The Slacker Lives

Greetings, faithful readers.

It's been an embarrassingly long time since I sat down to write anything and I find I'm long on news but getting fuzzy on details. Bad me.

August was a pretty busy month. Our friends Jason (one of Rem's old roomies) and his fiancee Alanna, came to visit us for the better part of the month. We did our best to introduce them to Dutch-Canadian life in Utrecht and then shipped them off to see Paris before joining them in short tours of Northern France and Belgium. In retrospect, this was probably not the most intelligent of orders: it's pretty hard for anything to compare to the romance of Paris!

Nonetheless, we did have some fun travels. Rem organized our itineraries so it should not surprise you to learn that we started our France trip in Amiens at the cathedral. It was a a very nice cathedral, I have to admit, with some really lovely swoopy abstract paintings - an unusual sight in Catholic cathedrals. Since there wasn't much else to occupy us in Amiens, we continued on to Arras, which looked surprisingly Belgian (it's the gables). We'd planned to go visit the Vimy Ridge memorial, but the public transportation to the site is sporadic and requires a lot of walking. Since both Jason and Alanna were rather sick at that point, spending six hours getting to and from the site seemed like a poor idea. We were also informed that the monument is currently covered up and bring restored, so it was hardly a good time for a visit in any case. Next time!

Instead, we wandered around the city and visited the British cemetary from WWI (and WWII, sadly). It was predictably moving, seeing all those names carved into the stone walls and on the gravestones. Many stones didn't even have names, just inscriptions like "A Soldier of the Great War". The cemetary was softened somewhat by the presence of a variety of meticulously maintained flowers and shrubs around the headstones, but it was still awful to think of how many people were there who should have been buried many miles away many decades later. Appropriately, it rained while we were there.

Not far from the cemetary is a (still functioning) fort. We walked around the perimeter of it and saw the monument to the roughly 200 members of the French resistance executed against the fort walls during WWII. There were plaques to each of the victims - the youngest I saw was 17.

After Arras, we headed to Boulogne sur Mer where we hiked the dunelands between the city and Wimereux, the next village. It was gorgeous!! Rem was feeling pretty ill by the time we got to the town, so we turned around pretty quickly and headed back and he crashed at the hostel for the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening. The next morning we did a quick tour of the old town and then headed to the train station for the trip home. I have to say, having Alanna along was definately a boon as her French is much stronger than mine, Rem's or Jason's. As a result, she got to deal with all the Francophones and it was much more efficient! Thanks, Alanna!

After three days at home doing lots of laundry, we packed up again and headed south again. Our first stop was Antwerp. Unfortunately, it was Sunday and thus pretty dead. Someday we'll learn to avoid travelling on Sundays and Mondays on this continent. Oh well, by the time we got to Gent we were all the more impressed by what a cool town it was. Gent was definitely the highlight of Belgium: a very pretty old town, complete with picturesque canals, centuries-old buildings, a castle and even churches (for Rem) full of gorgeous modern stained glass (for me). We celebrated out first wedding anniversary there with Belgian chocolates (of course!). Our final stop was Brugges, not far from Gent (20 minute train ride). Brugges also had a charming and attractive old town but was absolutely crawling with tourists (besides, us, I mean!) which was a little tiring. Still, we had fabulous weather while we were there so I was inclined to forgive that.

Other things done in August: I finished the second course in my degree and found out last week that I passed (it's pass/fail) and my prof even liked the parts of my paper that I thought were pretty weak. Hurrah! I'm not taking any more classes until January as the fall term would have final papers due about the time my life gets rather chaotic.

This month, we're looking forward to hosting Rem's brother Rhys and his girlfriend Carmen. They arrive on Saturday for a two week visit; it'll be great to see them. They're our 17th and 18th visitors here (I believe) and I expect will be the last ones, barring some surprise trip.

A week after they depart, we get on a plane ourselves. Rem and I and our Australian friend Cathy are going hiking in Ireland. We're taking 6 days to wander around the Donegal area in the north. Ireland's been on my really-want-to-see list for a long time so I'm tickled pink that it's actually happening!

There's probably more to be said, but there's a strange smell wafting in from our balcony, so I think I'll sign off and go see about it.

Take care, all. And thanks to everyone who's emailed me out of the blue these past couple weeks!
Steph