Belgium January 2006 - From Country to Jazz

Two weeks ago tonight I was in Nashville at the Grand Ole Opry. Tonight I was in Brussels, Belgium at a jazz concert. Ain’t life grand????

The performer I saw tonight was a native Belgian named David Linx. I had heard of him and even heard some of his music once or twice. Let me tell you – he was AWESOME. Tonight’s programme was ‘THREE VOICES ONE HEART” – the three voices were him and two females – they were all so good!!! And the piano player was wonderful, too. The first half of the program was all scat – I have never heard it done so well……well, that may not be true. Cab Calloway could surely do scat pretty well, but of course I never saw him in person. I’m telling you, tonight I just closed my eyes and I swear I thought I was listening to instruments. I bought a couple of CDS, so will be eager to get them downloaded to my IPOD.

I took a taxi to and from Brussels – if you recall I am in Waterloo about 20 miles south. Now it doesn’t bother me to take cabs…..I do it in New York and Chicago and Boston and many other big cities. But, it’s a little different in a foreign country and at first, I was a little nervous. Someone at the office arranged it for me and when he arrived, he was just driving a regular car that didn’t have a meter. And he spoke little English. And the route he took was not the same one I recalled coming from the airport Sunday. We were not on the highway, though for the most part, we were in well lighted and well populated areas but once or twice we were isolated. Visions of white slave trade went through my mind. I do have a cell phone and had numbers for people at the office and made sure I know what the police number is. But, if I had to call anyone, I wouldn’t have had any idea where to tell them I was!!!! Anyway, it all worked out fine – he was a nice young man and he got me to the theatre OK. He was about ten minutes late picking me up though and I was freezing my you know what off – it’s about 20 degrees right now and the wind bites!!!

Anyway, found a nice little restaurant for dinner before the show – a very European style café. Another interesting experience with the water – I asked for “still” water this time and the waitress said “Without gas?” Well, I hope so. The meal was delicious – I had chicken and it was thoroughly cooked. For dessert, I decided to forgo chocolate this time and had a “sorbet selection”. Yuk!!! One was raspberry which I hate, one was lemon which was good, and I don’t know what the third was, but it was nasty. Luckily I had a couple of truffles in my pocket. And, I’ll stick with chocolate desserts from now on.

Across the street from the theatre was a building with the letters DRUG HOUSE across the top. Now thank goodness the word PHARMACIE was also prominent. It’s bad enough that all the public buildings are soaked in smoke – don’t think I could handle prevalent drug use, too.

Oh at breakfast this morning with the client staff, someone brought up the movie BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (which, btw, I saw and liked except for the explicit sex scenes). Anyway, during the discussion I learned that gay marriage is legal in Belgium. Guess this is a pretty liberal place – gays can marry and no one cares that the politicians have mistresses and children out of wedlock.

And then the Finance Director asked me if I knew who Johnny Cash is. Seems that WALK THE LINE is playing here, too, and he remembered hearing Cash’s name when he was in Dallas and someone at the office there (JF, Tangela) is apparently a big fan. He was very curious about him so I’m going to take my IPOD in Monday and let him listen to my JC music.

I am really, really looking forward to exploring Brussels – it looks like a neat place. But, considering the logistical and financial aspects of it (the round trip taxi cost me 115 Euros (about $145) so I can’t do that again!!! Tomorrow, I’m going to go to the battlefield and related museums here in Waterloo (Napoleon you know), then after that I’m going to work the rest of the weekend and next weekend and save my sightseeing for when I finish up the job. Maybe, I’ll finish a few days earlier than planned and have more time for vacationing. I’ll move to a hotel in Brussels where I can easily take the trains and subways to other places such as Bruges, Paris, Ghent, Leige, Holland, etc.

Oh, I’ve had one request to get a friend some Belgian lace which I am looking forward to shopping for. If anybody else wants anything, let me know. If you ask for chocolate, though, I cannot promise that it will make it all the back to the states. J

Well, that’s it for now. I’m going to go to bed with my new music.

Later.