Belgium - A Day in Waterloo February 21, 2006

Hey, guys. Well, I just spent the afternoon walking around Waterloo. It’s an interesting little town – lots of shopping downtown and the streets were pretty crowded. (Everything is closed on Sunday here). I slept till noon today – stayed up too late last night when returning from the concert. I leave the clock on my laptop set to Dallas time so if I’m sitting here working or doing e-mail, I think it’s a lot earlier than it really is.

Anyway, left the hotel about one – it was only 34 degrees and the sun was shining so for a couple of hours it was nice. Wind picked up though and the “feel like” temp is 26. Had lunch at the SNUG BUG, and Irish pub across from hotel. I ordered fish ‘n chips after first being assured that “tartare” meant tartar sauce and not “raw” as in steak tartare. It was very good – served in newspaper like they do in London (and Ireland, I guess – though I’ve never been there). No one there spoke English, so for dessert I just pointed to one that had “chocolat” in it. It was another trip to heaven!!!! It was like a pudding cake baked in a teacup – with a luscious cream sauce.

Then I just walked around downtown. Stopped in a few of the shops, but didn’t buy anything (not even shoes or a hat, I swear). Everything is so “tres cher” (very expensive) here. I saw the cutest pjs that I would have liked to buy for Allison and Aiden, but they were 43 Euro (over $50) and that was the SALE price. And these weren’t exclusive shops, guys – no Roedo drive or anything like that. I’d like to know what kind of salaries people make here to afford this stuff. I also looked at curling irons – would like to get a European one since mine is frying my hair on the 220V – but the cheapest one I found was 50E!!!!

Next I found the visitor’s center – wanted to see about getting the bus to the battlefield. But, found out that one of the museums there (Napoleon’s headquarters) doesn’t open until February so will wait until next week to go out there. However, Wellington’s headquarters museum was right there, so I toured it. Now, a few years ago I had an insatiable thirst for all things Napoleon so I read several books on him. This is a very good museum – focus was on Wellington, of course, but covered lots of material about the war itself. It was nice to hear about all of that again (I did the audio tour). There were some young people in there dressed in military costumes of that period – they were asking for directions to the battlefield. After they left, I asked about them. The guide said they were from the UK and were here for the re-enactment of the battle – I said I thought that wasn’t until June. He said that was right – somehow they had gotten the dates confused!!!!!

Now, I did buy something there – a book about Napoleon and Waterloo – one I have not read and from reading the forward, it appears to be one of the most authoritative and popular ones on the subject. Don’t know how I missed it before. Several years ago I took a class at SMU about Napoleon and I remember the teacher kept referring to some book – it might have been that one – but his version was in French so I didn’t read it then. (The one I got today is in English – my French is getting better – I can manage the newspapers somewhat – but not an entire book.)

Across the street from that was a really nice old Catholic church – walked around inside there. If I knew my way around Mass, I’d go there in the morning (I’m pretty sure there aren’t any Southern Baptist churches here).

The sidewalks here are very narrow and on the way back, I had to back scoot way over to get away from this ferocious dog and I fell in a hole. Twisted my ankle and it is a little bit bruised and swollen (same one I hurt falling on the ice a couple of days ago). Being as clumsy as I am since I had to start wearing these darn glasses, I always travel with an ice pack. So I’m going to go lie down with that for a while and see if I can get it healed up enough to hit the fitness center and work off that chocolate dessert. Then, I’m just going to settle in with Boney baby for the rest of the night and plan on working all day tomorrow.

Oh, speaking of dogs – apparently they are allowed in restaurants here – I saw someone with one in the pub – and it was not a seeing-eye dog. (But, if my eyes had seen it before I went it, I probably would have gone somewhere else). On second thought, though, maybe this trip would be a good time for me to try and conquer my fear of dogs.

A demain (until tomorrow)