A special visitor, a special place

My niece, Maddie, is visiting us this month!  It's her first big European trip on her own.

This weekend we took her to the Groot Begijnhof (Beguinage) here in Leuven.  It's a neat place, like a tiny city within a city, founded in the 13th century as a community for unmarried, widowed or temporarily single (when their husbands went on crusades) Catholic women (but not nuns).  They had everything they needed within the walls of the city.  Quite a feminist idea for those times!

These days, the houses have all been renovated by the university and are used for housing for students and visiting professors.

Row, row, row your boat...

For the past several weeks I've been doing the Matt Roberts "I Will Make You Fit Fast" program (which I think I've blogged about before).  It's a 12-week program of workouts by a well-known UK trainer.  I have two of his books and I've always really liked them.

The great thing about the program I'm doing now is the variation in the workouts, which challenges me to do different things and get out of my usual routine.  I'm on week 7 now, and plan to finish the entire 12 weeks by the beginning of September, allowing a couple weeks off for when we're on vacation.

So yesterday rowing was on the plan, a gym machine I hardly ever use.  There are three rowers at the gym, and there was a young guy on the middle one, so I took the one on the left, and an older lady I know was on the one on the right.  I quickly got into a rhythm and was very focused on watching the distance I was doing (I had to do 2200 meters), when the lady called over to me, "He's moving forward!"

I looked up and yes, indeed, our fellow rowing dude's entire machine had moved about a meter forward into the aisle, and was inching further!  I had to stop myself from laughing out loud, it was so funny!  And I wasn't even sure if the guy realized it, as he kept rowing away!  Should I tap him on the shoulder and warn him?  I figured that there could have been no way he hadn't noticed he was moving forward, though, and after a few minutes he stopped, got off his machine and sheepishly pulled it back to its original position.  But the other lady and I both congratulated him - "wow! awesome rowing!" - and so then he smiled and looked kind of proud of himself.  I was glad we made him feel better about it, but I made a mental note to avoid the middle rower in future.

16K "Dropping"

Ingrid and I had been planning to do what we were calling a "dropping" for several weeks. We wanted to challenge ourselves with a 15K walk and so I figured out where we could start, and planned out the route so that it would take us about 15 kilometers to walk back home. And then I asked my oldest son, who recently got his driver's license, if he would drop us off at our starting point. "Sure," he said, "but technically, that's not a dropping." Oh, yeah? "A dropping is when you get dropped somewhere without a clue how to get back or even knowing where you are, not to mention how far you are going to walk and the exact route, Mom!" Hmmm. Well, we still are calling it a dropping, because we got dropped off and we walked back. In my book, that's a dropping. And we were pretty darn proud of oursevlves for completing it: It was a gorgeous sunny day and we had a great time. The route we picked had some really nice paths, a lot of variety and some decent hills. By the time we approached our home stretch, after three and half hours, we were definitely feeling it. Before we parted we stopped the Garmin so we could see how many calories we had burned (830) - and then we both headed home, which was another 400 meters or so (I started a new route on my Garmin on the way home just to be sure). Which means we did 16K - our longest distance to date. I was pooped when I got home and my legs were killing me. But I was very pleased with our accomplishment. The only downside to a dropping (well, our style of dropping) is that the last stretch is a bit too familiar (= boring), being in our own neighborhood, and since we don't finish together, we don't get to share a cold beer at a cafe afterwards...I think our dropping formula is going to need some further tweaking if we decide to do it again in the future. But it was fun to try for a change!

Random Act of Kindness: Anonymous Benefactor?

For the third day this week, we've had a very mysterious thing happen in our street:  someone has been putting a 10 euro bill in our mailboxes.

It started on Tuesday.  My neighbor came to ask me if we had checked our mail yet.  I hadn't and asked her why, and she said she had found a 10 euro bill in hers.  So I checked our mail and lo and behold, there was a 10 euro bill lying on top of the mail!  We were flabbergasted.  My neighbor started asking other people and by the end of the day, we knew of at least 6 other families who had received the money.

Then on Wednesday, it happened again.  There was another 10 euro bill put into the mailboxes along with the free advertising sheets we get on Wednesdays.  A bunch of us stood outside trying to figure out if the whole street had received money, and as it turned out, the only people who hadn't received anything were the people who had a sticker on their mailbox requesting no free advertising be placed in their box.

Yesterday, the press got wind of the whole thing, and they descended on our street.  My neighbor was interveiwed on the radio, the television, and there was a full page article in one of the national newspapers with a picture of a few of our neighbors (luckily I wasn't home when the reporters came - LOL!).  It was kind of crazy.  They even asked me if they could film our mailbox - the reporters wanted to do a reenactment of someone putting the money in - so I said sure.  So in the news report below, at the beginning, it's my mailbox they're filming and my neighbor Kristel who's being interviewed:

There's been a lot of speculation about who might be doing this - someone who recently won 5 million in the Lotto in our neighborhood? Is it because the name of our street means "savings street?" One news outlet is reporting this morning that it's an advertising stunt. Who could it be? It's been so interesting to see how people react to such a strange thing - a lot of people were very suspicious at first and wondered if it was real money. It did feel a bit creepy, but at the same time, I think it's best to give it a positive spin. Last year someone who inherited money from his mother did the same kind of thing in Koksijde, on the Belgian coast - three days in a row, he put 20 euro bills in all the mailboxes of two apartment buildings. Perhpas the person in our street was inspired by him? I have no idea but when I came home from the gym today there was another 10 euro bill in my mailbox. After thinking about it, I decided the best thing to do will be to donate the money to the Cancer League, since we've had so many friends and family affected by cancer over the years. In that way, the good karma will hopefully continue to spread! UPDATE: Well, as it turned out, it was indeed a publicity stunt...they did the same thing in Rue de l'Epargne (savings street) in Liege (French speaking part of Belgium). In the meantime I donated my 30 euros to an event taking place in Leuven today: Levensloop. This is a relay team running event to raise money for cancer and my son has friends who are running it, so I decided this was the perfect cause to support!

Happy Easter!

Wishing you all a happy Easter and a lovely day spent with those near and dear to you.  We are heading out later to my in-laws but I'm just puttering around, waiting for the four men in the house to wake up for brunch.  Fruit salad is already made and the chocolate eggs are on the table!

Ingrid and I met up for a walk yesterday and we were so lucky with the gorgeous weather!  We decided to
start our walk from the Arenberg Castle on the university campus, and from there, head into the paths that go south towards Korbeek-Dijle:


This has been one of our longest distances to date together. We are shooting for the 25 km Loop van Vlaanderen, but next year, not this year, as neither one of us has had the time to build up to that distance yet. Slow and steady wins the race, as the old saying goes, and we kept to our usual slow (conversational) walking pace. And rewarded ourselves with a delicious beer (La Chouffe) at one of the numerous cafes at the end of our route. Zalig!

Spring in bloom

We've had such a mild winter that everything seems to be blooming at once here.  So Stefaan and I decided to walk down to the city botanical garden to see for ourselves what was in bloom, which is a nice walk, 6 km round trip.  Here are some pics:

The fountain at the entrance will need some serious de-mossing!

The shape of this tree reminds me of a lung, and when you think about it, that's what trees are.

The camelias were at their peak.

Getting the pelargoniums started in one of the greenhouses.

Grumpypants

There were a lot of people out and about.  We usually take our Sunday walks out more in the direction of the countryside, so it was a fun change of pace to go into town.  The advantage to walking in town is that you can stop and have a coffee (or a beer) on your way home ;-)

Answer to a question and a funny story...

Kim asked in the comments of my post below, regarding the street sign I posted with both Dutch and Leuven dialect, if I spoke both languages.

I thought I'd answer her question here, because I have a funny story related to this and it's too long to put in a comment...

I speak Dutch and after living in Leuven for 25 years I understand words that come from local dialect. You don't really come across people who only speak dialect; most people here (and in other areas of Flanders) mix their general Dutch with dialect words and a local accent.  There is a cultural organization that seeks to keep local dialect alive by producing publications and presentations in it, but generally you'd never really hear it in daily life, except perhaps from elderly long-time inhabitants.

The funny thing is, when we were first married and lived in the center of town, we lived on a very narrow street with tiny houses, and we had an elderly neighbor lady, Hermine, who did speak dialect.  She was always out walking her dog, it seemed, and we would say hello and exchange a few words when we bumped into her.  Half the time I had no clue what she was saying but after a while I got used to the way she spoke and understood her better and better.  She must have noticed this improvement because one day she said to me, "You understand me much better now, don't you?"

I nodded and smiled.  Then she added, "So you're not from Leuven?"