My Trip To Belgium.

Well, this weekend my friends M, H and I saw Bruges and Brussels, ate waffles, Flemish stew, mussels, fries, and chocolate, drank strong, rich beer and coffee, saw some historic sites including a church with a Michelangelo sculpture and all in all had a great time with some good friends. We even found a few alcoves in the park, and even though we knew we were awake, it felt like we were in a dream. Hopefully the photos tell the story.

A typical canal bridge in @#$%ing Bruges.

The clock attached to the bell tower as viewed from the canal.

One of the canal boats.

The player piano component to the bell tower.

Very cool clock works.

The Church of the Holy Blood ... do I haveta?

The Bruges City Hall ... even more beautiful on the inside where unfortunately photos were not allowed.

The oldest bridge in Bruges.

A nice fountain near a line of taverns and the train station.

Up close and personal with the clock.

The view of some canals from the bell tower.

One more canal view.

More internal clockworks. I wish I had time to apprentice with a clock maker.

A typical Flemmish brick building with colorful red doors.

Some beautiful flowers along the canals.

One of the largest canals on the way to see some "alcoves" in the park.

Park and canal together.

The lock building controlling some of the canals.

A pleasant courtyard view at what used to be a hospital. I could definitely heal here provided I had not been treated with Medeival methods.

More courtyard.

Some monks who were either sick and needed comforting or helping the sick and needing comforting.

A view of some delicious Belgian chocolates.

A moment of silence for the mussels lost in the production of this photo.

A clock at the Church of the Ends of the World in Brussels.

The Brussels City Hall in the main plaza.

A bigger view of the City Hall.

One more clock.

Yours truly in front of the most famous statue in Brussels ... a little boy relieving himself.

I swear I did not know about this...

I am off soon to Belgium this morning but last night watched The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which was beautiful. Anyway, thinking I recognized the clockmaker as Casey Jones from the old Ninja Turtles movie I saw as a 10 year old kid (I was right by the way), I went to good ole imdb.com to check and stumbled across the link

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114172/

which according to the plot summary is actually pretty darn close to the idea in my post. It is too bad there are no original ideas these days. Ha. I will have to ponder this while drinking delicious beer, eating tasty mussels with fries and tasting rich chocolate in @#$%ing Bruges.

A New Chapter

Well, despite the fact that I have been too busy this week for it really to sink in, everything has been moved, the car sold and my wife has officially left North Carolina as of today. Tonight I feel so overwhelmed and apprehensive about the future, both immediate and long term, that it is hard for me even to explain where my mind is from one moment to the next. Things will settle down eventually, but I suppose it just registered with me that my life is once again about to change drastically. For now, I just have to do my best to shut down the fears and anxiety in my head, focus on getting a lot done in Paris and trying to get the most out of this summer I have in Germany. Still, I can see something drastically different coming up over the horizon and have no idea how to feel or deal with it at this time.

By the way...

How has there not been a terrible action movie called Power of Attorney? I am imagining maybe an unassuming district attorney/former Army Ranger who winds up trapped in a brutal firefight with the mob to save his kidnapped wife/girlfriend they took to keep him from trying one of their henchmen. All we need now is casting and a director.

Power of Attorney 2: To Beuel and Back

So, those happy few of you who follow this blog are aware I have been attempting to make it clear to the officials at the DMV that I am fine with selling my eight year old car back in the US. This week, on attempt number two, I had to wait out a German Federal holiday, wait for an Apostille who needs 24 hours to staple one form to another, find a place that will actually ship next day air, make my way to a fairly removed UPS facility across the Rhein and mail my package.

After this journey, much to my amazement I found myself paying less money for the one day delivery than I had paid DHL for a two day delivery the previous week. Suddenly, things seemed like they were finally going my way. As I began my journey back to my office from the shipping depot in Beuel, I had an extra spring in my step feeling proud of the efficiency and service provided by a true 'Merican company. As I walked, it felt so nice to be free of the burden of said document and my heart was bursting with patriotic pride. It seemed to me nothing could go wrong.

Then today happened. After nervously checking the UPS tracking site at regular intervals all morning during breaks from editing a paper I am working on with my sponsor here about a KdV equation, finally something showed that there had been a failed delivery at 10:11 AM. I called my wife, who had been sitting at home with the apartment owner all morning waiting for the delivery. I asked her to call the company, which she did and proceeded to verify the address, the recipients, and the phone number for delivery. Believe me, after last week, I was not missing any more 4's. The agent she talked to refused to call the driver directly and said we would just have to wait for tomorrow's delivery. So, I called the company again and actually found a rather friendly individual named Ricardo who told me all I had to do was request a "same day will call" service, which would allow the package to be picked up this evening.

So, I continued to edit and attempted to function all day just steaming at the thought of this package not being delivered and being terrified that despite double checking, I had somehow mislabeled the package. Anyway, after several traded phone calls, the will call service was arranged and Amber finally picked up the package this evening around 6:30 PM Eastern.

Needless to say, she asked for an explanation why the delivery had failed. Apparently the driver, rather than going to the address on the package, had seen an apartment complex of the same name as the road and simply assumed it went there. Upon being unable to find the correct apartment number, despite the fact that there was clearly NOT an apartment number on the address, he merely assumed it was mislabeled and went on instead of actually looking for the correct street address. So, though it is also needless to say, my patriotic pride was somewhat abated by the incident. In the end, you get what you pay for I suppose. True, DHL may take a little bit longer out of the gate, but at least their drivers are literate and education costs money.

However, the bottom line is that Amber has the form, which was actually provided by the DMV this time to avoid any further difficulties. The meeting is for 9 AM tomorrow. I cannot wait to see just what goes wrong this time. Any bets from those of you out there?

My only solace is that this weekend I am hitching a ride with some friends to Belgium. Hopefully, the inordinately strong beer, rich chocolate and delicious fries will help my rage subside. Plus, I am really pulling for Roger Federer to win the French Open this weekend. It is the only one he has never won, and I for one hate to see someone come so close to something great and missing by a hair. Hopefully his luck will fare better than mine.

Just Another Day.

So, my wife turned 29 today. She said it seemed like just another day. For me, it is another significant day spent apart. By the time this whole experiment is over, I will have missed three anniversaries, two of her birthdays, three of my birthdays, three of Mindy's birthdays, plus several holidays including but not limited to Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, Easter, and Valentine's Day, etc.

Since she spent all yesterday packing all of our things to move into storage for the summer, perhaps she appreciated that today simply allowed her time to rest. However, I personally am tired of missing the big days, the little days and everything in between. Sometimes you just want the chance to be there for someone when it matters and when it does not necessarily. Looking back on this time, I would certainly appreciate more of both.

Speaking of packing up our whole apartment, it is rather odd to know while I finish my next three months in Europe, my whole house will have moved to some location in New York City, where I will actually be living again in September. To be honest, I want to be emotional that a particular chapter in our lives is over, though I guess three months feels far from over. In addition, my life has been so transient this last two years anyway, it is hard to feel connected to that particular apartment, this particular move and even this particular moment in time.

Hopefully in the morning I will get my form signed by the Apostille and to UPS in order to arrive Thursday morning to facilitate the selling of our car. This has been such a hassle, I have not really considered the implications of the form actually working. Saying goodbye to a past life used to be hard, but change has become such a dominant force in my life, honestly I believe none of this will really register until I have a home again.

Anyway, if we communicated about such things, my wife might be feeling a bit more stress about her whole life moving in a new direction and being on the front lines of such change. However, we do not really talk about such things, so her 29th birthday has come and gone without much fanfare or celebration, with our whole life together packed up in a truck and the next two months wildly unplanned and open. For me, I would be happy simply to share in this time of uncertainty and freedom, to be there to help shoulder some of the load, calm down the dog, and take the time to get to know each other again ... whatever that might mean.

The Sun.

Tonight, just a quick note about how crazy it is living this far north. I realize Scandinavians would scoff at my protest, but these summer days are killing me. By the time I am tired after the sun sets after 10, I sleep what feels like a few hours before my room is filled with light even with the curtains drawn. As I wake up to a fully lit room to see just what time it has become daylight, I am lucky if I have made it past 5 AM. Anyway, I have not slept more than 5-6 hours continuously, which used to not be a problem at all for me but now definitely takes a toll. Still, the days are beautiful here and rarely too warm, so I should not complain about such pleasant summer weather. Still, the sun here is crazy.

On a lighter note, just as it was interesting to watch the sun go through the sky differently in the Southern Hemisphere when I visited Australia, it is similarly interesting to observe the low angle the sun takes here. It is enjoyable to observe the differences and wonder if I would have been able to understand Earth's orientation towards the sun had I been born in an earlier era. Doubtful I would have been intelligent enough to consider the full dynamical system that would make such observations plausible.