Walking Louise

Mademoiselle Louise is turning into quite the young lady. She has grown up since her puppy summer days, but she rounded her one-year birthday still full of energy and enthusiasm. We took the opportunity of her day-long visit next door to make a run around the abbey ponds.

As her little wagging body led us, we took in the next seasonal change in the backyard park to which we are privy. The snow has receded, but the ice-capped ponds still keep the swans topside. Like ladies lifting wide layered skirts, the birds picked themselves up from the hardened surface and waddled to new locations.

After passing with muted trepidation a few fellow canines — one distinctly less friendly than the other — we passed the bare shrub branches finally dripping free from ice encasement. In the distance, over the brown and yellow grasses the abbey tower sounded the hourly bells

On the abbey grounds, into which we turn at the end of our stroll, we paused for a dispersing funeral procession. Louise welcomed each person with an eager tail and big-eyed stares. On the other side of a fence in the remnants of last summer’s garden, tall dried stalks of dejected sunflowers hung their heads.

Arriving home, we cleaned our feet — all eight of them — and settled in for an afternoon nap.

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Life Makeover in One Month?

I  sat down with my nightly slice of hazelnut-chocolate spread and a cup of tea to peruse a mass email to which I subscribe although rarely read. “Make Over Your Life This Month.” Intrigued, I clicked further. “It’s Not Too Late,” the message began . . .

This month at WholeLiving.com, we’re focusing on improving all aspects of our health and wellness — our physical strength and conditioning, our eating habits, and how we handle stress, to name a few.

The enthusiasm screamed of infection with a twinge of induced guilt.  I bit into my open-faced dessert sandwich and considered the options.  There were action plans and added movement, food switches and junk food nixes, life changes and career boosters, and a nosy question about how much I know about fitness. Moving deeper into this virtual world of actualized New Year’s resolutions, I began to wonder: disregarding the ridiculous suggested time frame, was a life cleanse really possible in Belgium?

Let me clarify. My hesitation applies only to myself. During no other visit to this country have I encountered so many fit-minded folk as I’ve seen tromping through parks and over sidewalks. This feat was all the more impressive considering a certain lack of respect for clearing sidewalks and roads (bike paths — check) of ice and snow. This has only added to the deep sense of intimidation at  the very notion that I might eventually join their ranks or, rather, jog in their dusty trail gasping for air, one hand clutching a jar of Nutella.

I looked at the makeover list specifics. Number 1:

A food diary can help you identify challenges (whether it’s managing portion sizes or coping with cravings).

In Belgium might as well be called My Never-Ending Fascination with Food, oh, in Belgium. Clearly, I am obsessed with eating and drinking and am in a country filled with fabulous bits to eat and drink. I see this less as a personal challenge to my health than a geographic one.

Number 2 on the list directed me to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. One of my delights here is the gorgeous produce. Today’s market run alone provided a billowing head of lettuce, crisp endive, lean leeks, tiny tight Brussels sprouts and shiny clementines. I could also endure vegetarian entrees (at home) and whole grains are delivered every breakfast and lunch in the form of fabulous bread from the bakery. Three points for me.

But on the next action point, which sounds a lot like the first, I start to head downhill again.

Track how you feel — both physically and emotionally — after a meal or snack.

As my readers know, I am really, really happy after I eat.  And as long as I try to avoid all seven servings of fruits and vegetables a day — I’ve tried, this is empirically tested —  I feel physically pretty good. I don’t think this was the direction the nutritionists were hoping to take me.

This life makeover agenda continues on to moving and breathing, of which I do a fair amount. Since I couldn’t be placed in an “advanced” fitness category, my daily walks around town — and many more miles if we have taken a day trip — satisfy the exercise criteria. I also do breath, often and slowly, at bakeries, in cheese shops . . . again, perhaps not what they had in mind.

As the life-reviving list draws to a close, I find myself even — just as likely to be able to commit to a healthier me than not while here. But at the closer, and let us assume it is an important point that draws us to a conclusion, it seems I am positioned to earn super bonus points. “Unburden Your Brain,” the title declares, and celebrate your life:

List the people, things, or events for which you feel grateful today.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am in Belgium. Score.

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The “In Bruges” Tour in Bruges

With much thanks to InBruges.info, we took advantage of the January weekend train deal — a “shopping ticket” that delivers us anywhere in Belgium for only 9 euros — to explore the parts of Bruges put to cinematic light in blog title-inspiring movie “In Bruges.” With a map in one mittened hand and a movie-bearing ipod in the other, we set off into the now nearly deserted streets of this picturesque city.

Laugh as you may, the tiny ipod screen view came in handy. At the hotel we were unsure as to whether they could have shot the scene there, or had to use movie magic in cutting to a different location. Pull out the  movie, and there it is: Colin Farrel (or his stunt double) jumping out the lead-glass window of the actual hotel into the actual canal, and Ralph Fiennes leaning over the rail beside the place to shoot at him.

Burg in Bruges

It also provided for pure amusement, as we used it to view the final scene, which takes place in the Gruuthuis courtyard and depicts the point-of-view of Ray gazing up from his stretcher at the sky, snow and lovely architectural details all around him. (Only later did it occur to us that we should have reenacted the scene, laying on the ground, perhaps squirting about a bit of ketchup, for the added delight of the photo-snapping group of Japanese tourists that followed us into the courtyard.)

Yuri's House, "In Bruges"

Finally, in search of Yuri’s house — mislabeled as “Koningstraat” on the map we’d been following — it was simple enough to fast forward to the scene of Ken approaching the place along a canal on a day remarkably as gray as our own, and then turning the corner to a good detail of the door frame. (It is on Verversdijk, by the way.)

As a reason to wander, a treasure hunt of places, so to speak, it was a great way to walk the city. We hit all the major sites as well as a few less visited ones. In Yuri’s neighborhood of wide canals lined with stately tall homes, we commented amongst ourselves: If I were a gun smuggler, I’d live here too. We strolled through Koningin Astridpark, where I had played myself many years before. And I had to giggle thinking Ray (the disgruntled main character, who is constantly bemoaning that “Bruges is a shithole.”) may have been more amused by his situation had his fictionalized hotel actually been next door to an upscale S&M sex shop, as is the actual location where they filmed.

At least he would have been contented with how we concluded our tour: a few beers at a dark and cozy bar on a cobblestone Bruges street.

Frozen Bruges Canal

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A Leisurely Saturday Ends in Escargot

Of the appeals of life here are  a slower pace, which we take advantage of regularly, and simple delights that make for culinary delicacies elsewhere, which we take advantage of even more frequently. So it is that we found ourselves with a leisurely Saturday afternoon begging for a long stroll before supper.

It was yet another snowy day, which left what might have been sidewalks and streets of fervent weekend activity vacant and tranquil. Here and there we passed a parent tugging a sleigh on which their child was camped or the rare sole sweeping and scraping at their front walkway. Mostly, however, we were on our own as we wandered along a bike path beside the train line, through the side streets of the next town, up the hill past the church and back down again to the front entrance to the former Arenberg Castle, now part of the university campus. We continued through the woods, winding

snow tracks

our way on small paths until we popped out onto the main ring road that circles our small city. Stopping into the grocery store on our way back home, we selected a gorgeous head of cauliflower (worthy of a farmer’s market prize) and a frozen tin plate of prepared escargots Bourgogne (which we planned to cook in our newly acquired escargot dish). With our groceries, which also included a four-pack of chocolate mousse that found its way into our basket, we headed home as the  blue light of the early sundown cast its hue over the cold and wintry landscape.

The escargot and pureed cauliflower soup supper turned out delightfully well. We are now on the lookout, however, for a set of tiny forks and those personal snail shell clamps.  Perhaps on our next stroll.

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