Overall Impressions

Now that we've been back in Madison for about two months, we have enough distance from the trip to look back with at least a little objectivity, and make deep, meaningful pronouncements about the trip. These observations should be considered definitive.

1. In a word, the trip was positive. We endured a lot of pain and effort to make the trip happen—medical physicals and fingerprinting, work visa legalities, finding a State-side house renter and dog sitter, finding an apartment in Brussels, finding a school in Brussels, packing (twice!) a ton of suitcases, lugging said suitcases, etc.—and every month we bled more money to the cause. But in return we got invaluable intangibles, meeting new people, culture, and geography.
2. The transition from Madison to Brussels was hard, particularly for me (illness) and JoJo (culture/language shock, illness). But fortunately we got over it, and grew to feel comfortable in our new, temporary home. Naomi in particular wondered what would have happened if JoJo never got over the hump; but JoJo did get over the hump, and that perseverence probably has increased her self-confidence.
3. The transition back to Madison was suprisingly difficult, although much easier than the first transition. After less than a week back home we headed out west for a week in the San Francisco and Lake Tahoe areas (Naomi had a conference there, and we decided to make a family trip of it), and the multiple changes of locations and time zones confused our bodies. I would say it took a month back in the States before we really felt like we were settled again in Madison.
4. The girls achieved some fluency in French. Their understanding of French is better than their speaking of French, and if we'd stayed for a whole school year instead of just half I think they would be pretty solidly bilingual. But they definitely gained the perspective that there are other languages out there in the world besides English. Jenee has made Tuesdays and Thursdays days to speak French, so hopefully the girls' proficiency in French will continue.
5. Naomi and I both spoke French with a low level of fluency before the trip, but I was disappointed that our fluency didn't improve much. We both worked in environments where English was spoken, so we didn't get a French immersion experience. We could have made greater efforts to seek out regular French conversation, but life was busy. Oh, well.
6. Naomi and I each had pretty good work experiences. Naomi wasn't teaching, but she got on a reasonably regular work schedule, commuting variously to the University of Ghent and the Erasmus Hospital in Brussels. I think her collaborations were often productive and enjoyable. For my part, I enjoyed working with my European counterparts at TomoTherapy. The 7-hour time difference was often painful for communicating with our colleagues/students back in Madison, even with modern communication tools like Skype.
   
7. One of the negatives about our experience, or at least my experience, was a feeling that there was a lot of latent (or not so latent) anti-Semitism out there. There was significant pro-Palestinian sentiment around Belgium and Europe in general, and in many cases that sentiment seemed to be tantamount to anti-Israeli sentiment. In Amsterdam I saw spray-painted on a bridge a star of David with the letter "F" inside; I don't know specifically what the "F" meant, but I can't imagine it was good. And of course the girls' Jewish day school had impressive security, including two sets of security doors, ex-Mossad agents, and a healthy municipal police presence to boot. On the one hand it was good to see how seriously the safety of the kids was taken, but on the other hand it's very sad that such lengths were deemed necessary.
8. Given that Naomi and I worked and we had the kids in tow, I think that we did a lot of travel, both day trips and more extended trips. Nevertheless, I would have loved to do a lot more. So many places were so comparatively close to Brussels. I would have loved to get to Venice, Barcelona, Prague, Germany, Scandinavia. If French Open tickets had still been available when I looked online, Naomi and I would have made a day trip to Paris—it blows my mind that a day trip to Paris is feasible from Brussels!
9. The food was great. I also really liked all the walking I did in my commute, and the calm and civilized commute by train (the occasional irregularity notwithstanding). I definitely lost some weight in Brussels, and I think I have already gained it back. It is ironic, because I ate a lot more chocolate and cheese in Brussels than I do in Madison!
10. Naomi and the girls were glad to be back in Madison, and I was too, but I felt a lot of ambivalence about it. I enjoyed working at TomoTherapy's Brussels office, and with all my unfulfilled travel ambitions I would have been happy to stay longer in Brussels.
11. The trip had the feeling of a "once in a lifetime" type of thing. However, I had two similar experiences growing up (my father took sabbaticals in the Grenoble, France, area during my kindergarten and 7th grade years), and Naomi and I already are looking forward to her next sabbatical, presumably 6 years hence. If you get a travel opportunity like this, we heartily recommend taking advantage of it!
    

Le Grand Retour

We have now been back home in the States for a month (plus a few hours). In seems like ancient history now, but I thought I'd try to recollect how the trip back went.

Naomi and I substantially worked up until the end of our stay. We had a nice Shabbat dinner our last Friday night (June 5th) with some friends, and one of Naomi's collaborators hosted us for dinner our last night (Saturday, June 6th). We tried to tour a castle near his house, but we got there just as the castle closed; so we had to settle for visiting the rather small farm next door (read on for the resulting consequences). Saturday was otherwise largely engaged by packing, as you might imagine. Sunday morning we had brunch with a few of my colleagues, at a casual place near our apartment, and then two of the colleagues drove us and our ample luggage to the airport.

We got to the airport in plenty of time, for once, and our luggage took up four carts. Two of the bags were literally dedicated to bringing back Belgian chocolates. The chocolate was very dense, so even though the bags were small, they were heavy! And the big, heavy bags were really heavy—most of them were over the weight limit, but British Airways was nice about it, and didn't charge us extra.

The "chocolate bags" were among our carry-on items, and so we were weighed down with a lot. Jenee's "chocolate bag" broke during our layover in Heathrow, so she had to carry it instead of wheel it around. In addition, the girls were not pulling their weight, to say the least, and wanted to be carried around. To make matters still worse, we thought we had gate-checked our stroller, but it had been checked through all the way to our US destination (O'Hare); usually our stroller has a kid in it, plus lots of bags hanging off of it. Oh, well, we did the best we could.

The flights themselves were fine, and the girls traveled pretty well in general. The on-demand video system completely rocked, and I remember glancing over at Amelia cracking up while watching one of the "Ice Age" movies.

But by the time we got to O'Hare, it had been a very long day. We left Brussels around 3:30pm local time, and got to O'Hare about 8pm local time, which is 3am Brussels time. On our customs form I had marked that we had visited a farm and touched farm animals while abroad. (We had petted rabbits and fed goats the night before, and we had also petted goats at the petting zoo in the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo.) That made us quick friends with the good folks at customs—and also made a cranky Naomi incredulous. (Curse my honesty!) After she stuttered non-sensical responses to the questions from the customs agents, we all got taken aside. They took the shoes we wore on the farm, and after a few minutes came back with them—we didn't ask what happened in between. Then we were free to go!

Our friend Matt picked us up in our minivan and drove us back to Madison. Amelia had a very impressive meltdown as we left O'Hare, but eventually everyone except Matt fell asleep, and we got home around midnight (7am Brussels time). Matt's wife Brenda drove us down to O'Hare at the beginning of our big adventure, so it felt like the circle was complete: the trip was over!

In Bruges

Today Naomi and I and the girls made a day trip to Bruges. We took the train, which in both directions was as crowded as a Who concert (but fortunately not as rowdy). The central circle of Bruges was similarly sized to that of Leuven, perhaps slightly bigger, and once again we walked from the train station at the periphery to the center. However, Leuven, as nice as it is, is like Bruges' ugly sister in comparison. Bruges is bigger and more bustling, with many beautiful buildings, large and small, and beautiful squares, and of course the canals. After lunch we took a horse-drawn carriage ride and tour around town, and we all thoroughly enjoyed it.

I think Bruges had the highest number of tourists, per capita, of any place I've ever been—and I've been to plenty of places with a significant tourism industry. There were shops with absolutely beautiful laces and other arts, but we didn't get the chance to really check out the wares. On our carriage ride, I was amazed to learn that Bruges used to be on the ocean, but centuries of silting have pushed the ocean out 10 miles!

Bruges was one of the destinations I really wanted to hit before we returned to the States, so I'm glad we were able to sneak this trip in just under the wire.

Groovin' in Leuven

Yesterday we all (me, Naomi, Jenee, and the girls) went to Leuven, roughly 15 miles east of Brussels. We unintentionally took the slow local train out, which was about 40 minutes with numerous stops, but we got it right on the return trip with the 20-minute express back to Brussels. Central Leuven is basically a circle of diameter 2 km or so. The train station was on the east side of this circle, and we walked to the center. Essentially at the exact center of the circle was the beautiful, baroque city hall, which in style could have held its own in Brussels' Grand Place (where Brussels own city hall is located). There was a wedding party having pictures taken on the front steps of the city hall, and we wandered around the pretty blocks and squares until we found a nice place for an outdoor lunch. After lunch, we wandered some more. There were several outdoor markets, variously selling antiques, bandes dessinées (comic books), and foods. We got ice cream cones, and the girls left a trail of melted ice cream in case we needed to find the ice cream store again. The other end of our ice cream trail was a plaza by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Catholic University of Leuven). The plaza had the largest threading needle I've ever seen, probably 50 feet or more, standing up like a flagpole with a giant beetle skewered near the top.

Leuven seemed like a very nice town, with beautiful squares and architecture. Frankly I'm not exactly sure what to do there besides just wander around—and this is not meant to imply there's nothing to do there—but wander around we did, and we enjoyed it.

Grève danger (is there any other kind?)

Today I enjoyed that quintessential European experience, the grève, or strike. The strike in question was a train strike (more specifically, train controllers), and I learned of it when I got to the train station and saw that almost every scheduled train appeared to be cancelled, including mine. (Actually, most trains appeared to be expunged, with no trace on the board; normally, a cancelled train is on the board and labelled as cancelled.)

I ended up sharing a cab to work. At the taxi stand I overheard the guy in front of me saying he was going to Diegem, which is where I was going too. It was a funny coincidence, less than 1% chance that I'd be going to the same neighborhood, and when you add that I happened to overhear where he was heading, the odds were probably 1 in 1000 or more. But it saved me half my cab fare!

Brussels: Loving City

So today I was walking home from work, when I see another loving couple. I was walking through a popular park near Gare Centrale, and saw a couple ahead, standing in an embrace. But as I drew near—just to continue on the path, not to give closer inspection—it became clear that a lot more was going on than just embracing! I swear I mind my own business, so these couples are obviously trying to find me. Or maybe Brussels is just the nastiest city since Caligula's Rome!

L'Hitraot, Yisrael

See you later, Israel!

So I thought I'd say how the rest of the trip went, and also share a few random observations about our Israel trip.

We spent the last weekend in Ramat Yishay again with Ofer and Tal's family, starting with Shabbat dinner. Ironically, Ofer was called suddenly to his second-ever business trip to the US during the week, and didn't get back until Saturday night. Naomi and the girls went to a Haifa beach on Saturday, but I stayed home to take it easy during my recovery from food poisoning. While I read most of a novel, the large beach-going group—comprising Tal's family (minus Ofer), mother, and brother's family, in addition to my own family—took in the rays, with (I think) the only damage being some minor sunburns on Amelia.

Ofer returned Saturday evening, early enough to do some chatting. Sunday we had to head to the airport early enough that there wasn't time for much, although Ofer was able to take us to a patisserie for some tasty baked goods—arguably not as good as what we can get in Brussels, but still quite good, and probably better than what can generally be found in the States. Then we made a late (but fortunately not too late) departure for the airport: an official at our first security point told us bluntly we were late, and by the time we got to the gate boarding was mostly completed. The girls' behavior on the plane left room for improvement, shall we way, but we (mostly Naomi) managed ok.

In summary, it was a lovely trip, busy, but not overly so. I expected more bonding with Israel, but instead got more bonding with relatives; this in in contrast to my first and only other visit to Israel, in '97, in which my bonding was in the opposite order. But I think both kinds of bonding are good, and I hope my kids bonded in both ways.

Now before the observations, a small vignette: Our checked baggage allowance was 20 kg per person, and although we had 4 people we only had 2 checked bags, so I did my best, without a scale, to keep each bag under 20 kg. At check-in in Brussels, the weights of the bags were 19.2 kg, and 19.8 kg. Incredible! you say. Yup, I was pretty proud of myself. But, once in Israel, Ofer convinced me that the total is the key (i.e. less than 4 × 20 kg = 80 kg for us), and not 20 kg per bag. His theory was born out when, on our return check-in, a bag tipped the scales at 24 kg, with nary a consequence.

Observations:

• Israeli drivers were as bad as advertised. Very aggressive, and apparently very blind! In addition, motorcyclists loved riding the dividing lines between highway lanes, and I always thought how easy it would be for one of these blind Israeli car drivers to switch lanes without warning just as a motorcyclist tried to pass by.


• The traffic light cycle was very involved. Instead of green / yellow / red, it was green / flashing green / (short) yellow / red / red & yellow together. So there are two warning phases before stop, and one warning phase before go.


• We were advised a GPS was unnecessary, and at 55 NIS ($14) per day it was certainly expensive. Our experience partly bore this out, but there are two caveats: (1) you want maps or advance online route planning, and (2) a GPS sure is helpful in the big cities (Haifa, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv at least).


• Dog poo was overly present on sidewalks and in playgrounds, even more so than what we've seen in Belgium and elsewhere around Europe. This is a little surprising because, in some cities in Israel, you can apparently be fined for walking a dog if you don't obviously have the wherewithal to dispatch your dog's dispatches, let alone if you don't clean up after your dog. Oh, well, at least it dries quickly in Israel!


• Much of the northern half of the country seemed green, but a green reclaimed from the desert, as opposed to a green natural to the land. While in Israel, I was impressed at how green it was; but on the plane home, I was sitting next to two Germans, and as we flew over Germany and Belgium, seeing vast green spaces out the windows, they remarked to each other how they were happy to be heading back to the rich flora of home. It suddenly struck me how the vegetation in Israel—impressive in its own right: agriculture is huge there—was no match for the lushness of Europe.


• For breakfast we sometimes ate the Israeli version of Cocoa Puffs, called Cocomon Kedorim, which on the box was translated into English as Cocoman Balls. I think this translation may have unintentionally picked up a little extra connotation—and hilariously so!