg Castle, of course. (“Of course” meaning “this is a must see” not “Mike and Nancy are sick of it” – we aren’t.) Afterwards, we sort of stumbled onto a couple of other neat things that Mike and I had not done before. We climbed the tower of the Heiligeist Kirche (Holy Ghost Church) in the old part of Heidelberg and took in some incredible views of the city.

Then we drove up the Neckar River a ways to the town of Dilsberg. Dilsberg is really small, picturesque town, situated on the top of a hill with a ruined fortress to explore and great views of the surrounding countryside.
All in all it was a really low-key but fun day. It could be repeated several more times, if any of you decide to come see us. However, time is getting short.

The latest Strohm family news is that Alan will be arriving in Zurich on Jan 8^th to begin working out of the Google office there on a long term basis. Unfortunately Mike and I will only get to enjoy his close proximity for a few months. Rumor has it that we are headed for Ft. Bragg, North Carolina sometime this summer. Mike planted ideas in as many heads as possible that he wanted to stay in the Heidelberg area for another year, but to not avail. Apparently, when the head honcho in D.C. walked into the assignments meeting in early November, the first words out of his mouth were “Mike Strohm is going to Ft. Bragg.” So that was that. Ft. Bragg used to be on my bad list along with Ft. Hood, Texas but at this point I don’t really care a whole lot where I live. Mike is going to continue to do Family Life (or rather, do it again – he isn’t doing it at all right now) and he is happy about that, so things could be a lot worse. Too bad I can’t use Space A to come back to Europe and see Alan occasionally, but once Mike moves back to the states I can no longer use that system unless I am with him. Oh, well.

Deanna is home from Cedarville University for the Christmas holidays and Amy will be here in a couple more days. We are planning to milk Mike’s four day Christmas weekend for all it’s worth and go cross-country skiing in Norway. We have cheap tickets from Ryanair, a rent car, and a cabin reserved near Rondane National Park north of Lillehammer. Now all we have to do is learn how to cross-country ski. Mike and I did a lot of downhill skiing prior to having kids. I have been cross-country skiing once -- years ago. The girls have never done either. But -- if we can just convince Deanna NOT to sprang her ankles I’m sure that everything will be fine. Of course, every party needs a pooper. Alan somehow thinks he needs to go to Hawaii for an old girlfriends wedding, so he won’t be joining us. (I’m just checking to see if my kids are reading my travelogues!)

Enough rambling.

Nancy

P.S. I am behind on travelogues again. Shortly after the Belgium trip we went to Ireland, but that travelogue will probably have to wait until after Christmas.