Finals Week

Final exams are over, and Phil has finished grading his students' tests and papers. It is time for our own finals.

Our final trip to Bruges, for example: Sister Biggie and husband Gary flew to Belgium the day after our return from Ireland. They visited our apartment, where we made them large quantities of Belgian food.

We took them to Dulle Griet, where they were sporting enough to try the giant Kwaks (though Biggie did not enjoy having the waiter take her shoe! And Phil had to finish the beers).

Because of their ridiculously huge quantity of luggage (and heavy luggage, too -- Aer Lingus nearly had to fly another plane over to carry it, apparently), they rented a car. With GPS, of course, which they promptly named Katrien. Katrien was not as good at her job as the Irish Brigit, though. She had a little trouble locating the actual position of the car, and then became quite incensed when we didn't follow her directions.

Still, we found Bruges. It was just as fabulous as on our other visits. And while you East Coasters were sweltering or cowering from the tornadoes and golf-ball sized hail (does it even come in other sizes?), we had sunshine and low 70s.

We revisited some sights (though it was all new to Biggie and Gary), and made it to the Chapel of the Holy Blood, which holds a vial of Christ's blood that is taken out every day from 2 to 4. That part we missed, though Phil and I've seen it before. But the Chapel is pretty spectacular, as befits a place where Christ's blood is kept.

We bought the necessities of life in Bruges: chocolates, lace, beer, waffles, frites. Then we drove on to Damme -- Katrien had improved -- and ate at the wonderful restaurant Siphon, where Kries and Annie had introduced us to eel.

Only since there were no Belgians watching, we had steak, which really was just as good.

Our final museum visit in Gent: the amazing Stad Museum, which details the history of the city. There's one room that's entirely a high-tech map. At last, at last, we sort of understand Gent's configuration of rivers and canals. Four rivers! Canals intersecting, linking, paralleling! No wonder we've spent five months getting hopelessly lost. 

The museum is in the old Bijloke abbey, and it contains some remarkable illuminated manuscripts, a beautiful dining hall, and the story of the city's Great Theft of the 1930s -- the stealing of two of the panels from the Van Eyck Adoration of the Mystic Lamb in St. Bavo Cathedral. Only one panel was ever recovered.

Our final trip to Brussels. 

Bruegel the Elder

We went to admire the Bruegels at the Musee des Beaux Arts.



Bruegel the Younger

The occasional Lucas Cranach

And some Bosch apocalypticism

Visited the Beer Museum on the Grand Place. Ate train-station waffles.

Had drinks at A La Mort Subite, a cafe from the 1920s where Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Stein wouldn't have looked out of place.



Moules and waterzooi, of course



Dined at 't Kelderke.

We still have our final meals with Jo and with Kries and Annie to anticipate. And should I get too sentimental about it all, I have only to remember the conversation I had today with a woman at our local park:

She: That mother duck had four or five ducklings with her the other day.
I, pointing: Maybe they're over there?
She: No. Probably the rats ate them.

Oh well.

King of the Elephants (and Some Beer)

A fabulous day in Brussels. The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, Belgian chapter, invited us to an exhibit celebrating Babar the Elephant at the Centre de Litterature de Jeunesse de Bruxelles, so off we went. It's a wonderful little library, overseen by a man whose name I didn't get (we arrived a little late and he was lecturing in French, so I wasn't about to interrupt). He has collected some 85,000 French children's books, many very old, many very special, and is involved in trying to preserve their legacy.

The exhibit involved works by Belgian artists inspired by the de Brunhoffs' work, and we learned some things about Babar we didn't know (or I think we learned them; it WAS  all in French). For example: the first Babar story was created by de Brunhoff's wife to comfort their son when he was sick.

And: these pages, depicting the murder of Babar's mother by hunters, were excised from the original book for many years because of their excessive violence. Also: de Brunhoff's son is still living in NY and working (at 84!), illustrating the Babar books his wife writes. We also chatted about the difference between European and American children's books, which led to a rather interesting discussion on censorship.

We then traipsed down to the Grand Place to drink and buy beer. Passed a bus full of rolicking, highly inebriated people on the way to a gay tea dance, but we weren't dressed for it, so we decided not to join them.

Instead we stopped in at St. Michael's cathedral, which we hadn't seen in 25 years. And then we found the Delirium bars, a series of pubs dedicated to beers, absinthe, gin, rum, and pastis. We stuck with beer (well, we might have tried the absinthe one, but it didn't open till 10 p.m.).

  
Crowds of tourists kept coursing past us, and finally we crept among them to discover a strange little statue in a shady corner, the feminist answer to Brussel's famous Mannekin Pis -- the Jeanneke Pis.

You've all seen Phil's Wall o' Beer, but you might not know that when we're in a cafe, I am often assigned the task of removing labels with my fingernails. It's a tough job (and frowned upon by bar owners), but I'm resigned to it. At the Delirium Monasterium, which serves only Abbey beers, they caught me -- and then offered to soak off the labels for us! When we asked, they told us that other insane people have done the same thing.

Wait -- does this mean there are other Walls o' Beer out there?