La Galerie de Pierre Bergé & Associés

Look what's appearing on the Sablon in Brussels not far from Pierre Marcolini.

Living at home

Not just a Belgian phenomenon?

Despite the heinous exchange rate of 2 bucks to the pound, I did luck out in buying my Belgian chocolate before major price hikes. Quelle disastre!

As if mandatory voting wasn't a strange enough policy in Belgium, now they're trying to scrap it, which seems even stranger. Why is it that when people are given a choice, they become too lazy to decide? In some countries, people die trying to vote.

world record alcohol concentration?

Some Belgian headlines are exciting today. More Flemings are cycling to work and school and whatnot, and more people in Antwerp cycle to work or school than use public transport. While the latter is not so important or exciting in itself, it reflects an attitude towards cycling as the preferred method of transportation that you won't find even in the bike-friendliest American city.

Others are just plain bizarre and/or misleading. "No animals in pet shops," for example. Or "Increase in stalking." Best of all must be "Nieuwpoort man sets record" for the highest blood-alcohol concentration measured, 4.66 % (it is not explained whether this is a national or world record). I enjoy the judge's wit: "Congratulations! You're still alive. You hold the record. Blood-alcohol levels of 4 percent and higher have been measured, but that is usually during a post-mortem." A helpful comparison is also supplied: "A blood alcohol level of 4,66% is equal to drinking a barrel of beer and two bottles of wine in close succession." Could even the Poles or Russians top that?

oh the irony: "Belgian Defence Minister André Flahaut chartered a military helicopter to make it on time to a screening of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," according to La Libre Belgique.... The two-hour flight from Brussels to Hasselt produced 12 to 20 times more CO2 greenhouse gas than a car journey of the same distance."

So you don't just get fined if you don't vote in Belgium. If you're a student, you're normally required to work the polls. Won't they need more immigrants to work them this year, with students going into exams?

who's got the best rack?

Did a man or women append the comment, "The good news is, breast size is increasing across generations," to the news that "The biggest breasts in Europe are found in Britain, where one in every six women prides herself on cup D or larger. The Danes and the Dutch are the runners-up. Belgian women come in fourth. Only little more than half of the Belgian women wear a bra sized bigger than B."

45,000 missing

So much for Brussels being rated the best airport in Europe. Last year over 45,000 suitcases went missing. Where the hell could all those suitcases have gone? You can't just miss 45,000 suitcases lying around in some corner. The bending of the space-time continuum is clearly at work here.

The Belgians are getting taller and heavier. Not the most surprising news around the block. But Dutch men are the tallest Europeans, and Dutch women weigh the most in Europe, while Ireland has the biggest difference between the sexes. That's weird.

bad eurohabit

55% of Belgians buy mineral water and never drink tap water, a European habit that leads to many wasted resources. Not to mention thirsty and puzzled foreigners and expats. I really don't understand how this preference for mineral water arose. I dislike the taste myself.

Then again, in America we buy tons of bottled water (although water is free and falls from the sky -- even better than growing on trees) and then complain about the price of gas, which per gallon is cheaper than the price of bottled water.

expatica headlines

Sixty days of summer rain, and now that I've left, Belgium may well be set for the hottest fall ever. Life is so unjust.

It's difficult for me to see Europe's need to combat obesity. I never noticed how many grossly obese people walked the streets of the US until I came back from a year in Europe!

Go Belgian housewives!

poppy

I've grown up in California, I've lived in Belgium and cycled through its fields, I've spent a day in Ieper playing a concert and wandering the museum and standing beneath the Menin Gate to witness a special Last Post, and I've still hardly seen a single Flanders poppy, that beautiful, tragic symbol that bears no such meaning in California as it does to the Belgians and the English.

So it is the Dutch who most often evade Belgian speeding fines. No surprise. But doesn't that mean we can ignore our parking tickets in the Netherlands? I know someone on their Wanted List. :)

taal problemen

So Dutch is the 28th most "common" language in the world. But issuing loyalty cards to shopkeepers who speak only in Flemish to their customers? Sounds like a grade school measure. Maybe things have descended to that point.