...Like West Virginia, but without the possums.

I just got home from a long weekend in Normandy with Myriam, Kelly, and 6 of Kelly's friends and colleagues.
I went to Leuven on Wednesday night and we left bright and early on Thursday morning for Normandy, in France. Which I find amusing because before this trip, the only time Normandy had ever flitted through my consciousness was during history class in the chapter about 'Operation Overlord' or whatever during World War II. So to holiday there was a bit out of context to me.

Needless to say it was amusing all of three of us to find that the new David Sedaris book just happened to contain several stories about his life in Normandy. Complete coincidence. Kelly brought the book along to read during her spare time, but Myriam ended up reading the book, in its entirety, aloud while Kelly drove. I'm quite amazed that she had the patience to do that.

Sedaris, in one of his stories, said that he never wears shorts in France, except when he is in Normandy. He described Normandy as being the West Virginia of France...but without possums. As we were driving around the region we were amazed at how accurate that was.

The drive was gorgeous and we made a few stops along the way. The first was at a beach with white cliffs around, the ground was covered in baseball sized rocks instead of sand which made the footing a bit reminiscent of of a massive ball pit. I think most, if not all, of the rocks were geodes to Kelly's delight. These are a type of rock which is hollow with the inside covered in crystals. Quite gorgeous, some of them are. We climbed the path up the side of one of the cliffs for a breathtaking postcard view of the beaches below. It was quite cool to be at eye level with the soaring gulls and look down over the adorable town below.

Next we went to a distillery (now turned museum) that was built to look an awful lot like an abbey. They made apple brandy there so I tried some at their bar, but we all decided to pass on the admission cost into the rest of the museum. Apparently apple brandy is a staple in Normandy.

The campground we stayed at was a quaint trailer park/camp ground. We rented 2 trailers for the weekend for the 9 of us. The trailers had bed space for 8. There were 2 couples and 5 single folks in the group. Wassim so kindly volunteered to sleep with anyone since we were short one bed. Haha, nice try. Myriam and I ended up splitting the task of babysitting the couch, she took the first 2 nights and I took the third.

We were supplied with 2 complimentary bottles of local hard apple cider (one per trailer) so we popped the cork on the first bottle soon after arriving and settling in. I regret that to this day. The cider had a peculiar pork-like quality to it that refused to leave my taste buds for the rest of the evening. It wasn't just in my head either, other folks confirmed my accusations that the cider carried a distinct bacon flavor on the after. In spite of that though, the second bottle was still consumed (not by me!) before the weekend was out.

The next day we slept in and slowly gathered around noon-ish to leave for Mont-St-Michel which is a small island city (exclusively operating for tourists these days) there is a dyke wall built now because it is quite possible to get stranded by the tides. I read they come in at about 1 meter per second which sounds faster than I would have guessed, but they say that some visitors still occasionally get lost in the tides from time to time, so the tidal flats are pretty closely monitored by the police. Kelly and Myriam were asked to move by one of them just before the tide started rolling in, as they were playing in the mud unaware how soon the tide was due. About 5 minutes later the spot where they were mucking around was completely cut off from the shore by tidal water. Ugh! Tourists! haha
In spite of that bit of excitement, I didn't really enjoy this day trip much. The place was packed wall to wall with ambling tourists and hot with midday sun. It had a Busch Gardens feel to it with the main street lined with nothing but cafes slowly serving 6 euro beers (something like UD$8) and tacky gift shops. Myriam set out with her camera to capture the touristic atrocity while Kelly and I found a sunny spot in a slightly quieter garden in which to lay down and read. We were supposed to regroup at the main gate at 5pm. About half of our party was on time, the other half rolled in about half past 6 which put those of us that were ready to leave on edge. The late comers decided to go eat dinner on the island, an expensive proposition Myriam Kelly and I (and 2 others) didn't want to mess with. So slightly annoyed at being asked to wait on them, the 5 of us hiked back to the cars to pass the time. Luckily there was some white beer in the trunk that would easily pass as drinkable even warm, so we had ourselves a real tailgate party drinking Belgian beer beside the abbey island in the West Virginia of France. Oh, the irony! The others finally joined us again around 9 sated and cheerful. The tailgaters, although still a little bitter but laughing nonetheless at the hilarity of the idea of a French tailgate party, had a few drinks back at the campground bar and called it a night early.

The next day went scarcely better in terms of communication and cooperation. It seems like we were always waiting on someone who thought they were waiting on us, so little got accomplished aside from pissing everyone off over the lack of organization. We got stuck in traffic because of an unexpected festival and what was supposed to be a 10 minute drive from town to shore took almost an hour. We were told tat we would be rewarded for our grid-locked patience by a bluff overlooking the sea that would make everything worth it. In the end we climbed a couple of hills and never found the way to the bluff around the private property and no trespassing signs. Gave up that tack and got BACK into the cars to drive to shore. Long story short...never try to split 1 tour book between 9 tourists!

We did finally make it to the beach, and I'm not clear where we were and if this was one of the beaches responsible for the generation of oh-so-many-bad-war-sagas but it was sandy and interesting and we could all take a stroll at our leisure. We did encounter some French folks on the beach digging for stuff. One entire family were raking the shores for some sort of sea life, it looked vaguely shrimp-like though I'm not the one to consult on the matter. Another man managed to communicate to us, through our rudimentary French skills and no small degree of pantomime, that he was digging up these 6 inch long tube shaped shells because they contained a critter that was great for fishing bait. If you asked me, it looked like a string of booger when he pulled one out to show us. Still, always exciting to meet new folks and see new things (even if those things turn you off food for a day and a half)

After all of that though, on Saturday night, we played the best game of Monopoly I've ever been in. It lasted until after 2am with wild scheming and crazy deal-making. I have to give Kelly credit for the best deal of the night. I had a property that one of the other players wanted and she had a property that Kelly wanted and I was pretty low on cash but holding out because my property was the cornerstone in this girl's monopoly of the boardwalk area. So Kelly came up with this hair-brained concept that If I gave my property to the other girl, the other girl gave her property to Kelly Kelly would give me a different property she owned that I had my eye on along with all of the cash in her hand with the caveat that I should pay all of her expenses for 2 turns around around the board (meaning pass go twice and make it back to current spot). Well that's a lot of liquidity and I figured it wouldn't be a big problem. Turns out Kelly cost me many times more than I was expecting and it was painful because as I was making loads of money from aforementioned dealings I was hemorrhaging cash like mad every time she rolled the dice.

It was strange, each of our outings were stressful and frustrating, but the people we were with were really nice folks and I must admit I miss spending hours in a car. Such an American...
I really enjoyed the trip on the whole, so I can't figure out where the frustration left me feeling like I had fun.

Twilight

Man, so I just finished Stephanie Meyer's book Twilight . I bought the electronic version a few weeks ago. I just happened upon it in the eBook store and remembered Chris mentioning he was reading it a while ago, also Rachel had sheepishly admitted that she loved the series and recommended it probably a ear ago, now.
It's been sitting in my book for a few weeks now, I'd read the first 20 pages or so here and there at bus stops and in between other books but finally sat down to read it yesterday. I couldn't put it down after that. In the last 48 hours I've had that book with me at all times, taking every chance I got to read a few more pages on the train, before the bus came, on the bus, waiting for the boys to come out of class, etc. I've happily lost a bit of sleep over it too. It's now half past 1 in the morning and I'm shopping for the next book in the series.
Not particularly exciting news, not really anything to do with me living in Europe except that I've really been enjoying my time to read for fun, at my own pace, and read whatever the heck I want to. I luxury I often missed in the past. Am I ever going to adjust to a life after this when I don't get to read all day? Sounds criminal.

Gay Pride parade

I managed to catch the Brussels Gay Pride parade after I got back from dropping Ben off In Brugge (it's in Belgium).

There was a huge gathering down by central station and I met up with Myriam, who was photographing bits of the fanfare as it passed, and Christoff, a fellow couch surfer. It was quite amusing to me; I never made it to the DC parade while I was in Virginia and it was just too depressing to even consider going to the Richmond parade (I had this horrible fear that it would be this tragic gathering of 20-some-odd folks and a flag down by the 17th street market and could never bring myself to attend for fear I might be right).

The festivities had a good chunk of downtown tied up in knots. People in the parade looked like they were still having fun though I think they'd been parading for better than an hour by the time they got to the place in the route where I was sitting. There were a few floats that were on the tragic side, namely the AIDS awareness float which consisted of a large container truck with roof and no sides with 6 banners hung from the top edges. The truck was empty except for 3 guys on folding metal chairs who were there, i guess, just to keep an eye on things. A bit stark in the midst of float after float that looked like a cross-section of a dance club. The other that kinda made me chuckle morosely was one truck with two old queens smiling and waving their hearts out under a deck umbrella. It's hard to describe and I don't have a photo, but suffice it to say it was all I could to to keep from chasing them down and hugging each of them. Keep the faith, fellas! On the other hand we did see a spot-on Mary Poppins and Burt 'steppin' in time' only a few dozen meters in line behind "float" (read- large green hum-vee) sponsored by the apparently military and muscles themed private men's club....hmmm

For the most part though, good fun and some of the most amusing crowd watching I've ever done.

It takes all kinds.

Ben's visit

Kelly and I did have some difficulties meeting Ben yesterday. His first flight was delayed, so he missed his connection, had to be rerouted to Madrid and then take a smaller flight in the evening to Brussels. Which meant he had about an extra 12 hours of airports than he was bargaining for, and then on top of that didn't find our meeting place for over an hour.
Of course, trooper that he is, Ben was still game for going out in the city with Kelly and I. We took him on the peeing tour of Brussels which includes a drink at the pub catty-cornered from Mannaquin Pis (the little peeing boy fountain...how did that get to be famous?!?) a drink at Delrium which is a great touristy bar with 2004 different beers in their fridge, it is across from Jenneka Pis (Mannequin Pis' female counterpart) and then a trip over to one of my favorite Bruxelloise bars- MONK, next to St. Catherine's square (if you've been reading my blog, you probably recall why this was on the tour)
One of the most amusing parts of MONK is that it is absolutely sans frills, they have beer and liquor. If you want to mix the liquor they have a few bottles of sparkling water and juices, you can mix it yourself. Don't forget to ask for ice if this is important to you. The only food in the place is a long string of sausages that hangs from a nail on the wall behind the bar. They'll cut one off for you (with what I believe is something like a box cutter) and hand it to you wrapped in a napkin with a little container of mustard. Only choice is mustard or not.
Well Ben decided he wanted to try the sausage (which I have only grimaced at all year) but dared me to take a bite too. I said it was a deal on one condition- I'll take a bite after he has two. I wanted to make sure he would take one bite and still have the stomach to come back for another one before I was going anywhere near it. Well he did, so I did...it was gross. There was a snap, then a squish and then I had little bits of gristle stuck in my teeth for the next half hour. An adventure, to be sure, but not one I'll be coming back for more of.
Gudrun came and picked us up in the city, she was supposed to join us but she got lost in the city (no big wonder) so it was late by the time she found her way back. We went back to Leuven and had one more beer in the living room before calling it a night.
Ben met his friends in Brugge today at 2. We took the train up from Leuven which arrived around noon, so we had 2 hours to wander around the city and grab a tasty take away sandwich from a little restaurant near the center before I left him back at the hotel with the other folks who were on the trip with him.
Nice visit with my cousin. Though I was looking forward to showing him around Bruxelles all day, we still managed to get in the really key parts- revelry and beer!

Midi Market and Yoga

I went to the Sunday market at Gare du Midi this morning. It's huge and packed to the gills with suspiciously cheap clothes and endless amount of produce. We met Hannah (fellow au pair and couch surfer) there and had Moroccan pancakes for lunch, sort of Morocco's answer to Belgian Crepes, with cheese and a few kinds of different olives, onions, grape leaves, red pepper etc. DELICIOUS!

Then we got out of there because the crowd was overwhelming. Went to a little cafe near Saint Gilles and had beer and coffee. Liz met us there after a little while. Someone mentioned yoga in the park, so around 3:30 we left and went home to change clothes and we met again in the royal park at 6. Cecelia was directing us and she's not an instructor, but was still really nice. We were there for about an hour and a half or so.

The weather was perfect today, sunny but cool in the shade. All in all a pretty terrific day.