the final frontier

As nobody else signed up to perform for the Week van de Amateurkunsten carillon concert in Lommel, I decided at the last minute to trek out to the edge of the country and see what it was all about.

In the morning, I squeezed in a bit of practice time in the Sint-Laurentiuskerk, where I met the gentleman renovating the instrument and got a little tour of the organ innards. He's hosting a contest for the fundraising concert attendees in which they can guess how many little whatchamacallits he replaced (see how much knowledge I absorbed from him) to win a bottle of wine.

Then a 40-minute ride to Lommel on a train whose design and color scheme were new to me. And what should I find upon exiting the station but that the major road leading from the station straight to Sint-Pietersbandenkerk, which can be seen clearly in the distance, had no sidewalk. It was just the kind of suburban hell I'd thought I'd escaped when I turned back from trying to bike to the Thimble Islands in Connecticut via a road that turned nearly into highway, although people lived along it and had to drive to their next-door neighbors' houses.

So after 15 minutes of walking along the bike path, dodging bikes and the occasional scooter, I find some pavement in the official Lommel city limits, and suddenly the empty streets sprawl out into a church square filled with people, an ice cream truck, and screaming children swinging on some miniature bungee-jumping contraption. Other living beings! Liesbeth is doing a jolly improv on "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean" to give me an "American" welcome, perhaps forgetting that the Beatles were accompanying a Scottish folk song when they performed it. Some children show up for the carillon tour, the little girl amongst them with perfectly curled hair dressed to the nines (no, the tens!) in perfect Victorian revival style by her mother.

"This is a special place," Liesbeth reassures me when I mention the lack of sidewalks leading to the center of town and gesture around my head to indicate the girl's pigtails. "Kind of a lawless place on the edge of civilization." After reviewing the five different switches and three different locks I had to turn on my way out, she hurried off to judge music exams while I went wild on the bells, trying to play pieces from memory and to get "Motorhythmia" right for an audience familiar with it.

After returning the spare keys to the bartender of 't Torenhof, I hurry back fueled by a cone of speculaas ice cream in order to catch the one train per hour to Antwerp (the other train goes to Neerpelt--and those are the only destinations). As I rush into the station, I see only one track and become alarmed that I won't find the other in time. Until I realize that there is only one track--and one train, going back and forth.

It's over 10 minutes late, and just as it arrives, who should appear out of nowhere beside me but Liesbeth, in her long skirt and no car in sight, just as if she'd been beamed down by Scotty. "I wanted to make sure you reached the station all right and that you didn't miss your train." I was taken aback at how thoughtful she was. "It's only happened a few times before that I heard the carillon playing and didn't want to leave!" I was utterly aghast to receive a compliment from the one other carillonneur besides Geert infamous for giving final exam scores some 20 points lower than everyone else. There was nothing I could say in return.

Well, that train was late, the train to Mechelen was late and slow. Trains don't like running on Sundays at all. What if the engines themselves go on strike some Sunday to demand more vacation time?

Klaas was kindly still waiting for me outside the WAKcentrum by the time I finally returned frazzled to Mechelen, so we had a drink on the Haverwerf and very slowly made falafel pitas at Merad. We were able to do some biking, but I wish things had not been closed for Sunday evening.

Dream on!

Lo, I have ventured to the edge of Belgian civilization and returned enlightened by the cultural experience... of being the only Asian many of them have ever seen walking their streets. I'm sure the pagoda shirt I was wearing didn't help me avoid stares. Man what a wacko fun country!

I learned a new word the other day--caitiff: A despicable coward; a wretch. Not something to incorporate into my pun email addresses.