Thursday, September 22, 2005 - London, England, UK; Calais, France; Brussels, Belgium
A three-country day, taking the train under the English Channel from London to Calais; picking up our leased car there and having lunch; and then driving on to Brussels. Belgium is a small country, slightly larger than Maryland, but our first impression of it is one of openness and spaciousness in contrast to the UK. The narrow roads and stone fences and hedges of the English countryside give way here to wide-open fields reminiscent of the American Midwest. That Belgium is actually more densely populated than the UK seems hard to believe (the UK has six times Belgium's population of 10 million, but eight times the land. England is probably more densely populated than the UK as a whole (I do not have separate figures for it), but still it would not be that different from Belgium. How different two countries only a couple dozen miles apart can look is amazing. In addition, the weather is much better--bright sunshine and 75 degrees--it was cloudy and at least 10 degrees cooler in London. Stayed for the first of three nights at the NH Atlanta Hotel in the center of the city.
Friday, September 23, 2005 - Waterloo, Belgium and Brussels, Belgium
Brussels does not get high marks as a tourist destination, but we went there anyway as we have found many places interesting--e.g., Brasilia, Canberra--that are not on the normal tourist route. Not coincidentally, these are all government centers, which explains why they don't have a touristy reputation--no nightlife--and why we find them interesting: loads of government spending on interesting buildings and museums. Surely, Brussels as the main location of the EU and NATO must be the same. Surely, though, it is not. This is why we switched to plan B on our first full day in the city--Brussels as a central location to see other places.
I always assumed that Waterloo, where Napoleon met his final downfall in 1815 (his first downfall being the decision to invade Russia in 1812), was in France. It is actually in Belgium, just south of Brussels. I took a local bus there in the afternoon, about a one-hour ride. There's a Wellington Museum in the town of Waterloo, dedicated to the British commander, and about two miles away at the battlefield site there is a visitor center and giant commemorative hill and statue known as Lion Mound. It is all of medium interest at best, making it superior to much in Brussels, but skipable unless you are a real history buff.
Brussels does have a central square--Grand Place--that is fantastic, one of the best squares in all of Europe. They also have numerous museums, which if you speak French, may be worth going to. As an English speaker, you are out of luck. The very helpful English-speaking person who takes your money at the front will tell you that there are translations in English and technically, they are correct. A portion of each museum--in percentage terms a portion less than 10%--is available in English. Available may mean a pamphlet with English words on it that in theory correspond to a particular exhibit, but you would have to be more adept than us to figure out which words go with which exhibit.
Let me tell you how bad the language provincialism is in Brussels' museums. Belgium is a bilingual country--the northern part of the country, about 60% in of the people in total, is Flemish and thus Dutch speaking. The southern part is Walloon. They comprise 30% of the population and speak French. In addition, a very small portion of the eastern part of the country speaks German. There is a significant immigrant population from Arab countries. This makes up maybe 10% of the population, and they appear to have learned French. Finally, because of the EU and NATO, significant portions of all workers are from outside of Belgium. One figure I saw suggested one-quarter of all workers were foreign--this may include the Arab immigrants, I'm not sure. Everyone we encountered can speak English well. So you might think that the cultural institutions in a tolerant, multi-cultural modern city that serves as a quasi-capital of Europe and the actual capital of the country of Belgium would provide their information in Dutch, French, English, possibly German, and maybe even Arabic. But you would be wrong. Some overachieving museums managed to put their information in Dutch, the language spoken by the majority of the people in the country. But others assumed French-only was good enough. This appalled us. This is the capital of the country and not every museum has information in the dominant language of the country!
This French-language bias did not extend to the people. They all willingly spoke English, and were very friendly and helpful to me, probably more so than I would get in the US. For example, I spoke with four different bus drivers on my journey to Waterloo and they patiently explained bus times, departure and pickup points, when to get off the bus, and one even provided a timetable schedule without me asking, so that I would know when the return bus would arrive.
Another perfect weather day, low 70s and sunny.
Saturday, September 24, 2005 - Luxembourg City, Luxembourg and Brussels, Belgium
Drove two hours to Luxembourg, saw the sites there, and drove back to our hotel in Brussels. Luxembourg City is a medieval town, founded in the 10th Century. We visited the Bock Casements, a series of underground tunnels built into the rock on a hill that form a fortress to defend the city. You could get lost for hours in this maze of often poorly lit caverns; in fact, we met a family of four from Germany who had been in there for the past 10 days. As we led them to safety, we explained to them that their recent national election had resulted in both Merkel and Schroder claiming that the other side had lost, and that both of them were correct.
Next, we went to the National Museum of History and Art and the Museum of the History of the City. Now each is an impressive building, with nice displays, but each seem to be put together with the same provincial attitude that we experienced in Belgium. Excuse me for thinking that a country with fewer than a half million people and a size less than Rhode Island, with the highest per capita GDP in the world and half of its GDP from international banking, and a sizable contingent of guest workers from all over Europe, might want to provide information in its relative brand-spanking new museums in the global language. Over 80% of the English entries in the comment book at the city museum suggested the same. Scandinavia, the formerly communist Baltics, currently communist China, and many other countries throughout the world understand that in today's interconnected world you need to provide information in the one language common throughout the world, but to parts of rich, prosperous Western Europe, this is news. That the majority of visitors they come in to contact with speak English, seems to have no bearing on how they put together their museums.
Overall, though, I liked Luxembourg. The casements were unique, and the city was a quaint place. I'd recommend it over Brussels, but I would only spend one day there.
The weather continues to be excellent, in the low 70s. Perfect college football Saturday, although no games seem to be on the local schedule.
Sunday, September 25, 2005 - Brussels, Belgium and Amsterdam, Netherlands
We stopped at the Army Museum on the way out of town. On Friday, the eager, helpful, friendly person at the tourist information booth in Grand Place said they had audio guides in English, which of course they did not. Beware--half of all information provided by eager, helpful, friendly people in tourist information booths around the world is wrong. Again, my heart warmed as I read entry after entry in the comment book criticizing the museum for its lack of English. One entry really made my point better than I could have. It was written in English, but signed by the writer in his native language, Chinese. An increasing number of museums around the world now have information in Chinese, but most still do not, so English is the only lifeline for a Chinese person (or a Japanese person or a Korean person or dozens of other nationalities) to understand anything in foreign museums. This is why English is necessary--not so much for the native English speakers, but for citizens of all countries who may only know one foreign language.
Now, ironically, just as I'm writing this, I receive a rather appropriate e-mail from Peter Magee, my Tuck classmate who lives in London, following up on a similar conversation we had our last night in London:
Today is a big day in the history of the English language. On this day, in 1066, William the Conqueror of Normandy arrived on British soil. Having defeated the British in the Battle of Hastings and on Christmas day he was crowned the King in Westminster Abby.
At the time the British were speaking a combination of Saxon and Old Norse. The Normans, of course, spoke French, and over time the languages blended. To the Saxon word "house" came the Norman word "mansion." To the Saxon word "cow" came the Norman word "beef" and so on.
So the English language now contains more than a million words, one of the most diverse languages on earth. Cyril Connelly wrote, "The English language is like a broad river ... being polluted by a string of refuse-barges tipping out their muck." But Walt Whitman said, "The English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all."
I must confess that today actually refers to September 28 as I am writing this three days after the fact.
Final impressions of Brussels--an unimpressive capital for a developed country/continent; somewhat dirty (trash and graffiti); not much to see beyond Grand Place. I should note that disappointingly, we did not get to see any of the EU buildings, as the last tour of the week they offer is 10AM Friday and we learned of this around 11AM Friday. Other countries make their government buildings available for tourists on weekends, because that's when most tourists (and citizens) are able to see them, but here the European desire for not working hard seems to have won out. It brought to mind Bill Bryson's joke about "How many people work at the EU?" The answer: "About one-third of them!"
The weather is a bit cooler, down in the 60s, and cloudy as the day wore on. Stayed for the first of four nights in the Museum Square Hotel, next to the major art museums in Amsterdam, a bit away from the city center, but still within walking distance.
Monday, September 26, 2005 - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Went to Van Gogh Museum; Verzetsmuseum (Dutch World War II Resistance Museum); and Anne Frank House. My criticism of the Belgium museums' provincial attitude on language was reinforced when I noticed no less than nine languages available via audio guide at the Van Gogh museum, and the exhibit information at the Anne Frank House translated into eight languages. The less well-visited resistance museum only offered two languages, but importantly one was the global language of English. Here is a country that gets it. Probably not a coincidence that their native language (Dutch) is not French. They do seem aware that the French lost a half-dozen wars to the English in the 18th and early 19th century, largely fought over colonial supremacy, and thus the global language today has become English.
The Van Gogh Museum has the largest single collection of Van Gogh paintings in the world (about 200 of the 900 known to exist). Van Gogh is my favorite artist, so I was looking forward to this museum, but I must admit a bit of disappointment. Throughout Europe, we have seen Van Gogh's, with a good art museum typically having a half dozen of his paintings, including one or two that I had not previously seen that jumped out at me as incredibly well done. Here there were dozens I had not seen, and many I liked, but none that really moved me. There is a version of one of my favorite paintings, "The Bedroom," here, but since it is nearly identical to the painting in the Art Institute in Chicago, it was not something new to us. Overall, though, this is an excellent art museum, making it a must visit for anyone with the slightest interest in art. The most significant thing I did learn was that nearly all of the art he is known for was produced in a four-year period! He was only an artist for the last 11 years of his 41-year life, and spent the first part of that period training himself on how to paint. When he moved to Paris and was able to work with the impressionist and post-impressionists of the late 1880s, his talent and painting really flourished.
We have been in German resistance museums in Denmark, Norway, Belgium, and now the Netherlands. The first two countries were invaded by Germany in April 1940, the last two, along with Luxembourg and France, were invaded in May 1940. Overmatched, each country capitulated quickly, ranging from a few hours to about two months. The Netherlands lasted less than one week, Belgium about two weeks. Thus, for each, most of their involvement in World War II was in the form of a resistance movement, and these museums chronicle the experience of the general population: strikes, sabotage, persecution, people in hiding, Jewish deportations, and even collaboration. The museum here in Amsterdam is the best so far, followed by Denmark, Norway, and Belgium (the only one not in English).
The Anne Frank House is moving, another must see. The area they hid within is bigger than I expected, although they did have eight people in it. What would get you though, is the boredom. Spending four days trapped in a two-bedroom apartment with eight people in Manila in 1989 during the coup, the overwhelming feeling I had was one of immense boredom. I can't imagine having to spend over two years in this condition, not to mention the knowledge that, if found, you would likely die.
High today only around 60, cloudy.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005 - Amsterdam, Netherlands
Cold, rainy, 55-60, warmer in the late afternoon once the rain stopped. Went to Rijksmuseum, the main art museum, covering Dutch Masters. Under renovation, it had only its best paintings on display, which probably made the visit more enjoyable. The museum was good, but 17th Century art is not my favorite. Afterward, went to Amsterdam Historical Museum, a better-than-average city museum. Spent the afternoon and evening reading about Germany, figuring out where to go, and beginning to book travel.
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