I'm in Belgium



SUNDAY, November 6, 1994.

October 31, Halloween, was my last day at Taligent. I don't really think it's hit me yet that I won't be going back there, that it's not a vacation. I am starting to miss everyone. It still (and hopefully always will) feels like it was the right decision. It was like emerging from a haze when I finally resigned. The product may be great someday, but I doubt it. Either way, I learned a heck of a lot from the experience and feel I took my little piece of Taligent as far as it could go.

Now I've begun my European adventure. On the 1st, I traveled from San Francisco across 9 times zones and 6000 miles to arrive in Brussels, Belgium where I was greeted by Elizabeth (Ebie) and two of her Belgian friends, Frederick and Christophe. While I was standing in line to clear customs, I looked up and saw Ebie looking down on the crowd looking for me. There she was after two and a half months of letter writing and anticipation!

The ride in Frederick's car (a VW Golf or something) was uneventful at a cool 150kmhh, the countryside reminding me (perhaps inaccurately) of the vast green nothingness of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Upon arriving in Liege, I asked if this was actually Liege or if we had to go through a town to continue onto another highway as I had done on my trip to Mexico. This resulted in groans from Christophe and Frederick because (as Ebie put it) I'd dared to compare Belgium with a third-world country. So, in Liege, there it was - Mephisto shoes - straight out of the picture Ebie had sent me. That picture I'd stared at so many times - the real life image right there in front of my eyes.

The apartment is nice. It has a high ceiling with intricate moldings. The place was recently renovated; it has a modern kitchen (though no dishwasher or garbage disposal), and a modern bathroom, except of course, there's no shower curtain and the toilet is in a separate room. Ebie has decorated the place tastefully. She got herself a corporate looking formica desk (black) on which is her Duo system (gray), phone (black), and desk lamp (black). There's also a sofa bed (black) with a velcro-attached back that takes some getting used to, a coffee table (gray) with a 20" TV (black) on it, a white dresser, white wardrobe, a wall mounted coat rack, plants, curtains, rug, etc. - it's fully furnished and feels like a home - well, but it feels like it was decorated by a woman, even with the generally monochromatic theme. Whatever that means.

Photos of Liege

Photos of Bruges

We did some traveling this weekend. Saturday we went to Bruges, which my "Insight Guide" to Belgium makes fun of for being so touristy and intentionally picturesque, but being a tourist myself, I really enjoyed it. It is truly picturesque and seems like what an old European village should be. Ebie and I rode in a boat through the canal system that circles the city. It was charming, seeing the old homes, the ducks, geese, bridges, and the smiling tourists snuggling together to fight against the coolness and dampness smiling back at us, smiling and snuggling all the same.

I ordered a sandwich at a small shop in bad French from an English-speaking Dutchman with an attitude - he mocked my French and asked what kind of language did I think he wanted to speak anyway! We finished up in English. Turns out that the Belgian Dutch hate the Belgian French and vice-versa.

We resisted the chocolate shops until after lunch and then shared a bag of 7 or 8 chocolates - two of which were real winners - a coffee one and a delightful caramel filled one. We strolled about in a quaint convent, looked at homes for the poor built with the money of dead rich people convinced by the church that this rather last minute gesture would lead them to heaven. Generally, we just strolled about a lot, holding hands, happening upon whatever we happened upon. We'd hoped to rent bikes and ride along a canal to the town of Dame on the North Sea, but it didn't work out.

On the train ride back we studied "Game Theory," which Ebie is taking a course on at school. I tried to learn from her and clarify things for her simultaneously. Tough to be teacher and student simultaneously - switching between being explained to and explaining - but we both benefited. I didn't really know what I was talking about, but I was able to interpret the mathematical notation. When we got home, we had a French lesson. I can now utter a few more of the basics.

This morning we slept in and then headed to Brussels. I've become fairly familiar with the buses and trains, but I'm still having trouble with the daymmonthyyear format. I accidentally wrote the date on my GO PASS as 11111994 since I wrote 11 for November and then copied the "day" from Ebie's ticket. Duh! Luckily, the conductor was in a good mood. Because of the honor system, this mistake could have been perceived as malicious since, had the conductor missed our car, I could have used the ticket again on the 11th.

Brussels was not as nice as Bruges! No surprise really. It's a large city so we only saw a small piece of it. We did see the Atomium sculpture from the World's Fair, which is next to a monstrous 28 movie theater complex called the "Kinopolis." Luckily they have ample parking unlike the Century 16 in Mountain View. We had coffee and tea in a neat little art-deco style cafe near the "Palace of Justice," which got us talking about the Superfriends. Ironically, later in the day I was shocked when reminded that Ebie has never seen Star Wars! I simply cannot believe it! Never seen Star Wars? Is she from a galaxy far, far away?

Photos of Brussels

We wandered about in a 5th Avenue-esque shopping area, but it was dead since all the shops are closed on Sunday. For dinner we went to a really cool little area where seafood is the specialty. There were lots and lots of cute little seafood places with elaborate displays of the day's catch outside. Each restaurant had a "missionary" on the street urging you, begging you to dine in his or her restaurant. Needless to say, we had a tough time choosing, walking by all the choices at least three times. In the end, the meal was disappointingly bland, which made me grumpy. Nearby was the Grand Place with its gorgeous facades, old architecture and roof lines all nicely lit.

The train ride back was uneventful but included the train splitting (yes, half the train went somewhere else).

They really do have great waffles in Belgium - I learned to order one in French:

"Je voudrais une gaufre au sucre chaud, s'il vous plait."

"I'd like a hot sugar waffle please."

Boy are they good. The best place to get them is at the train station. As Ebie says, "They're dangerous."

Turns out that checking my e-mail is a bit more expensive than I'd expected, but oh well, it's worth it. I definitely didn't need my own Powerbook this month; Ebie's Powerbook is sufficient although it might be nice to use one instead of a journal. But between fear of theft, expense and battery life (for writing on trains) I think I made the right decision not getting one (at least for now). There's so much more to do and learn. I don't even know how to mail a postcard or do my laundry here in Liege.


TUESDAY, November 8, 1994.

Yesterday was a very domestic day. I tagged along with Ebie on her morning errands. We stopped in at the local laundromat and she showed me how to use the machines. Actually it's very simple (big surprise). The most unique thing is that the washer doesn't take coins. Instead you must buy a token from a token machine - 115 BeF for washer - that's about $4.45! Yikes! That a lot more than the 75 cents at Villa Serra. The drier takes 20 BeF coins for 12 minutes, so for a 36 minute drying session that's about $1.80!

I went shopping at the local grocery store. I wanted to get the ingredients to make a breaded chicken dinner but I couldn't find bread crumbs. I asked one of the clerks in a combination of bad French and hand gestures where I could find some "baguette crumbs". Of course, she knew I meant "pain" which I should've known from Au Bon Pain. Oh, well. I found them. Oh, and when I got to the store, I didn't have a 20 franc coin to release the shopping cart, so I had to wait on line to get change. I was panicked because I didn't know how to ask for change, but of course it went OK because the French word for change sounds a lot like change.

Photos of Knokke & Ghent

I went out again a bit later because I was feeling restless in the apartment. I wandered around Liege and stumbled upon a fresh vegetable stand where I bought some broccoli - all in French! I had trouble understanding the price, and the clerk took it off the scale before I could see, but I managed. Later, I went by the stand again, this time for some garlic. In French, broccoli is broccoli, but garlic is harder to read and say. So I pointed at it, said, "what's this" and then repeated it back in the "I'd like to buy" sentence. Just like a child. The language barrier can really make a guy feel dumb.

For dinner I made breaded chicken (in chunks) with broccoli and garlic which was tasty once I added salt. I'll try it again with soy sauce, maybe see if I can do something more like Jade Tree's "Broccoli Chicken Garlic Sauce." My hands still smell like garlic as I sit here on the train to Knokke, which I think is on the shore of the North Sea. I'm tired. I couldn't sleep much last night. I'm restless because of a lack of exercise.

Last night we went to the Fair in Liege which is just about packing up and getting ready to move on to the next city. It was lame. The games are more expensive and harder to win than at carnivals in the States. There were lots of bumper cars, "lottery" games where you do nothing but buy a bunch of tickets and hope you get the right numbers to win, fun houses, arcades and Belgian junk food- waffles, fritters, etc. I had something that was a sandwich of two thin waffles and lots of syrup which unfortunately smelled like gas station bathroom soap. Ebie had some Apple Fritters which were very fresh and quite tasty although my favorite is still the hot sugar waffle. After the fair, we wandered around the night life area of Liege which was hopping and full of students wearing strange pajamas, signs and capes - apparently part of pledging the local fraternity-like clubs at school. I would've liked to stop for a beer or a coffee but between Ebie liking neither beer nor coffee and the first cafe we went into being too smoky for me - well it just didn't happen.

Now I'm on the train from Knokke to Ghent. Knokke was a bust. The place is deserted! I asked why in a sandwich shop (after I finally found an open one) and they said that because of bad weather, everyone who lives in Knokke leaves for vacation for the winter. Apparently in nicer weather, it is a resort town. I find this somewhat difficult to believe. I did get to see the North Sea which was calm and the beach which was uninviting - probably because it was cold and deserted. I saw the "resort" hotels and some cute houses in a more residential neighborhood. I ate my sandwich in a little park before returning to the train station 5 minutes late for the 2:01 train. I waited around the station for an hour thinking about Taligent, Ebie, MIT, Italy, NY and possibly going back to school.



Copyright 1997 by Bradley Edelman
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E-mail: Brad Edelman