Happy Birthday, Marines!

The 10th of November is the birthday of the Marine Corps (the 235th birthday this year to be exact) and a great excuse to throw an awesome party. This year we attended the ball here in Brussels, and even though there are fewer than 30 Marines in town, the political clout of the city made it a big deal. Did you know that there are not one, not two, but three US Ambassadors living in Brussels? One for the Kingdom of Belgium (sounds funny, doesn't it, but no kidding, Belgium is a kingdom), one for NATO and one for the EU. Jen and I were lucky enough to sit next to Ambassador Kennard and his wife, Deborah, during dinner. Amazing. I had no idea how ambassadors were chosen, but I had always thought that they were career politicians. How wrong I was. Ambassador Kennard attended Stanford for undergrad, then got his law degree at Yale. He worked as general counsel to the FCC from 1993-1997, then became, get this, the chairman of the FCC from 1997-2001 under Clinton. I asked him what he was most proud of accomplishing during his tenure, and he told me about the lengths he went to to ensure the access to communications, even things as basic as telephone access, to people with disabilities and places without connections, like indian reservations. He told a story of a man he met at the Gila Bend Indian Reservation in Arizona who was awaiting an organ transplant, but didn't even have a phone. There was one phone down the street at the store, and the locals would post children at the store to act as runners who would then bolt off to the appropriate house when someone called. Can you imagine that? It was fascinating to talk to the Ambassador and his wife and hear where they had come from and what they had accomplished. I'm such a nerd that I asked if we could get a picture with him and his wife. Oh, due to the Marine Corps Ball I got my first haircut in two and a half months. It felt amazing.

Abbeys and Ardennes

Oh, October, where did you go? Unlike our buddies in San Diego (100 degrees last week) we have ample proof of the arrival of fall; the trees are yellow or nearly bare, the skies are covered in a uniformly oppressive grayness, and our longing for Christmas music and cranberry sauce increases every day. October was the beginning of our French training, and now that we're 5 weeks in, we've got a good base going. We're still not very confident, but we can get around. Enough to get our hair cut, order food, or ride public transportation anyway.
Last weekend we took a little two day trip down to Dinant, Belgium. Dinant is a little town of 10,000 south of Brussels along the banks of the Meuse River. Over the centuries the Meuse has repeatedly served as a natural boundary between warring Dutchmen, Germans, Frenchman, and even Americans, most notably for those of us from the States during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. It was a beautiful area, and it was almost impossible to stay on our itinerary because it seemed like there was a something to see around every corner.
We started at Château Frëyr, an immense castle/garden complex built initially in the 14th century and inhabited by the same family until the late 20th century when it became a museum. The house hosted guests like Louis the XIV, German troops (World War I), Nazi troops (World War II), and the prince of Japan. The gardens are beautiful, and surprisingly the main attractions are the orange trees.
Next we went to Les Jardins d'Annevoie (The Gardens of Annevoie). Billed as "The Versailles of Belgium", work began on the gardens in the mid 18th century. Using a natural spring to provide the water pressure, the designers utilized the wonders of physics to produce numerous fountains, some of which fire water as high as 20 feet in the air! The grounds are beautiful, with winding gravel paths, sculptures and small architectural pieces, and even a moat around the castle with a pair of swans. Awesome.
After the gardens, it was getting dark and we were getting hungry, so we decided to head to the Maredsous Abbey to chow down on some of the monks' famous cheese, meats and beers. Little did we know that the monks' operations have long since been transferred to mainstream commercial companies since the monks couldn't keep up with the hefty demand for their wares, and we ended up eating our dinner in what reminded us a bit of a mall food court rather than a place for spiritual reflection. Also, our "dinner" two pieces of buttered bread with two pieces of cheese in the middle was a little too monastic. At least the beer was good!
We arrived at our hotel around 8pm and were warmly welcomed by the owner, Monsieur Vincent Lagneau. When I made my reservation at L'Auberge de Bouvignes I informed him that I was attempting to learn French, and he responded that he wouldn't speak a word of English to me and also threatened that if I spoke English I would be responsible for doing the dishes. Unfortunately for my French progression, but fortunately for our cultural experience, he didn't hold me to the no-English provision, and the three of us ended up sitting in the bar of the hotel talking about Belgian culture for the next two and a half hours, while drinking Belgian beers of course. He was incredibly welcoming and also a great conversationalist, and really gave us some great insights into the fractured Belgian political landscape. The hotel was great also, but I'd go back just to hang out with Vincent!


The next morning we went into the town of Dinant to see the church and the citadel. The church was beautiful, but dark and, sadly, falling apart in places. The highlights were a handful of 13-17th century works, like a large wooden cross, and numerous paintings that showed their age. After the church, we made our way up the rock face (in the gondola) to see the Citadelle. Each of the towns along the Meuse have some sort of defensive structure that helped them protect themselves during the frequent and bloody conflicts that have gripped the over over the centuries. Dinant's is substantial and certainly on the more modern end of the spectrum. We waited 15 minutes to join a tour with a guide, only to realize that the guide gave the commentary in two languages, but neither was English. Belgium's bilingualism strikes again! We tried to keep up with his French, but we definitely could hack it, so after he took us through the parts of the Citadelle that are closed without a guide, we snuck away and saw the rest of the structure on our own.
Our trip to Dinant was great and we saw so much in our two days, but we still have a very full list: Bastogne and the Ardennes, Liège, Antwerp, Ghent, the North Sea coast...

A little run, just for fun

Our latest Brussels adventure was the annual Brussels Marathon. I heard about it about a week after we got into town and decided then and there that I was going to run it. Okay, so I never decided to run the marathon, I decided to run the half. In my opinion, a half-marathon is the perfect length for a challenging run. It's long enough that you feel it afterward, but not so long that you seriously injure yourself. It's all the fun of a marathon with only half the pain. Speaking of pain, I was a bit worried going into the run because my proposed training plan (downloaded off Runners' World.com, it called for a number of 7 plus mile runs) differed substantially from my actual training (Oktoberfest, beers in Brussels, multiple grande portions of french fries, one run over the course of the preceding 3 weeks). What the heck, I'm not that old yet, right? Hmmm....

The weather in Brussels had been absolutely amazing the week leading up to the race, and the day of the race turned out to be a repeat performance; 60 degrees and sunny with nary a could in the sky. At the bus stop I met a German guy wearing a "San Diego Lifeguard" shirt and he invited me to run with him and his Austrian buddy. They were great guys and we had a blast throughout, mostly making fun of the goofy costumes and the guy with a seriously inappropriate soccer jersey. The course was absolutely awesome; it basically made a loop through the city hitting all the tourist attractions and had plenty of gatorade and water stops. Jen met us where the course went near our house and snapped a few pics. I look really energetic, but don't be fooled, that was right around mile 2.5. Good little fall run.

The slings and arrows of une langue étrangère

Jen and I have taken a week and a half of french class now, and I think we're starting to get the hang of it. Our instructor seems to know when we understand enough to explain in French, and he also knows when things are so complicated that it's better if he explains in English. I still have serious issues understanding bus conversations I'm attempting to eavesdrop on, but all things come in time, right?

So today's class was a perfect example of the issues that will pop up during the study of a foreign language. During the course of the class we routinely do exercises, e.g. fill in the blank, sentence completion type work, and then we read our answers aloud in class. Our class is down to 3 of us now: Jen, me, and a girl from Japan named Yumi who was living in the Czech Republic, but now lives in Brussels and is learning French in English while dating a Flemish guy who refuses to speak French (that kind of multi-multi-multi national story is fairly commonplace here). The small class size reduces some of the nervousness of speaking in class, because we're all fairly close to the same level. That came in pretty handy today. In two sentences in a row I mispronounced rather innocuous words and instantly converted them to swear words, causing red faces all around. (If you must know, the word "queue" is pronounced, "cuh"{which means, line} and not "coo"{a slang word for the part of the body you sit on}; also the word pèser sounds a lot like a really bad word if you say it wrong})

After my butchering of the language today, it was funny to come home and see the following ad pop up in my hotmail.

For those of you who don't parler the français, that little snippet at the top says, "Nothing protects better against peepee in the bed!" If professional ad managers can use the word "pipi" in paid advertising, hopefully my little slips of the tongue can be excused!

Moving In...

Between our house hunting trip in June and our time here since we arrived in late August, Jen and I viewed over 25 different apartments around the city. There were a handful that we liked, but only one that we really fell in love with. The Belgians describe it as a house "with character." It's a traditional old art nouveau style house built in 1907. It was a bit of a pain to actually get in here, but now that we're here we love it. After three days of moving in, we're finally starting to get settled. We still have some pictures to hang, personal touches to add, and definitely need to hit up some furniture shopping (IKEA here we come!) but we've got all the necessities and we're not in a hotel anymore!