Category: Uncategorized

May 15, 2013

From what’s been called Europe’s last “artificial” country—Brussels

I don’t know why I’d not considered going to Brussels before this trip; it’s only an hour and twenty minutes by train from Paris.  It’s also considered the “center of Europe” (so the guide told us) because it’s close to the Netherlands, Berlin, etc.  That’s of course been one of its hazards historically, having been on the invasion route between France (which pummeled the city under Louis XIV) and Germany, which came through Belgium in 1914 and 1939.

Studying the European Union as we were, we had to come here, and in the next two days we will be visiting with officials of the EU.  Today, when we got here from Paris, we got an introduction to the rather lengthy history of the area, which has been “Belgium” since 1830.  It’s a kingdom of 10 million people, 20% of whom work for one government or another.  There are three federations within Belgium—the French speakers in the south, the Dutch speakers in the north, and the city of Brussels, where signs are in both French and Dutch. In medieval times, the city was the center of trade—there were over 30 guilds, and for a time, the low countries were battled over by Spain and France especially. Charles V (king of Spain, the Holy Roman Empire, etc.) was born here, and Charles Quinz is the name of one of the 1000 beers that are locally brewed, many of ancient duration, and many in monasteries.  The most famous come from the Trappists.

Skipping ahead to the Napoleonic wars, Brussels was awarded at the Congress of Vienna to the Dutch, but in 1830, rebelled successfully, became “Belgium”, and “hired” King Leopold, whose family still rules as King of the Belgians.  The royal family’s palace is enormous, but not really visible from the road; it was the wealth of Leopold II, gained from his personal possession of the Congo, which he ruled personally and ruthlessly, bringing much of the wealth to beautify the city.  He was so ruthless that the Parliament took the colony away from him, though the Belgian Congo continued to exist until 1960 I believe.

The guilds give the city its outstanding central area, a town square with two of my favorite architectural styles: a palace and a town hall that are gothic (the town hall has a steeple that could be mistaken for a church) and the other buildings, mostly built to house the guilds (the baker, the brewer, etc.), are from the baroque period, stylishly including the gold trimming characteristic of baroque, and resplendent tonight in the setting sun.

Until the 1960s, Belgium was one of the more industrial countries in Europe, possessed as it is of coal.  As such, it was part of the initial organizations—the Coal and Steel community—that presaged the European Union. Ironically, one of the directives of that community was to phase out the coal industry in Belgium, forcing the country to diversify.

The result has been a country that has turned to government (as I mentioned above, 20% or so of its citizens will be working for one of the government offices here), and to some specialty products like chocolate (for a chocoholic, this place could be deadly), and at least here, tourism.

I think you can see why I wanted to start with being here, because yesterday I was happy as could be in Paris.  That was a million years ago—or at least yesterday.

The day started badly for me because I was convinced I wanted to participate in the bicycle tour de France, or at least as much as I could get early in the morning. There was a bike stand nearby, but for some reason, it would not take the credit cards I had as down payment—the rentals were cheap (about 2$ a day, plus time), but required a $ 150 bike deposit against a credit card.  Annoyed, I went for a walk that resulted in the discovery of a restaurant (more later about that).

Most of the day we spent with an alum, Miranda Crispin, who graduated IWU in 2000 with a degree in musical theater, and for several years afterwards she taught musical theater at colleges in Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin.  She realized that what she needed if she wanted to continue her career in teaching was more experience in theater, which led her back to Paris.  I say back here because she came to IWU because she wanted to study abroad, and our university was one of the few which allowed her to travel to France and still graduate on time.

She came back and started a travel company that has been successful, but she has also started a musical theater group to bring off Broadway plays to the city of lights.  She gave us an unusual look at the life of an expatriate in France, and a different view of the EU (the International Herald Tribune yesterday noted that  French opinion had swung from 60% in favor of the EU a year ago to 40% this year, partly because of the 11% unemployment in France).  She also introduced us to a friend of hers, a young woman from Sydney Australia, who is working for Radio France doing their English language broadcasts.  She regaled us with stories on how journalism is more opinionated in France than In the English-speaking countries.  One example was of the flight of millionaires from France because of a recently enacted tax increase.  I remember reading about a film actor who renounced his French citizenship in favor of Russian.  She said the headline in the news was roughly, “Good riddance”.  As I said, it was a very different view of life in the European Union!

Professor Pana and I went out to the restaurant I had discovered on my morning walk.  In the Place de Vosges, a square that dates to the 1620s, with a covered arcade around it, and a statue of Louis XIII within it.  We went to the Palais Royal restaurant, which was next to the house of Victor Hugo (when he wasn’t living in Brussels), where we had a quintiscentially French meal—coq au vin and leg of lamb.

We met the students later for the evening tour of the Seine, and then celebrated a birthday on the trip in French style.  I got to see “Midnight in Paris” and it wasn’t produced by Woody Allen.

One of the culinary treats in Brussels is moule (mussels), and as I told one of our students before we went out for dinner, “You can really get muscles here”.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

I am writing after a long and satisfying day in Paris, exploring and above all experiencing.  In the morning, we went to Notre Dame to visit one of the most magnificent Gothic churches in the world.  Constructed (literally) from the 12^th through the 19^th centuries, its flying buttresses and facades are so central to Gothic—and France—that distances in the country are literally measured from a spot in front of the Cathedral.  We were there for the 10 am mass, which was performed with a Gregorian choir.  The interior is relatively spare, but the stained glass windows and the height make it a picture story—say about the Hunchback of Notre Dame!

Professor Pana and I used the time between the mass and our next departure, for Versailles, to spend a little over an hour (about two hours too few) at the nearby Museum of the Middle Ages, better known perhaps by its former location as the home of the Abbots of Cluny. The most famous possessions of the Cluny—alas—the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries—were on loan to a museum in Tokyo, but the other relics, including some from Byzantium (the 4^th crusade detoured from the Holy Land to Byzantium and ransacked the city, stripped the empire of a number of possessions –and goodies, such as the horses of St Mark, now in Venice after having been “borrowed” by Napoleon for the Arc de Triumph) that really are works of art.  In addition, the Cluny sits on what was a Roman bath in the first century BC, a testimony to the lengthy history of settlement on the banks of the Seine.

We spent the after noon at the Chateau of Versailles, begun as a modest hunting lodge for Louis XIII, but expanded by his son, the Sun King Louis XIV, to become the premier castle, and I believe the largest, certainly in Europe, and one that puts Windsor castle into the minor leagues.  The world class attraction seemed to have attracted the world this Sunday, as the rooms were as crowded as could be.  46,000 workers labored to bring the finest the French monarchy could obtain to the Chateau.  It came close to bankrupting France, a process that culminated, when the spending to fight Britain and incidentally help the US gain independence, precipitated the French Revolution.  In the meantime, the Bourbon kings (XIV, XV, XVI—sounds like super bowls, don’t they) enjoyed the facilities.  They say Louis XIV built it, XV enjoyed it, and XVI paid for it. We had a lively discussion involving those who have traveled elsewhere in Europe, and the closest rivals we could come up with were St. Petersburg—and the Vatican St. Peters.

The best features inside might well have been the hall of mirrors, where in 1919, the Allies imposed the Treaty of Versailles on the Germans.  Other treaties ending the war against other central powers also occurred on the property—Hungary was divided (“The Worst Treaty in History”, intoned our guide in Budapest three years ago!) at Trianon, for example.  The lavish decorations at similar palaces always make me wonder why it took over 3 centuries for the Revolutions to occur!

The best features, however, might well have been the outside gardens, which did not have the crowds, but did have landscape and solitude.  The outside has been restored since I was last here, and one of the features, the Bath of Apollo, looked for all the world like something on the Canadian shield I had portaged until I saw the statuary; that wasn’t me schlepping a canoe, though come to think of it…..

I was thinking, “I’ve seen it all” when a newly-resurrected waterfall appeared as we turned a corner.  We were lucky because for two and a half hours a day , water flows and falls in the gardens and period classical music gets piped over the loudspeaker.

While Peter the Great would love to have duplicated Versailles at the Peterhof, and the Hungarians, Indochinese, and French in China would love to have been the Paris of the East, or a second Paris, when you come here, you’ll understand why I think there’s only ONE Paris!

May 11, 2013

Many of the cities I’ve visited have sought to be compared to Paris—Saigon was thought to be the Paris of the East by many (and it still has the greatest baguettes East of Suez); and Shanghai, particularly the French concession, had similar marketing claims.  In Europe, several Eastern European cities—Budapest and Lvov come to mind–sought to mimic the leafy boulevards, the wide streets, the victory monuments, and the 6 story buildings with the mansard roofs (go to the Art Institute and see the Impressionist section and you’ll see why Paris caught the fancy of urban planners and urbanites in the 19^th century).

Being back for the first time in over a decade reminded me of the envy Paris elicited, and being here, I can understand why.  We came from London on the Eurostar, the fast track (literally) train that averages over 120 miles an hour and, we were told, hits up to 180.  We came from Saint Pancras station, whose exterior you might recognize from Harry Potter, to Gare du Nord, the train station that is the exit/entrance of railroads from the north, including the one we will be taking to Brussels later in the week.

We spent around 4 hours driving around the city rebuilt in the aftermath of the bitter commune struggle (1871) by Baron Haussmann to surround the foundation laid especially by the great warrior King, Louis XIV,  the sun king, whose 60 years or so marked in many ways the zenith of French power in and over Europe, and his martial successor a century later, Napoleon, whose arc de triumph revealed his respect for ancient Rome and an enormous ego.  I hadn’t made the connection, but the city along the Seine, and especially the palaces, the Louvre, and the Luxembourg, etc., strongly resemble the palaces Peter the Great constructed along the Neva River in St. Petersburg. Peter in fact visited France in 1717, and the efforts to duplicate Versailles (especially in  the Peterhof palace) are much greater than I remembered.  (see later)

Two global corporations

May 9, 2013

Today was the kind of day—albeit cool and blustery—that makes leading a travel course a great learning and teaching opportunity.  We visited two global corporations, one business, one political.

The business visit was first, set up by one of our student’s mom, who worked for Cisco, at the Cisco office near Heathrow airport in London.  Cisco does $2b worth of services in the UK, its second largest market after the United States.  Once known for its routers, Cisco has moved downstream, and like other hardware companies, seeks to provide solutions through technology to companies and governments.  Some of its projects—many with other vendors—are truly astonishing.  One prototype they showed us was a virtual kiosk where you took a picture of yourself, picked out clothing of various colors, and tried it “on”.  The next step was to put in a size chart which would “fit” you.  When I mentioned I thought it would be helpful to see what a room looked like with the paint you chose before you painted it, they showed us a machine that could take a picture of your room, change the fixtures, the furniture, the flooring, color the walls, and have your parts list printed out and the parts available at whichever home improvement store wanted the system.  When I asked about academic applications, one of the technical salesmen showed us some global collaboration possibilities that could tap experts anywhere around the world.  The sales marketing executive who set up the program for us pointed out that he seldom works with his UK team, but meets virtually with his “global team” around the world. As if to prove it, we had an interactive lecture with the Director of Innovation and Strategy (nice title), who was in downtown London, who explained the differences between the EU and the US, and within the EU.  He told us that many of Cisco’s customers were governments, looking to become more efficient (i.e., saving money).  The final speaker was in Dubai, a “refugee” from the academy to Cisco, where he is the director of the Europe/Middle East/Russia region.  He spoke about being an expat—he said he left England after Oxford, and with few exceptions has spent most of his life in the Middle East.

We left Cisco impressed with the new toys/technology (at least I did, but I have the kind of cell phone parents give children as punishment for losing their Samsung or iPhones), and took the bus to the “political” headquarters of a global corporation—the British Empire—when we visited the castle at Windsor.  One of three royal estates, Windsor is the oldest, having been started by William the Conqueror after 1066.  Originally of wood, it was part of the system to control and defend the important city of London.  Queen Elizabeth also owns properties in London (Buckingham Palace) and an official castle in Glasgow, as well as lots of property elsewhere in the country.  Because it is still occupied by the Royal family, parts of it are off limits, but the State Apartments (used mostly to entertain state guests, as requested by the prime minister) were open, as was the Chapel of St. George, the Queen’s private chapel, and the resting place of recent monarchs (except for Victoria and Albert).  The furnishings and paintings were appropriate for one of the world’s richest royals—lots of Rubens and van Dycks, for example, but my favorite room was the one that contained gifts.  Sitting there on a shelf were two items from Tipu Sultan, the Indian sultan whose war against the British I catalogued last year when we were in Mysore and Bangalore.  We saw in India the Indian side of the efforts Tipu made to oust the British, even using French troops (as part of the European Wars that allowed the US to also enlist French aid for our independence).  The story there was quite different, and I remember clearly a toy Tipu had made which had a tiger eating a British soldier.  When Tipu was betrayed and killed by one of his officials, the British sent his crown and the gold tiger head of his throne to King George, and it is now displayed in the collections at Windsor castle.  I doubt any of my students would have noticed, but for me, it sold part of a mystery I did not know was mysterious!  Well worth the visit, but I daresay that the visit to Versailles, the Gold Standard of European royalty, will put Windsor to shame.  Incidentally, Windsor is the last name of the current royal family—or has been since the German name given by Victoria in honor of the state Albert ruled In Germany gave way to the anti-German fervor in World War I.

We capped the evening with a visit to Porter’s English Restaurant, at the suggestion of two former students responding to my request for an “authentic” English meal.  They’re both International Business graduates of IWU who came on May Term classes with me, and also studied abroad.  They wanted to work overseas enough to take one year jobs or internships that got them back here, and shared some of their stories while we dined (probably not the word to use) on shepherd’s pie and variants thereof.  Tomorrow, I suggested to Professor Pana, we eat real British food—at an Indian Restaurant.

The saying is, “’we’re across the pond.”  Compared to the Pacific, the Atlantic is a “pond,” which means our trip of 4000 miles from Chicago to London is considerably shorter than any trip from Chicago to my  usual stomping grounds in the Far East.

Despite the 8 hour flight, rather than the 14-16 hour flight (thankfully, we flew direct), it still does wonders for your body clock, and can mean a long day.  It was for us.  We arrived in London at around 6 am.  Of course, that means you arrive and there’s no hotel rooms available at least until noon.  Great time to tour!

The challenge that faced us was that today is the opening of parliament in England.  That’s a big deal because the Queen opens Parliament with a speech written by the prime minister, but she travels from Buckingham Palace to Parliament by coach, with an entourage, which means that the city is under fairly tight security; and, since the route she took pretty much covered the central  London area which has most of the tourist places we were supposed to visit, we were lucky we had a creative bus driver who got us around the city.

That was quite an accomplishment, because London is an enormous city, over 600 square miles, with a population over 20 million, most of whom were trying to get to work despite the potential distraction of seeing the queen in royal garb with the crown jewels (the only time each year the crown leaves the Tower of London).

London is an old city, dating at least back to times, and if I were looking for unifiers for the six countries we are visiting, one might be the first “European Union”, the Roman Empire.  Turns out, Emperor Hadrian, who defined the northern limits of the Empire when he built a wall in northern England, had a fond spot in his heart for Athens, where he built or rebuilt a number of monuments we’ll see later.  Another Roman symbol for this trip (doesn’t work too well in Berlin, and I think Brussels, which were north of the Danube, another of the limnes–limits, as the Romans called it– that separated civilized and barbarian Europe –although, as professor Pana, my colleague, would surely remind me, Romania was the only province in the Roman empire that defied the Danube/Rhine boundaries) (sorry for the long tortured sentence; I plead having been up for almost 40 hours) would be Constantine the Great.  Constantine was commanding units in England and France when the emperor died and he made a bid to replace the Emperor and reunite what had been divided by Diocletian.  Constantine succeeded, partly in a victory he attributed to Christianity, which led to his conversion and the adoption of Christianity as the official religion of the Greco-Roman world, and in 324, I believe, he founded Constantinople, which is where we will end up in 3 weeks.

As for London, the Romans had a settlement here, called Londonium (which sounds to me like it belonged on the chart of the elements, rather than on a map), that soon became a big city. Today it has over 30 neighborhoods—e.g., Soho presided over by mayors, and two cities—London (the old city, which was the financial center of the British Empire and still is one of the top 3 banking centers, or should I say centres), as well as Westminster, who have Lord Mayors, and there is an overall Lord Mayor, too.  The current one has started a bicycle rental program that I hope to take advantage of before we leave.

28 of IWU’s finest are in the St. Giles hotel, located well in the theater district of London, and within walking distance of most of the major sites.  The rooms are tiny—or rather, European.  I was looking for the sink, for example, only to realize it is IN the shower.   Pretty efficient, cozy.

We drove around the city where we could, passing landmarks such as the London eye, world’s largest ferris wheel; various neighborhoods, monuments to the wars Britain has waged—most notably to Lord Nelson and the Duke of Wellington, victors over Napoleon, one to the grand old duke of York, who, to my dismay, our guide said was a total idiot, marching his 10000 men up and down the hill (and here I thought it was a cute scout song) and sumptuous former palaces (St. James) and parks that constitute some of my memories of London (I think I was last here around 5 years ago).  The city’s major features were defined in a devastating fire in 1666 which led Christopher Wren to rebuild a number of churches (I think I heard over 60, including St. Paul’s, where he is buried), and in World War II, when Hitler’s rockets destroyed much of that financial district, including a half remaining Wren church that is a monument to the 30000 Londoners who died during the blitz.

Our guide, Peter, is the consummate Englishman, with a Harris Tweed jacket, a handlebar moustache, all the right words (“whilst” seems right on him), and a jolly good sense of Anglo-French rivalry.

We had hoped to get to the Mall in time to catch the Queen in coach procession, but got there in time to watch the street sweepers remove all trace of the horse brigades, alas.  We contented ourselves with a look at the government buildings from which men like Churchill and Disraeli presided over an empire on which the sun never set, including a look at 10 Downing street.

Our big treat was Westminster abbey, which has housed the coronation of every British king since about 1000 AD, the graves of most kings until today,  and either the graves or monuments to everybody in English history that you’ve ever heard of—musicians like Elgar, and militarists like James Wolfe, and scientists like Newton.

We did not have a formal evening meal, but I suspect most of the students sampled life in the pubs of London.  Professor Pana and I met two former students that she was close to who are working in banks in London. Good to see them, to reminisce, and  to realize what they are doing to build upon what they had learned at IWU.

In any case, I’m about 6 hours ahead of you, and ready to call it a long day.