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| La Bourse (The Stock Exchange) in central Brussels |
December is quickly drawing to a close, along with 2014….I
guess it’s high time I wrote some closing remarks to wish all friends and
family the very best as a new year approaches…
Earlier this month, we had two Mondays of national strikes
here in Belgium which meant my school was only nominally operational as many of
our students rely on bus transport, and the drivers were participating in the
strike.
"LOVE EACH OTHER CHILDREN, FOR LOVE IS EVERYTHING." -Carl Larsson, Swedish artist, painted over the doorway of his home in Sundborn, Sweden
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| At the Brussels "Fêtes d'Hiver" |
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| La Grande Place, Brussels |
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| Students from the Swedish section of EEB2 celebrate Santa Lucia |
During the last week of school
before the holidays, my Swedish colleagues treated us to a special celebration
of Santa Lucia, with a smorgasbord, and a chorus of traditional songs performed
by a group of our Swedish students, dressed in white, crowned with wreaths, and
bearing candles. Two of my 6th
year students, Elisabeth and Viktor, were among them, looking particularly
angelic! I include a photo and video of this experience. As a Swedish descendant on my mother’s side
(my maternal grandmother was a Peterson), I was quite moved. I know so little
about my Swedish family background. These cultural exchanges are one of the
joys of my teaching at the European School…it is always a holiday in one of my
colleagues’ countries.
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| the fantasy carousel -riding the giant stag beetle |
In front of the church Sainte Catherine, a fanciful,
somewhat other-worldly carrousel was whirling its young passengers about on a
variety of mechanical creatures who were anything but ordinary horses….a
spaceship capsule, a dinosaur with wagging tongue, a giant iguana, a huge
horned beetle, a flying stork, a steaming contraption out of Jules Verne, a
fishing boat rocking and rolling on unseen waves…..altogether a delightful
fantasy for children and adults! (See video below.) We
peeked inside the church to see visitors lighting candles in memory of loved
ones, while its façade was bathed in a constantly changing color show that at
times resembled gingerbread, and at others a page from a fairytale coloring
book.
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| Sainte Catherine |
The main part of the Christmas market is located in the
Place Sainte Catherine, which is surrounded by restaurants, bars and cafes, and
dominated on one end by the church. During the holidays, the gothic church is
counterbalanced by a giant red and white Ferris wheel. In the middle is a Swiss chalet restaurant,
and in the past there has always been an outdoor ice skating rink which was
conspicuously missing this season. We sipped some mulled wine as we wandered
through the market, and ended our evening in a cozy restaurant on the
square where we enjoyed seafood tapas and a fish dinner.
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| Sophia enjoying sole meunière |
The next two days I would rather push into the dusty corners
of my memory, as I came down with a miserable flu which confined me to bed,
completely drained of energy, unable to eat much of anything, and passing the
hours by sleeping, other than some pleasant distractions from Alex and Sophia
who came to check on me, bring me tea, soup and ibuprofen. The ‘highlight’ of being in bed sick was
finally getting to watch Woody Allen’s “Magic in the Moonlight” which Alex
streamed for me on my laptop.
I forgot to mention that before collapsing into bed ill on
Tuesday, I had made a trip to the large Carrefour (a French Wal-Mart type
store…a necessary evil) to buy an air mattress for our Christmas guest, Alex’s
flatmate Ike, who arrived to spend five days with us. Ike is from Nigeria, and currently studies in
London where he shares a house in Brixton with Alex and another friend. I had to let Alex and Sophia finish up the
last-minute shopping and plan the Christmas Eve dinner menu, which they did
cheerfully and efficiently. They planned
a cheese fondue, and by the evening of the 24th, I mustered some
strength to get up, get dressed and join them at the table. We dipped and swirled chunks of baguette,
boiled red potatoes and steamed broccoli in melted Swiss cheese…I was quite
hungry, but could only manage a small portion.
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| Christmas morning surprises |
Oh….Christmas morning, it comes but once a year…..and it has
come and gone once again! My two
children coaxed and cajoled me out of bed so that we could have our family
tradition of breakfast together, then open our little stocking gifts under the
tree. I was feeling well enough to get
into the spirit, and enjoyed preparing a Mediterranean inspired stuffing of
mushrooms, onion, garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, olives, thyme, and sage all
blended with dried bread and broth (Thanks, Monica!). I basted the turkey, and then we headed out
into the momentary sunshine for a walk in the nearby Bois de la Cambre (Cambre
Woods). The fresh air truly revived me,
and I felt my recovery was imminent.
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| Christmas Day walk in le Bois de la Cambre |
We returned home and the cooking continued….I love the smell
of a roasting turkey! Alex had made
eggnog at my request, and that kept us going as we prepared the remaining
dishes for our feast. The table was set
with my mother’s Blue Elaine china and linen, lit with candles, and I placed a
handmade popper at each place. Some of
the quotes I placed in each are included at the end of this blog…..some words
of wisdom to guide us in the year ahead…Ike’s parents called and wanted to
thank me for hosting their son, and I had the unique pleasure of wishing these
kind voices a Merry Christmas from Brussels to Nigeria. Ike told us that Christmas in Nigeria is
usually celebrated with spicy barbecues of chicken and goat, and a relatively new
tradition promoted by the government to encourage tourism involves watching a
long Carnival style parade under a hot sun.
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| --Voltaire |
The day after Christmas, Sophia prepared to depart for three
weeks in Peru. She is in Trujillo now,
visiting friends and former students she met there this past year. I accompanied her to the airport in the
evening, and saw her off….her visit home passed so quickly! Nevertheless, I am happy for her to have this
wonderful opportunity to travel the world.
She kept me posted of her arrival at each leg of the journey…first
Madrid, then Lima hours later, and finally Trujillo.
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| Some post-Christmas silliness or Athena's nap disturbed |
Meanwhile, here in
Brussels, we had the unforeseen pleasure of a lovely post-Christmas snowfall - thick and fast it fell for several hours on
Saturday, the 27th. Ike had
to leave very early on Sunday morning, but Alex and I decided to take a hike in
the Fôret de Soignes which extends for miles beyond the Bois de la Cambre. The sun was shining, and we headed out into
the sharp air, taking along some liquor-filled chocolates and a thermos of hot
tea. The forest was magical, sparkling
with icicles and powdery snow. We were
mesmerized by the views, and took many photos as we walked under the snow-laden
branches. Many others were out enjoying
the ephemeral beauty of this Sunday afternoon, walking their dogs, pulling
children on plastic sleds, hardcore cyclists skimming along the icy paths. We
stopped to sip our tea by a frozen pond where ducks bobbed under the dark
water, undaunted by the cold.
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| Bois de la Cambre, December 28, 2014 |
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| Posing by the partially frozen Etang des Enfants Noyés |
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| CHEERS! |
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| Ducks....are either very brave or very foolish creatures |
Now Alex has returned to London, and I need to face a long
list of tasks I should be working on for second semester, but before I do, I
want to wish you all a healthy, happy new year in which you find many moments
of shared joy, laughter, and unexpected
pleasures……
Some of this year’s favorite quotes
to inspire……
“Life isn't about finding
yourself. Life is about creating yourself.”
― George Bernard Shaw
― George Bernard Shaw
“Finish each day and be
done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no
doubt crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You
shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old
nonsense.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
― Ralph Waldo Emerson
“I wanted a perfect
ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some
stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not
knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without
knowing what's going to happen next.
Delicious Ambiguity.”
― Gilda Radner
Delicious Ambiguity.”
― Gilda Radner
“Never doubt that a small
group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is
the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead
― Margaret Mead
“When I was 5 years old,
my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to
school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’.
They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t
understand life.”
― John Lennon
― John Lennon
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| I am quite certain that a fairy child lives here, and spreads her wash on the moss to dry on sunny summer days.... |
“Life will break you.
Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude
will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It
is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are
here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed,
or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and
listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness.
Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum
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