SB 2023 Part One: Belgium

Belgium is my nephew Carmen's favorite European country, and it did not take me long to understand why.

Indeed, the first 30-40km of the bike race was enough to convince me. I'm telling you, the Belgian countryside is beautiful. I wish I had a better picture for you, but we were about business that day, and not even Katy, a.k.a. Mamarazzi (--her family calls her that because she is always forcing them to pose in pictures everywhere) stopped to take a shot. While we were riding (or, in my case, dying), the kids, Carmen and Uncle Bob started checking out Ghent.

They went to the Bike Museum, ate some Belgian fries ("frites," I think they're called) and came and met Katy, Suzy and me at the halfway point of our odyssey--and gave me a much-needed boost (--already, my training was starting to feel inadequate).

After that, Leo, Charlie and Kiefer went back to the hotel and watched TV, while Carmen and Scout found a stationary store, bought some pencils, and ate a couple of Belgian waffles.

Bob, I believe, was on call--that is, he was mainly waiting for the call to come save me--while also making sure two customers of his were progressing through the race okay, too. That day done, the next was our chance to watch the pros, both men and women, race the same course--uh-umph, twice. Have any of you ever watched a bike race--in person?

It was cold, but much drier for the pros. Wouldn't have mattered whatever the conditions, those athletes are not fazed by anything. I'm talking, incredible specimens--like human-sized neurotransmitters leaping across open-mouth synapses--on bikes. The kids were really excited.

Well, one furry, old kid was, at least. I remember thinking, as the cars accompanying the pros sped by us, "They are driving, even granting them their clear familiarity of purpose, a little too recklessly." Then the riders, themselves, flew by--and shit, E.T. has nothing on them. Truly amazing. A group of fellow, yet unbesotted spectators, on the train-ride to the course, even explained to us how much more "manly" bikers are than footballers (--and remember, Belgium has had the #1 team in FIFA ranking for pretty much the last ten years), and, I have to tell you, I believe them. Pogacar and Kopecky won their respective races, and I became a full-fledged fan of professional biking. They climbed steep cobblestone hills--the same ones I had to walk--like they were riding downhill. Needless to say, it was a great introduction to biking. Thank you, Bob and Katy.

The next day, pivoting to the more typical type of European vacation, we went to a medieval castle and listened to its hilarious audio-guide.

Cracked us up. We all had our favorite lines.

To give you a taste of how cheeky it was: this is me sitting along the outer wall of the castle.

And this is Charlie pointing out that it once was the royal toilet, the use of which, according to the guide, was something of a spectator sport for all the subjects outside the castle.

Yes, it was a perfect tour for 13-year-olds. With a great spaghetti lunch, two overpriced waffles--oh, and our first foray into Belgian chocolates, we ended our time in Ghent. Next up was Iepers,

the city that became the focal point of the Western Front in World War I, and which now serves almost exclusively the memory of those lost as well as of the horrors that took them. Flanders Fields, the Salient, No Man's Land, surely you have heard of these.

"The soldiers' graves are the greatest preachers of peace" (Albert Schweitzer). That grand building in the larger picture above, reconstructed after the war, is now the great museum for it. On the banners behind these two chairs, at the exit of the museum, is listed every war in the world that followed World War I, once hopefully conceived as The War to End Wars.

The two chairs in front represent Russia and Ukraine, as though they were placed in the waiting room of shame--of infamy. We rented bikes and followed Bob's lead around the battlefield, going to various gravesites and memorials, even walking through some old trenches.

Powerful stuff, yes, but it also has a special significance for me. I am born on November 11, and every Armistice Day, since my first birthday, my mother donates to The Salvation Army and gives me the poppy-flower token they give her in return. Here, at a weekly observance they have kept up now for nearly 100 years, I saw poppy wreathes laid at a memorial for all the British soldiers who lost their lives in World War I.

I even found 6-7 soldiers with my mother's maiden name etched into a panel of the memorial... From there, it was off to Bruges,

a great city, with a great market,a cool cafe,

many canals,

some windmills,

a Dali exhibition

--oh, and a deadly ropes-course playground.

I think Suzy might have already sent you the video of how I nearly killed everyone--with laughter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, very funny. Anyway, after getting lost on a run, cleaning our clothes, and then leaving my newly cleaned clothes in a bag on a bus, we were off to the Netherlands, which will be the subject of our next post. But, yeah, Carmen, no argument from me: Belgium is spectacular!