Dag Belgium!

We crossed the border into Belgium two days ago and I was very disappointed to find that we didn’t have to stop at any passport control. I want stamps in my passport! We could have been crossing the border from Victoria into New South Wales for all we knew, except there were more cows here.

Left-handed, or is that right?

Driving on the right side of the road in a left hand drive car was a nightmare at first and my nerves were shredded on the first day. I managed to damage the wheel cover on the front right within an hour thanks to my tendency to stray too far to the right. I’ve also managed to shred Tricky’s nerves on that first day. Have the hang of it now but I think Tricky is the better driver over here.

Breadsticks.

I just wanted to say that the movie stereotype of a French person in a beret and stripy shirt, riding a bicycle along a cobble-stoned street and carrying a breadstick wrapped in paper is only partly well-founded. The breadstick part.

Rollerskater

The French have these giant supermarkets that sell everything. ( well almost everything-we couldn’t find camping gear ) These are REALLY big,I mean gigantic. I was standing outside one of these waiting for Tricky when I noticed the guy whose job it was to collect all of the small baskets people use when they want to buy just a few things. He was really moving quickly I thought.  Well, what do you think would be a good way for the guy to get around such a massive store-rollerskates of course, naturally.

Amiens.

Between Disneyland and where where are now (Belgium) we stayed in a smallish town in northern France called Amiens. I wanted to stop here because there is a 12th century cathedral in the old part of town. We stopped at our hotel, dumped our bags, went into town and got pizza for dinner, then the next morning wandered into town and checked out the cathedral. It was a very similar cathedral to Notre Dame in Paris but much more beautiful, probably because it seemed much lighter (due to most of the windows being clear glass rather than dark-stained) and also it seemed, much more so than Paris, that this cathedral was in regular and much-adored use by the locals. There was also an unexpected Australian connection from the first World War. An Australian flag hung in one of the chapels to commemorate Australian soldiers who helped defend the town from German invaders in the war.

The next day (a Sunday) we went into town looking for a couple of internet cafes. They were both closed but there was some kind of festival going on by the canal so we went to check it out. We had to arrive at the fete by walking through a reconstructed medievel village complete with Vikings (apparently the Norsemen were very big around here) We had a great time and, as usual, the French people were very patient with our very bad French. We browsed some fantastic stalls, laden with local prouduce, antiques, books and all sorts of knick-knacks. I found some great mid-20th century (I think) postcards that I will be using on this website. Tricky had a stinky cheese and ham toasted sandwich and I had frites and saucisse (chips and sausage) and we sat down with the locals to watch a French funk/jazz/ska fusion band. Other people were eating their chips and sausages or stinky cheese sandwiches and there was a crazy man waving around a recently severed floppy chicken leg (he was one of the Vikings I think). It was all very provincial and we were having a great time. Then it started pissing rain. Not little rain, really big rain that wets you through in seconds. We hadn’t brought an umbrella (still haven’t) so we just made a run for the car, to no avail. We were drenched. We retired to our hotel, wet,  but satisfied that we had mixed it with the French Vikings of the Clan of the Severed Chicken Leg. And come out not only unscathed, but with full bellies and a deep sense of satisfaction.