It Has Begun!

On Friday the keys to the city were officially turned over to the Honorary Burgemeester of the Feesten. But the official start was the parade yesterday. The parade starts in a older part of town with very narrow streets and winds its way through the heart of the city and out to the northeast. Basically it makes a very crooked and convoluted "U". As soon as we can we will post some pictures from the parade on your website. Here are a few samples.







The weather was supposed to be rainy and nasty. It did sprinkle a couple of times and was windy and cold. But the sun popped out occasionally and when it did it was warm enough to shed the jackets and enjoy.

The parade (according to one police officer I heard) was supposed to last 30-45 minutes. Don't know how it was near the end since we were towards the beginning. Coordination was a challenge and it took close to 2 hours for the final unit to pass by our location.

Next we went off to a cafe to do the Flemish thing of drinking a coffee or cold drink and being a part of the culture. Plus after standing for about 2.5 hours we needed to sit. By the way we saw the end of the parade (again) from the cafe as it passed by.

Next we made our way through several of the pleins (areas where there are stages and events set up). We were looking for an evangelism group from the Netherlands but they must not have arrived yet.

At Bij Sint Jacobs Plein we watched a concert of drummers. It is the oriental style drumming and very elaborate and entertaining. None of the drummers appeared oriental and most looked very Flemish.

We stopped to get and eat some friets (Belgium French Fries). You get them in a paper cone with one of several sauces. They did have Heinz ketchup but most of the sauces you would not recognize. We chose mayonnaise since this is the traditional topping. While we ate we watched a street performer who was juggling and doing stilt walking. He spoke to the crowd in English.

One effort this summer is Vlaanderen Zingt (http://www.vlaanderenzingt.be/) sorry the link is in Dutch. It is an effort to get 350,000 Flemish people to join in a sing-a-long this summer. On the website you can find the song list. It is 37 songs long. There were three choirs from the city that joined together to lead in the singing. Oh by the way, we sang all 37 songs over the three hour period. It was broadcast locally on TV and will be repeated on Sunday. We were on the camera a few times.

As you can see by the song list, the Flemish love American and English music. They also love to sing and celebrate in a large group like this. They switched easily into the French songs as well. Most Flemish speak at least three languages and four or five is not uncommon.

Some of the songs are dance numbers and have conga-line type dances. They did that as well. Of course you recognize what you have to do with the Village People's Y-M-C-A. You can imagine a plein packed elbow to elbow (and other body part to body part front and back) singing and dancing. It was a sight and challenge. The European personal space is much smaller than the American personal space.

We imagine there were several thousand (guess 4-5 thousand) people there. As the singing continued so did the drinking. So by the end there were some pretty rowdy people near us. But it was part of history and we got to participate. Three hours of singing, dancing and standing on your feet in a large crowd takes its toll. Not on the ones around us. The next concert started at 11:00PM and there are ones that start about 12:30AM as well. The crowd around us was partying and some were feeling no pain.

After 10 hours of feest vieren (feast celebrating and participation) we jumped on the tram to head home. Today it is church and then into the festivals again. This goes on for 10 days.

More to come. Stay tuned.