A couple weeks ago I spent a week in Terneuzen, the Netherlands for work. There's not too much to Terneuzen. The weekends before and after were spent in more interesting cities in Belgium.

I flew out of MBS on a Friday afternoon, connected in Detroit, then in Amsterdam, and then to a "City Hopper" from Amsterdam to Brussels, Belgium. It had been about seven years since I took an international flight. The entertainment has improved dramatically. There were audio/video-on-demand systems in every seat. I listed to some of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and then watched three films: The Last Kiss, All the King's Men, and There's Something About Mary. More about those later. Europe had recently born the brunt of a major storm with very strong winds, so the landings in Amsterdam and Brussels were a bit rough.

When you fly to Europe on Friday, you arrive Saturday morning. I took a bus about 30 miles from the Brussels airport to Antwerp for 8 euros. I was expecting it to drop me off at my hotel, but instead it dropped in the city center. I walked around a little bit and then took a taxi (maybe a mile) to the hotel for about 11 euros. I stayed at the Crowne Plaza. I know you're supposed to stay awake to adjust, but I was too tired and took a brief map. Then I took a bus back to the city center and walked around a bit before having pizza just off groen plaats (green square) and taking the bus back to my hotel.

When I go to exotic locations like this, it's not for the food. As another example, after my senior year in high school I spent a couple weeks in France, England, Switzerland, and Italy with friends and teachers from school. Dinner was arranged for us every night, and we generally weren't too sure we would like it...so we ate lunch in Pizza Huts all over Europe to make sure we got at least one substantial meal each day.

When I was in the city center on Saturday, I made a mental note of the time of the first mass on Sunday morning at the cathedral, planning to return the next morning for that. I overslept. I took a bus to the city center, hoping there would be other times of mass. There were. I had breakfast in McDonald's (for lame justification, see previous paragraph) and then attended the noon mass at the cathedral. It was in Dutch, so I didn't follow too much of it, though it was trivial to recognize Galatians 3:28 as it was read. It seemed to some kind of youth-themed service. Several kids were "baptized", several more made readings, and a big bunch of kids even sang a song.

The Cathedral of Our Lady is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture. It's construction began in 1352 and was completed in 1520. It was destroyed by fire in 1533, was devastated by iconoclasts in the 16th century, was deconsecrated by anti-clerical revolutionaries in 1794, but gradually came back to life after the defeat of Napoleon. To attend worship in such a place on Sunday morning was something special.

Rudy, a colleague who lives near Antwerp met me on Sunday afternoon and gave me a walking tour of the city center. The art of Rubens is a major element of Antwerp.

Rudy dropped me off at the hotel after dinner and then picked me up early Monday morning to drive to Terneuzen.

• Extras
• The Wire (on BET)
• Dirt
• 30 Rock
• Heroes
• King of the Hill
• The Simpsons
• Inside the NFL
• ER
• Lost
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
• Battlestar Galactica
• The Office
• My Name is Earl
• The Daily Show
• The Colbert Report

The Associated Press reports that Ted Haggard has emerged from three intensive weeks of counseling "completely heterosexual." Completely. Really, he really is.

I mentioned recently that the US incarcerates a larger fraction of its citizens than any other country in the world. Yesterday I came across a couple more tidbits:

1. The state of Michigan spends more on prisons than it does on public universities
2. Spending on prisons takes approximately 20 % of the state's general fund.

So sad. Something has got to change.

From the current issue of The Week magazine:

Volos, Greece

An entire convent of Greek Orthodox nuns has fled to another convent to avoid paying close to $1 million in debt from their failed knitting business. The 55 nuns splurged on purchases of industrial knitting machines and by attending foreign fashion shows to get ideas for patterns. The wool clothes they made were popular in Greece, but the business went under when a bank called in the loan. The nuns are now holed up in a convent in Volos, as the Holy Synod negotiates with the bank on their behalf.