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Metrodome Fail

In retrospect, I’m not at all confounded by the spectacular Metrodome collapse. The people of Minneapolis resolved to build a stadium with its top shielded from the heavens, so that they may enjoy comfortable football, free from the elements. And the elements said… Hell no. This isn’t basketball, hockey, and it sure as hell ain’t baseball. This is football, and God and America intended it to be played in the flapping wind, the driving rain, the numbing cold, and the blowing snow. Demure, and you shall reap havoc.

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By Meredith – December 13, 2010

Sirius Fail

I don’t know what’s more pathetic: that, upon getting into the Jetta with a co-worker to venture into Concord center for takeout lunch, and turning the car on, I had neglected to remember that the radio was loudly tuned to the Sirius 80s channel after a full-tilt end-of-commute courage frolic to the Clash’s “Rock the Casbah” and hence the tuner was primed to pump out, of all things, New Kids of the Block’s “Hangin’ Tough” in all its lame glory… or that the co-worker just didn’t seem at all phased.

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By Meredith – December 13, 2010

The Best Driver Of Them All

Back in September, French Level 4 at the Cambridge Center of Adult Education started off with a robust class of 14 wanna-be Francophones, proud of their ability to speak and understand austere French phrases. Over the course of the semester, the number of attendees gradually dropped: dix, sept, quatre. Gone was the beautiful medical intern who liked faire du jogging and wanted to learn French so she could interact with her Haitian patients. Gone was the father of three who wanted to brush up on his college french for a planned Parisian trip next summer. Gone was the funky-hat-wearing young woman with a weak chin who introduced herself by saying that she didn’t know any French but she thought her knowledge of Spanish could carry her through Level 4. It did… for about two minutes.

Soon, there were trois: A bizarre young man from Brazil whose employer was subsidizing his French and Italian language acquisition, a mild-mannered electric company engineer who seemed to be on a personal quest for betterment, and me, the beleaguered American wife of a persnickety Frenchman. The native French teacher seemed to find me to be the most interesting pupil and would pepper me with questions about my French family.

“Ils mangent beaucoup de lapin,” I mentioned last week. “Quand ma belle-mere est venue aux Etats-Unis, nous sommes allees au supermarche, et elle a dit ‘ou est le lapin?'” (Translation: They eat a lot of rabbit… When my step-mother came to the United States, we went to the supermarket, and she said ‘where is the rabbit?'”)

The teacher laughed and said something about how different regions eat more rabbit than others.

“Et aussi, la famille de mon mari, ils mangeaient cheval,” I said in a hoarse whisper. (And also, the family of my husband, they would eat horse.)

“Ah,” the teacher said, going to the blackboard and writing out various vocabulary associated with the butchering and eating of horse. The Brazilian got excited in his bizarre way, while the mild-mannered engineer seemed oblivious to what we were talking about. “Do you know what Meredith is saying?” the teacher asked him. “She is saying that her husband’s family eats horse.”

His face silently imploded as she turned to the board and draw what looked like a little horse’s head on a spike. “The butchers hang a tete de le cheval outside the store,” she was saying, before opining on the economic motivations for eating horse. I didn’t want to say that they did, actually, like the taste.

At first the Brazilian seemed bizarre due to cultural and linguistic barriers, but soon I realized that he was a freak in any language. One class, we practiced how to compare things in French (for example “il mange plus de chevaux que moi” — he eats more horse than me). We had to partner up and pick two things about which we could write 10 comparative sentences. “How about Obama and Lula?” he suggested.

“Lula? The president of Brazil?” I asked. “Shouldn’t we pick something a little… easier?”

He insisted; I acquiesced. We wound up writing ridiculous sentences like “Lula is taller than Obama,” “The wife of Obama is prettier than the wife of Lula,” “Lula watches more movies than Obama,” and “Obama is a better driver than Lula” — a statement that caused our normally-staid French teacher to giggle. “How do you know this?” she asked.

I broke down too. “C’est tres drole,” I said to the Brazilian, who seemed mystified at our mirth. The mild-mannered engineer looked lost. “They said that Obama is a better driver than Lula,” the teacher translated.

“Now, we will move onto the superlative,” she said, going to the board and writing an example sentence:

Sarkozy est le meilleur chauffeur parmi nous.

(Sarkozy is the best driver of them all.)

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By Meredith – December 10, 2010

Gyming in Belgium

It’s hard for a body-conscious American to visit Belgium — a country that subsists primarily on waffles, french fries, chocolate, and beer — and not feel the need to periodically torch a slew of calories. Luckily for me, we cashed in some serious loyalty points to stay at the Hilton Brussels City, which caters to the international business traveler. When we checked in, the young woman at the front desk greeted us in English, not French (and certainly not Flemish). All of the newspapers were in English, and the television carried more English channels than local channels. And, the hotel boasted one of the nicest hotel gyms I’ve ever seen. It was small, but featured state-of-the-art equipment and machines in a well-ventilated, high-ceiled room with a big-screen television. It was about as European as a SUV at an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet whining about taxes and liberals.

So our second evening in Brussels, after a day spent roaming art museums, sampling chocolates, and discovering the joys of ham and cheese tartines, I decided to hit the hotel gym as Mr. P, maddeningly, worked remotely (our lunch was interrupted when he received an urgent phone call from his boss about some fatal error or something). The gym was empty when I arrived — just like any given hotel gym in America, home sweet home.

I got on a treadmill, entered my age and weight, and started at a nice leisurely jogging pace of 5.0. Strangely, the belt wasn’t moving with sufficient speed that I could break into a run, so I upped the speed higher, going to 6.3. I was cruising and so proud of myself. Yes, I had been largely sedentary for the past three days, and in fact I hadn’t run in more than a week, so it made sense my muscles felt fresh. Yet… I wasn’t sweating. My breath was so stable that I could have carried on a conversation about recurring themes in Rilke’s lyrical prose.

And so it continued, me so comfortable that I pushed the pace to 6.6 — a 9 minute mile, a pace that I rarely attain in non-race situations. Around minute 30, when I had started mile 3 with nary a hint or perspiration, I began to wonder if something was wrong with the treadmill. Maybe the belt ran slow? The calorie counter on the treadmill’s display informed me that I had burned 450 calories. I was already converting Belgian chocolates to calories in my head…

When it dawned on me that I was, in fact, in Belgium. Where they used the metric system.

My 6.6 pace wasn’t mph, but kilometers per hour. I had no mental reference point for what that meant, except a 5k was 3 miles, so 3k was less than 2 miles in 30 minutes, which meant that I probably didn’t need to be running. A brisk walk would suffice.

And the incredibly generous calorie count? I had entered a weight of 140, which when converted to kilograms is about 300 pounds. No wonder the treadmill assumed my metabolism was doing a biological version of the Kuwaiti oil fires.

Half-dejected, half-amused, I stopped the treadmill. What am I doing? I’m on vacation in Brussels, and I’m exercising in the metric system.

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By Meredith – December 7, 2010

Tis the Football Season

It is a cold Sunday afternoon in December and I am ready for some football. The spectacle of grown men pummeling each other in mad pursuit of a spherical ball is the perfect accompaniment for completing my Christmas correspondence. I turn on the television, which is pre-set on PBS, as that’s all we watch aside from NFL football. We are high-brow heathens.

It’s pledge time on PBS and they are showing segments of Rick Stevens’ European Christmas. The Norwegian Girl’s Choir is singing “Joy to the World”; I pause, momentarily enchanted by combination of Christmas music with video footage of a distinctly non-commercial manner.

“Huh, I think I know this one,” Mr. P comments from behind his computer. Mr. P is, maddeningly, working on actual work, communing with some distant database via a black terminal screen and rapid-fire unix commands.

“You know this one?” I ask. Laughter bursts over. “Well, aren’t you well-versed in your Christmas carols? Let me ask you, who doesn’t know this one? It’s freaking ‘Joy to the World!'”

Entirely unfair, I know, to harass a Frenchman in regards to what is a historically English hymn that doesn’t get much play in France, although the youth of Norway seem to be keen on it.

The next segment features Pope John Paul II giving a Christmas mass.

“Huh, is that the Pope, babe?” Mr. P asks, peering at the screen at the little gray-haired man in a white cap speaking Latin.

“No, it’s Michael Jackson,” I retort with an evil grin.

“Huh! Babe is being sarcastic today,” he says, typing away. It’s hard to rile my husband, which is good because most normal men would’ve killed me by now.

I watch the Pope natter away unconvincingly. “So you really believe that God sent that man to do his bidding on Earth?” I needle Mr. P, who is a non-practicing but still devout Catholic.

“Of course,” he says.

“You really believe that?”

“The process for selecting the Pope is very thorough,” Mr. P says.

I watch the elderly white man, now wearing a papal tiara, being carried down the church aisle. “How come God only sends white men from Europe?”

I switch the television to the New York Giants-Washington Redskins game and start Googling things about “Catholic” and “Bible” and “football,” because I am suddenly curious about what the Pope would have to say about football. It appears that the Pope doesn’t have much to say about football, although he seems to like soccer, but I did find a website that listed biblical verses that could be interpreted as taking a stance on the holiness of football, like this:

Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. — Exodus 35:2

Can “solemn rest” be defined as watching these Samsons use their bodies as battering rams in vainglorious pursuit of fame and triumph? Maybe I should put PBS back on.

In relation to the Bible and football, the website also found this verse to be relevant:

When men fight with one another and the wife of the one draws near to rescue her husband from the hand of him who is beating him and puts out her hand and seizes him by the private parts,  then you shall cut off her hand. Your eye shall have no pity. Deuteronomy 25:11-12

Funny, I think the NFL has the same rule.

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By Meredith – December 5, 2010

Amsterdamn Fine!

The train trip from Brussels to Amsterdam took 2 3/4 hours. The train shuttled peacefully along until Rotterdam, when our quiet car was enlivened by a group of six 40ish women with nose rings, teased hair of many unnatural colors, and an amalgam of gothic, retro, and fetish clothing. They spoke Dutch but their conversation was littered with familiar phrases: Facebook, iPhone, Lady Gaga, Las Vegas. Everything about them — their laidback outrageousness, their savvy awareness and acceptance of the outside world –was so modernly Dutch that they seemed like harbingers of the great city where we would spend the next two nights: Amsterdam!

When we arrived in Amsterdam, the sun was, amazingly, shining. Both Mr. P and I had been to Amsterdam before we met and neither of us saw the sun. We were so enraptured that we stood outside of the train station with our gigantic backpacks, trying to bask.

Amsterdam Train Station

We walked more than 1 mile to our hotel along the main tourist thoroughfare, loving the canals, the bicycles, and even the stoned tourists. How amazing that a city this size and in this climate can function primarily on bicycles. It gives me hope about the future, though Amsterdam’s discord with the automobile is intrinsic to its anatomy of small streets and canals.

Bicycles

It was too early to check into the hotel so we dropped off our backpacks and visited some nearby museums. The term “museum” in Amsterdam can involve anything from Van Gogh and Anne Frank to vodka, sex, tulips, torture, and beer. Our first stop was the Museum Willet-Holtuysen, a preserved 17th-century canalside home that featured the expansive art collection of the last inhabitants. Our second stop was the Amsterdam Historical Museum, where we were immersed in Amsterdam’s origins and history. When we emerged from the museum, it was dusk at 4:30pm and time to go back to the hotel.

Dusk in Amsterdam

At the front desk, a cheerful woman who spoke impeccable English handed us our key and gave us directions to our room. We were excited about this high-class boutique hotel with bargain low-season rates, and when we opened the door to our room we were stunned: It was huge! It had a private balcony overlooking a courtyard! It had pop-art style paintings of Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe and a small podium for the bed! I whirled around the room, my arms wide and wondrous. But… wait, is that someone’s suitcase? And hey, there’s some shirts hanging in the closest? And why’s there a half-eaten chocolate bar next to the bed?

Mr. P went downstairs to reception, returning 5 minutes later with keys to a different room: “It was a big mistake. We should have never been here,” he said, gathering up the contents of his pockets that he had scattered on the desk. “Close the bathroom door! Turn out the light! Leave no trace!”

Our real room was smaller but had a view of the canal. We showered, relaxed, and then headed back out for some Indian food.

“Our” Canal

We woke up the next morning and luxuriated in our free breakfast — toast! ham! cheese! kiwi? Then we walked along the canals until we reached the Museumplein and the famed Rijksmuseum. We paused to admire the mansions across the canal and to bask a little more in the uncharacteristic Amsterdam sun.

The Rijksmuseum is operating on reduced capacity as it undergoes renovations; only one wing is open, and the selected works are sort of a “best of” of Dutch art. We studied the Rembrandts, the Vermeers, and the Steens with help of our trusty audio guides. Yet it only took us 90 minutes to go through the entire collection — and we took our time! It ended with Rembrandt’s Night Watch, but my favorite is Frans Hal’s Portrait of a Young Couple. It’s not the most beautiful painting, but I feel like I can relate to them, which is not typically a thought I have when looking at 17th century portraiture.

Frans Hals’ Portrait of a Young Couple

We continued our museum bonanza by going to Museum Van Loon, another rich family’s canal house-turned-public exhibit.

Garden of Museum Van Loon

Museum Van Loon

We swore off museums for the rest of the day and simply walked through the city, idly shopping and taking pictures.

Our hotel was located right near Amsterdam’s Winterland, a seasonal park with a skating rink and assortment of carnival games. Is this as close as we got to an Amsterdam coffeeshop? No comment…

Skating Rink

We were so smitten with Amsterdam that, as we dined on ostrich at a fun little French place, we were already dreading our departure the next day, which happened to be Thanksgiving. We woke up and enjoyed another nice breakfast, taking care to sample some of the turkey-looking cold cuts.

Our train was scheduled for 12:58, so in the morning we checked out of the hotel, left our bags, and went to the nearby Hermitage museum, a Dutch outpost of the famed Russian art museum that was showing a special exhibit on Alexander the Great. We dawdled on this and then rushed to the train station, where we were met with an unpleasant surprise: our train to Brussels was canceled due to a rail strike in Belgium! This was a disaster, because if we took the next scheduled train, we would probably miss the Eurostar train that we were counting on to deliver us to England; no Thanksgiving dinner with Mr. P’s family? Well, if you have money, there’s always a way. We paid a fair sum to take the high-speed train to Brussels, where the Eurostar awaited…

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By Meredith – December 3, 2010

In Bruges

Everything that I knew about the town of Bruges, Belgium came from the 2008 Irish black comedy In Bruges, in which two hitmen are sent to Bruges by their mob boss to go into hiding after mistakenly gunning down a child. “Bruges? What the fuck is in Bruges?” I remember one of the hitmen lamenting.

It turns out that there’s quite a lot in Bruges. In fact, to hear Bruges tell it, Bruges used to be the hub of the universe from the 12th century to the 15th century, owing to its key location as a seafaring trading link. These days, Bruges is Belgium’s ultimate tourist destination, with a historic town center teeming with medieval buildings, architecture, and chocolate shops. It was well worth the 60-minute train ride from Brussels. Even the gray, cold weather could not squelch the city’s charm.

Swans in Bruges

Our first stop was a tour of the ‘De halve Maan’ (The Half Moon) brewery, which has been active since 1856.

Beer Tanks

Beer Can Collection at Half Moon Brewery

We learned that the Belgians are as fanatical about beer as the French are about wine — they’re all about food pairing, aging, and proper storage. Each brand of beer has its own unique glass that is, supposedly, perfectly engineered for that beer.

Beer and Glasses

After going up and down numerous narrow staircases to tour the brewery, we were rewarded with a lovely glass of Brugse Zot beer.

After the brewery, we walked through the quaint streets, smiling at the quaint buildings.

This shot is known as the postcard view, as it shows both the canal and the belfry.

Postcard Bruges View

As it was Monday, all three of the major museums were closed, but we were still able to tour the astounding Gothic room in the Town Hall — a stunning testament to the city’s former prominence.

Bruges Town Hall

Gothic Room

We stopped in a touristy restaurant for lunch. I ordered a beer. “Small, medium, or large?” the waiter asked. I asked for a medium. I’m incredibly glad I didn’t ask for a large.

Gigantic Medium Beers

We finished out our afternoon in Bruges in the picturesque main square, where we climbed all 350-something steps to the top of the belfry.

Bruges from the Belfry

After an all-too-short 6 hours in Bruges, we boarded the train back to Brussels to spend our final night in Belgium. In the movie In Bruges, the main character says “If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.” Well then, call me a mentally impaired bumpkin! because I was impressed.

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By Meredith – December 1, 2010

Brussels Doubts

I had no particular ambition to ever go to Belgium. Really, especially after Mr. P told me that Belgium is the hapless butt of many-a-joke in France, sort of like how the US pillories poor Canada. But when we were planning to visit his sister’s family in southeastern England, we wanted to extend our visit into a surrounding area. At first we thought about going to Ireland, Scotland, or the English countryside, but late November isn’t exactly the best time of year to be traipsing around the highlands. It seemed safer to stay in a city, and when we found out that a high-speed train to Brussels stopped not 10 minutes from Mr. P sister’s house, we decided that we could do worse than visit a country known primarily for its chocolate, waffles, and beer.

So after landing in Heathrow, we found our way to the international train station via the London Underground and less than 2 hours later, we were in Brussels. And we wondered… what now?

Belgian Waffles

Well, neither of us could envision ourselves walking down the street scarfing down a waffle unless we had just skied the Matterhorn, although it was lovely to have the option.

Chocolate, however, is another story. We picked a chocolate store out of the dozens that lined the Grand Place, marched in, and demanded a sample. Heavenly. We also checked out the most amazing-looking cookie store ever.

Brussels Cookie Store

Ummm… where are those lovely green local sprouts that I so adore?

Somehow, we managed not to spoil our appetite for a lovely meal featuring oysters and the ever-popular Brussels mussels.

Brussels Mussels

After dinner we wandered around the Grand Place, admiring the fine buildings built centuries ago by Belgium’s colonial wealth. While Brussels as a whole was a fairly seedy and indistinctive city, the buildings in the Grand Place were impressive.

Bread House in Brussel’s Grand Place

Brussels Town Hall under a Full Moon

Bread House from a Side Street

We cashed in a chunk of loyalty points to stay at the Hilton Brussels City, a hotel that seemed lovely and friendly until we found out that they charged 30 euros for breakfast. We had plenty of plush, white bath towels, but no place to put them.

The next day we woke up, found a cafe that sold 2 euro croissants, and ventured to the Royal Museums of the Fine Arts to tour the Ancient and Modern Art museums (skipping the Magritte museum devoted exclusively to Belgian surrealist Rene Magritte.) It seemed sensible to shell out an extra 4 euros each to rent audio guides, as I have found that looking at art without informed commentary is like watching a movie without sound. We started in the Ancient Art museum (pre-1800), an era in which Belgian Art excelled (probably because Belgium as a country didn’t yet exist, snark snark) and produced simply astounding illustrations of numerous Catholic fairy tales.

The coolest thing about the Royal Museums is that photography is allowed sans flash, a policy that we did not discover until we reached the Modern Art museum (post-1800), when Belgium stopped keeping pace with the rest of the art world and started producing bizarre imitations of Impressionist, Realist, and Surrealist art. “What will the Audio guide say about this in 300 years?” I asked Mr. P as we gazed upon a piece that consisted of a mirror partially covered by a green curtain.

Royal Museums of Fine Art in Brussels

Belgian Realism

Art

Of course, the most popular piece of art in the city of Brussels is the Mannekin Pis, a small bronze fountain statue of a strikingly-muscled naked boy pissing. The statue has enjoyed an enduring, mysterious fame for centuries, so we were behooved to marvel upon it amid a crowd of unabashed tourists.

Mannekin Pis

Ah, Brussels. So tasty, yet so tawdry.

Brussels in a Nut Shell

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By Meredith – November 30, 2010

Heathrow Airport Passport Control, 8ish Days Ago, 6am

UK Border Agent: (Glancing at my USA passport) What is your purpose in the UK?

Me: Well, I’m visiting my husband’s sister.

UK Border Agent: Are you traveling with your husband?

Me: Yes, but he has a EU passport, so he’s in the other queue.

UK Border Agent: Is your husband from the UK?

Me: No, he’s from France.

UK Border Agent: Oh, so from here you’re going to France?

Me: Actually, we’re going to Brussels.

UK Border Agent: Your husband’s sister lives in Brussels?

Me: No, she lives in the UK, in Kent. We’re taking the train to Brussels for three days, and then to Amsterdam for two days, and then stopping in Kent for three days on our way back to London.

UK Border Agent: And your purpose in Brussels and Amsterdam is…?

Me: Just, you know, sightseeing.

UK Border Agent: (Studying landing card) Where do you and your husband live?

Me: We live in the US, in Boston.

UK Border Agent: (With an ever-so-faint smirk) So why did you fly Air Canada?

Me: Um, well, it was the cheapest flight, to go through Ottawa.

UK Border Agent: (Stamping passport and handing it back to me in one swift motion) Pleasant journeys, ma’am.

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By Meredith – November 29, 2010

“Did he just call me an asshole?”

Last night was the third Thursday of November, which is known by wine aficionados as Nouveau Beaujolais… the debut of France’s first wine’s newest vintage which is ordained by law not to be released a moment before midnight of this day.

Of course, those partaking of the newest Beaujolais as soon as it arrives in the United States should be warned that most wines need a few weeks to rest after they have undergone intercontinental travel, otherwise the Beaujolais tastes like vinegar that’s cleaned barn stables. This doesn’t stop many US wine stores from getting into the Nouveau Beaujolais spirit with a party/tasting! even if the Beaujolais underwhelms…

We arrived at our local wine store at 8:45, on the tail end of their Nouveau Beaujolais celebration. After we picked up our tasting glasses, the owner of the store made a beeline to us. He knows us as good customers by sight.

“Welcome, welcome, I just want to apologize for the music, but all French music is really horrible!” he said, grinning. Obviously he had been tasting the new Beaujolais extensively. “I apologize if you’re from France! Ha ha ha!”

I pointed at Mr. P. “Actually, I am from France,” he admitted.

“No shit? Well, next year , you’ll have to give me music to play, because I couldn’t find any good French music at all!” he said, patting Mr. P on the shoulder. “I’ll hold you to that.”

“Well, there’s always Edith Piaf,” Mr. P said.

The owner adopted a look of mock outrage, turned to me and asked, “Did he just call me an asshole?”

_____________

On that note, I’m off to go indulge my inner Griswold…

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By Meredith – November 18, 2010