[I am very pleased that blogger/google has beefed up their weblog publishing tools. This is officially the most advanced word processor that my computer currently has access to, given that I am Microsoft deficient at the moment. But don't expect any big changes or improvements. After all, a hack with a Stradivarius is still a hack.]
Sunday morning after church we hopped into our station wagon rental and drove directly westward into Belgium on the ol' A3. Looking out the passenger window, I watched the flat farmland and clusters of white German houses transition to rolling green pastures dappled with grey stone Belgian cottages. Within two hours we arrived at our destination Thon, in the northwestern edge of the Ardennes. The chambre d'hotes (B&B) that we were planning to stay at was dark and no one was in sight (perfectly normal, because I had not actually confirmed our arrival with the owners). Great I thought, ironically, and went to the stable next door to see if someone could help me. I opened the door and, faced with an impenetrable wall of grey-white cigarette smoke, felt the instinct to drop to my hands and knees and crawl towards the nearest exit. But I was already standing in the entrance way, so I sucked in a deep breath and walked into the middle of the room. Through watery eyes I made out the shapes of what looked to be patrons sitting on stools and bartender standing behind a counter. In first year level French, I asked the bartender if she knew the owners of the place next door. In a matter of minutes and a few Belgian beers, the family that owned the B&B arrived and made up our rooms. Notes to self: virtually every stable in Wallonie has a bar, and the Wallonians are generally very gracious hosts.
Despite some middle-of-the-night creeping around by Dorothy, we slept well and in the morning had the quintessential crusty baguette with various spreads accompanied by a cafe au lait. I stepped outside to check out the scenery and immediately recalled the green hills of West Virginia's mining country, home to the first generations of my own americanized ancestors from the Douglass clan. Katie and Dorothy came walking up a horse path that was made into a Sleepy Hollowesque tunnel by overhanging bushes. The temperature was well above freezing, and in the wintery mist everything took on the look of being permanently wet, like it had never been dry nor would it ever be.
We drove to the mid-sized town of Namur and passed by the town square and casino - too early in the morning for that - on our way up the impressive mass of stone and earth that composes the citadel. From the citadel we could see the river Meuse make a sluggish arc through the soggy city, only broken up by a measly looking dam and small lock. Bill was clearly impressed by the view at the top. "Manure, is it?" he asked. "Close" I said, "Namur".
From Namur we continued on to Brussels and tooled around there for the rest of the day. For the sake of regional distinction I am going to include that in the next section on Flanders - even though the city is in itself a distinct province of Belgium.
We arrived back at the B&B in Thon to spend the remainder of our evening inside. It was New Year's Eve, so Katie tried to chill a bottle of champagne in the bathroom sink and tough it out to midnight, but it never happened. After a couple games of euchre and gin rummy the Lewis's were off to bed and I followed suit. About an hour later, the skylight above my bed lit up with explosive bursts of color and I heard the muffled sounds of revellers in the nearby town singing Auld Lang Syne. Katie and I went outside to witness the efforts of the local pyromaniacs. Far off in the distance we could see the glow of a larger firework show and hear the booms - Liege perhaps? I imagined that lumbering squadrons of Luftwaffe planes were flying over our heads in the darkness, on their way to drop their loads on the Allies. Admittedly, this mental construction I probably owe more to Band of Brothers than history books. Once the damp air gave us an adequate chill, we jumped back in bed and started off the new year in proper form, by sleeping for the first 8 hours of it.
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