live in europe

A bit of the wall still stands in place. You can still get East German entry stamps in your passport for just 3€. You can have Starbucks coffee in what used to be East Berlin while looking at Checkpoint Charlie.

An hour’s drive into France for snowboarding with friends. Evening of live jazz in a castle. Nothing in English, only French and German.

D and I drove up to Rotterdam yesterday to catch an evening of Jazz, Blues and Big Band. It was a 4-hour drive with lots of rain. Well worth the effort. I got to see a bouncy James Taylor sing to hundreds of people, a sea of bodies and discombobulated camera screens. I saw an amazing bass player who did things to his bass I never imagined could be done. More jazz in the form of a small trio. Then on to the Big Band to close the evening. Over 8 hours of nothing but amazing music. We slept in till 9:30 and got up and had a continental breakfast (I now understand why we call our hotel breakfasts ‘continental’). Then a 4-hour drive home with more rain and a border check on the way into Germany. Well worth the time, energy and money.

I was reminded today of a major difference between Europe and America. My new co-worker was shocked by the announcement Germans don’t do air conditioning. The poor girl was, of course, jet lagged so it probably wasn’t very nice of me to dump that on her.

Every day I get home, my bedroom is 2 degrees (fahrenheit) warmer than it was when I left that morning. It only drops 1 degree each night so my bedroom was 78 this evening…

Lightly coated in perspiration all day long. Swinging the windows wide to bring in that hint of a breeze. Hearing the distant thunder rumble without the relief of rain.

I stood at the north end of the Forum and looked out across antiquity. I stood at the heart of the culture that built the Western world. There is no place so old in all of US. No place that has marked the world so profoundly.

One of the buildings on Capitoline Hill is the Basilica Julia. Although it may sound like a church dedicated to a woman, it was really Julius Ceaser’s Courthouse. To understand history is to bring a greater understanding of self.

When I got back to the hotel room, I looked down at my boots. They were covered in dust, very ancient dust.

Living in Europe rocks!!! Need I say more?

I have a very good landlord, it seems. I love my flat which he redid just over a year ago. It is beautiful and modern with lots of light. Right now, he is renovating the flat above me. He has insulated the floor to keep me from having to hear future tenants walking about. Today, he came and helped me hang my large wrought iron piece. The walls here aren’t the same as in the US. They don’t use a lot of dry wall, don’t know why. So you have to be careful about hanging things. I asked my landlord what would work best for hanging my piece and he volunteered to hang it for me and did today.

The 2:30 wake up call almost undid me. I was supposed to go with a friend but she had some family issues come up yesterday so I had to be at the bus at 4 am alone.

I made it. I slept all the way up too. Then I had breakfast at the oldest restaurant in Belgium, the Rembrandt. Cappuccino and a ham and egg sandwich of sorts. I believe I heard Flemish for the first time in there. I wondered the streets of one of the more famous antique markets in Europe, listening to a mix of French, German and other languages. Held a 108 year old copy of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar which I could have bought for 12,50€. Returning to the Rembrandt for a lunch of Chimay Red and croque monsiur.

I didn’t buy anything. I don’t usually find things in that kind of atmosphere. I did have a lovely European day.

They keep the shoe boxes!