Traffic 101 – Merging

It’s been a while since I posted something here (I discovered Facebook ) but I thought it was time for a new post, and it’s going to be a grumpy one, about how people (should (not)) behave in traffic. In particular I want to share a major frustration I regularly experience in my daily ventures on the Belgian roads, which is related to merging behavior.

The Belgian e-ID

A while ago I finally got my very own and totally personal e-ID card from our beloved government .

For those of you not familiar with Begium, all citizens here have an identity card which contains a number of personal information items (name, address, unique identification number – yes, they have us all neatly numbered over here – date of birth, gender, etc). We’ve had this for a long time, and it used to be a rather straightforward laminated cardboard card (well, actually a bit more sophisticated than that of course, with the necessary security features etc) which contained all information in plain human-readable form. Nice and simple because you always knew what was on it and everybody you showed it to could easily read the information.

Open Monumenten Dag

Last sunday we had “Open Monumenten Dag” here in Flanders (for those not familiar with Belgium: Flanders is the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium). On “Open Monument Day” sites not normally accessible to the public are opened to visitors (like factories, historic buildings, private gardens/houses of interest etc), and locations which normally charge an entrance fee can be visited for free (like museums etc). Usually this occasion draws a huge crowd, and not being a crowd-person myself, I usually steer well clear of any of the advertised locations on that particular day.

But since it was a sunny and relatively warm day, and I had my son with me for the weekend, I thought it might actually be fun for him, and decided to take part for the first time.

Five o’clock – A One-minute Story

It was five o’clock. He was waiting for the lights to turn green. The window rolled down to let the late afternoon warmth in, he looked around aimlessly at the bustle of evening rush hour traffic. People on foot, on bicycles, in cars, buses and trams, all on their way home from work. A chaotic tangle of people on the move, a busy whirring of bodies with one clear common goal: to get back together with the ones they love after a day’s work.

It had been a hot and sunny day, and everyone was eager to get home quickly. With a good few hours of daylight remaining, the evening promised to be long and lush, and full of beckoning opportunities. And as the sun not only warms the earth but also the hearts of people, that typical mild and laidback atmosphere of summer could be felt throughout the city. Over in the park children were playing in the sun, people were sitting on benches in the shade chatting, and everywhere commuters were wearing their friendly faces.

In the mood for love

The other day I was watching the movie In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar-Wai. It was the second time I saw it, the first was a number of years ago, when late one evening I stumbled upon it while browsing channels on TV.

I remember the movie had a big impact on me the first time I saw it. I was profoundly touched by it, I felt connected to the mood and to the story on a very deep emotional level. It was one of those movie-experiences where you turn off the TV after the movie ends because you don’t want to break the mood it got you in, and you just sit on the couch for a while thinking about what you saw and how it made you feel.

So when I was browsing the DVD section of the supermarket a while ago and came across a box with 2 movies by Wong Kar-Wai (In the Mood for Love and 2046) I bought it because I wanted to see that movie again, to relive the experience and share it with my girlfriend J, who had not yet seen it.

Holiday in Tuscany: 9. What to remember

As a final post in this series about my recent trip to Tuscany, here’s a wrap-up in the form of a list of things that struck me, things I will remember, and things that will make me go back there at some point in the future.

Apart from a ‘conclusion’ to the Holiday in Tuscany series, this post can also be used as a kind of summary if you don’t want to wade through all the other posts, as it provides a more succinct overview of (most of) the main points made in the other posts .

In general, our trip to Tuscany was a great vacation and we enjoyed our (short) stay very much, but we had to get used to a few peculiar aspects of Italian life.

Holiday in Tuscany: 8. Driving in Tuscany – Chasing the limit

Speed limits in Tuscany are a bit like their road signs (see another Holiday in Tuscany post): rather chaotic and not always there for the convenience of drivers. And they are also a bit extreme: from very high (the official highway speed limit is 130km/h) to extremely low (I saw 20km/h near road work – 20? do they really expect people to comply with that?). But maybe this regulatory exuberance is just another aspect of the legendary Italian pathos .

Since the only stretches of highway we encountered were around Firenze (speed limit 100km/h if I remember correctly), and between Firenze and Siena where the speed limit is 90km/h because of the bad road conditions (see the above mentioned Holiday in Tuscany post), I don’t really have any experience with the high end of the speed limit, I can only say something about the low end. And at the low end I found Italian roads to be much like the Belgian ones.

Holiday in Tuscany: 7. What to see & do

What to see and do in Tuscany is of course a highly subjective question, the answer depending on where your particular interests lie.

Luckily Tuscany has something to offer for everyone: there is both natural beauty (the famous Crete Senesi landscapes) and man-made beauty (the architecture, historic buildings, art), there is exquisite stuff to eat (I love Italian cuisine), and fantastic stuff to drink (the wines of the Chianti region and the area around Montalcino and Montepulciano), there’s the elegance of Italian fashion to shop for, and there are of course the beaches along the Mediterranean sea and the right weather to enjoy them.

So unless you are on a permanent vacation with unlimited funds, you will probably have to make a choice about what to see and do. We only had a meager six days, which is of course way to much even to do one of the above properly, so we decided to do a little bit of everything .

Holiday in Tuscany: 6. Driving in Tuscany – The long and winding road…

One thing to be aware of when planning sightseeing excursions in Tuscany, is that although distances may seem short on the map, it is going to take a lot longer than you expect to get to your destination.

Of course this does not apply when you take the highway (“autostrada”), as these tend to be straight and fast. However, on the stretch between Firenze and Siena the speed limit is lowered to 90km/h because of the (bad) state of the road. In Belgium we have a running joke that you can feel when you are entering Belgium by car from abroad because of the bad road conditions. But after driving up and down between Siena and Firenze a couple of times I now know that worse is possible. Especially in the right (slow) lane it is so bad that it feels more like a ride in a fairground attraction than a car – we just couldn’t help laughing out loud at how we were being bumped around in our seats.

Holiday in Tuscany: 5. Eating

As I said in a previous post, although the Castello di Leonina has a restaurant, we always ate out and so I can’t really say much about the food at the hotel.

We did have breakfast at the Castello every morning though, and I’m afraid I have to say that their breakfast is not one of the major selling points of the hotel. Instead I found it rather meager and monotonous, especially for a 4-star accomodation. Hardly any variation at all, just always the same small and rather tough bread-rolls. Luckily on a few days there was cake and a (delicious!) fruit salad. But still, at the end of our stay we were already tired of the breakfast ritual (which should not happen if you’re only staying six days.

For dinner, as I already said, we always ate out. On any trip I always try to spend as little time as possible at the hotel – except of course when it has a great swimming pool – so we seldom found ourselves at the hotel around dinner time.