Multi-Lingual-Temporary-Amnesia-Panic Syndrome

Post by An American in Luxembourg.

LUXEMBOURG ARDENNES MOUNTAIN BIKING

Post by An American in Luxembourg.

FRENCH CLASS, THE BEGINNING

Post by An American in Luxembourg.

BIKER.LU and HEMORIDE

Post by An American in Luxembourg.

BELLINGHAM VS. LUXEMBOURG

Post by An American in Luxembourg.

MY STRAVA HEAT MAP

Check this out: it's my Strava heat map since I moved to Luxembourg about six months ago. I've pretty much covered the whole country!

Post by An American in Luxembourg.

LUXEMBOURG DRIVING

The other day, mon frère d’Luxembourg, Fränz Schneider (pictured) texts me, asking if I want to go for a ride in his Porsche. Sure, say I. I’m not a car aficionado by any stretch, but I know a cool car when I see one and Fränz’s 1985 Porshe Carrera 911, which I’d previously only seen sitting in his garage, is tres, sehr, immens kool! 

So Fränz picks me up and we head for the rural, winding roads of the beautiful Luxembourg countryside. Past waves of grain, fields of mooing cows and up and down curvy-swervey forest roads. The Porsche’s engine roars and growls as Franz winds each gear out to the max and expertly maneuvers through serpentine turns—it’s really quite exciting!

Thing is, I’m not quite used to this. In the past six months, I’ve been in a car maybe four times and I’ve never been a particularly comfortable front seat passenger. Plus, I’ve never been in Porsche before, let alone not one zooming across the European countryside on curlicue roads not much wider than a sidewalk. 

Thus, my feet are pumping imaginary brakes pedals left and right and I’m desperately searching for handholds to get a grip. Searching too for somewhere in the car to point my mouth should I have no choice but to toss my cookies in this vomit comet. A couple times, I check the mirror because I’m curious if a person really does turn green when they’re nauseous. (They do.)

For his part, Fränz senses my discomfort and sets out to put me at ease. Men are like that; they’ll help each other out whenever they sense that another of their kind is in need. For instance in this case, Fränz starts driving about twice as fast. He winds each gear out even higher so that the roar and growl are deafening, and he seems hell-bent on finding the curviest narrowest, one-lane roads in all of Europe. At one point, when he floors it going straight up a hill, the passing scenery speeds by in such a blur I feel like I’m in the Millennium Falcon when it jumps it to light speed. Oh, and Fränz is laughing at me and my terrified reactions the whole time too. So there’s that. 

Actually, Fränz does try to help me out. 

“Maybe you won’t feel so sick if you drive,” he says, and he pulls off to the side of the road and stops. 

Again, I’m not a car guy per se, but I do know that in the future, it’d be pretty cool to look back on that one time I drove a Porsche Carrera 911 in Europe, even if the whole time, I felt like I was gonna hurl. So I jump at the chance and after some struggle getting out, Fränz and I switch places . (The car is so low, that getting out from the passenger seat feels like I’m getting out of a sleeping bag after a night spent on the ground.) 

I have to say, that sitting in the low cockpit, gripping that tiny, Speed Racer-type steering wheel in my hands, my nausea instantly subsided. To be replaced by high anxiety—not only have I not driven a car in half a year, but this is a Porsche for Chrissake, and my friend’s most prized possession; the last thing I wanna do is crack it up. So I take it slow. Really slow. In the rear-view mirror, I swear I can see cars backed up all the way to Brussels but I don’t care, I’m not gonna crash Fränz’s car. And even though I never get beyond third gear or above 50K per hour, the Porsche growls like I’m lettin’ her unwind on a straightaway at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. It makes me extremely nervous. 

Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I decide I’d rather be a nauseous passenger on the verge of throwing up than suffer a full-on panic attack while behind the wheel of Fränz’s car. So I pull over and let him drive us back to d’Stad. On the way, I just closed my eyes, stuck my fingers in my ears and tried to think happy thoughts. 

All in all though, I’d have to say, it was another fun time with mon Luxembourg frère, Fränz.

TOUR DE FRANCE PUBLICITY CARAVAN

Here’s something that happened last Sunday in Paris during my amazing day with the Luxembourg car in the Tour de France Publicity Caravan. 

-After following the course past the Louvre, Tuileries Garden, Place de la Concorde, up the Champs Elysees and around the Arc de Triomphe, then back down the Champs to the Place—all of it lined six-deep with eager cycling fans, our car pulled into a barricaded-off parking area for the caravan’s 200-plus vehicles. There’s a bit of fun, end-of-Tour mayhem as the caravan’s young folk chase each other around the vehicles, squirting each other with water and just letting off some steam. 

They’ve driven some 5,000 miles in the previous three weeks, not only each day’s racecourse—during which they smile and wave, toss swag to the crowd and in general, be the appealing face of Luxembourg—but also the many miles between each stage’s location. Just the day before, after caravanning the day’s stage, they’d driven some 400 miles from the Alps to Versailles. Their days are so full that they pretty much never get to see the race itself. 
Personally, I had no steam to let off, plus I’m 30 years older than most of them so I wasn’t inclined to get in on the chasing and squirting. Besides, I was already drenched myself. Just before parking, our car was water-bombed twice by another vehicle. (I’m not sure by whom; it might’ve been the Madeleines float.) So much so that not only were my clothes soaked but everything in my wallet was wet and in my running shoes, my feet had that inches-deep-of-water feeling.

So I went to have me a look-see around. How close were we to the finish line? (The racers wouldn’t arrive in Paris for another hour or so.) Can I get some good pictures? Are we close to the obelisk and those fountains at the Place de la Concorde? I took note too, of the poor slobs—that is, fans—lining the racecourse on the other side of the barricades that surrounded the caravan. What chumps, I thought to myself. Packed in like sardines. Sweaty and no doubt stinky as hell on this brutally hot July afternoon. Earlier, I’d heard that we caravan folks would have a special area from which to watch the racers pass by on their multiple circuits. I had to admit: life was much better on this side of the barricades.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a gendarme charges toward me, yelling for me to get back on the other side of the barrier. (I assume that’s what he was yelling; it was in French.) Apparently, he thinks I’m one of them—the folks on the other side—and that I’ve climbed over the barricade and am now trying to pass myself off as one of the caravan people. 

“But I’m with the Luxembourg car,” I plead. 

And pretty much as soon as I hear my own American-English, born-and-raised-in-New-Jersey voice say these words, I know I’m done for. I have no credentials; no cool, laminated I.D. badge thingee around my neck. I’m just a 51-year-old American who’s soaking wet for some reason and is hanging around near the caravan vehicles. I wouldn’t have believed me either. And given what happened at this year’s Boston Marathon, I can’t blame the gendarme’s overzealousness. My hosts from Luxembourg’s Ministry of Tourisme rush over to plead my case, but to no avail. Without credentials or an I.D. badge I’m not supposed to be there.

With the gendarme’s hand in the middle of my back pushing me forward, I’m forced to the other side of the barricades and left to fend for myself.

Just like everyone else.

LUXEMBOURG LANGUAGE MUSINGS

-Before I moved to Luxembourg, if I read on someone’s Facebook profile that they claimed to speak three or four languages, I’d have one of several thoughts: 

1) Bullshit, they’re lying. Nobody speaks that many different languages except maybe the Most Interesting Man in the World from the Dos Equis commercials and he’s made up, OR 

2) if they really do speak that many different languages and they’re posting about it on Facebook, they must be some needy, insecure type and are only posting about it because they’re seeking attention: “Hey, look at me everybody, I speak five different languages, aren’t I the Shiz?” 

Or 3) if they really do speak that many different languages (alternative supposition), they must have super-human intelligence and crazy-mad life skillz and be of such a higher level of all-around life competency that were I ever to find myself in their presence, I’d automatically start drooling down the front of my shirt while mumbling incomprehensible dumbness. In short, I’d turn into Homer Simpson.

Well hey, guess what—EVERYBODY in Luxembourg speaks 13 different languages! OK, 13 is an exaggeration, but at least 4, which usually means six or seven because along with Lëtzebuergish, French, German and English, they usually also speak “a little Portuguesish, some Italian and I’m just learning Spanish, but I’m not very good yet.”

Even folks working behind the counter at McDonald’s? 
Oui.

How ‘bout the hoagie-makers at Subway? 
Ja.

Starbucks? 
There are no Starbucks in Luxembourg.

How ‘bout the public restroom attendant lady who takes the money when you pay half a Euro to go potty? 
Jo. (That’s Lëtzebuergish for ‘yes.’)

I’m more than a little embarrassed that I speak only English. Last week though while on a bike ride with some Lëtzebuergish and Dutch cyclists, one of the Dutch riders tried to ease my embarrassment. 

“You live in a big country, so you don’t need to speak another language,” he said. “If you live in a small country like we do and you want to talk to people who live next to you, you need to speak other languages.”

That’s a good point and in my defense, I do honor my neighbors to the north by being able to speak some Canadian: ‘May I have a serviette, eh?’, ‘Where’s the washroom, eh?’, ‘Can I get some vinegar for my fries, eh?’, ‘Where’s the nearest Timmy’s, eh?’ ‘May I have a couple loonies for this toonie, eh?’ However, when it comes my neighbor to the south, Mexico, sadly I speak no Spanish beyond ‘No problemo,’ which I don’t think is even correct.

It’s a way of doing things that I don’t want to continue during my time here in Luxembourg. So, meaning nothing but respect to the Grand Duchy’s three official languages, I’ve come up with McQuaidembuergish, an ever-evolving mash-up of Lëtzebuergish, French and German. Here’s a sample:

Ah, c’est une schöne dag! Ech gehe Vëlo feuren unter den Soleil an blau … uh, skyen. Ech Vëlo feuren op grossen Biergen und entrer den Pain Cave. (Maybe that should be ‘Mal Cave’; I don’t mean ‘bread cave.’) Alles ass gudd mat le monde! 

Pretty sweet, eh?

Esch-sur-Sûre Mountain Biking

Amazing ride on Monday with the excellent Ferdy Adam, Claude and Christian (who own 

S-Cape Sports in Redange, and some friendly Dutch folks whose names completely escape me. We rode up, down and around Upper Sûre Lake (Stauséi Uewersaue), a reservoir that is Luxembourg's largest body of water and main water supply.

 It's a beautiful, sparsely populated area in the rolling hill country of the Ardennes. Speaking of which, we passed a spot that had two big guns from the Battle of the Bulge and passed through a forest where during World War II, some Luxembourg citizens hid in the woods for several years to avoid having to join the German Army. This place just drips with history!

LUXEMBOURG HIKING - NaturWanderPark delux

Vianden Castle

Just got back from spending three days hiking and dining with some European journalists and bloggers in Luxembourg’s Mullerthal and Ardennes regions. Absolutely beautifully breathtakingly stunning nice and fun! We were exploring a few of the trails in the new , a joint Deutschland-Luxembourg (de-lux, get it?) tourism project that offers hikes that loop through both countries, sometimes crossing the Our River to do so. 

Here’re some quick-hit impressions:

-The Mullerthal region (oft referred to as Little Switzerland; Petite Suisse Luxembourgeoise ) has some amazing hiking trails that meander through bizarrely sculpted sandstone rock formations. For you Northwest folks, much of them are exactly like the sandstone bluffs along Chuckanut Bay—except they’re in middle of the woods in a landlocked European country! Farther north, the Ardennes hills surrounding Vianden offer sweeping views down into the Our River valley and the patchwork of forests, fields and farmland on both the Luxembourg and German sides. 

Cool rock formations along the Mullerthal trail.

-Where I live in America, crossing the border from the U.S. into Canada can sometimes take an hour-and-a-half of waiting in line in your car, inhaling auto and truck exhaust, being forced to listen to krappy tunes coming from other cars, all culminating perhaps with a drug-sniffing dog rummaging through your car for drugs and/or illegal immigrants. So it’s refreshingly fun and freeing to cross back and forth between two countries as simply and easily as if you were taking the next step on your mindless saunter out to the kitchen to see if they were any croissants left over from breakfast. 

It’s sort of ironic to the think about too: the U.S. and Canada have been never been at odds militarily and yet to cross from one to the other requires such effort, preparation and a following of myriad rules and regulations. However, even though Luxembourg and Germany have a history of conflict (e.g., the Nazis occupied Luxembourg during World War II) crossing from one to the other couldn’t be easier. On my Mullerthal-Ardennes visit, sometimes all it took was walking across the bridge spanning the Our River; in other spots, the border is marked by a widely-spaced row of short, cement blocks. One could--and one did quite often--stand on one of these block so he could say that he was in two countries at once. 

My right arm is in Luxembourg, my left in Germany.

-Castles are my new bald eagle. What I mean is this—when I first moved from New Jersey to the Northwest, I couldn’t believe how common bald eagles were. I’d never seen one before, yet during salmon spawning it’s not uncommon in Washington State to see 30 eagles in a single tree. So I spent much of my first few years there in open-mouthed wonder. Similarly, I have no experience with castles.

“We don’t have castles in America,” I said during this trip to one of my new friends, a journalist from Germany. She appeared stunned.

So I spent much of these three days in gape-mouthed wonder, especially during our 90-minute explore of spectacular Le Château de Vianden. 

Inside the chapel at Vianden Castle.

-The Mullerthal and Vianden region would be AMAZING for trail running. (Though I hiked about 25 miles during my three-day visit, I didn’t get a chance to go running.) Lots of single- and double-track, mega-ups and mega-downs, stunning vistas, terrific signage to keep from getting lost, castles (CASTLES!), Europey-looking villages and more—can’t wait to get back up there and put running-shoe tread to trail!

Trail running the Mullerthal. 

-The Mullerthal and Vianden region is rollicking big-time fun for mountain biking. (See above, the only difference being that just before my hiking trip, I rode a 70K mountain bike randonnee in the Mullerthal and thus I’ve experienced its fat-tire goodness first-hand.)

-With smooth, curvy-swervey paved roads that go up, up, and up, and sometimes culminate with an ancient castle (A CASTLE!), I simply can’t wait to head up there on my road bike! (‘Cause there’re castles ‘n’ all.) 

-They have green woodpeckers in Luxembourg. (GREEN woodpeckers!) I didn’t actually see one, but I did see a picture of one in our guide Marco’s guidebook. We did see a den hole for a badger though. (Honey badger?)

-Beds in Luxembourg and Germany don’t seem to have top sheets.

-When you’re at a restaurant and you’re done eating, place your knife and fork on your plate at 4 o’clock otherwise the waiter thinks you’re still eating and won’t take your plate away. 

Burg Falkenstein, Germany

LUXEMBOURG MYSTERY SOUND

Please enjoy some random bike photos with this story.

This is the first time I’ve lived in a city apartment in about 20 years and I have to say, I’m really enjoying it. I like not having a car and thus, not paying for gas, insurance, maintenance, registration tabs, etc. It’s fun relying on public transportation, my bike or walking to get around.

Granted, the rental management company (agence immobiliere) seems to be run by a band of chucklehead teens up to no good. We’ll call them up to let them know there’s a problem—“Our half-melted bathroom light fixture is still shooting sparks at us whenever we turn it on; are you going to send someone out to fix it like you told us six weeks ago?—and swear we hear snickering on the other end of the line.

“Oui, oui, Monsieur, someone will get right back to you,” they say, amid barely suppressed giggle fits.

Then nothing. No one ever comes out to fix anything.

I imagine we’re the subjects of some YouTube video in which unsuspecting tenants are shown being repeatedly lied to over the phone by pranking agence immobiliere employees whose goal it is to make the tenants snap.

But other than that, everything’s fine. And I love my new rituals. My morning walks down to the bakery on the corner for croissants and muffins. My thrice-weekly runs through the historic and beautiful Petrusse Valley, which is less than a kilometer away. Our easy jaunts into the city Centre where the pretty people hang out. Also, our son’s school is right across the street from our apartment. It’s all good.

In recent days, however, I’d become intrigued by what I soon termed the Mystery Sound. A sort-of repetitive rhythmic Whoomp-Whoomp-Whoomp, which at first I took to be the upstairs couple in the throes of horizontal passion. But the Whoomping  would go on for hours. And unless the guy was suffering one of the side effects I’ve heard about on the Viagra and Cialis commercials—no, not the sudden vision loss or ringing in the ears—that wasn’t likely.

Whoomp-Whoomp-Whoomp …

And then it would stop for a few hours.

And then start up again.

Whoomp-Whoomp-Whoomp …

After establishing that it wasn’t coming from anywhere inside our apartment, the next time the Whoomping started, I ventured out into the hallway and began listening outside our neighbors’ doorways. Perhaps a fellow tenant was using one of those Nordic Track indoor cross-country ski trainers? And given their multi-hour-long workouts, maybe he or she is a future Olympian. Perhaps one I could befriend and whom with gift me with tickets to next year’s Winter Games in Russia!

But, no, I heard nothing at either neighbor’s doorway.

I climbed the stairs to the floor above and the Whoomping got quieter. Aha! It’s coming from below. Now we’re getting somewhere. I sprinted down to the lobby but as soon as I got there, the Whoomping stopped. I’d have to wait to find the Whoomping source, but that was OK. I was creeping ever closer to discovering the source of the Mystery Sound.

The next day, as soon as the Whoomping started, I flew down to the lobby, where it sounded like two rhinoceroses were taking turns butting their giant horned heads against a wall down below. Opening the door to the dungeon-like basement, the sound was so loud I couldn’t help but wince with each Whoomp!

I soldiered on down the stairs, step-by-step, in a sort-of sideways, slightly crouched defensive position, fists clenched and forearms up should I need to shield my face from an attack. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, I followed the sound to an unmarked door from where the Whoomping sound was definitely emanating.

I was nervous. I was scared. With the loud Whoomping now throbbing in my head, I turned the knob, thrust open the door and leapt inside, grunting threateningly with great menace! But not too great of menace. Just in case there was someone inside the room and I needed my threatening grunt to be interpreted as just a loud cough.

My eyes darted all around the empty room, which appeared to be a catch-all storage, electrical, heating, utility-type space. Over in a corner, I found my great white whale, the source of all Whoomping: a techy-looking green cube stuck to the wall amid a jumble of pipes and wires. A small light flashed with each pulsating Whoomp! It was as if the green cube had come to life and was barking at me.

I ventured a closer look; printing on the cube read: Wasseraufbereitung. I whipped out my smartphone and Google-translated Wasseraufbereitung. I suspected it meant detonator. Or Time bomb. Or possibly C4 Explosive Cube!

Instead, the translator came back with … Water Treatment.

Oh. It’s some sort of water treatment thingy. I know Luxembourg has a funky water issue wherein everything gets coated with calcium or sandstone or something. And that you buy detergent and dishwashing soap with special de-scaling agents; the Wasseraufbereitung must deal with that.  It’s then that I notice a clear hose leading from the cube down to a box on the floor marked ‘Minerals.’ Ah.

But why the Whoomping, and the flashing lights? Common sense would dictate that I check with the agence immobilier. But I know that won’t get me anywhere.

‘Cept onto another YouTube prank video.

LANGUAGES OF LUXEMBOURG

The multiple-language skills of the people I’ve met here in Luxembourg have been mind-boggling. However, even they are not above picking the wrong word or word form now and then. (And please know that I am in no way criticizing; they are so far beyond me in linguistic dexterity that it’s embarrassing.) 

-My Luxembourgish mountain-biking friends use the word ‘funny’ for ‘fun.’ 

“There’re great trails above Hesperange,” they'll tell me. “They’re really cool, man. You’ll love it. They’re really funny.”

So for a moment I envision a trail strewn with jokes and pranks: banana peels to make us slip and fall, overturned buckets raining confetti down on our heads, a Monty Python-esque Ministry of Silly Riding demonstration, etc.—all to a Yackety Sax soundtrack.

-Last week, I visited the Luxembourg City tourist office to pick up a cycling map. I enjoyed a brief social banter with the woman behind the counter—not sure exactly which European country she was from—whose English was at least as good as mine. But when I left, she nodded her head good-bye and said, “So, Mister. Please.”

(Made me feel a little better for the countless times I’ve left some shop and said, “Bonjour.”) 

Here’s another language-based tidbit:

-During one of my first days here, I went to a pizza joint around the corner to order some dinner. The pizza maker was a skinny guy in his 30s who spoke Italian and a little French, but no English. Luckily though, a woman who works in the bakery down the street and whom I see almost every day, was there just hanging around. Thing is, while she’s French and also speaks German, she speaks no English. I speak a wee, tiny, miniscule bit of 7th-grade German and so with a lot of hand gestures, nodding and head shaking, we combined forces to translate my German to her French to the pizza maker’s Italian.

I began: “Pizza … gross (large), mit uh, … käse (cheese) … und pepperoni?” I’m stumped; I have no idea what the German word is for pepperoni, but I see salami on the menu.

“Salami. Zwei (two) salami- käse pizzas. Ein (one) gross, ein … uh, nicht so gross,” and motion with my hands to get my point across that I also want a medium.

This was transformed by the bakery woman into lots of pretty sounds (French) and by the pizza maker in Fellini movie-sounding Italian which he then barked at some kid who, until this point had been folding pizza boxes in the corner.

While an overhead TV played music videos, I waited for my pizzas. I attempted to make small talk with the bakery woman who was now seated reading a book. Let’s see, what German phrases do I know? “Jochen, bist du im garten?” (Jochen, are you in the garden?) Not really applicable here.

“Mein name ist Mike,” I say.

“Ah,” she says, somewhat humoring me. “Mein name ist (something that started with a ‘V’ but that I couldn’t understand even after asking her to repeat it three times.)

She went back to reading, but I didn’t want to give up; I find it fascinating to try to communicate with others in foreign languages I can’t understand.

“Ich schreibe,” I say. “Ich schreibe buchs. (I write books.)”

She held up the book she was reading and said something that I assume was, ‘Books like this?’ It was a girly-ish novel with a French title.

I said, guidebooks, and I acted out running, hiking and biking by making exaggerated walking and pedaling motions.

“Ahh, velo?“ she said.

“Yes—oui, velo,” I said, fairly unable to control my excitement at now having switched from German to French. Am I the shiz or what? (Suis-je le shiz ou quoi?)

On my smartphone, I went to amazon.com and showed her some of the books I’d written. She nodded her head as she scrolled through the site. When she was done, out of curiosity, I looked up the book that she was reading: “Cinquante nuances de Grey.” (50 Shades of Grey.)

No, I don’t write books like that.

IN WHICH WE'RE VISITED BY A GERMAN ELECTRICIAN

Last week, we had a German electrician in to fix a bathroom light fixture that’d been melted away by the previous tenant. (Only took the agence immobiliere seven weeks to get someone out here but, I digress…) The electrician wasn’t brusque exactly, maybe just all-business. As in: get in, get the job done and get out. For about an hour he was in our bathroom banging away. From time to time, I heard his harsh German voice aggressively arguing with someone via his cellphone. (Or maybe he was just having a normal German conversation; it was hard to tell.) Once or twice I heard the word, ‘Kaput!’

Eventually, he emerged from the bathroom, toolbox in hand and, in very calm clear English, declared the job done. He had me sign some papers and turned to leave, but suddenly found himself in the mood to tell me about his various trips to America. 

“I was there before,” he says. “Lots of times. Florida. Uh, … Orlando. The place with all the parks.”

“Oh yeah, like Disney World?” I say.

“No, not Disney World. That’s for the little children,” he says. “I like the, uh … Harry Potter World! That was cool! They have this one ride—you feel just like you’re flying! Flying with Harry Potter—I loved that!” 

He also told me that he owned some kind of race car and that he once had it shipped over to Nashville. I thought he was going to detail some sort of racing he did there. (Rally car? NASCAR?) But instead, he was practically breathless with excitement as he told me how loud and powerful the sound system was in this race car. How he’d installed this and that, and how many decibels, watts, etc. that it pumped out. He never once said anything about racing or even driving the car. I nodded as if I understood perfectly, but I was thoroughly confused. 

Lastly, he told me about his upcoming trip to Las Vegas and Hawaii and Phoenix. (The mention of Phoenix often causes a knee-jerk reaction wherein I launch into the Ironman triathlon I once did there—see, I did it again!) 

“Phoenix wasn’t my choice,” he says. “I wanted to go to that place where they have the bridge. The big red bridge.”

Red bridge in Arizona? Maybe he means red rocks, I wonder.

“Sedona? Or the Grand Canyon?” I offer. 

“No, the big red bridge. In California, Francisco.”

“The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s it,” he says. “But the tour wasn’t going there. I go to the red bridge next time.”

Sounds like a plan.

LUXEMBOURG SPACE AND TIME

Luxembourg is a tiny country. For you Bellinghamsters, from east to west Luxembourg is about as wide as the distance from Bellingham to Glacier; north-south it’s about from Bellingham to Everett. Yet, within that 999 square miles, they have three official languages—Luxembourgish, French and German. English is not an official one but most people here speak it, or at least “a lee-tel bit,” usually said while wincing and holding up a hand to show a small space between thumb and index finger. Go to an cash machine here  and you have five language options, the above four and Portuguese.  (There are some 60,000 Portuguese or people of Portuguese descent in Luxembourg, about 13 percent of the total population.)

Lots of people seem to think that Luxembourg is a city in another country. When we’d tell people we were moving here, many said, “That’s in Germany, right?” When my mother went to her local post office in Florida to mail me a letter, the woman behind the counter insisted that my mother include a country. Even though my mother had properly addressed the letter.

“Don’t blame me when it doesn’t get there,” the woman said.  

Luxembourg is a small country so it makes sense that its postal codes are short: an ‘L’, followed by four digits. (Ours is L-2128, for anyone who’d like to send us unsolicited checks.) Phone numbers are a different story. They seem to be six, seven, sometimes eight numbers. I’m never really sure. Timewise, Luxembourg goes by the 24-hour clock, which I’m pretty good at until I get to about 17:00, which takes me a moment to realize is 5, not 7 p.m.  I get better again when it gets to 22:00, which I know is 10 p.m. From there, I’m fine. 23.00 is the 11^th hour, as it were. Datewise, though I’m still pretty screwed. The day and month are switched. So a day like today, April 3 (4/3/2013), is especially confusing because here it’s 3/4/2013. But wasn’t that last month, my brain keeps asking.

LUXEMBOURG CITY RIDE VIDEO

Here's a pretty cool video I shot a couple days ago of some of Luxembourg's amazing landmarks. I also happened upon a road cyclist who let me tag along and I got great footage of us riding some of the city's narrow, skinny cobbled streets.

Finally got a pic of the above place too. Always puts me in mind of Galbraith Mountain where there're trails named Bob's and Not Bob's. Then Brian Ecker tagged me on facebook with the below pic:

Speaking of facebook, I started a new page. It's called An American in Luxembourg and focuses on this American (me) who's in Luxembourg (here). Check it out and please 'Like' it if you're so inclined.

LUXEMBOURG RANDONNEE VIDEO

Here's a 2-minute video from last Sunday's mountain bike randonnee near Kayl, Luxembourg, just a few miles from the border with France. The dude in yellow pants who shows up a lot is my friend, Franz Schneider, impresario of the way-useful biker.lu site.

I've been riding two or three times a week with Franz; he's been an excellent tour guide to the beautiful Luxembourg countryside. Here's a shot Franz took from yesterday's snow-filled ride.

LUXEMBOURG MEANDERINGS

Here're some more thoughts, observations from our first three-and-a-half weeks in Luxembourg:

Things I like about Luxembourg:

-       The Milka chocolate; in fact, chocolate here in general is the bomb!

-       The mélange or, as the kids say, mash-up of languages that’re everywhere—this morning I went to a bakery and said "Moien" (Luxembourgish) as I entered, ordered "ein poche pomme und ein muffin chocolat, bitte" (German), said "Merci," (French) and, for good measure, "Vielen Dank" (German) when I exchanged my money for food, and "Atty" (Lux) as I bid adieu. (I’m sure it’s a mess, but I have fun trying.) 

-       The cobbled streets, narrow alleyways and stone arches that are everywhere.

-       Turning a corner and having my breath taken away by one surprise vista after another—a stone bridge over a winding river, fortress walls built into sandstone bluffs, gonging church bells, steep-pitched Europey- rooftops, etc. History is everywhere here, it seems.

-       Poking my head into a hundreds-years-old church or cathedral and being gifted with a practicing choir or someone jamming on the church organ.

-       While riding my bike, finding yet another steep cobbled street that beckons me to attack it as if I were Tom Boonen pulling the peloton into a spot of bother.

-       The buses and train system.

-       The paved bike paths, bike lanes and signage for each.

-       That people have been super nice.

-       Franz Schneider and his biker.lu cronies.

-       The Petrusse Valley.

-       Baguettes from Fischer bakeries.  

-       Having Eurovision HD on my cable TV system. (Along with beaucoup cycling, they've been showing a lot of biathlon, ski jumping, women’s soccer and snooker.)

-       That there appears to be no sprawl here.

Things I don’t like about Luxembourg

-       There are no Starbucks.

-       Everything, EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays.

-       It’s crazy expensive to live here.

-       The weather hasn’t been the greatest so far. Probably three excellent days, seven days of snow (it looked like a blizzard outside much of today), the rest mostly gray.

-       Our apartment is great but whomever manages it, their website should be www.wedon’tgiveacrap.com

-       I don’t have a guitar here.

Things I’ve found sort of odd, interesting, different from the U.S.

-       That the female bathroom attendant at the gare (train station) told me that it was 60 cents “to go pee-pee”, 1.10 euro if I needed to do something else (as it were).

-       No one seems to pay to ride the city buses and the drivers seem almost annoyed when you do.

-       Check-out cashiers at grocery stores are seated.

-       Everything, EVERYTHING is closed on Sundays.

-       There are no Starbucks.

-       Besides McDonalds the other American fast-food chain that’s common here is … Subway. (???)

-       Watching “The Voice Italy” and “The Voice Belgium”