Winter Wonders

Waiting for archival materials is part of the job. You rush to get through folders and boxes, only to wait while new folders and boxes are retrieved from the depths of the archive. So, it’s a good opportunity – when you don’t want to work – to write up other things. With no internet in the archive, here’s my post on the coming of Christmas in Brussels.

Back home it seems that all at once, the Christmas season is in full bloom. You wake up one day and, BAM, stores, malls, streets, everything is decked out for Christmas. Here, the season unfolds slowly, though we’re now in full swing, especially because St. Nicholas Day is this Sunday.

If you haven’t read or listened to David Sedaris’ “Six to Eight Black Men” about the Christmas tradition in the Netherlands, it’s worth a listen for two reasons: First, it’s funny as hell and, second, it’s the celebration that is most common in Belgium. I’ll be brief. St. Nicholas, the former bishop of Turkey, lives in Spain during the off season with his helpers, Zwart Piet (Black Pete). Around the middle of November, St. Nicholas takes a boat from Spain to the port cities of the low countries, docks, gets on his white horse, and tours the country, getting the scoop on the good boys and girls in the country.

The children put out their shoes and, in the mornings, usually find a small sweet. On the night of 5 December Saint Nicholas and Black Pete (former slaves, chimney sweeps, friends, who really knows at this point) visit each house and leave gifts for the Children by their shoes.

Christmas day itself is not a gift giving holiday (though with commercialization and the primacy of American Christmas themed Coke bottles in stores, many are giving gifts on Christmas day) but one for visiting family. In the Francophone part of the country, Christmas Eve is the big holiday. (The above story about Saint Nicholas is a Dutch tradition, but also the most popular tradition in Belgium. This place is so culturally complicated, it’s pretty amazing.)

Anyway, that’s the tradition, but lets talk about the atmosphere. Grand Place, in the center of Brussels, becomes a mix of the old and the new. A tree it set up with blue and white lights (that seems to be the color scheme for tree lights). A crèche is also put up on Grand Place. (It was also called “the hut for the baby Jesus” by a woman I overheard while having a drink one evening.) The City Hall – a beautiful gothic building – is decked out in lights, but not our traditional Christmas lights, but in a display that flashes, and strobes, and the like, all timed to music piped in to the courtyard. Electrobel (the Belgian electric company) sponsers this display and it’s pretty cool, though I don’t know why the music has to be techno-versions and DJ mixes of Christmas music….

The old guild halls and, now, café’s on Grand Place are in the spirit, too.

Beyond Grand Place, as you make you way to the Bourse (the stock exchange) and Saint Catherine you come across a big Christmas market with about 240 or 250 stalls selling goods from around Belgium and the world. There’s food and hot wine and cider. About 2.5 million people come to visit the Christmas Market and, evidently, lots of Brits are drawn to it.

Each year, the Market has a featured “guest” and this year it is Mongolia. There is a small section with maybe a dozen “yurts” selling Mogolian goods and foods. I think I’ll stay away from the fermented horse milk, but that’s just me…..

Beyond that is the bulk of the Market, complete with an ice rink and a huge ferris wheel.

When I was out on opening night, there was also an outdoor studio broadcasting “LIVE.” I was pelted with fake snow (soap bubbles) as the hosts wandered from place to place in the outdoor studio talking with various people. (I assume they were venders who got a prime spot on the TV show.) Pretty cool, I’d have to say.

Closer to where I live, the Sablon is decked out with lights and the shops – always cute and classic – look better than ever.

It’s fun to think that I’ll have two Christmases. One here in Europe and then I’ll be back in time to enjoy Christmas in the States….It really is a wonderful time of year.

As for pictures, once I have a reliable internet connection, I'll post some...until then, words will have to do.

Turkey à la Belge

Being an ex-pat on a holiday isn’t the easiest of things. Being and ex-pat on a holiday that is traditionally “your own” and not celebrated in your host country is, well, a little strange. In the run up to Thanksgiving there were no pictures of turkeys or pilgrims or cornucopias in the windows of shops. No news reports from the AAA advising people to take public transportation instead of driving. And no supermarket promotions: “Buy 100 Euros of groceries and get a free turkey!” In fact, there were no huge displays of turkeys in supermarkets at all. Turkeys don’t arrive in full force until Christmas here.

So, my original intent was to seek out Starbucks at the airport and chow down at McDonald’s to get my required does of American and, indeed, consumerism. Thankfully, my friend SC, who’s spent time in the US, was having a Thanksgiving dinner for some of his family and friends. “An excuse to party,” he said. So, I was able to have a Thanksgiving Day dinner and it was wonderful. Of course, as with any Thanksgiving, a few bumps along the way.

First was, what to eat. Like I said above, turkeys aren’t easy to find. So, it was decided that we’d have a full chicken since a bird was necessary and you can carve a chicken. Then, SC said his sister knew someone at one of the US military bases near Brussels (it’s the headquarters of NATO)….but, as with most things American, all the birds there were literally too big to fit into SC’s oven. So, it was back to chicken. In the end, though, SC was able to get a turkey that would fit from a poultry store earlier in the week. It was a “real” bird that the butcher killed, de-plucked, and dressed for our Thursday feast.

It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without a transportation problem of some sort…since SC and his other guests had to work on Thursday (and, in theory, I should have, too, but I had cornbread to make) Thanksgiving was to begin around 7:00/7:30. Now SC lives south of me, near the university so I had to either take the bus or the tram. I chose the tram because it’s closer to pick up from my apartment and, well, I just like the trams better.

Evidently there was an accident on the other track and this resulted in my tram stopping at the end of Avenue Louise before it makes the turn to head towards where SC lives. No announcement about the problem or what to do. Everyone just got off and dispersed. Now, I knew where I was and I could have walked to SC’s, but it would have been a hike and the weather was being very Belgian – rain, no rain, lots of rain, light rain, no rain, wind. After a helpful call from SC’s brother I made my way to a major intersection – Place Flagey – and got on the bus from there and made it with time to spare before dinner was to begin.

Along with the traditional fixin’s, we had the traditional box o’wine, and SC’s sister and brother even tried to stream some American Football to watch. Evidently a lot of others in Belgium were doing the same, so we could only see one play, but it was enough. (It was the Cowboys and Raiders, so I really didn’t care about the game.)

I did some explaining about what Thanksgiving is. SC, his sister, and brother have spent time in the US, but the others at the table hadn’t. The most fun I had explaining the holiday was actually to my landlords.

Before brining my cornbread contribution to Thanksgiving dinner I made a test batch the weekend before. Now, the recipe makes about 12 muffins, so I decided to share some with my landlords – a nice Dutch-Belgian family. A few days later I ran into them and they said the loved the cornbread, but still didn’t know what Thanksgiving was. I started with the pilgrims and Indians, then with Lincoln and the Civil War, and finally when I said, “well, it’s basically based on a harvest festival” then they got it, said some stuff in Dutch and nodded. So, cultural ideas were exchanged. (They’ve helped share the Saint Nicholas story and the Christmas-time traditions.)

The Christmas season is in full swing here and that will be the focus of my next post….needless to say David Sedaris has prepared me for the tradition here and I’m even playing my part as one of the “Black Petes” by hiding some of the family's gifts ahead of 6 December when gifts are exchanged.

11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918

Today, 11 November, marks the 91^st anniversary of the cessation of battle on the western front during World War I. The armistice between the combatants took effect at the 11^th hour of the 11^th day of the 11^th month. In the US we know today as Veterans Day. In the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth Nations it’s Remembrance Day. In Belgium it’s still know as Armistice Day.

I attended the ceremony in Brussels and it was similar to those that we find in the US: pomp and ceremony, lots of flags, a marching band, veterans, flowers, etc. The walk from my flat to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (la tombe de le soldat inconnu) was eerily quiet. Rue Royale was blocked off and as I crossed the street I was almost mowed down by the motorcade of the NATO delegation. (NATO’s headquarters are just outside Brussels. I really need to get over there and check it out.)

The site of the ceremony was lightly attended when I arrived around 10:30, but soon grew. Parents were there with their kids. One father was trying to explain the concept of the Unknown Soldier to his son.

Nationalism is a finicky thing in Belgium. The über-federal nature of the country has certainly diluted whatever nationalism was here starting back in 1830 when Belgium broke away form the Kingdom of the Netherlands. But, here, there were Belgian flags waving just like we’d see back in the US. (Though, the people weren’t carrying any flags, except for one guy who was all decked out in red, walking sticks, a backpack with apocalyptic slogans on it, and a big white beard. He could have been mistaken for a hugely patriotic and apocalyptic Santa, but St. Nick is expected to dock in Brussels until next Wednesday. Needless to say, the Belgian police had an eye on this guy.)

The band played and veterans marched and the king arrived. I’m still fascinated by the concept of the king and was very glad to see him in person. King Albert II’s motorcade came through and he walked by the reviewing stand, saluted, and shook hands with members of the military and the veterans in attendance. Yes, there were shouts of “Vive le Roi.” (Long Live the King) Some snickers went through the crowed at this, but King Albert was applauded as we made his way around. He laid his wreath and saluted and then walked to his car and he was off.

Then there was a parade of Belgian officials to the tomb to lay wreaths of flowers: the prime minister, defense minister, chief of the army, etc. The ceremony ended with the playing of the Ode to Joy from Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, the anthem, as it were, of post-WW II Europe and then the national anthem of Belgium.

For someone who studies World War I, this was a particularly interesting ceremony to attend since, unlike the US, Belgium had Allied and German troops on its soil before, during, and after the Armistice was signed in 1918. It was also interesting to stand there and hear cannons sound off as the ceremony went on. Many of the members of the Commission for Relief in Belgium lived in towns close to the front and wrote in their diaries or in letters home that they could hear the sound of cannons in the distance. Now, to some extent, I know what that sounded like. I’ll admit, I did tear-up – especially during the playing of the Ode to Joy. Historians are not dispassionate observers of the past, we certainly do a good deal of creation as we examine documents and other sources and then write up what we’ve found and thought about. Attending this event certainly brought me a little closer to the fact that while the men I’m studying were writing memos about how much corn flour should be sent from Rotterdam to Brussels and then to Namur or why such-and-such a town commune wasn’t listen to the good advice of the American delegate, thousands of young men were dying a few miles to the west and that soon some of the men who were writing these memos would go on to serve once the US entered the actual fighting in April 1917.

It’s back to the archive tomorrow….

Carly's Visit

This is, I’m sad to say, probably going to be a long post so bear with me. [Then again, it could always be a lot longer....]

Two months into my research trip in Brussels, Carly came for a visit. She flew in on Halloween and left the following Sunday, so we had a week to explore Brussels and do a bit of travel. It was great having her here, showing her “my city,” and bringing another part of my life – my relationship – with me to Brussels. I love my work and I’m focused on it, but it was nice to take a break and just enjoy my new home with some one dear to me, rather than on my own.

Brussels
Of course, since I live in Brussels, we had to do the usual sights: Grand Place, the Royal Palace, the little boy peeing, waffles, fries, and the like. The weather was eh, so we made the most of the sun that we could. Carly was a trooper on the first day. After a short nap, she was ready to explore the city. We had a beer on Grand Place – something I’ll never tire of – and took in the usual sights. One evening we found our way to a great little restaurant near where Audrey Hepburn was born. It’s called Les Brassins and it’s one of those places you’d never find unless you already knew about it. (Thank you New York Times’ 36-hours in Brussels.)

Les Brassins is an unassuming little restaurant that serves good, traditional, Low Country food at a good price. Carly had a beef stew that’s made with dark brown beer and I had stoemp, a dish of mashed potatoes mixed with a vegetable (artichokes this time) served with a fat sausage and think slice of bacon on top. Fantastic. It was also a cold and rainy night so it was the perfect meal.

We also did some chocolate shopping. When Carly arrived I got her some chocolate from Wittamer, one of the two chocolate shops accredited to the Royal Court of Belgium. This stuff was delicious. So, of course, we went back for more. Wittamer is right on the Grand Sablon, my favorite place in Brussels and we spent some time exploring the church there (we attended a beautiful Gregorian Chant mass her first Sunday here) and the park that is opposite the church.

I also gave her my research tour: stopping by where the Germans had their administration during World War I, where the Belgian relief group had their offices, and where the Americans had theirs. I’m not sure how interesting she found that part – most of these places are either gone or transformed into Russian airline offices – but I indulged the tour guides prerogative to point out the inane as well as the Grand….

Grand Place was a constant in the trip. We got fries, of course, and they were up to par. (The second trip to Frites Land wasn’t as good. When the fries are good there, they are good. When they aren’t they aren’t.)

One evening we had dinner at Aux Armes de Bruxelles, an almost 90-year-old establishment on Rue des Bouchers right off Grand Place. We had a nice three-course meal. Among the great dishes, I had a traditional starter plate: endive, wrapped in ham, and baked with cheese and cream. It was, well, delicious. Thankfully, the main course was the famed mussels and fries, which is a bit lighter than many of the other items on the menu.

We ended up having an after dinner drink at Le Roi d’Espagne. An old world café in an old guildhall on Grand Place. Two things of note: the dried and inflated pig bladders that hang from the ceiling and, in the men’s room, pictures of women peering down toward the urinals. What’s with this country and the act of peeing?!

Paris
By high-speed train it’s a 1 and 22 minutes to Paris. We took the high-speed train but, for whatever reason, we had terrible luck with the train. Going there we were delayed 20 minutes for no reason. On the way back they put us on the wrong track so we had to double back to Paris to get things going right. Aside from that Paris….

For Carly’s birthday we went to Paris and walked and walked and walked. It was a rainy day, but we stayed dryish. We went up the Eiffel Tower, visited Notre Dame, and walked along the Seine. The highlight, though, was the Musée Jacquemart André (thanks LW and NR). This place is a little off the beaten track, but well worth it. We had tea and cake in a most beautiful tea room adorned with tapestries depicting the life of Achilles. The museum itself was the home of a 2nd French Empire “upper middle class” couple who instead of having kids, collected art from around the world and held lavish parties. The audio guide was wonderful and gave nice insight into how the favored lived during the time of Napoleon III.

We found a nice little café for dinner and enjoyed being warm for a bit and having some nice French wine. We actually got a cab to get us back to the station and then headed for Brussels.

I really liked Paris, but it has the familiar “big city” feel and we spent a lot of time traveling between places in the city. Next time I go – and I hope there is a next time – I’d like to take one district and really focus on it and explore it.

Antwerp
We decided on Antwerp for our final out of Brussels day trip. Antwerp has an old world feel that is different than Brussels. Only about 500,000 people it’s smaller, too, but has one of the most beautiful cathedrals in the world. Of course, having a number of P. P. Rubens on display doesn’t hurt. The magnificent “Descent from the Cross” stands to the right of the main alter and is captivating. It’s one thing to see a painting like this in a museum, but to see it in the church it was designed for and displayed as it is designed to, is just incredible.

It’s a triptych altarpiece for the Arquebusiers whose patron saint is St. Christopher (whose name means “cross bearer.”) Since this is during the counter-Reformation, the main scene could not be of St. Christopher – as the Arquebusiers (early riflemen) wanted – so Rubens creates a triptych that gives his patrons multiple cross bearers as Christ is taken from the cross after his death. It’s simply amazing to see it in person and to see it in the grand and light cathedral.

On the lighter side, there is also a building in Antwerp, for the butcher’s guild, that is designed to look like a rasher of bacon. There are red and white strips of stone that turn it into a bacon building. Well done, Antwerp.

Back in Brussels
All in all I think it was a wonderful trip. Carly surely has more to say and these are just some of the things we saw in Brussels, Antwerp, and Paris. Her visit has really made this trip real since I have now been able to share this place with someone from back home. It’s not the same describing it in an e-mail, or over the phone, or in this blog. I’m glad that she’ll now be able to picture when I say I was at Sablon or on Grand Place or at the supermarket.

Now it’s six weeks until I come home for Christmas. I will, however, get to be here for Belgian Christmas. St. Nicholas and his helpers arrive by boat on 18 November….see David Sedaris for more.

Corn Maïs

Okay, so the title of this post is a bad, bad pun. “Maïs” in French means “corn” or, as the Brits would say, “maize,” and is pronounced roughly the same way. So, why the pun?

Well, first off I’m missing fall back in the States and corn-mazes are a big-time fun fall thing to do, though I haven’t done one since me and a certain expert hiker friend of mine and I got lost in a small one while looking for pumpkins for the first annual UConn History House Halloween Party. He knows who he is….

The fall has always been my favorite time of year and one of the few things I really liked about living in CT (and my forty or so minute commute to campus) was the beautiful change of the leaves. It’s just not the same here. I’m waiting, though, for the Christmas season to kick in, that I know will be a lot of fun and just plain beautiful.

The second reason is that in my research I keep coming across mentions of corn and maïs in the documents I’m reading. Most of the time it’s all about how much is imported and distributed. The interesting thing, though, is that corn was not a staple human food in Europe at the time of World War I. At least not in Belgium. Corn was what was fed to animals. People didn’t eat it. The harvests at the time, however, were pretty bad and wheat – to make bread – was not plentiful and the US had – as it usually does – an excess of corn and Americans, especially those in the South, have had a long history of eating corn. So, where does that leave the Belgians?

Well, a big question I’m wrestling with is what happens when humanitarians and locals interact and this corn issue is important. I’ve now discovered some evidence to help with this: Belgian humanitarian leaders saying that American CRB delegates will help “instruct” the Belgian people in the use of corn and corn flower. I’ve also uncovered some recipes that were transmitted to the Belgian Comité National.

Of course, you don’t discover this stuff until you’ve read or skimmed over many, many, many pages of French (or English) talking about things that you just don’t find important, but when things like this pop up it makes for a good day in the archive and justification for missing my friends, my family, my girlfriend, and fall back in New England.

Afraid to get my hair cut....

As my friend PS (yes, ladies, he’s single, smart, and sexy; a real catch) said to me in an e-mail a while back, you soon get a little “non-plussed” with living in Europe. It simply becomes home. Beyond that, though, you start to remember that you need to find new places to do your usual routine. For instance, getting your haircut. Simply, put, I’m a little afraid of going to a place to have it cut. As far as I can tell there aren’t many corner semi-racists, misogynistic barbers near where I live. Most are salons and that’s fine, but I realized how could I convey what I wanted without looking like a total fool to a guy or gal with scissors. So, I’ve made a semi-executive decision to let it grown long and see what happens. (Of course, long for me is still short for most everyone else.) If and when I get the courage I’ll try to go for a really cool euro-style haircut…or not.

Anyway, it’s been a while since I updated, but I’ll make this short. Not much new or interesting has happened. I’ve been biding my time and saving money for when Carly comes to visit on Saturday. We’ll tour Brussels and go to Paris for a day. We may hit Antwerp and/or Bruges. Maybe Ypres. I can’t wait to have Carly here. I keep busy with work and such, am doing fun reading, and my internet has been behaving so I can still kill countless hours there and I did get my care package of DVDs so I can turn the brain off now and again, but it still gets a little lonely so it’ll be nice to have Carly’s company!

I’ve finished with one collection in the archive and have moved on to the big one I’m here to look at: the papers of the Comité National. It’s a newly processed collection and not yet in the online call database so my first attempt to order some documents was a little complicated, but I think it’s been figured out. I’ll see what happens this afternoon.

I did have a great moment on Saturday when I figured out what I can do with some of the stuff I’ve found. See, I came across this great 18 page copy of the minutes from a July 1915 meeting of the American relief delegates. It was full of good stuff, good quotes, and the like, but I didn’t know what larger purpose it had. So I did some – dare I say – research and found that this meeting took place after my man Hoover laid the smack down on the Belgians about his Commission’s role. This delegate’s meeting was to discuss the results of the Hoover Francqui (the Belgian chairman of the Comité National) and demonstrates some interesting things about how the CRB worked, the role of the delegates, their ideas of the Belgians, the CN and the like. It was a good moment and place to start doing some writing.

So, progress is being made, albeit slowly, but that’s the nature of the game. That said, next week – when Carly is here – will be a welcome diversion from my usual day-to-day living and existential crises over haircuts.

A king lives here.

This time last year I was rushing to get my fellowship application for Belgium written, polished, and sent off. I was freaked out, confident I wouldn’t get it, fearful I would get it and have to go, nostalgic for long days on the couch watching The Wire. Well, I’ve been here in the Kingdom of Belgium for a month and a half already and it’s feeling like a home. I know how to get around without asking for directions or asking others. (In fact I’ve given directions a few times: in English, bad French, and once through lots of pointing). I know where things are. I have “my” places where I get a beer, a coffee, fresh bread, etc.

A friend recently asked if I had become “non-plussed” with living in Europe yet. The honest answer is, yes. After a while you become part of where you live and the humdrum of life takes over from the excitement of being some place new. That said, there are still things that make me stop and remember that I’m not where I’m from; that I’m in a different country. Something that I come back to is the fact that Belgium is a kingdom.

Now, “they” say that Americans are fascinated with royalty since, well, we don’t have one. (The Kennedys aside.) But it’s true, I’m fascinated by the fact that the head of state here is a king, a man who took office only because he was related to the previous occupant.

Now, the Belgian king isn’t like, say, the British monarch with all that pomp and ceremony and history. He has no crown or other outward symbols of royalty, but he does have a huge palace that, when I walk by it, reminds me that the king works there. (He lives in the suburbs.) He is, though, a seemingly unifying force in a country deeply divided by language.

In fact, walking around the government quarter you see the complex nature of the Belgian government. The national government has its seat in the Palace of the Nation across Parc Bruxelles that separates it from the Royal Palace. Then, next to it is the Parliament of the French Speaking Community that governs the cultural aspects of the Francophone part of Belgium. A little ways away is the Flemish Parliament that combines the government of the Flemish Community (the cultural aspect) and the Flemish Region (the economic aspect). The Region of Walloonia has a parliament separate from the community. When you talk about a federal system, Belgium puts the United States to shame!

Now, I probably could have written the dissertation I’m writing without being here or even if I came for just a little while to lock myself in the archive, but it’s walking around and, when I can, talking to people that really helps me understand the nature of this young and divided country. For instance, I learned that Ypres – the living memorial to World War I – is center of Flemish nationalism. I had no idea and I probably could have read it in a book, but it was more interesting hearing it from a Francophone Belgian.

I can also get out and see where the things I’m studying happened. For instance, the former headquarters of the CRB are located on Rue des Colonies (a road named in honor of the Congo). It’s now the offices of a Russian airline. The old headquarters of the Belgian National Committee are just around the corner, now long gone and, in its place, is an ugly modern building that houses Fortis Bank. And the German administration was located down the road from both in the heart of the Royal Quarter in what is now the Constitutional Court of the Belgium.

It’s an interesting feeling to walk around from each address to the next thinking that, well, nearly 100 years ago the people I’m studying were walking the same streets. (They probably weren’t eating a piping hot waffle while doing it, but hey I do have to separate myself some how from my subjects.)

Anyway, the point here is, though I was freaking out a year ago, the choice to apply and the support from family, friends, and my committee has helped put me here and has given me a unique perspective with which to write my dissertation…and, oh year, an excuse to live abroad. Here’s hoping I earn it.

Seriously, Ikea decorated the State Archive of Belgium

I don’t have much of an ass, so sitting on molded hard plastic chairs for hours at a time isn’t fun. Sadly, that’s what I have to do in the archive. At least the Hoover had soft chairs, even if it was like being in kindergarten from time to time….

In between all this fun, I’ve been getting some good work in at the State Archives. I love living 15 minutes from work. It’s a quick commute in the morning. I come home for lunch and Skype with Carly for a half hour or so and then head back for the afternoon. I do miss listening to NPR on the way to work, though. Last Fall, when I was teaching US II, my students would ask about the economic meltdown and I’d happily recount what I learned the morning on NPR. (Yes, I’m a socialist, fascist, communist, death paneler, MSNBC watching, Obama voting, (now) expatriate.)

Anyway, the work has been slow going. Whoever indexed the Commission for Relief in Belgium files (starting in 1927 and finished in 2000) could had done better than just listing, “various correspondence” and the like in the index. So, I have to leaf through each file and folder because occasionally I will find a gem of a document.

Like today, I was going through another folder (I’ve moved on from only discussions about corn imports) and came across a few serial letters about the Belgian National Committee wanting to get permission from the German government to set up libraries in the Flemish and Walloon regions of Belgium. They were denied as the libraries were not directly related to aid and food relief. Since part of my dissertation is looking at what is “normal” before and during a war in terms of humanitarian relief, this was fascinating to me. Was this an extravagance? The Belgians said, no. In times of idleness and unemployment, libraries are a place for people to do go busy themselves. This was a concern of both the US, the Belgians, and the Germans. Especially the Germans. They would deport people for idleness….but the libraries, at least as far as I know so far, were a no go.

Now, this does not a dissertation make, but it’s interesting color and shows the breath of work the Belgian National Committee undertook. The Belgians wrote to the US minister, Brand Whitlock, for assistance, too!

The core of my project is the experience of the Americans who worked here, but I’m finding more and more that their world was not just “their” world, but a world that incorporated a lot of off beat things to make life livable (not just sustainable) for the Belgian people and that’s a deeper question I hope to explore in this project: what world does a humanitarian mission create and what are the power relationships created? I don’t know yet. Ask me in a year or so.

Anyway for my dissertation committee (if you’re reading this): the work goes slowly, but steadily.

Oh, yeah, I live in Belgium

On the way home from the archive today I had a moment that has been fleeting recently: “Oh yea,” I thought, “I live in Belgium.” It seems that after a month and a week that I’ve become a bit acculturated to my life here. I feel less like I need to be “doing something” each day. (Don’t get me wrong, though, I do plan on taking advantage of life here, but the need to have a planned activity is less and less.)

I’m trying to read more…for fun, that is. My usual fare is news on the intertubes, books for work, and non-fiction “fun” reading. But, my internet is somewhat limited now and with no TV, the thought of reading only for work and non-fiction isn’t always appealing. Thankfully Carly has placed into my mind books that she thinks I’d like and, so far, she’s been right. There are two big English language bookstores in Brussels, but a store near me has a good English language selection and so far I’ve made my way through Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (see more below) and Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth. I loved Pillars in part because I’ve fallen in love with the church of Our Lady of the Sablon. (See post below for picture.)

For those who don’t know, Pillars takes place in 12 century England and is set amidst the political and religious turmoil of “The Anarchy” in England. The central plot is the building of a cathedral in a small town. Birth, death, rape, war, building, love, humor, and sex – lots of sex – takes place and, well, it’s just a fun world to get caught up in. The descriptions of how a gothic cathedral could be built are vivid and I walk by one each day! It really made me look at the work of the church in a different way. Anyway, it’s a good read – even at over 1,000 pages.

As for R & G Are Dead, it’s one of my favorite plays. It’s absurdist – like Waiting for Godot, but takes Hamlet’s two “friends” as it’s central characters and tells us the story of them off stage during Hamlet and their thoughts and questions and, occasionally, answers. I reread it because I decided to see a production of the play here, in Brussels this past Tuesday. It was well done, very well done. I understood parts of it, but know it pretty well that it didn’t matter. It was actually a lot of fun to be immersed in French….

….which makes socializing a bit difficulty, but I like the challenge. To that end, I went out with my Belgian friend, SC, on Wednesday to see Up. It was spur of the moment and, I think, that has a lot to do with me feeling a bit more “at home.” I wasn’t planning on anything, it just happened. I met him and a couple of his friends who spoke mainly French. I got some of the conversation and they spoke a little English.

Up was great and it was nice to be out doing something “regular.” We got out tickets and then got food at Hecktor Chicken, the Belgian version of KFC. Again, not fast, but tasty. And, of course, they served beer and all the appropriate glasses.

All this fun is good, but the archive awaits.

A cool White Night....

This past weekend was Nuit Blanche in Brussels. Translated as "white night" or "all-nighter," Nuit Blanche is a late-night "reclamation" of urban space with music, art, dancing, clubbing, movies, etc. Most museums were open late and for free. A lot of other European cities have their own versions and, well, it's pretty neat.

I hit the town late with my flatmate, AS and his girlfriend and a couple of her friends from back home. AS is Pakistani and his girlfriend is Romanian. It's a mini United Nations here.

Anyway, we didn't have much of an agenda. Our attempt to meet up with some others failed, so we headed over to the Bourse (the old Stock Exchange) and encountered a group playing the drums and a guy playing a kazoo.

We wandered a bit, trying to find more events. Oddly enough, there was nothing going on Grand Place so we headed for another square, Albertine and there we found a small art exhibit and a lot of young Belgians hanging out drinking. (It seems that open container laws don't exist her.)

We wandered some more and happened upon a girl with a huge puppet spider "spinning" its web across a street and "attacking" passers-by.

Now, I was told I needed to go to a European techno-club. Well, I now have -- sort of. There is a big "gallerie" (or shopping arcade) called Ravenstein and there was a huge (and loud) techno dance party going on. We didn't join in, but we just hung around and watched and listened to the heavy bass beat do its thing and move the people on the floor to flail arms and make out. We left about about 15 minutes. I got my hearing back about 30 minutes later.

Then it was the the Royal Park and there was another dance party going on, so it was over to the Royal Palace (not much there) and then to BelVUE....

Now BelVUE is pretty cool. It's an old hotel right next to the Royal Palace. It's been turned into a museum of the history of Belgium. I spent about 2 hours in it earlier in the day on Saturday.

There is a restaurant on the ground floor and for Nuit Blanche it was turned into a ballroom dancing floor with a bunch of couples dancing to music.

We left there and continued to wander a bit and by this time it was late, around 1am and we decided to call it a night. One the way back I again stopped at Quick for a bite to eat and, of course, there was a problem with the order. There always is....and I got home around 1:30 and into bed around 2:30 or so.

All in all an enjoyable evening out with a nice and interesting group of people. Now it's back to the archive where I hope things pick up a bit. It's been slow going with boring records of corn imports and the like....

A trip to the countryside

Brussels is nice. Really, it is. And, yes, I’m a city boy. Well, as much as a suburban Long Islander can be a city boy. Nonetheless, I like cities. Big cities, though, are, well, big and most have a similar feel. Brussels is, as I’ve said before on this blog, the “Capital of Europe.” It is host to the European Commission and the executive Council. Who knows, if the Irish pass the Lisbon Treaty today Tony Blair may soon be taking up residence in Brussels as President of the European Union….Anyway, because of that it has an international feel which is great, but I’m here to study Belgium to some extent and you can only do so much of that in it’s capital.

I don’t know many people here, but when I arrived I was put up by a former Belgian BAEF fellow, SC. SC and his girlfriend and sister have a place in the university section of town and they were very kind, took me out for lunch and dinner, and helped me get settled before I found my place in Saint-Gilles.

Last weekend was the Fête du Communauté française de Belgique (Festival of the French Community of Belgium) with all sorts of things going on around the French-speaking part of Brussels and Belgium itself. A day or two before the start of the festival, I wandered through Grand Place to see a huge stage set up and a sound check going on for some Belgian pop star. It was an interesting mix of old and new.

It was around then that I got an invite from SC’s sister to join her and her family in their hometown about 30 minutes by train outside of the City for a dance performance called “Décrocher la Lune” (to take down the moon). Heeding my mantra of, “yes, I’ll go!” I took her up on the offer and planed for, well, I didn’t know what to plan for. I had no idea what this was. Evidently the same guy who put together the stage show for Celine Dion in Vegas was responsible for this. Having never seen that Vegas show (or any Vegas show for that matter) I was happily ignorant of the spectacle that was going to unfold on the small square in La Louvière, the small town where the performance was to take place.

I met EC at Gare Nord (North Station) and took the train south into Brabant Walloon. “So, you went to Ypres last weekend,” she said. “Yup,” I replied. “You know that’s a center of Flemish extremism, of separatism.” “No!” I said. I had no idea. The divisions in this country are interesting and I’m fascinated by who thinks what and so on. EC likes her country as one, as do most Belgians when it comes down to it, but there are centers of extremism, especially in Flanders where the economy is booming. The fact that Ypres is a center of it is interesting since that was the place where the Allies took a stand in World War I to stop the Germans to save a unified and free Belgium. (Something for the blog, I thought!)

Anyway, the trip was nice and the countryside was beautiful. We arrived at the station and went with her father to their house, a nice place literally in the country. We drove down a one lane road after we left the town passing fields of wheat, corn, potatoes, and a golf course….the Scots got here, too!

Lunch was very nice – it was nice to have a home cooked meal, though I’m trying my best to cook as much as I can at my place – and then EC, her mom and I headed out for an impromptu tour of the area. I didn’t see this coming. (Oh, and the festival started at 9pm and we all wouldn’t be back ‘till late, I was to stay over. Of course, I had no change of clothes….oh well, when in Belgium….)

First we went to the church in Nivelles. A Romanesque church that, well, um, the US destroyed during World War II. It seems we didn’t have smart bombs then either and missed the target destroying the church, La Collégiale Sainte-Gertrude. In what I’m sure Glen Beck would have thought was a terrible waste of our tax dollars, the US offered to rebuild the church after the war.

Now, the kindness of those I’ve met here has been phenomenal and the tour of the church we took was no exception. EC’s mom hired a very nice docent to give us the tour. Of course, it was in French. Thankfully our kindly tour guide spoke very slowly and, of course, a bit more loudly than necessary (it’s a universal thing, it seems). I got about 1/3 of what she said about the church, 1/3 from the various hand gestures, pointing, and the like, and 1/3 from EC and her mom translating bits and pieces here and there.

Sainte-Gertrude was (is?) a pilgrimage church and there is one part of one pillar that acts as a “portal” where if you step through it, you will go to heaven. I did it. I fit through. I’m going to heaven. No problem. What was really cool was that the stone around this portal was so worn down all the pilgrims who had passed through it over the years. Pretty cool.

After the church we drove by the Battle of Waterloo site. It’s a big field with a man-made hill at one point with a cast-iron lion (the Dutch lion) at the top facing toward France as warning…sadly, the next enemy came from the other direction. Twice. (EC’s mom told me that every so often they have reenactments and people dress up as Dutch, French, Prussian, British soldiers and such. She said, "often people ask, “Where are the Americans….” Um, we weren’t always meddling in the affairs of Europe….)

Then we visited the ruins of an abbey. We got there late and only had about 20 minutes, but it was beautiful and peaceful. There was a bride and groom having their pictures taken in the nave of the old church, left half standing after a local businessman had sold, brick by brick, the stone buildings of the abbey for the building of new houses. This all happened after the French Revolution. Nonetheless, the place was hauntingly beautiful.

This is a long post, so I end this one here because the next bit of fun was the festival and, oh year, watching WWF wresting dubbed in French….

To Take Down the Moon

The French word for “show” is “le spectacle” and, well, what I saw on Saturday night the 26th of September was certainly a spectacle!

Décrocher la Lune only happens once every three years (it was every two, but, it’s damn expensive). This was one of those times when I was thinking, “I may very well be the only American at this thing!” There was going to be, I was told, between 10,000 and 20,000 people at this show. EC, her mom, dad, and a friend of the family and myself all squeezed onto the Grand Place of La Louvière (a name derived from “wolf”). There was a huge stage with what looked like organ pipes, the town in the center had a moon on it, and there was a huge crane about, too. The fire department was there, TV crews, and everything! I thought I was going to see a local dance performance, not a huge community event!

I soon discovered why the fire department was poised with water cannons and why the stage was full of pipe organs….a man in white began to light them like candles and, then, a few huge plumes of fire. This was going to be interesting, I thought.

The performance began and, sadly, I don’t have pictures – I was too mesmerized – but it was awesome. At one point a dancer danced up the façade of the tower with the moon on it, dancers suspended from the crane danced in the air, children let balloons go, there were a lot of drums (Carnival-type drums), and lots and lots of fire. At one point, music was played on the pipes on the main stage with fire. Not sure how that worked, but it was pretty cool.

Puppetry is a big thing in Belgium, (here is a museum in Brussels, just like at UConn!) and a number of puppets were dancing around, too. There was a story to go along with all this and a very energetic emcee was telling the story, but unlike in the church tour (see post above) I couldn’t follow all that well.

In the end, one of the puppets, Sancho I think was his name, literally climbed the tower and took down the moon. (Well, turned it off….) Not for long, though, because we need the moon and soon it was lighted again and then….fireworks, lots of them.

The show ended, of course, with a Michael Jackson impersonator performing Billie Jean. It was then back to the family friend’s house for a beer (I had Chimay, a good, strong trappist brew) and then back to the C’s house. I crashed in one of the spare rooms and never slept so soundly.

It was back to Brussels in the morning and a harried car ride to catch the right train, during which I found out that French drivers may very well be the Belgian equivalent of Jersey drivers or drivers from Florida. (Even with the bad driving of the car in front of us, I made the train)

I had a fantastic time and the hospitality of the C’s was just wonderful. As Mrs. C said, it’s nice to see something that you would know to look for unless you were a local and this was certainly something like that. This reminded me of my time in Orvieto in Italy when a friend and I stumbled upon a spectacle on a plaza there, with performers on stilts carrying flaming swords and reenacting an ancient myth of some sort. Just good times

An Evening at the Royal Conservatory

My attitude when it comes to activities is if someone I know here suggests something, I’m going to say yes. If it’s free, I’m going show up early.

The Program Manager of the fellowship I’m on, MC, invited the US fellows out to see a former Belgian fellow give a piano recital on the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the birth of Robert Schumann. I was free, too. I was the only fellow to take her up on it. Now, there are only about 4 or 5 of us here so far (out of a total of 9.

The Royal Conservatory isn’t resplendent. It’s old and there is a pot in the atrium for donations for its renovation. The hall itself has wonderful acoustics and the performance was wonderful. I don’t really know much of Schumann’s work, but I’ll certainly check out more of his stuff now.

Afterward, it was off for a beer on the Grand Sablon, the square I pass each day to the archive. They have those outdoor heater things so it wasn’t too cold – fall is reaching Brussels – and pestered MC about good restaurants and things to do/see in Brussels.

All in all a nice night out that didn’t cost a dime (or, centime, as the case may be.)

Tomorrow I go with a Belgian friend to a dance performance in the Walloon Brabant part of Belgium, which is to the south of Brussels. Should be interesting....

P.S. Post Offices in Belgium are just like in the US. Four counters, only two people working, no one's happy, lots of standing in line, and the stamp machine is broken. I think I felt more at home in the Saint Gilles Post Office than I did at McDonalds.....

Day to Day and an Afternoon in the Archive

Until now, I’ve been working on the diary I posted about previously and taking care of the some more basic business. I finalized by bank account and took out insurance on the apartment and the things I have in it. I declined to take our “family insurance” which is a type of insurance that covers me in the event I break something on the street – a window or door – or harm someone else. When my landlord was explaining this to me it wasn’t computing and it still doesn’t. When I talked to my flat mate, AS, he was perplexed by it, too. “Back home, you break a window,” I said, “you just pay for it.” He nodded in agreement.

I also had a visit from the Brussels police. This was expected. See, all Belgians need to carry a national ID card at all times. This card contains a chip that has their info in it on where they live and the like. Foreigners who stay for more than three months – that is not tourists – need a national ID card as well.

Part of the process involves a police officer coming to your door, checking to see if your name is on the bell or mailbox, and then coming inside to inspect that you really do live there. “They do this for Belgians” is a refrain I keep hearing from anyone I talk to about this. Anyway, I happened to be home. This is good, because if not they would leave a note and then come back at an appointed time, thus delaying the process. As it is, I have to wait until 21 October to go back to Saint-Gilles town hall to put in the formal application. And, oh yea, pay 30 Euros on top of the 7.50 I already paid just to start the process.

Anyway, the cop was nice enough. We trucked up the 83 stairs and he asked me the basic questions: “do you live alone,” “how long have you lived here,” “who lives across the hall” and the like. After all that, he gave me the form and we headed out. “Do you have a lot of these to do,” I asked. In reply he opened the binder he had and flipped through at least 50 of the same looking forms that he just gave me.

I just don’t know if this is the best use of the police force. It’s a little like seeing CT police at construction sites, just sitting in their cars with their lights one. I guess home inspection is a reasonable activity for police (if, as an American, a little odd to have a police officer inspect my home), but I can’t help but think this poor guy has better things to do with his time (and gun strapped to his belt) thank check up on people.

This afternoon I spent it in the archive. Not the library like I did last week, but the archive itself. It’s a nice room, nicer than the Hoover Archive with a modern feel, though I think the chairs are form Ikea so they look nice, but aren’t necessarily the most comfortable.

I was determined to navigate the ordering of documents myself and did well. I figured out the computer system by trial and error and am now waiting for the documents to arrive….(I’m writing this post as I wait.)

I’m interested to see how they organize their material. According to their finding aid the material I ordered is “1 chemise” which means “shirt” in its literal translation. I’m assuming they mean folder, but I’m not sure. I only ordered two items – we can order up to five – so I may go through these quickly or not. I also don’t know if they are in English or in French. These are the records of the CRB, but in the Belgian archive. We’ll see soon enough.

So, the documents came and, sure enough, they are in one big folder. Well, it’s not really a folder, more of a big piece of paper folded over on itself to hold about 6 to 8 inches of material. I have the feeling that no one has really looked at this stuff in a long while. The finding aid was begun in 1927 and then finished in 2000.

It’s a mixture of French and English in this first folder – again these are CRB records. Some documents are not useful, but I did find an 18 page typed (with lots of handwritten notes) transcript of a July 1915 American delegate’s meeting in Brussels with Hoover present. This document has a lot of themes I want to discuss, power, national culture, conflict, sympathy, and the like. It discusses discussing changes to the delegates role
and a lot of good stuff on what kind of authority and power ("executive" or just plain "advisory") the Americans should have, complaints over why the Belgians won't listen or follow the rules (some say it's their "national character" some say it's because "the mayor wants to get re-elected" and they all have to live with each other during and after the war), and why one CRB's province is better run than an others. (I got the sense of some internal CRB pride.)

The language is free and frank and there is certainly a good deal of difference of opinion between the delegates based on their particular experiences in their province. I don’t know who took the minutes, but they are good in some places and incomplete in others. Some spots just have …….. in place of words. I will keep my eyes open for an other document like this, but I doubt I’ll find it. I never came across anything like this in the US. Of course, that doesn’t mean it’s no there, but I’m glad I found it here!

A Day in Ypres

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

-- Lt. Col. John McCrae (1872-1918)

I went to Ypres on Saturday. The town, about 2 hours northeast of Brussels, had to be completely rebuilt after World War I because it served as a frontline post for the British and was leveled by German artillery. By rebuilt, I don’t mean that some buildings had to be repaired, I mean the town was flattened and the inhabitants decided to rebuild their guildhalls and church and homes the way they were before August 1914. The Cloth Hall, the main building on the town square, was only finally finished din 1968. Pictures and scale models at the In Flanders Field museum show the devastation that came to this old cloth-trading center.

Today the town is an interesting mix affluent and vibrant city – based on the massive tourism for the war sites – and the hallowed nature of its history as the site of intense fighting during World War I.

For example, when I first arrived I made my way to Menin Gate. Menin Gate is a memorial to over 50,000 British subjects who died during the war, but have no known grave. It’s huge, but not big enough to actually hold ALL the names, so another 30,000 or so are on another memorial. The gate is an entryway to the city and cars, bikers, and pedestrians all walk through it to get into the old town and out to the suburban area. Walking into Menin Gate for the first time, though, is humbling. Through that spot (and many others that led out through the old city wall that is still standing around about half Ypres) thousands of young men from around the world marched to certain death on the front line. Over that spot artillery shells flew into Ypres and leveled the town. It’s like walking into a tomb of sorts. You are surrounded by names etched into white panels. If remains are found – and it’s happened over the years – they are identified and given a proper burial. Then the name is taken off Menin Gate.

I returned to Menin Gate later in the day for Last Post. More on that in a bit.

Unlike Brussels where the old city walls no longer exist, part of the ancient wall of Ypres still stands. Ypres was an important cloth town and had to be defended from rivals. A moat sits right in front of the walls. It makes for a peaceful walk that takes you – on the southwest side at least – to a small cemetery, the Ramparts Cemetery, where a number of British and Canadian soldiers are buried. Many more cemeteries dot the surrounding countryside, but that’s for another day. Now it was back into town to see what a rebuilt Gothic town looks and feels like.

Guidebook in hand, I made my way to a small restaurant in the shadow of the Stadhuis (town hall) and had some steak frites and a local brew: Ypras. Excellent food, value, and atmosphere. Of course, since I’m in Flanders, French is not the language of choice, so I had to navigate the Dutch menu, but managed okay. Again, most people speak English, but I’m trying to make an effort. The waitress was patient.

Then it was off to the In Flanders Field Museum at the Cloth Hall. Opened in 1998 this museum is excellent – if a little confusing the follow. It has wonderful artifacts and is interactive with kiosks telling you history, short films outlining aspects of the war, and an card that you carry that tells you if you go to war or not; if you live or die. You take a ticket with a barcode and place it in three different kiosks. I was a young Belgian man who was conscripted, fought briefly, and participated in post-war activities in Germany. I was happy to have lived. It’s a museum to be seen, not described….so come visit me and we’ll go.

Since it was such a beautiful day – I’m waiting for it to turn any day now – that I decided to wander the city. I tried to find this specific beer hall, but no luck. So, I returned to Grote Markt and found a table and had a few beers – a Palm, very tasty, and a Kapittall Bruin (an abbey beer) that had an odd aftertaste – and a waffle while I took in the sights of the main square. Now, one of the sights included an old WWII era Jeep (I think it was a British version of the Jeep, so I’m not sure what that would be called). It wasn’t odd until I saw who was driving the thing. It was a man wearing the following: round sunglasses (ok), soul patch (ok), combat books (fine), black socks (ok, good), short army style shorts (odd, but okay), and…a green mesh shirt….yup, you could see ‘em, plain as day. Thank god it wasn’t too cold out!

My belly full of booze and sugar and my eyes burning from male-mesh-fashion, I decided to head back to Menin Gate for Last Post.

Last Post has been performed at Menin Gate every day at 8pm since 1928 except for that other German occupation….and even then the day the city was liberated, even though there was still fighting going on in other parts around Ypres, they began the ceremony again. It consists of local buglers playing their bugles, a color guard, and people chosen to lay a wreath of poppies on the steps of one of the doors of the memorial. Traffic is stopped and soldiers, at least when I was there, march out to stand guard at the two main entrances to the gate.

It’s powerful and somber and the dedication to doing it every day is remarkable. A big crowd showed up, too. It must be mobbed on 11 November.

It was great to get out of Brussels for the day. Two hours there and two hours back with the iPod in was easy enough. Ypres is a city to go back to and it certainly leaves an impression, only some of which are here.

Of course, while this carnage was taking place in Ypres, hundreds of towns behind the German lines were experience kindness and given in the form of international humanitarian relief, but while at Ypres it was hard to think of anything else but the toll the war took on a whole generation of men and women (at the front and back home). Ypres is also a testament to the power to rebuild, move forward, but to also remember. Menin Gate is such a simple and powerful monument to those who died that it puts in perspective the fights many have been having over the proper memorial to 9/11 in New York. Menin Gate is a memorial to 54,896 dead.

Yes, there were debates over what should be done (some wanted to turn the whole town into a memorial or take the Cloth Hall) but the result was functional and static. Cars still pass through it on the way into town where people go about their daily lives in 2009 like any other gate into Ypres or any other town in Belgium or the world, but on the walls are etched a staid reminder of the tragic history of the town and, because it was the First World War and includes name for the far reaches of the British Empire, the tragic history of the world itself.

[I don't have the best internet connection, so uploading pictures isn't always easy. When I can, I'll post some pictures in this post or a subsequent post....sorry for the lack of visuals. -- Tom]

The Diary of Constance Graeffe or "Wow, I didn't see that coming."

Well, not every post can be about my fun and games or the day-to-day routine of living here, some should be about work. So, here is a little more on Constance Graeffe.

I began and finished reading her diary last week and, I must say, it was not like anything I expected and I'm all the happier because of that. Constance was of English and French descent and she married a German-Belgian, Otto. They would eventually immigrate to the United States and they died in Michigan in the early 1950s.

The historian who edited this diary – and did a fantastic job and wrote a great introduction – points out the transnational nature of The Graeffe family. (Constance would begin to write her name the German way, Gräffe, as the war went on in a way to distance herself from the Anglophillia of member of her family, especially Carrie.) This is an interesting fact considering that there really is no indigenous Belgian nationality. The king comes from a line of German princes and, well, I’ve written about the language and cultural divide of the Flemish (Dutch) and the Walloons (French) in the country. So, the question remains, “what is a Belgian?” and who were “Belgian” in World War I and, as I always like to tell my students, “what did that mean?”

The diary is a fascinating insight into what it was like to live in Brussels during the war. Constance and her family lived in Saint-Gilles, which is the same town that I live in. They spoke French and German fluently (indeed, most of the letters that Constance puts into her diary are in French). They also spoke Flemish – mainly to the servants – and English as well. Constance and her family were well off, Otto owned a sugar refinery and, let me tell you, the Belgians like their sugar.

The diary itself is written in an interesting way. It goes from August 1914 to December 1915. No one really knows why she ended it there, but she did. The entries are not typical diary entries, but letters, unsent, to a Scottish friend living in Australia. For someone who tried to be understanding of and, later, defensive of German motives and actions in Belgium and the war itself, it’s interesting that she wrote to a British subject. Again, these letters weren’t sent, but as the introduction to the diary points out and the dairy itself makes clear, Constance (or Connie) was trying very hard to justify her thoughts about the war and her family. (This interpretation isn’t mine, but the interpretation of the historian Sophie de Schaepdrijver in her introduction to the war dairy. Just trying to give credit where credit is due.)

The diary contains the usual musings on the lack of food – though Constance and her family had no worries getting food and often went to their house in the country side to get vegetables and such to supplement their rations. Also interesting is the division within her family. Carrie, the sister, allied herself and her family with the allies and was partial to the United States. Carrie housed a number of Commission for Relief in Belgium (CRB) delegates and send news of the CRB to Constance. Constance often dismissed these as propaganda or undue outside influence and doesn’t seem to have too high a regard for the Americans in her country. At one point she transcribes a report from a newspaper by an American CRB delegate – Robinson Smith – who describes the character of some of the Belgian women as very maiden-like with a certain earnestness to help their American humanitarians. Constance makes a comment, alluding to possible romantic interests by Mr. Smith, that she has never seen such Belgian maidens that Smith speaks off and goes on to describe Belgian girls as more selfish and concerned with hats and accessories than with the simplicity of country life.

It was also interesting to read about the timeless ungratefulness of children in the diary. Constance’s and Otto’s eldest son, Robert, was, well, a brat. He was 16 ½ at the outbreak of the war and tried to enlist in the Belgian Army like his cousins, but was turned away, so he continued his education first in Switzerland and then in Germany. He hated his boarding school education, in part because he was always lacking money. At one point he complains to his mother and father that he doesn’t understand why they send him to this expensive school when they can’t afford to give him money for good suits and other odds and ends. He even asks his parents if they are as rich as they say they are! The back and forth is amazingly honest about the role of parents and the role of children and the nature of the war in shaping that relationship. Indeed, the rest of the children are at home skimping, while Robert is away at school and able to take vacations.

Robert makes constant threats to sign up for the Belgian army via Switzerland. He agrees with a number of his cousins (many of whom sign an open letter to the family) that the Gräefs and their kin should be fighting for Belgium, no matter their national ties. There is a clear generational split. This threat infuriates his father who sends him a letter saying, in short, that if Robert were to sign up for the Belgian or allied army, ties would be severed and, indeed, Robert would be breaking the law because Otto gave his word to the German government (not sure how) that Robert would not take up arms against the German Empire.

Robert would eventually serve in the German army and, indeed, Otto and the family would take German citizenship partially, it seems, because of their affinity for Germany and for Otto’s business interests. (This later war and post-war information is known not through the diary, but through the research of Sophie de Schaepdrijver in her introduction to “We Who Are So Cosmopolitan”: The War Diary of Constance Graeffe, 1914-1915.)

The diary builds to a very defensive end and it’s interesting to see how Constance is first appalled – as his her husband – by the violation of Belgian neutrality, then to try to see both sides of the war and attack the excesses in rhetoric by both the English and the Germans, then to point out the hypocrisy of the English, and then to really feel as though there was a conspiracy by the English and allies to involve Belgium in the war and force the Germany’s hand. The complexity of her thinking is helpful for me because my whole approach to this project is to uncover the frictions of the relief effort and discuss how it was successful in spite of them. I’m not out to do a hatchet job or anything close to that, but to interrogate the received notion of this particular relief movement and to better understand what kind of impact humanitarian work makes on the people and the people on the relief work. This diary presents a narrative of opposition to the traditional narrative of “Germans bad” in a complex way. It’s certainly not “Germans good” but Constance wants to better understand what motivated and drove the Germans to do what they did in August 1914 and how best she, as a Belgian, can live with in the system. She also seeks to understand the inherent contradictions of war. At one point Constance asks why is it okay for the English to bomb seaside Belgian cities, but it’s not okay for the Germans to bomb Belgian towns….One man’s freedom fighter is an other man's terrorist….

These questions aren’t just abstract, they get personal at times. Constance’s sister Carrie accuses Constance of taking the German side because it suits Constance’s family’s interests to be on the German’s good side. Constance takes offense at this. This idea of collusion or participation in the occupation regime is an important one and has been studied a great deal in France, in particular. I wonder if the same question can be asked for those who participated in the “humanitarian regime” of the Belgian relief organizations….I think I see where my research may be heading as I delve deeper into the organization itself. This diary, though, has prompted a lot of good questions from an unexpected source.

COFFEE!!

The concept of a cup of coffee to go (café apporter or café à emporter) just doesn’t exist here. This was confirmed by my Dutch flat mate. “Maybe the Häagen-Dazs on the corner,” I was told. I did find one place, “The Coffee Shop” that understood the idea but they just put it in a styrofoam cup and send you on your way. I have to say, crossing Place Louise with an open and hot cup of coffee is NOT an enjoyable way to start the morning.

Now, living in a shared flat (I have two flat mates one is a Pakistani guy and the other is a Dutch girl. Both are really nice and I’ve enjoyed talking with them in the off chance we meet in the kitchen) presents the delicate problem of what can I use and what can’t I. (Also, what works and what doesn’t.) So, in the conversation regarding the possibility of Häagen-Dazs (yes, there is a Häggen-Dazs restaurant around the corner from my place) she mentioned the Phillips Senso coffee maker collecting dust in the kitchen. Evidently it was one of the previous renters’ and it was left behind. AhaH! Coffee!

Of course it needed a damn good cleaning and it takes those stupid little pods, so it’s not like I can make a pot and siphon off cup after cup as I like to do, but at least I can get a quick cup before work.

Of course, I do like just sitting in a café, taking 30 minutes for so to down a small cup. (Coffee is served espresso style here, not in the Vente-Stupido size of dear old (and, I must say, missed) Starbucks.)

A real life Janneke Pis

As I walked to archive this past Thursday, I came across a person taking the unofficial symbol of Brussels a bit too much to heart. Now, Brussels has not one, but two Pis statues. First is Manneken, the famous little boy (see post below). Well, in the 1980s, to keep all things equal, a second statue was set up: Jeanneke Pis, a little girl doing her thing into a fountain. Now, I haven’t seen this version and, well, I don’t think I ever need to....

As I turned down Rue de Ruysbroeck, the street the archive is on, I saw a Roma (better known as Gypsies) woman. That’s not unusual, the Roma are all over Europe (mainly in Italy and, specifically, Rome) but they are here in Brussels, too, often sitting outside churches or at metro stations.

Anyway, as I walked along I saw another Roma woman, um, impersonating Janneke Pis right there on the cobblestone street. I just sped up to walk by the two, but I could hear them laugh a bit and I most certainly made my discomfort obvious via my face.

So, there you go. Sometimes as you walk to work, passing the grand Justice Palace, the great synagogue of Brussels, and a historic Gothic church, you may run into a person taking a pee in the street at 8:30am on a Thursday.

Easy Listening in the Belgian State Archives....

It was about time, but I spent the whole day in the archive today. I left the US two weeks ago today and I'm as settled as I can be. It felt good to be back among documents and books and to have a purpose to my day. Yes, there will be plenty of travel and time off -- the girlfriend booked her ticket for the first week in November! -- but it's time to get to work. So, I figured I'd share two things this post: the commute and my first day of work. (Neither are too exciting, but made an impression on me. Like I said not all of this will be crazy tales of me escaping EuroPol or making a fool of myself in French....)

It takes me no longer to walk from my place near Place Louise to the archive just behind the fine arts museum than it did to walk fro my car in T-Lot to Wood Hall when I was back at UConn. The major difference is that instead of walking by whatever is festering in the lake outside the Chemistry building, I take my life into my heads crossing the street and walk past some of the most beautiful spots in Brussels.

Walking in Brussels is easy enough. In fact, it's a pretty walkable city. (Your feet get used to the cobble stones after a while, but I'm interested to see what happens in the rain and the winter....I already saw one poor woman, I think a judge or lawyer (she was wearing a robe, and in Europe often times lawyers wear robes in court) wipe out in her heals.) The major pain is the traffic. It's terrible -- evidently there was no drivers licensing until the 1960s -- and the only way -- and I mean only way -- to make it across many tough intersections is to just step out into traffic, and that includes the (wonderful) trams. If there is no light -- and not every crosswalk has a light -- you just gotta go. Place Louise is one of the most congested spots and, right now, it's under construction so that makes it worse, but enough of that.



After surviving the first 200 feet or so of my commute, it becomes something different, a little surreal even. As I head from Place Louise I pass the Palace of Justice on my left. It's huge. Bigger in area than St. Peter's in Rome (but not as beautiful.) On the right are newer offices with judges and lawyers running in and out in black robes with white cravats and something that kinda of looks like a fur scarf, but probably isn't. (Yes, ignorant American!)



Then it's a sharp right turn down Rue de la Régence and toward Place du Petit Sablon, one of the prettiest squares in the city and past Notre Dame du Sablon, one of the prettiest churches in the city. A gothic chruch from the 15th/16th century, it's not a bad thing to see at the start (and end) of the day.

Then it's down a narrow side street -- cobble stones all the way -- to the State Archives which are housed in a lovely neo-Stalinist style building.

When you walk in, there is a picture of the king, Albert II and his consort Queen Paola. The same picture graced the walls of the Belgian consulate in New York. I don't know why, but I always notice them and look for them in official buildings. I know the President's official picture is in American government offices and such, but these pictures are just different. I guess it's just part of the (generalized) American fascination with the concept (and reality) with royalty. On Sunday I went to Mass at the main cathedral here, Sts. Michel et Gudule, and at the end of mass (which was said in Dutch and French) there was the "priere pour le roi" (prayer for the king).

Now inside I went to floor -5. No, that's not 5 floors under ground, it's up. I really don't know why they use the negative sign, but they do. Anyway, today I decided to go to the library to look over a diary of a Belgian woman who lived in Brussels during the war. The diary has been edited with a lengthy introduction and takes an interested view of the war. The woman, Constance Greaffe, was of English, French, and German extraction and was partial to the *German* side during the war! Others in her family were not. One of her sisters actually housed CRB delegates and was more decidedly pro-English. Anyway, that's what's there.

The librarian does not speak English so I muddled through in my French -- and pointing -- to find out how to order up a book. Until about 11am I was the only other person in the room, but that's okay because we were listening to Belgian easy listening radio which, oddly enough, is a lot like easy listening back in the US. Actually, it's the same because it was all American, except for the ads and traffic update.

Now, I will say I don't think the librarian -- who is extraordinarily nice -- has a great deal to do day-in and day-out, so the radio, I guess, fills the void, but I did find it weird to be in a library -- there were books around me, signs to be quiet -- and be listening to music. It was doubly weird to be in a foreign country and listen to the exact same music I could hear on a light classic rock station back in CT or NY. I'll make sure to bring my iPod tomorrow, maybe some classical would suit the mood better.

What is really nice about such an easy commute is that I can come home for lunch and 1) eat at home and save some money and 2) hop on Skype to talk to the girlfriend before she heads to work in the morning.

The rest of the week will be more of the same, I'll post if something exciting goes on. I'm not sure what I'm going to do for the weekend...will I attempt to leave Brussels and go to Antwerp, maybe?! I just don't know....

Good fences make good....embassies?

A while ago I read this post http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/read-this-if-you-hate-meetings/?apage=3 and, well, it's pretty damn true. The jist is that there are two types of workers, "managers" and "makers." Managers have days that are broken down into small chucks that easily fit in meetings. Tasks can be put down and picked up again. Makers, on the other hand, *hate* meetings and have tasks that need time to develop and sustain over the course of a longer period of time.

Academics are "makers" (even if you question the validity of what we make as anything useful or interesting, but that's a whole other issue) and thus things that cut into a morning or afternoon or day, even, can throw a wrench into a smooth and productive day. (Of course, lunch breaks and coffee breaks and, for those of us from UConn, hallway meetings don't count, really.)

I say all this as way of explaining why I have yet to put in a full day at the archive and, instead, took a long way to find the US Embassy on Friday. This week has, in one way or another, been full of the usual day-to-day activities of getting settled. I took the "one thing at a time" approach and, thus, each day I had a meeting of some sort. Town hall, the bank, landlord, etc. So, I start in earnest on Tuesday.

Okay, preamble over. So, the US Embassy. I'm not fearful that anything bad will happen in Belgium (the country may split in two at some point, but I'm not thinking it will happen while I'm here) but I figured I should know where it is. The Portuguese consulate around the corner from my apartment probably won't cut it. Anyway, I took my walk around the "Small Ring" (petite ceinture) that is the outline of the old second city walls of the city of Brussels. The last remaining evidence of the wall is the Porte de Hale, just southwest of my apartment.

Once I found it, I had to cross the street to get there. I passed the Russian mission to the EU and, as I walked toward the US Embassy, I could see that there was a check point. No other embassy had anything like it. The Belgian Parliament building didn't have anything like it either. Nor the Royal Palace

As I approached I saw a number of police officers, Belgian I assume, and people walking in and out. I just wanted to walk through so I kept going. "Pardon," one officer said to me. "Oh, I just want to walk through," I replied. "You must going around." I looked across the street, a major road, and looked back confused. "Around the fence, there," and he pointed to a specially built fenced in walkway that ran in front of the Embassy. "Oh, thanks" and I walked around.

The fence rose at least 10 feet high and was set off from the main road of the Small Ring and the road that ran right in front of the US Embassy. (I obviously have no pictures. I had enough sense to not bring my camera and take snapshots of the US Embassy on 9/11.)

I've been fascinated for a while now with the the meanings implicit and explicit in "foreign in the domestic" and the idea of "America(ns) abroad." An embassy is extraterritorially part of the country it represents. Here, to the city of Brussels and the people of Belgium, the US shows itself as a heavily guarded compound. It was a bit of a shock, especially since as an American the concept of freedom of movement is so readily accessible. I guess I could have shown my US passport and walked through, but I had no need to.

As a resident alien, I have to get a national ID card to stay in Belgium for more than 90 days. I have to register at the local town hall, have them verify my status, and even have a police officer come to where I'm staying to verify that I live where I say I live. Seems reasonable, but then it has been made clear by every Belgian I've met that *they* have to go through that too to get their national ID card. A police officer comes to their houses as well to verify that they live where they say they live. And they are also required to carry around this national ID card. It is much, much more than just a drivers license you get to leave at the bar when you want to keep your tab open. It carries electronic data and is readable by state officials.

Anyway, seeing first hand how the US is projecting itself in the capital of Belgium was very interesting. I'm still processing it, but it's a powerful commentary not only on the dangers in the world (of course, security is a necessity and, no, not anyone can walk into an embassy), but on how the US government feels/thinks it must establish itself in a foreign land, even if that foreign land is in Belgium.

Into the Archives...and to the pissing fountain.

I've been in Brussels less than a week and, well, I figured it was about time to go to the archive. You know, the place I said I was going to be working to get the money and time to be here. I survived the first day. No real work, just getting registered, meeting with my archivist contact -- who isn't much older than I am -- and figuring out how the place works. Well, it seems, an archive is an archive is an archive. I have my ID card, good for a year, and client number.

The only hitchers were 1) the laminator broke while they tried to laminate my card so the place smelled of burning plastic and 2) the stuff I want to look at won't be in the database until the end of October. The records of the Comite National (the Belgian counterpart to the CRB) have just been indexed (of which I have a copy on my computer). Thankfully the people at the Belgian National Archives are very nice and know what I'm working on and gave me old-school paper slips to fill out my requests.

I puttered around, but no real work. I've decided to go slow -- very slow -- and not overwhelm myself. So, today was just to see what it's all about. The space inside is new and modern, well lit, and quiet. I think it will be a nice place to work. I don't think I they have wireless so that will probably help my productivity, but I'll certainly have to find a way to let them allow me to bring my big French-English dictionary with me. I'm getting better with French -- my tenses are a mess -- but my vocabulary still isn't strong. It'll take a while to plod through these documents.

I also have access to all the other repositories around the country, so I'll be doing some travel at some point to other places where documents may be housed. I plan on returning the end of the week to actually order up some stuff, mainly from the CRB itself since the National Archives here have some records.

So, the rest of the day. After coming home for lunch (well, I stopped at a sandwich shop and got a brie sandwich) and a brief chat with the girlfriend, I went out in search of the old CRB headquarters in Brussels. Located, according to a set of documents I brought with me, at Rue des Colonies, 66 (named in honor of the Belgian Congo, such happy times). Well, that address is nothing more than a boarded up door. No plaque, nothing, which leads me to believe I have the wrong address. Last night I came across a plaque dedicated to a member of the Belgian government who worked for the relief effort. So, there is a memorial memory here. I just have to find it for the CBR. I'll need better shoes...the cobblestones are killing my feet. Damn you Steve Madden!!

So, it was off to be a tourist. A visit to Brussels' cathedral was nice. Then to Grand Place for a beer and people watching:



That's a Kwak beer. Been around since about 1790 it's served in that funky glass. (CT, I think this is the beer you were referring to in you comment a while back.) It's potent at 8.4% but tasty. The bulb, it seems, keeps a constant stream of bubbles rushing to the top.

Then it was off to find Manneken Pis. That is the famous 1 foot tall stature of a young boy peeing. It's a de facto national symbol of Belgium. The original statue dates from 1388, but this one is from 1619 after the first one was stolen. No one really knows why this statue is, well, this statue. Some say it's modeled after a duke's son who was peeing on enemy troops, some say it's after a boy who peed on a burning fuse during a siege, etc. None the less, it's cute and the city has well over 600 costumes that it will dress petit Julien (the French name) in over the course of the year. This includes an Elvis suit. The various costumes are on display in the Musee de Ville in Grand Place.



So a day of some work and some tourism. I'm finding myself navigating the city much easier now. I know land marks and am pretty well oriented at all times. I still have yet to find a nice coffee shop where I can just chill or a bar for an evening beer. As I've said I live in a "posh" area and it's a bit touristy and/or corporate. Since I live in Saint-Gilles I'll explore it's center (or Parvis Saint-Gilles as it's known). I know there are some more bars and spots there and it has a younger vibe. I have to remember, it hasn't yet even been a week!

Tomorrow, it's to the bank for a bank account. Of the fun I'll have.

Thanks for reading!

Grand Place/Grote Markt and Booze

Belgium is a beer country. There are at least 750 different Belgian beers. The Belgians take their beer seriously. An amber brew served in a glass chalice is not unusual here; it's the way its supposed to be served. Each beer, from each brewery (or brasserie) has it's own glass. Even the Religious here are known for their beers. Seven Trappist monasteries (6 in Belgium and one in the Netherlands) produce beer and the quality is under strict control.

The first weekend of September, for the past 11 years at least, is the time for a huge Beer Weekend at Grand Place/Grote Markt in Brussels. Grand Place is, more or less, at the center of the old city of Brussels. The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) is located there as well as the Maison des Brasseurs (Brewers' House). It's as European as you can get.

There were 30 stalls for brewers and I don't know how many different types of beers, all served in their own glasses. I went over this afternoon (Sunday, 4 September), bought six crown corks for 6 euros and went on in. I'm not sure why a Dixieland Band was there, but there was a Dixieland Band doing its thing. Lots of people from different parts of the world, even America...and I wanted to yell at this one American woman (nah, girl, she was a girl) who, while trying to move through the mass of people, was asking in the most obnoxious valley-girl shrill "excuse me." I was offended for my people.

Anyway, I enjoyed two beers. (Yeah, I should have had more, but I'm here for 8 months, I'll get to more I promise.) An Orval (a Trappist beer, amber in color, and served in a chalice shaped glass) and a Blance de Bruxelles (a basic pilsner, I presume). I liked the Orval better, it was also more expensive.

Now, I know what you're asking (or maybe, or maybe just if you've been to the Brew Pub and/or City Steam) did I take a glass? Well, I considered it, but didn't. Good thing, because on the way out your bag was checked. Unlike in the US, though, they didn't look in my bag. The guy at the gate kind of did the high school male physical check of the bag. I was waiting for him to ask me to cough....

Anyway, after paying .30 euro to pee (some payed the attendant after they used the loo, I decided to pay as I went in) it was back home for a strong cup of tea. Those beers were strong and, sadly, not a frites (fries) shop in sight. The fries here are excellent. They double fry them so the outside is crispy and the inside is soft. I haven't tried straight mayo (MG, remember when I made fun of you for eating fries with mayo....) but I love the andalouse sauce. (A "spicy thousand island" I was told.)

Tomorrow begins my first full week here. I'll go to apply for my residency permit in the morning...that should be interesting. Then some other odds and ends. Tuesday marks my first day at the archive.

Rue Jourdan(straat) and Supersizing Belgian Style

That's the street I'm living on here in Brussels and it has two names. Because of the linguistic divide of the country -- the Flemish in the north and the Waloons (French speakers) in the south -- language is a very touchy subject here. Brussels, as I may have mentioned before, occupies a special place as its own enclave within the country. The center of the city is the City of Brussels (Ville de Bruxelles). Then, outside the old city walls or the petite ceinture (small ring), is the rest of the Brussels-Capital Region that has a total of 19 municipalities. I live in Saint-Gilles or Sint-Gillis in Flemish just outside the small ring which is a major road and the metro follows it around the city.

All streets in Brussels have the same convention Rue or Avenue (French) Jourdan (street name) straat (street in Flemish). So I live on Rue Jourdan (for the French speakers) and Jourdanstraat (for the Flemish speakers). It's even more confusing when discussion towns. I'll do that later....

So, anyway, I now have a place to live. A big room on the top floor of a house occupied by a Flemish family. I've met one roommate who is Pakistani. I'm loving the multicultural feel of this place. I still hope, though, to improve my French.

I had a wonderful time at SC's place in Ixelles. The hospitality of the Belgians is first class. It's a real nice college town. (Again, puts Storrs to shame, though SC's girlfriend was interested in the cows we have back at UConn.) This weekend is a big fair and market which I'll check out tomorrow and try my hand in a Belgian bar. On Sunday there is a beer festival at Grand Place (the big square outside of the City Hall). Should be fun.

I managed to do some touristy stuff on Thursday after I checked out what is now my home. I'm finding it easy to navigate and must thank Carly for the Streetwise Map. It's, as I said not long ago, phenomenal. I made my way over to the archive. Why is it that all archives -- at least the ones I go to -- were built during the high-era of neo-Stalinist design?! At least the walk over will make for it: past the Palais du Justice, Notre Dame du Sablon, and neat shops and such. The coblestones are killing my feet though!

I made my way over to the Palais Royale, too. Imposing building with beautiful rooms. Renovated by Leopold I who wanted to show off Belgium's power in the mid-19th century (because of the coal and steal of Wallonia (the French-speaking region) and his personal jewel, The Congo, he built lavishly). I was particularly taken with the Throne Room because it's, well, a Throne Room. No throne in it, but you can see where it was.

Eating is, of course, important and I've now had the traditional waffell or gauffre. Like NYC hot dog vendors, there are vendors all over and for 1.50 euro you can get a warm gauffre on the go. This evening I wanted something quick so I decided to try Belgian fast food. The place was called Quick...it wasn't. Like any American fast food place it was crowded and no one had any idea what was going on. I felt at home.

This gave me time to study the menu and figure out how to order in French. I'm trying very hard to use the language when I can. BUT, the main dishes at Quick are written in English only. "Fish Fillet." "Chicken Fillet." So, despite my intent to order "Un Chicken Fillet, avec frites et un Coca, s'il vous plait." The second I say, "Chicken Fillet" it's obvious I'm an American and the guy behind the counter (the manager, I think) goes right into English. Oh well...and as one would expect it tastes like generic fast food. The fries were just like McDonald's fries, but the coke was sweetened with sugar. (Oh, if you order a "Coke" here they will think you are looking for cocaine. So, it's "Coca"with a hard c.)

I think I'll end on that note....sorry for the mundane-ness of these posts. I should be doing some fun stuff this weekend -- fair and market in Ixelles and the beer festival at Grand Place on Sunday -- and I get into the archive on Tuesday. Oh, and I'll soon start dealing with Belgian officials on my residency permit. Should be fun.