30 August Saturday

30 August Saturday

An example of four different styles of architecture - too bad I don't remember what four. As we walked towards the center of town, Steven neglected to tell me much better sights lay ahead, so I was clicking away at everything wantonly.

30 August Saturday

Doing what professors do best. No, not walking! - professing. Taken on Steven's street/canal, right outside of his spacious, yet book-cramped apartment. No, it's Gent, not Amsterdam.

30 August Saturday

This is how Jaimey and I start every day while in Germany. Dr. Oetker's Knusper Müsli is fruit of the Gods - the best cereal on the face of the Earth - by far! And, if you know me, you know I know cereal like I know 80's music.

30 August, Jaimey's birthday

It's good to be a cheesy European tourist - prost!!


Jaimey and I drove to Ghent to meet Steven, a colleague of Jaimey’s and some sort of art historian/film critic. I never get all the credentials on these intellectuals, but I couldn’t imagine a better guide to Ghent. Or perhaps I should call it Gent since we learned it is more of a Flemish than French city. Steven has the uncanny ability of inserting docent-like information into casual conversation. I felt like I was living in the WG Sebald book I’ve been slogging through all summer, replete with dependent clauses, sometimes, Austerlitz said, lasting pages upon end as the thoughts, jamming together like gears of a turn of the century Flemish millhouse, such as the one he visited when last wandering the solitary marshes just south of where he would occasionally summer when the Picardian geese would migrate to the lush forests in southern climes where one could languish long in the fading rays of a Mediterreanean sun. Such like that he spoke, Sebald I mean, not Steven. Steven would interrupt his musings upon Hitchcock, having recently completed a book concerning the directors’ single-set films (which struck me as an arbitrary distinction but this is perhaps why I am not a film critic), with historical insights. For example, “especially in Rear Window as the façade was made in three months by 50 workers, not unlike the former distillery on our left, finished in 1887 in the baroque-gothic post-renaissance, pre-Victorian, pseudo-Eduardian, rococo, pre-Modernist style with flaunted buttresses and enervated gaulicées. OK, so maybe that was some Sebald seeping in. But people talk like that I tell you!

In any event, Steven took us around town. It was quant, lovely, charming, and packed. It was a beautiful Saturday and everyone was out on the main streets and canals. Having not eaten since our Knusper fix that morning, I began to characteristically bitch and moan in a loud whining, nasal voice, not unlike the braying of a donkey, long tethered to a yoke he neither understands nor supports in any spiritual (although in every physical) sense. Well, I mentioned I was hungry anyway. Secretly I was just angling for some beer. My tactics paid off and we were all the better off. We sat in one of those it-would-be-cheesy-if-it-wasn’t-an-incredibly-quaint-medieval-European-town-square restaurants and ordered Croque Monsieurs. Well, that’s what I had anyway. If you want to know what they had, you have to read their damn blogs because I don’t remember. But Steven recommended us some kick ass beers. I think it’s easy to be a Belgian tour guide and to recommend beers. It’s like telling tourists in San Francisco to dress in layers – you’ll always look like a genius! Jaimey sat back after a particularly long sip and said, “See Mark, Paul only takes your to Belgian cafés, with me, you actually go to Belgium.” Paul, I think the gauntlet has been thrown down. Let this also serve notice to other readers with unusual travel plans: you might be able to convince me to accompany you. And, if it’s in Europe you might even get me to drive – a skill Jaimey has honed for nearly two decades.

As the afternoon wore on, and I’m sure we began wearing on Steven’s patience, and the pleasure of his girlfriend’s company awaited him, he wisely and politely bid us adieu, leaving us to wander the streets by ourselves, searching for some item for Jacqueline (that would require more taste than Jaimey and I had) and some amazing beer. Eventually we settled on a place where I had my traditional northern European favorite, steak tartare (the sushi of the Atlantic), and Jaimey had a salad with some incredible cheese wrapped in speck that we both salivated after for the next two days. Naturally, we had some obnoxiously great beer. I took a picture with my cellphone and sent it to a few people who either didn’t receive it or could find no suitably brilliant reply. This happens to me a lot.

Steven recommended that we should return through Brussels as it was shorter. Unfortunately, we later discovered, it’s only shorter if you’re headed to Köln, but not so useful if you’re headed to Düsseldorf. As we were getting gas and deciding to head back to Antwerp, a strange song came on the gas station radio. It started like Werewolf In London – Warren Zevon, but the chorus had Sweet Home Alabama – Lynyrd Skynyrd sampled. Jaimey and I laughed about it as we got back in the car. I have since heard it many many times on the radio. I had only not heard it before because Friday was Michael Jackson’s 50th birthday and everyone was playing the extended 12 minute dance version of Wanna Be Startin’ Something as a tribute. Anyway it turns out this rehashed 70s classic rock scramble is actually All Summer Long – Kid Rock. It figures I’d have to go to Europe to acquaint myself with the latest American popshit. Has anyone in the US heard this song? Why are Europeans so obsessed with sampled old American hits? Heed me now, future rock stars: if you want to make a ton of money get the rights to a slightly off the beaten track 80s hit like say In a Big Country – Big Country or something by Bronski Beat, sample it, and add some mediocre rapper who doesn’t sound angry, and you will have a Number 1 hit all across Europe. You mock or ignore my words at your peril. If you don’t have as much money or fame as you want, you only have yourself to blame – I can only lay out the recipe.

Friday 29 August

This is the Gotthard Pass. Luciano is such ham, he insisted I take a picture of him for his personal ad. That car has an ego!

29 August Friday

This is towards the end of the tree-mauling process. Ultimately I wound up with 11 110 liter bags of leaves and twigs. I've decided that's more than a kiloliter. I don't know if there is such a term, but us serious tree-hackers need our own language.

Driving from Ticino to Düsseldorf takes a long time. I had my suspicions all along. I knew Jaimey’s email suggesting 600km would take me three hours if I averaged 200kmph was only baiting. In fact, for the record, I only hit 200kmph twice – and each time for less than 15 seconds. Going through Switzerland, I averaged about 48kmph due to the three traffic jams – at Gottardo, Luzern, and Basel. I saw the mess at Gottardo and Luciana told me it was blocked for 19 km so I panicked and went over the pass. (Luciano has an officious female alter ego who talks to me – and anyone else in the car. I am not hearing voices!) I had literally been going about 20m per minute. Later I heard on the radio that it was only blocked for 2km, but, by then it was too late. I went over the lunar landscape pass doubting myself. God, as usual, was smarter than I. As soon as I pulled back on the autobahn I saw the truck I had been waiting behind during the jam – it took him the exact same amount of time to get through the tunnel! Naturally, all my machinations had been for naught.

I realized something important, however. As I have noted before, the Swiss are tunnel obsessed. Even once you leave the mountains, they tunnel. There may be no apparent reason – the autobahn is traversing a field and suddenly it dips down under the surface for a few hundred meters and then resurfaces. The Swiss are just tunnel happy.

This led me to uncover a mystery with which I have been grappling for years. Why is the cheese everyone in Europe calls “Emmentaler,” called “Swiss cheese” in the US? I used to blame it on American ignorance and on a President without a passport. Emmental is too hard to say and no one in the US knows where it is anyway. Heck, most Americans don’t know the difference between Sweden and Switzerland anyway – just ask my mother. “Oh, you’re Swedish, does your family make kookoo clocks?” But now I theorize it has nothing to do with American arrogance, “Swiss cheese” is a topographical reference. The American military, frustrated, yet impressed with Swiss ingenuity, sussed out the Swiss propensity for tunneling and somehow that defense secret filtered into the mainstream vernacular.

Of my nine hours in the car, four of them took place in Switzerland. The German freeways are better. Well, except for the fact that you have to slam on your brakes all the time to go down from 180kmph to 100 kmph when one truck overtakes another suddenly in front of you. Actually I think it took a long time because, in general, the freeways in Europe are designed for the much less traffic here than in the US. This is fine 90% of the time, but during peak times, like weekends in summer, the traffic swells. Today, for example, about three quarters of the cars and trucks I saw were not local – just passing through. Once it got dark, people peeled off the road and almost all the cars were local and I could go about twice the speed. The German autobahn, it should also be noted, doesn’t go through cities like they do in most countries. This tends to reduce the chance of jams.

Around 22.00 I arrived at Heinrich Heine Universität. I was pretty proud of myself given that neither my map nor Luciana had any idea where I was. Unfortunately, my victory was short-lived as Jaimey was nowhere nearby. In fact, he was happily chatting with a colleague in some Thai restaurant downtown. He gave me some shoddy directions and I drove around Düsseldorf until I found him. I had a great big German meal as he watched and we walked around the Altstadt a bit. I had actually never been to the center of Düsseldorf before and it was quite nice. There were tons of people milling around the streets and river and in bars and restaurants. Quite festive!