« Surrender, Lauren; or Envy: A Composite of Other Chick-Lit Writers to Create the Perfect Me | Main | Apparently, I'm a Winter... »

July 19, 2005

Vacation, Yay!!

From Michelle, Recovering in Rotterdam...

What happened to that third literary chick? I hear you all cry. Where did she disappear to? Did Scotty beam her up? Did she click her heels together three times and get whisked to Kansas via tornado? Was she abducted by green-skinned, red-eyed aliens? Or mebbe, sniffle, sniffle, nobody actually noticed that I wasn't here...

Well, I went on vacation to the lovely Ardennes region in Belgium, which features picture-postcard fairytale countryside, castles sitting atop craggy outlooks, gently rolling rivers, gourmet food, very narrow windy roads, three spoken languages and...

A Cow Museum

Yes, you read that right. I actually visited a cow museum. See, in this region they have a famous cow breed called the BBB - the Bleu Blanc Belge (Blue White Belgian). It's kinda white, really, but if you squint a bit (okay, a lot) you can see the blue tinge. But it's famous because apparently it's the healthiest beef in the entire world and possibly the universe. It is 80% lean meat, 15% bone and only 5% fat.

Also, because of the size of the newborn calves (huge), it is too dangerous for the cows to give birth naturally and they have to have caesarians. An average cow will have 4 or 5 caesarians in her life.

Now, aren't you all glad that I visited the museum and shared that with you, LOL?

A Crayfish Museum

Yes, they also had a crayfish museum. Sadly, I had to give that undoubtedly fascinating experience a miss...but the Ardennes was in the grip of a crayfish festival, so I did actually eat some and felt that I "experienced" the crayfish.

Hot Sunshine

Yes, we had a heatwave. It was a bit of a shock because it was chilly when we drove off from Rotterdam, and the Ardennes is only two hours away. So one of the first things I did (being a pale, freckled kind of gal) was to head into a store while we were out and about and purchased some high factor sunscreen. It had pictures of kids on the front, and was factor 5 gazillion billion, so it seemed perfect for me.

So when I exited the store, I immediately squirted some into my hand and began to rub it into my face.

Oh Patient One burst into gales of laughter. And then he snorted, and fell on the floor gripping his stomach.

See, to make this particular sunscreen attractive to children the manufacturer had added a quirk--it was colored bright blue, and so, by now, was my face...

Three Spoken Languages

In the Ardennes in some parts they speak both French and Dutch (they call it Flemmish but it's Dutch), and in other parts they speak Dutch and German, and sometimes French, Dutch AND German.

Can you imagine the unintentional confusion I managed to cause speaking all three languages in the same sentence (well, I speak all three languages a bit, but if you mix 'em together, that's one language fluently!)? Add to the mix a bit of English to join the phrases together, and what you get is...totally perplexed Belgians, thorougly convinced that I am some kind of mad, crazy Englishwoman! Well, at least I tried...and at least I didn't add my smattering of Italian to the mix!

The Disaster

Yes, I know you all know me so well by now that you expect there to be at least one itty bitty disaster. Well, it happened before we actually left for the Ardennes...

Teenager #2, rather than being dragged off for a culturally englightening experience by me and Oh Patient One, decided that he'd rather spend the summer hanging with his cousins in the UK. So a few days before we left Rotterdam I took him to Schiphol airport in Amsterdam to catch a flight to the north of England.

There was a massive thunderstorm. But our cab turned up on time and we made it to Rotterdam's Central Station. We purchased our tickets, we acquired coffee (for me) and cola light (diet coke) for Teenager #2, and went to wait on the platform for the train...and then twenty mintues later, and no sign of the train, it was announced that due to lightning striking some vitally important piece of equipment, or something, there were ABSOLUTELY NO TRAINS between Rotterdam and Schiphol.

So you know what that meant, don't you? Sigh. Yes. Another $150 cab ride to the airport. I just didn't beeleeve it...

Michelle :-)

PS. Yes, I did try BBB beef and it was absolutely delicious!

Posted by Michelle at 11:08 AM | Comments (2)

Comments

Posted by: beejay at July 19, 2005 8:11 PM

Posted by: Michelle C at July 20, 2005 3:55 AM