Too Much To Dream

Well, bah!, I say. That is so not fair!

Though, I have to say, when I was visiting Germany, we made a trip through Holland, Belgium and Liechtenstein. We went to Bastogne, and the people there were so nice. They actually liked Americans. Totally different from my experience in Germany. There, unfortunately, the natives lived up to their stereotype. Holland was the best though for friendly folks.

Neither here nor there, but I'm feeling like sharing!

Duh! Luxembourg, not Liechtenstein!

I've been to Liechtenstein. It was so small that they didn't even have a train station; my mother and I had to take the bus. This was in 1981; don't know if things have changed. I remember that I saw Vaduz Castle, where the Duke lives (it's on top of a cliff; I bought some post cards), we had lunch at a restaurant (I had something called Romanian Steak; the meat wasn't as tough as steak usually was over there -- let me tell you about the leather-shoe-textured steak I had in Cologne); and then we had tea in glasses (in those silver holders) at the commissary in the bus station. We never went to Luxembourg, though.

Braddon: Good evening and welcome to another edition of ..."Prejudice"...now, the result of last week's competition when we asked you to find a derogatory term for the Belgians. Well, the response was enormous and we took quite a long time sorting out the winners. There were some very clever entries. Mrs Hatred of Leicester said "let's not call them anything, let's just ignore them..." and a Mr St John of Huntingdon said he couldn't think of anything more derogatory than "Belgians." But in the end we settled on three choices: number three ... "the Sprouts," sent in by Mrs Vicious of Hastings... very nice; number two..."the Phlegms," from Mrs Childmolester of Worthing; but the winner was undoubtedly from Mrs No-Supper-For-You from Norwood in Lancashire..."Miserable Fat Belgian Bastards!" Very good...

"Mrs. Viscious" -- Sid's ma?

Andrea,

Now you've doubled back on Ith's initial Luxembourg-Liechtenstein confusion: Liechtenstein has a Prince (Hans Adam), while Luxembourg has a Grand Duke (Jean).

For the record, Belgium's politics are demented and horrible, as well as insanely complicated by the linguisitic divisions, but they do make the best beer and chocolate in the world.

Prince, Duke, who cares! I'm American, I don't care about title crap! ;P

Mmm, we'll let them live, then. I did have a nice time in Oostend, though our trip there mainly consisted of walking around in the vicinity of the hotel we were staying at. (It was a cute little place, where each room had its own WC ("water closet" -- ie, toilet), but the bathtub lived in a room down the hall. It was a nice bathtub too, square and deep like a jacuzzi.

What I remember most about the trip was our visit to the American Military cemetary and Patton's grave. There were some vets there, and they were playing taps at the grave of one of their comrades. It was a very powerful moment.

Go to this website: it contains a picture spoiler of ROTK!

http://www.jimcalagon.supanet.com/rpt43.htm

I dunno. It could actually be a picture of the Mouth of Sauron. That costume doesn't really look snazzy enough for the Big Guy. Then again, maybe they are going to add lighting and special effects and stuff.