New Mexico!

Deciding that we were getting tired of life on the road, we made a marathon drive from eastern OK to the NM border town of Tucumcari on Sunday. Crossing Oklahoma the scenery was still pretty nice with rolling hills and the trees gradually giving way to rangeland. We passed through one very picturesque town, Guthrie, OK with much of its historic downtown intact and some beautiful Victorian homes. In Texas we got on I40 for a quick crossing through Amarillo. Hot, dry landscape in that part of Texas.

We camped outside of Tucumcari at a KOA campground. I think it's the first time I've stayed at a KOA and it was very clean and nice. They even served meals if you wanted them. It was next to a little ranch (see photos of campsite and horses).

The next morning we were up at 5:30 am (mountain time) so we had breakfast at Denny's and got to Santa Fe by 9:30 am. The house was in great shape and all the furniture was piled in the living room. We spent a few hours getting the bed put together the kitchen unpacked and finding clothes that we hadn't seen for a month. Nothing like a new wardrobe after a month of wearing the same clothes! There were also all the mysteries of a new home - what light switches turn on what fixtures, what keys work with which doors.

By noon we were hungry and tired so we drove downtown and ate at the nearest restaurant, La Osteria, which had excellent salads and a lovely shaded courtyard. The post office was just down the street so we retrieved our accumulated mail. Then we found the nearest grocery store so that we could finally eat a home cooked meal!

The last few days we have been attempting to arrange internet and phone service. TV was supposed to be hooked up today, but the service person didn't show up. Our cell phone doesn't get reception here, so we are getting a local phone number. Fortunately our neighbor has wireless internet that just reaches our house, so we have been "borrowing" their internet service and can make calls through Yahoo or Skype. We expect to get phone and internet by June 30. We will probably have the cell phone number forwarded to our local phone, so the number will be the same.

The house has been unoccupied for a month, but several birds have taken up residence on the porch under the awnings. On the back porch there is a mourning dove with a chick that fledged the first day we got here. Very cute watching its flying get stronger over two days. A robin is nesting on the next awning down. The eggs hatched today and both parents are busy bringing insects to the young. On the front of the house there is a finch, maybe a Cassin's finch?, that is building a nest. The awnings need replacement, so I hope they are all done with nesting and fledging by the time the new awnings are ready to be installed.

The weather here has really been wonderful. During the day it gets up to the low 90s, but if you are in the shade it feels perfectly comfortable. Humidity is around 25%. At night the temperatures drop into the low 60s. The house is territorial style with thick adobe-like walls and it stays nice and cool during the day. We don't even have air conditioning. In the afternoons clouds gather and there are very localized thunderstorms. Only a few drops of rain in our yard so far.

More on Santa Fe, the house and the southwestern style in another post after I have some more photos to go with it!

Ozarks to Oklahoma

We’re on our first interstate of the trip with a speed limit of 75. Must be a sign of straight roads to come. Yesterday’s trip through southern Missouri was remarkably scenic. We were passing through the northern part of the Ozarks on route 60. Rt 60 seems like a new road because it has been twinned or is being twinned through most of the state. We stopped for a short walk at Big Springs state park. Blue-green water gushes out of a rock face forming a creek with very clear water. No swimming there unfortunately, but on the Current River there were lots of innertube rental places. The spring was botanically interesting with a native flowering hydrangea in bloom and many chestnut oaks.

For lunch we made a U-turn to eat at a trailer selling barbecue. Fortunately for our waistlines they were out of Jumbo cupcakes. Barbecue in this part of the country is sliced beef brisket with a tomato based barbecue sauce. Very good!

About the time we crossed into OK, very black clouds started moving our way. We weren’t far from the campground when it started hailing, but we pulled into a service station to wait it out. It hailed for 5 minutes or so and sounded pretty bad, but no dents on the car. The campground had only gotten a shower.

Eastern OK has many reservoirs used for recreation of which Lake of the Cherokees is one. It is close to the Trail of Tears and I suppose when the Cherokee arrived here it would have been rivers passing through forests. Now there are lakes and casinos. One nice benefit of the campground was that there were lots of chanterelles growing! We walked around the camground filling Jake’s t-shirt with chanterelles and a few milk mushrooms. I am now drying them on a plastic plate in the back of the car.

Scenic Eastern Oklahoma

Well, you Easterners probably didn’t know that Oklahoma had such beautiful countryside. I was on the phone with Roy yesterday (my brother) and told him that we were traveling through southwestern Missouri and Oklahoma yesterday. He said, sarcastically, “Mmm, beautiful part of the country”. Well, look at Sylvan at the picnic table, under the trees, overlooking Lake of the Cherokees. Now this campground did have a few flaws. Most of the tenting sites were on a hill. We managed to find a flat space, but it was directly under a 500,000 watt street light. Nevertheless, we slept as well as if we’d been in a hotel. We are heading west today looking for some long horn steers. If we don’t find some west of Tulsa, we are going all the way to Amarillo.

Oh, by the way, for two days in a row I have enjoyed a great southern delicacy for breakfast. At “Mom’s Kountry Kitchen” this morning in Jay, OK at 6:45 am we enjoyed biscuits and gravy. Yumm!

Middle America

We easterner sure do live in a different country -- different from Miami, Ohio (our first stop from Syracuse), which is a privileged small college existence, incredibly pleasant, bucolic, comfortable and a long way from Paris, Brussels, or Washington, DC for that matter -- and very different from southern Illinois and Indiana where I can't imagine talking to anyone about politics, yikes. But even more different from Cairo, Illinois ("CARE-oh" according to Wikipedia). Can that be a part of America? Beaten, abandoned . . . I thought there might have been a nuclear war and no one was left. Wow! No to mention flooded around the edges. Maybe we'll attach a picture of the intended campground (now underwater).

We've discovered that 500 miles a day is not fun, so we are toning down to about 350 for the next couple of days through Oklahoma and Texas. Having done those states before, I think maybe we will decide, what the hell, let's boogie on down the road. But we have a nice series of lakes chosen for potential campsites tomorrow night, so we'll see. We've also (re-?)discovered how nice it is that we have the same temperament -- patient, tolerant of things we can't change, like the unavailability of dry campsites or even hotel rooms. I feel we learned so much today about how different this part of the country is that the travails were worth it. And in the next couple of days we get into the part of the country that really is different -- Oklahoma and Texas.

Revelations

Yesterday we drove from Syracuse, NY to Oxford, OH. We took interstates most of the way because MapQuest estimated the drive at 9 ½ hours and we hoped to get there in time for my friend Diane to give us a tour of the town. Unfortunately, it took more like 11 hours of driving! Still, we got there in time for dinner. Appropriately enough, I met Diane several years ago during a long delay in a Chicago airport. She let me use her phone to make a new reservation after our flight was canceled and we ended up hanging out for a few hours finding mutual interests in plants and the outdoors.

We stayed at a nice inn on the Miami University campus (site of one of Jake’s first job interviews!). Beautiful rolling hills harbor the town and the campus is a classic college campus with an arboretum, gardens and brick buildings. The town was hopping with a concert in the town center. It seemed very much a college town with a wide assortment of restaurants and shops. After dinner we stopped at Diane’s house to meet her several cats. Like many college towns, there are many stray cats and they are kind enough to have adopted several that have shown up in their backyard. Diane is rapidly converting her lawn into garden areas and it is a great cat playground!

Local pronunciations of names are often interesting. We ate lunch yesterday on Lake Erie in the town of Conneaut (CON-ee-ot) (see photo), and tonight we are in Cape Girardeau (KAYP jeer-ar-DOO). We also passed a sign for Versailles (ver-SAYLS). Today’s route was almost entirely rural through southern Indiana and Illinois. Much more beautiful than I had anticipated! Rolling hills and high bluffs along some of the rivers. As we passed over the Wabash on the Indiana/Illinois border there was a great deal of flooding. We saw one house half underwater in the floodplain and numerous flooded fields. At the end of the day we reached the Mississippi River where the Wabash joins it at Cairo, IL.

The town of Cairo is a ghost of its former self. Several imposing government buildings including a US courthouse still stand, but most of town has large gaps and abandoned buildings. Whole blocks of storefronts are boarded up. The community seemed mostly African American. We had planned to camp outside town in a state park, but the park was abandoned and half-flooded. A monument to Lewis and Clark stood at the confluence of the rivers where they had apparently taught the company to use a sextant and compass for mapping. Going outside town the other direction to Horseshoe Lake, we did find a campground, but it was also very wet and far from town and dinner. We stopped to admire the cypress trees in the lake. I never knew cypress grew this far west! It really was beautiful with the sun setting and fishermen and herons enjoying the lake’s bounty.

Religion makes a big statement in Indiana driving through. I have never seen so many anti-abortion billboards and religious messages along the roadsides. Good to get some perspective on what other parts of the country think about! Between that and Cairo’s depression, the Midwestern vote for different presidential candidates really becomes clearer.

We drove on to Cape Girardeau across the Mississippi in Missouri. This downtown seemed pretty prosperous and lively, but we couldn’t find a hotel downtown. After driving back towards the interstate, we got the second to last room in town apparently - the crowds due to a softball tournament and several large weddings. A large cement wall holds the Mississippi back from downtown.

Tomorrow we plan to limit ourselves to more like 350 miles instead of 500!

The Louvre has a lot of old stuff. Admittedly, Mike Angelo can sculpt. For me, the more modern creations are more appealing. For instance, I really enjoyed the chocolate chip cookie they sold at a Louvre snack bar that kept me company while Sylvan was exploring the medieval Louvre. Then we went out to lunch. In fact, we have kind of made a habit of having dessert before dinner. So having a chocolate chip cookie before lunch seemed quite acceptable. See accompanying picture of Sylvan at our lunch spot outside the Louvre.

Au Revoir Paris

On our last day in Paris who should we run into on a bridge over the Seine but Mary Jo and her granddaughter! (Mary Jo is a volunteer at Adkins Arboretum and I did know that they would be in Paris when we were). We were on our way to explore the Louvre and they were on their way to explore the area around Notre Dame. Meeting later in the day for tea we exchanged travel stories and news from the Arboretum.

The Louvre’s collection was splendid as expected. Long corridors filled with famous works of art and thousands of not so famous people! The corridor leading to the Michelangelo sculptures and the Mona Lisa was packed with people but I did get a glimpse of the Mona Lisa through the throngs. I have to say that the periods of art covered in the Louvre are not my favorites, but of course there were some remarkable pieces. There was a very interesting exhibit by a current artist, Jan Fabre, that was intermingled with art from the Louvre (see photos). The rooms recreated as various royal quarters resembled those of Versailles in their glamour. I visited the “basement” of the Louvre as well, actually the area under the courtyard, where remnants of the medieval buildings remain – mostly some walls and columns and artifacts discovered when the glass triangle in the courtyard was installed.

We went shopping at the big department store, BHV, for gifts. They have a great kitchen section where things are not quite as expensive as the boutique shops. Their chocolate selection wasn’t great though. We stopped at a grocery store for chocolate and a big bag of Fleur de Sel de Camargue, a coarse salt we like to use in cooking that is outrageously expensive at stores like Whole Foods.

In the evening we went to Rue Tresor where friends of Jake’s have an apartment. After a glass of champagne we walked up to the 11th Arondissement near Rue de la Republique to have dinner at a traditional French restaurant that was at last filled with French people and not tourists! Our friends got traditional dishes like poached eggs with red wine sauce, sweetbreads and kidneys, but Jake got a cassoulet and I got duck breast in mustard sauce. A great last dinner!

Our last morning dawned bright and sunny at last so after breakfast we walked up to the market at St. Germain where Jake stocked up on dried fruits (including dried raspberries and kiwis) for the trip home and I succumbed to a long silk scarf as my souvenir.

We caught the train to the airport, but due to a strike, the train was packed and extremely slow. Apparently taxis were also on strike, so that wasn’t an alternative option. The flights though were all on time and there was a great choice of movies on the flight from London to JFK that kept us awake and entertained.

Visiting Versailles

Yesterday we took the train to Versailles, as no horse and carriage were available. I had always pictured it as being way out in the countryside, but the view from the train seemed to be pretty much uninterrupted suburb and sprawl. Along with thousands of others we walked up to the gates and stood in line to enter the Chateau Versailles. We were standing between 2 other American couples from Colorado Springs and Arizona. One couple had just gotten married the same week that he graduated from the Air Force academy and were traveling around Europe visiting places they might be stationed next year.

The Chateau is really quite splendid as one might expect. The apartments of Louis XIV especially featured lots of marble and gold trim. The Dauphin's apartments were a little less ostentatious, but I think they had suffered more changes over the years (loss of original paneling and paint). The lack of privacy of the king and queen was remarkable. We got the impression they were seldom alone and even getting up and going to bed were accompanied by rituals involving many people. The queen gave birth to her children "in public" so there would be no doubt about heirs.

Ah, the gardens! The main palace gardens are extremely formal and extensive. There are also many squares of wooded areas in which are hidden fountains, collonades, statues etc. (and now cafes and restrooms). Don't bother eating at the cafes in this area though, wait until you are further downhill near the large ponds where there is a much nicer assortment of eating places and better restrooms!

We actually liked Marie Antoinette's little palace, the Trianon, better, although it was still huge. The best part was actually the "Hamlet", a little village Marie had built as an idyllic addition to the palace grounds. I'm sure the houses in the hamlet were far superior to anything peasants actually lived in!

You can rent bikes or boats to get around or get a ticket on a little train-like bus, but it didn't seem that you could take bikes into the palace or Trianon grounds, so that would be best for viewing the more remote parts of the grounds I guess. It was a LOT of walking though!

We caught the train back and had a nice dinner of salads at our old favorite Le Philosophe in the Marais.

Luxembourg to Paris

I like Luxembourg, mostly for the deep valley, lush, green, and old, that separates its neighborhoods. If I had to live in Luxembourg, I can easily imagine a modern apartment in an old building down there. I also like it for the solid character of its oldest parts and of the European Community parts – the Court of Justice buildings are very nicely constructed. Sylvan undoubtedly will describe the food, which was great, and added to my enjoyment of the place.
We left the students behind when we departed for Paris this morning. They were, without exception, a pleasant and enjoyable group, as Seton Hall students very often are. Traveling with them to and from Leuven to Brussels and ultimately to Luxembourg could not have been easier. After every lecture, I think “that was the last lecture of my career.” Well, we’ll see. I almost always enjoy every class, so the thought of an occasional class doesn’t sound like the end of the world.
Heading to Paris also seems like going home, in a bizarre way. I suppose it is at least as much home as Santa Fe, where this phase of the journey will end. After many past visits, Paris is familiar and I know where I like to get a good chocolate croissant, salad, pizza, bench.
In Paris now, and it does feel like home. Wonderful strolling as always. In case no one noticed, this is a business trip and we are constantly expressing our appreciation to Seton Hall and toasting the Archbishop of Newark with excellent Champagne to demonstrate that appreciation. To demonstrate that this is in fact all business, I would like to mention that we went to the Sorbonne yesterday, observed a street demonstration (call this a study of law in action, free speech, or, as it happens, an exposure to some public policy issues related to immigration reform). And to prove our serious attention to business, you will see a picture of me in front of the Sorbonne Law School. And we spent some time sitting by the river -- equal time photo of Sylvan attached.

Students

Just a few little stories about the students we had on the trip. One of our favorite stories is about the student who spent all night in a bar in Leuven. He fell asleep in the bar around 5 am and when he woke up at 7 am he said the place was still hopping! He came back to the hotel for breakfast and somehow stayed awake through morning classes. This same student is making an attempt to speak French to people and last night sat (in a bar) with a group of French watching the Euro Cup match between France and the Netherlands. When a Dutch guy started hurling coasters at the French group trying to knock their beers out of their hands and making various obnoxious gestures, this student in his atrocious French made some equally obnoxious remarks back which made him a favorite to the French at least (consolation for losing the soccer game?).

In Luxembourg we generally saw the students not further from the hotel than the bar across the street. But the first night we were told they did go across the river to the first bar they found! There are a few students who have been more adventurous fortunately. The only potential problem we had with a student was one who woke up after an afternoon nap with large welts all over her. She was convinced it was bedbugs and got a new mattress from some other room. I doubt that was it but a dose of Benadryl took care of whatever the problem was. There were mosquitos in Leuven and no window screens. Why is it that only in the US can you find window screens?!

For some students the principal inquiry in a new place was, “is there a gym?” For all it was whether there was internet access. I think they are all devoted Facebook users.
One especially creative student came up with alternative lyrics to the pop song, “Love in the Club”. The alternative title was “Love in this Union” and featured lyrics like:

“You say you’re searching for someone who will trade your goods and do you right; Well come here Europe and tell me what your Internal Market feels like; All you gotta do is tell me what you’re voting on; And I’ll give you multiple majorities all night long.”

Luxembourg

Luxembourg ‘s defining geological feature are 2 impressive gorges that meet where the river Petrusse and Alzette join. The Luxembourgians built forts atop the gorges to defend their homeland and even built defenses into the cliffs. Although the city was apparently destroyed 22 times, it is an independent country now with its own heritage. As part of our official reason for visiting we spent half a day at the European Court of Justice. In the hallway was an art exhibit of cartoons about justice, so it was nice to see that they have a sense of humor! We heard from a woman who is the head of the English translation division. They employ a large number of translators who have backgrounds in comparative law and can translate into 3-4 languages of the official 22 possible languages. Never occurred to me that could be a career in law.

On our own we explored the city following parts of the touristic Wenzel route up and down the gorges to see the fortifications, plants and animals. Not too many animals except a heron and pigeons. The old part of town is far more interesting than the area near the train station where our hotel was. That area is full of less expensive stores and nightclubs. But it is convenient for travel to be near the station and the hotel was fine (Hotel Nobilis). The old part of town though is where you have squares surrounded by cafes, historic buildings and parks. We ate at a very nice restaurant called L’ Bouquet Garnis the first night since Jake had a taste for pate that night. The pate came with a spicy (cloves and vinegar) relish of apple and pear. I had another repast featuring morels, this time a white fish in a morel cream sauce with fresh peas and asparagus. I managed to ask the server (with advance coaching from Jake) in French whether morels were found in Luxembourg. She checked with the chef and indeed these were the last of the season’s morel harvest from the country.

On Friday night we had dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant on a street leading down to the gorge. Excellent thin crust pizza and a large salad with bacon and a fried egg on top (typical of French salads).

A note on finding tea in Luxembourg after 6 pm – most patisseries close at 6pm and the coffee machine is sometimes closed down earlier. Brasseries can be smoky, so we found that hotel cafes or the cafes on the Place des Armes were the places to go for that late afternoon tea and snack!

Brussels Art Noveau

It's our last morning in Belgium and the rain has returned. Jake is giving his last lecture to the students and my goal is to try once again to get postcard stamps at the PO this morning. It has been closed for a week for repairs or something so I guess everyone has been going to some different post office in Leuven, maybe on the ring road.

Yesterday I went into Belgium specifically to go the Horta Museum. Victor Horta was a Belgian architect who was one of the better known architects during the Art Noveau period. His house and workshop are now open to the public. It is in the once again up and coming neighborhood of St. Gilles with its diverse restaurants and shops. Lots of little boutiques for those of you who like shopping. The Museum is only open in the afternoon (they do group tours in the morning). The house is 4 stories tall and the rooms are arranged around a central spiral staircase. At the top of the staircase is an arched window that lights the whole center section of the house. Behind the house is a walled garden dense with roses and flowering shrubs. The only part of the house closed to the public is the kitchen.

Every detail of the house from moldings to light fixtures to door handles and furniture are done in Art Noveau style. The woodwork glows with different hues of gold and brown. The fabrics on the furniture were damasks with art noveau designs in beautiful rich colors. There were also quite a few pieces of Asian art which I think were also popular at the time.

With the entrance ticket you get a little map showing where other art noveau buildings can be found around the neighborhood. Since the tour of the house didn't really take that long I used the map to explore the neighborhood and see some of the other buildings. They were designed by several different architects and some are private homes. Two were designed as hotels but are no longer operated as hotels. You couldn't go in them, but just the outsides were impressive with all the curliecues and stained glass windows. It's always been one of my favorite styles even though I wouldn't really choose the style for my own home. The designs always look so exuberant and romantic.

In the morning I went to the Natural History Museum. It is undergoing major renovations so the only exhibit really worth seeing is the dinosaur hall. It is filled with Iguanodons that were found in a coal mine in Belgium. The early paleontologists arranged the skeletons to be upright in "kangaroo" position a sign said, but now most think they ran around on 4 legs. The skeletons are huge - maybe 30 - 40' long. They have good exhibits on the evolution of feathers, and what classifies a dinosaur as a dinosaur and on the discovery of the skeletons. The hall is also one of those old-fashioned museum halls with a balcony around the room and beautiful high ceilings and iron railings. They do have the signs in English as well as in Dutch, French and German in that hall unlike in the rest of the museum.

I caught the train back to Leuven, but still don't get the train postings for local versus express trains. This time I also couldn't find track 3 where the first train to Leuven was leaving from. I followed the signs one direction, no track 3. Looked back and saw a sign for track 3 in the opposite direction, but no 3 over there either. So there was another train that was listed as Machelen -Leuven and I caught that one. After a few stops the conductor came by to take my ticket and said something long in Dutch the gist of which was "this is the longest route you could possibly take, but the train will eventually get to Leuven." An hour later after some scenic countryside and a lot of stops, it did get there!

Art in Leuven

Leuven has quite a range of art styles! The fly on a needle is in front of the University's library, the student reading while pouring beer into is head is right as you come into the center of town, and the building with all the sculptures is town hall.

Botanic Garden photos especially for Arboretum staff!

The orchid room above was the extra storage area for orchids, one of two rooms just for ochids.

Note the kind of tree behind the signs!

At long last - the National Botanic Garden!

Yesterday I finally made it to Belgium's national botanic garden, home to more than 16,000 species. It is 92 hectares and I spent half the day there without seeing everything. It is a traditional botanic garden in having lots of collections, but untraditional maybe in that there is a castle in the middle of it and some woods and fields. There is a huge conservatory half of which was under construction, as well as a smaller one that holds the Agavaceae for the garden that features plants arranged by family. Yet another Orangery now holds a cafe, but behind that is an enormous walled garden. Against the walls all kinds of vines grew, including - kudzu! There are many plants on display that are considered invasive in the US and I think they had mislabeled Celastrus scandens in the plant family section - the flower arrangement looked like oriental bittersweet to me! But this is a botanic garden for research and display and it didn't surprise me that all these plants were featured.

There is very little emphasis on invasive plants in Europe, maybe because there is such a long history of human influence on the landscape. There was a little booklet in the giftshop about giant hogweed, but otherwise not much on introduced plants.

The Belgians had colonized parts of Africa, so their displays of African plants were quite extensive, and who would guess that an institute in Leuven holds the world's most diverse collection of bananas?! Researchers at the botanic garden have also specialized in studying mosses, lichens and fungi. The garden was cleaning up after its annual garden festival over the weekend, and I have to say I sympathized with the staff!

Ardennes photos

Just some addtional photos to give you the flavor of the Ardennes. The topiary garden was across the river from our hotel. We didn't go through it, but could see a few! The stone walls often have small ferns and wildflowers growing in them. This was a sedum in flower. The rock formation is a dolomite chalk dome.

Ardennes

At least these postings about food are separated by a little serious information on the EU! Last weekend we rented a car and drove to the Ardennes in southwestern Belgian, a french speaking area. Reading road signs in Dutch is extremely difficult, so it was at least a little better in Wallonia. Although there are still lots of inexplicable signs relying on symbols and we're still not sure if you yield when the arrow points towards or away from you.

We stayed in the "smallest city in Europe", Durbuy, which has about 300 residents and 300 tourists. Our hotel was right in town, Le Sanglier des Ardennes and we had signed up for the gastronomique package. The rooms are very nice with antiques and a comfortable bed and the typically European bath with a big tub and handheld shower. But really, this trip was mostly about food. After dressing for dinner we had drinks in the parlor and an amusee bouche (apologies to the French on the spelling! This is a little tasting of something that the chef prepares) of little glasses of gazpacho, little squares of foie gras and leek in a gelatin, and curried pate a choux puffs. Dinner was 3 courses including excellent rack of lamb and asparagus. After dessert we retired to the parlor again for coffee, and another amusee bouche arrived of a miniature creme brulee, a small glass of what seemed like concentrated sangria and some fresh fruit.

We attempted to walk this off on Saturday morning after croissants and coffee. It was still grey and wet outside, but not raining. We hiked through some beautiful woods with large beech and other trees. The ground was covered in ferns and other plants, but not much in flower. The path led up into a pasture (see photo of fencepost) and continued uphill through the pasture until it reached a road again. We walked back downhill through another little town and back through the woods. Durbuy is along the River Oerthe, a fairly shallow but fast running river with all the rain. A large chateau sits in the middle of town (looks like a castle to me, see photo) and is privately owned. It didn't look like anyone was home when we were there.

Saturday night was the big 5 course dinner featuring baby lobster as an appetizer (maybe something more like a large crayfish?) veal in morel sauce, a cheese course, and different wines to accompany each course. At least we split the wines!

Before breakfast on Sunday we hiked uphill to a tower near town and back to work up an appetite for Sunday brunch! The brunch is a buffet covered with several kinds of smoked fish, hams, meats, seafood, breads, cheeses, and desserts. Fortunately with a buffet you can take little pieces of a lot of different things. Favorites were a smoked trout with peppercorns and the local ham. And a very good apple tart.

To work that off we rented a 2 person kayak and did a pleasant 10 km ride down the river (see photo of Jake in kayak). This is not as long as it sounds between the current in the river and the fact that it was kilometers, not miles!

European Union

This post I wrote a couple days ago, but hadn't gotten to post due to internet connection issues ...

This morning we went to visit the European Union Parliament in Brussels with the students. We arrived rather early (had to be on the bus at 7am, not easy for a bunch of people still suffering from jet lag!) and had to wait before the security people opened up. Once we got in the building we were still early for our tour, so we waited in the café, which wasn’t really open yet either. A nice Belgium woman who helps organize groups and room availability etc. though got us coffee and tea so the time passed quickly. At 9 am we went upstairs to a classroom where we were met by a Portuguese tour guide. She was very enthusiastic about the EU and full of information. After a video she went through more detail of how the Parliament operates. Currently there are more than 750 members representing the 27 countries. All documents are translated into 23 languages. The members of Parliament are elected by popular vote in each country. Average voter turnout is 45% which she lamented as being apathetic, but compared to the US is really impressive! Countries are allocated a certain number of representatives based on their populations with Germany having the most representatives.

Parliament votes on laws recommended by the European Council, which is made up of the heads of states or ministers from each country. The funding for the EU comes from each country and from VAT, value added tax, and from tariffs on imported goods. The amount each country is required to contribute is based on its gross domestic income.

While we were there we attended a session of parliament at which they were discussing an amendment to regulations on food safety for small producers like butchers and bakers in little towns. Representatives from the Food and Agriculture committee spoke as well as representatives of each of the 6 or so political parties that make up the Parliament. At first there were very few representatives in the room, but as the time for voting drew near, they all began coming into the room. The noise level got pretty loud and groups of representatives stood in the aisles chatting until the vice-president overseeing the session reprimanded everyone for their lack of consideration. Translators for the 23 languages sat in booths overlooking the floor and at each seat was a headset through which you could choose what language you wanted to listen to the debate in. Who knew that Suomi was another name for Finland?!

From Belgium, well nourished.

Finally recovering from Internet and sleep deprivation, we've finished three days of European Law training with Seton Hall students and retreated to an Inn in the Ardennes that specializes in extravagent gourmet repasts. In anticipation of tonight's tasting menu, we are planning a long hike in the mountains today. In Brussels, the Museum of Musical Instruments, pictured in Sylvan's post was a highlight, particularly the exhibitions about how they were built. Then, I'm not sure Sylvan described the restrooms in the Belga Queen where we had dinner. Yes, the restrooms. Men and women share wash basins, but the other areas are separate. Surprising the individual stalls are all glass, clear glass. Everyone looks around and thinks "I'm supposed to go in there and do what?" But, very cool, as you lock the door, the glass turns opaque. Whew! Neat.

It is Saturday and I am looking forward to a stroll in the mountains. More later.

Photos from Brussels

We experienced internet connection problems arriving in Leuven, so we are behind in our postings! Here are a few photos from Brussels including the excellent Museum of Musical Instruments where you take headphones around to hear how the different instruments on display sound, a statue of Mercator at Le Petite Sablon square and part of a fountain near St. Catherine's square.

Some additional photos from Banff

Warm water cave in Banff

The warm waters shelter a rare snail (the little grey things next to the reddish blob of algae)

The pink orchid is a Calopogon orchid and was quite common in the woods.