Category: Uncategorized

Saint Petersburg, Russia is a fascinating and beautiful city to visit today, but the first time I went there, it was more of a challenging adventure.  In 1990 the Soviet Union was on its last legs but still a reality. Leningrad, as it was still known at the time, was a city of stark contrasts: the world-renowned Kirov Ballet and long lines for scarce basic foods.  The opulent palaces of Peter and Catherine the Great and monotonous stretches of Khrushchev-era apartment blocks.  Many of my photos, though taken with color film, seemed to have turned out in black and white when developed.

I travelled there for 18 days in July 1990, accompanied by a work colleague and a dozen energetic U.S. university students, as part of a cultural exchange program.  Our project was to help rebuild and restore a church, formerly a Russian Orthodox cathedral but long ago closed down by the government and converted into a factory making iron fences.  Now it was reverting to its original function, and we were to work alongside a crew of local parishioners to resurrect the historic building.  This was an unglamorous construction project that promised back-breaking labor, long days, and austere living conditions.  The team had been carefully selected for their maturity and their construction expertise.  (Let’s pause so that those who know me well can have a chuckle over my deficiencies in both areas.)

We were paired up and assigned to stay in the homes of normal Russian families for the 18 day project, in order to have a taste of typical daily life there.   My colleague Roger and I were assigned to stay in the apartment of Vera, a 70 year old widow.  Vera had worked for 40 years (and counting) in the same job in a factory making steam irons.  She had lived for the same period of time in a small apartment on the fourth floor of a huge building in a sprawling urban housing complex.  The apartment consisted of a tiny entrance hall, a miniature kitchen, a miniscule bathroom, and a crowded room that was both living room and bedroom.  (Did I mention that it was a small apartment?)   Vera gave up the biggest room for the comfort of her honored guests and slept on a hard bench in her kitchen for our entire stay.   

Looking back on the experience, dozens of memories flood my mind, but all pale in comparison to the kidney stone.

[Unsolicited Personal Information]

It’s not something to be proud of, but I have experienced over 30 kidney stone “episodes” in my lifetime.  Being precocious, I had the first when I was eight years old, an almost unheard of phenomenon).  The rest have occurred as an adult.  I have had one removed by major surgery, one by exploding it with sound waves, two by extraction through an “available passage”, and the rest exiting through said passage on their own, but not without dragging their feet.  (Male readers feel free to shudder now.)

[Free Physiology Lesson]

A kidney stone is like a silent time bomb, forming in the kidney, perhaps lying dormant for months or years, and then deciding to attack when least expected.  The “attack” occurs when this spiny clot of minerals moves from the kidney down through an 18- inch-long tube roughly the diameter of one of those red coffee stirring straws.  The pain occurs when the stone is moving or blocking the passageway and can be agonizing. It can come and go over days or weeks, sometimes stopping as quickly as it started.  But I digress…

It is summer in Saint Petersburg, when the sun rises at 5:00am and it is still dusk as the clock approaches midnight.  We are six days into the renovation project.  Since our group is early in the lineup of multiple U.S. university groups scheduled to work on this renovation project, we are doing dirty, physical labor.  Our days consist of busting up concrete and carrying it out in buckets, moving tons of twisted scrap metal from one huge pile into another area 100 yards away, and working on homemade ladders in a basement under the dim but harsh glare of bare light bulbs.  I survive by daydreaming about what it would be like to be on the final work team, months in the future, with their cushy jobs, touching up the trim paint and vacuuming lint off the newly laid carpet.

After a few days, we begin to feel more like locals, commuting during rush hour by subway 45 minutes each way to the worksite by packed, returning home exhausted, dirty and hungry.  The evening menu in our hosts’ homes consists of whatever is available that day in the market.  For Roger and me it was potatoes and greens yesterday, and tonight it is boiled eggs, carrots, and a piece of bread.  Vera announces apologetically that, as is typical each summer, the authorities turn off the hot water to each building for the next 10-14 days for systems repairs.  For a warm bath, we must heat water in a kettle on the gas stove to add to the frigid water from the bathtub faucet.

Vera is kind and sweet and talkative.  She chatters away in Russian, even though we have not progressed past the “Hello/Goodbye/Please/Thank you” level of language mastery.  We actually get on quite well, communicating by a combination of Charades and Pictionary, and by looking up key words in the Russian/English dictionary and thrusting it out for the other party to see.  Vera has an ancient hardback dictionary, pages yellowed, that must have been published when Lenin was still in short pants.

We chat in this manner after dinner and then retire to start the laborious process of getting clean.  We make numerous trips back and forth to the kitchen to carry the large kettle of heated water to the tub.  Afterwards we go to our room to read and relax.  Vera, a modest and devoutly religious woman, stays in the kitchen, which is perhaps fifteen feet away from where we are, where she spends the last hour of her evening reading the Bible and praying (audibly).  When we retire, it is after 11:00 but still light outside, and there are no curtains to trick our body clocks into realizing that it is bedtime.  Roger had won the daily coin toss and is sleeping in the single bed, and I am on the small, lumpy couch.

We are just drifting off to sleep when it hits me – the all-too-familiar pain in the side and back.  As the pain intensifies, I whisper, “Psst!  Roger!  You won’t believe this, but I think I’m having a kidney stone attack!”  Roger, himself a card-carrying member of the KSVA (Kidney Stone Veteran Association), springs excitedly into action.  After a quick search, he brings me the strongest painkiller we have between us – Acetaminophen.  Great – This is like fending off a charging rhino with a dinner fork.  Within minutes I am nauseated, sweating, and groaning in pain.

As I lie there in this strange foreign city, I wonder if this is another Big One that will require medical attention.  Perhaps you remember reading the stories about the state of medical care in the Soviet Union at that particular time.  Multiple-use needles and IVs, unsanitary conditions, shortages of doctors and medicines – hospitals were often dangerous places to be.  Patients often had to scrounge on the black market to buy their own medicines, dressings, and other supplies to bring with them to the hospital.  And with few international flights in and out at this time, I’m not going to make it home quickly, even if I try. Panic sets in. [Author’s Note: Russia medical care is of course radically different now.]

Medic Roger, calling upon his experience, reminds me that some pain relief can be attained by lying in a tub of very hot water.  By now, I am ready to lie in boiling tree sap if it will help.  This procedure, of course, will involve the complicated process of heating water again (damn you, local authorities!), so we have no choice but to wake Vera, who is asleep in the kitchen.  Then we must explain to her what is going on.  Roger hurriedly opens her dictionary and points to the word for “kidney”.  She can no doubt hear me groaning in the other room.  Roger puts on the water to heat.

 Thirty minutes later, here is the scene:

Vera is doing what she must feel to be the most helpful thing she can contribute:  She is kneeling in the corner of the kitchen, head covered, praying fervently (in Russian, of course.)

I am lying naked in the bathtub in the tiny bathroom in a slowly-deepening pool of hot water, experimenting with an adapted form of Lamaze breathing.

Roger is making repeated trips to the stove for more water.  He has now pressed into service every available saucepan, skillet and roasting pan.  As he comes in to pour, I contort my body to dodge the cascade of scalding water to avoid severe burns on sensitive body parts.  The floor is slippery from splashes and drips along the way.

On one pour from the kettle I am not quick enough, and some scalding water hits my leg.  I yowl in pain. Instantly we are both simultaneously struck by the absurdity and humor of the situation, and we both start laughing uncontrollably.  Roger is laughing so hard that he slides his broad 6’3” frame down the wall to a sitting position on the wet floor.  I can picture Vera, in the next room, hearing these two strange men and the moaning and laughing and splashing in her bathroom, praying, “Lord, what have you gotten me into?”

Eventually, the pain lets up enough for us to go to bed, and I fall fitfully asleep around 3:00am.

 Strangely, the pain subsides almost as quickly as it hits, and it usually recurs only after I go to bed at night.  So this is our pattern for the next three or four days: painful attacks at night but mostly pain free days.  Because I am not sleeping until 3 or 4 in the morning, I sleep later and then join the work team at lunch and work all afternoon.  I think that the U.S. students understand and believe my explanation, but I sense that our Russian co-workers are sceptical.  Through an interpreter, I’ve tried to explain this strange cyclical illness to them.  “How convenient”, they must be thinking.  “Must be some Lazy Capitalist disease.”  Anyway, after a few days, I am “cured” as the stone stops its downward passage – I will have no more attacks for the rest of the trip, although I know my ordeal is not over yet, because IT is still in there somewhere…

As we prepare to depart at the end of the trip, we are talking to Vera about the experience.  She communicates that she is glad I am better, and that she has been praying for me.  She opens her dictionary and points to a Russian word.  I read across to the English translation, and it says “liver”.  All this time she has been praying for the wrong organ, but I assume that God figured it out.

Postscript…

It is four months later in November, in Dallas, Texas.  I have had no recurring bouts of pain for weeks, but I have seen my urologist, who has scheduled me the next morning to go to the hospital to scoop the stone out, even though I am in no pain at the moment. 

That evening, Cheryl and I are midway through a James Taylor concert when the “final assault” commences.  (I’m sure it must have been during the song “Fire and Rain”.)  Not wanting to spoil the evening, I tough it out.  Later that night, four months after that first attack half a world away, I will “pass” (as we euphemistically say) a kidney stone roughly the size of a raisin.

This is one of those classic “It’s terrible in the moment, but it’ll make a good story later” experiences.  And how appropriate a setting, I think now, that it happened in a city named for the Apostle Peter, whose name means literally “The Rock”.

It’s understandable if you don’t recognize the name Favell Lee Mortimer.  Had you lived in Victorian England, however, you might well have read Mrs. Mortimer’s books to your children at bedtime.  In her long career she wrote 16 children’s books and became a literary superstar in her day.  Her most famous book was The Peep of Day (1833), a religious primer for young children, which eventually sold at least a million copies in 38 languages.  Mrs. Mortimer’s writings were colored by the strict religious conventions of the day, and no doubt the effects of a miserably unhappy adult life had a strong impact on her world view as well: In a 1901 biography her niece recalled that her doctor had said that she was the only person he ever met who wished to die.

Between 1839 and 1853, she published three books on geography for young readers, the first of which was The Countries of Europe Described, followed by two volumes that featured Asia, Africa, Australia and America.  In these books, Mrs. Mortimer writes authoritatively, with very specific descriptions of peoples and places.  Her pronouncements are dogmatic and judgmental, to the point of scornfulness.  Her descriptions are almost universally negative.  For instance, she writes that “Spaniards are not only idle, they are very cruel”.  Also, “No people in Europe are more clumsy and awkward than the Portuguese, and their language is not as pretty as Spanish because it is spoken in harsh and squeaking tones.”  Turks are “so grave that they look wise.  But how can lazy people be wise?  They like to spend their time in eating opium, sipping coffee, and sitting still.”  Of India (Hindustan) she writes “It is a miserable thing to be a Hindoo lady.  They are not taught anything and spend most of their time in idleness, sauntering about and chattering nonsense.”

As for Egyptians, “It is a rare thing in Egypt to speak the truth.  There is a story of an Egyptian who spoke the truth so constantly that his countrymen began to call him ‘the Englishman’.”   The Italians are “ignorant and wicked, caring more for beautiful things than useful things’.  And “it is dreadful to think what number of murders are committed in Italy.”  After painting a positive picture of Belgians, she sadly must add, “Alas, they worship idols.  They are Roman Catholics.”

Her characterizations are put forth with a persuasive style and level of specificity that must have engendered in her readers the confidence that this expert knew what she was talking about.  Now, here is the amazing part:  Mrs. Mortimer had set foot out of her native England only once before writing these books, when she was in her teens!  She had never even visited Wales, whose border was only a few miles from her English home.  She gleaned her exhaustive “knowledge” not from personal experience with other cultures but rather from a variety of available books, many of them already decades old.

A first reading of her books elicits amusement at the absurd and uninformed descriptions of different cultures, but then an unease settles in, as two things dawn on us:  First is the realization that most of her young readers would not ever have opportunity to travel and would have formed their perceptions of other countries through Mrs. Mortimer’s books.  Information sources were limited, so these “non-fiction” works would have helped shape many a Victorian world view.

The second realization is that, to a lesser degree, and though we don’t put them in print, each of us may view the world through the lenses of broad and sometimes inaccurate stereotypes.

What is stereotyping?  A common definition is “Ascribing specific characteristics and behavioral traits to individuals based upon their membership in a certain group.”  They put people in boxes and minimize individual differences.  Stereotyping is a universal phenomenon. 

What is the difference in a stereotype and a generalization?  There are similarities but significant differences.  We generalize when we group information and experiences together to form logical categories.  Our brains take shortcuts – and lots of them – to reach answers quickly, for expediency and effectiveness.  This serves to simplify how we perceive and think about our world and make that process more efficient.  We make these unconscious generalizations constantly, and this helps keep us sane.  If we didn’t wake up each morning with a certain degree of predictability about what to expect, we could not function.  But the downside is the formation of biases, which can then lead to sterotyping.

But let’s focus on conscious generalizations we make about our fellow human beings, especially those that are different from us.  It is normal to draw certain conclusions about others, but a generalization should be based upon knowledge – commonly-held and corroborated information and personal experience.  Generalizations are descriptive, whereas stereotypes are evaluative.  Generalizations are provisional and fluid, open to modification by subsequent information and experience; stereotypes are inflexible and often not swayed by reality.  They become calcified and unconscious over time, as we selectively notice anything that supports them and ignoring evidence that refutes them.

So, when uninformed stereotypes warp our view of others and lessen our interpersonal effectiveness, what can we do to change our perspective?  Here are four suggestions:

1.  Acknowledge that you have biases that can lead to stereotypes.  Self-awareness of our own biases is an important first step.  Reflect upon the roots of your stereotypes.

(1)  Social Identity.  Social identities are labels that people use to categorize or identify themselves and/or others as members of specific groups. Some common social identities include: nationality, gender, ethnicity, race, religion, generation, sexual orientation, (dis)ability, political affiliation, relationship status, profession, and socioeconomic status.  Social identities are powerful because as humans, we categorize ourselves and each other into groups along social identity lines. This categorization often lays the foundation for bias, stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination. 

(2)  Popular culture and media.  Mrs. Mortimer’s books were based on published information, the popular culture of the day.  Many of our views are shaped by the broad stereotypes prevalent in movies, television and literature.  And others’ views of U.S. culture are likewise shaped by what they see in movies and television.  I recently spoke to a group of university students from 20 countries, most newly-arrived in the U.S.  I told them I was originally from Texas and asked them what came to mind when they thought of Texans.  Their responses included “They ride horses.” (I drive a Honda but have ridden in a Mustang.)  They wear cowboy hats and boots.” (Not really a good look for me.)  “They live in a hot place.”  (True, but I can’t be held responsible for the weather.)  “They are ignorant hicks.”  (This observation from the one U.S. American in the group.)  “They live on ranches.”  (OK, one out of five was accurate for me.)  I then asked them if any of them had been to Texas or had met a Texan.  No hands went up.   Obviously, their impressions were based upon the 80’s TV show “Dallas” and generations of Western movies.

(3)  Limited personal experience.  Ask yourself:  On how many personal encounters or first-hand experiences am I basing my view of this particular group?  How many members of this group have I interacted with and gotten to know on more than a surface level?  Several years ago, one of my friends took his first trip to Rome and stayed for three days. This experience evidently equipped him with the expertise to make a number of authoritative statements about what “Italian people are like”.  A research scientist who based his conclusions on a sample of 2 or 3 would be laughed out of the lab, yet many of us make pronouncements about a country or culture group based upon a very narrow sample of first-hand experience.

2.  Practice making fewer universal statements and use more disclaimers. 

Begin to view stereotypes as provisional and open to modification.  Listen to your language about different others: If you find yourself describing groups with words such as “all” and “always”, or even “most”, stop and reflect.  Stereotypes may be representative of many people in a given culture or group, but by no means everyone.  After all, a particular Korean is like most Koreans in some ways, like some Koreans, and like no other Korean who has ever lived.

Over time, you may observe common characteristics and behaviors among members of a group, and it’s OK to use that as a tentative starting point, as long as you’re willing to allow for individual differences and abandon the stereotype when it doesn’t fit in a given situation.  For instance, after numerous visits to Helsinki and dozens of interactions with people from Finland, I observe that Finns tend to be a fairly reserved lot, not given to being overly expressive and “out there” interpersonally.  But then I met Ralf, who is boisterous, expressive, and humorous.  And I know that there are other Ralfs in Finland – after all, I’ve met only a relative handful out of the millions of people in Finland, so I‘d better be very cautious about trying to describe “all Finns”.  So, start mentally exchanging your stereotypes for generalizations which you acknowledge as “first best guesses” open to revision. 

3.  Continue the lifelong process of building up your personal database of information about different groups and cultures.

 It is ignorance of cultures, geography, and history that fuels an unhealthy dependence of stereotypes.  Sometimes we just don’t know no better!  (This is how all Texans talk.) The more information we can access, the less we are prone to stereotype.  That information comes from two sources:

(1)  The published body of information on countries, cultures, and other social categories.  There exists a vast reservoir of reliable data that will help you make informed generalizations about others.  Understanding these various social dimensions help us make generalizations about how people may be/act, but we must constantly remind ourselves that individuals may or may not conform to the generalization.  There are also rich learnings to be had by studying current events from a variety of sources, articles, some popular books, and many other written sources.

(2)  First-hand experience with others.  The more personal encounters you have with people from a different group, the more your stereotypes fade, indeed become unnecessary.  You may have a provisional generalization at the ready, but you begin to more readily see each person first as a unique individual and second as a member of a certain group.

Start with an evaluation of your own Cross-Cultural Comfort Zone.  How often do you create and take advantage of encounters with “different others”?  For some, it is admittedly not an easy thing to do.  But what if you decided to push fear and inertia aside and take more initiative to broaden your interactions with people who are not like you?  It’s not like you have to go out of your way in today’s increasingly global world.  Our workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods reflect a rich diversity of differences.

4.  Don’t collude with others in perpetuating inaccurate and harmful stereotypes and prejudices.

There is no simple formula for practicing this.  How do you do this without coming across as holier-than-thou or judgmental?  This is not to say that you become overly uptight or that we can’t have a sense of humor. First of all, don’t be cowed by talk of political correctness, which is a false equivalence in regard to this topic. The path of least resistance is to just sit in silence.   One helpful thing you can do is to regularly share our firsthand experiences that refute the stereotypes and prejudices and hope that it is contagious.

As we look around and see the increasing polarization and divisiveness around us, ask yourself, “What can I do to be a positive role model and a force for change?

         

Mrs. Mortimer

Compared to most other carnivorous cultures, U.S. Americans are among the world’s most finicky meat eaters.  If we were a pride of lions that had just chased down a wildebeest and were gathered around for the feast, we would tend to concern ourselves with the wildebeest tenderloin, chuck roast and prime rib, leaving the majority of the carcass to rot in the sun.  Not so for much of the rest of the world, who might remark, “Hey, you’ve left some of the best parts!”

In the U.S., many people are selective about both the animal parts we eat as well as the types of creatures we consume.  As for the parts, except for a few traditional dishes (liver and onions) and many culture-within-a-culture variations, we tend to stick to the muscle and fat of the animals we eat.  There are a few notable exceptions, about which most people are either blissfully ignorant or in complete denial.  For example, that ballpark hotdog we’re sharfing down is composed mainly of “variety meats”, a labelling euphemism for “guts”, and no amount of mustard and relish can cover up that fact. 

For perspective’s sake, let’s pause a moment to recognize that there are hundreds of millions of earth’s inhabitants who eat no meat whatsoever, either out of necessity or for health, religious, or environmental reasons I personally am not of their tribe, but I respect them for their convictions, discipline, or for the fact that they might eat meat if it were available.  I am a confirmed carnivore, having grown up on a Texas cattle ranch no less, where we always had a large freezer stuffed with beef wrapped in white butcher paper.  Most Sunday nights of the year were spent gathered around our family altar, the brick barbecue grill in the backyard, as the high priest (Dad) cooked and served Fred Flintstone-sized slabs of sirloin or T-bones.

Having said that, though, I must admit that I’ve never been very adventurous when it comes to what meat I eat.   I tend to stick to the more traditional (for my culture) cuts of meat, which are mostly muscle.  I prefer my chicken in the form of a skinless breast and my fish deboned and non-fishy.  My “meat credo” is fairly straightforward:  “No Organs.”  After all, organs are designed to produce, secrete, transport, filter, or store many substances that I, for one, don’t want coming in direct contact with the parts I ingest.  But, alas, from a global perspective, I am in the minority.  The rest of the world beckons for me to broaden my gastronomic horizons.

As I stroll past our a local butcher shop here in Brussels, I spot a whole baby pig that appears to be peacefully sleeping, naked, on a bed of ice.  Trays of brains, hearts, and tongues vie for space with brightly feathered pheasants and ducks with beaks and feet still attached.  No part is wasted.  This efficiency of utilization is found in most parts in the world.  Once on a trip to Taiwan, I was eating with a Chinese family when Robert, the university student son, sought to engage me in conversation to practice his English.  Keying off of the main course, he asked, “Which part of the chicken do you not like?”  I mentioned the back and the neck, to which Robert responded, “I do not like the chicken’s ass!”  Yes, I allowed, add that to my list, too.  On that same trip I ate chicken’s feet two ways — boiled (like chewing rubber bands with goose bumps) and roasted whole, with claws intact. (Saves on toothpicks.)  On my last trip to China, I enjoyed dishes made from cow lungs and beef tendons, among many other picturesque dishes. (See photo below.)

I’m the first to admit that much of my Organ Aversion is purely mental.  And when it comes to the types of animals we eat, it is emotional as well. Different cultures may have wildly different attachments to the same species.  Why do we have no qualms about eating cows but get apoplectic at the thought of eating a horse?  After all, here in Europe there is the cheval right next to the boeuf at the supermarket.

 What’s the big deal?  Well, it seems like a big deal to me!  I grew up watching now-ancient shows like “Fury”, whose tagline was “FURY! The story of a horse…and a boy who loves him.”  I think back over those episodes and wonder if I had misinterpreted that special relationship between Joey and his horse:  “Way to save me from the abandoned mine, Fury!  Now let’s hurry home and get you a big bag of oats – You’re looking a little thin…”

Saddled with such long-held associations, I bridled at the thought of eating horsemeat, but in the spirit of experimentation, I reined in my aversion and bought a nice horse steak at the market and threw it on the grill.  I cooked it medium-well and dug in with some trepidation.  The verdict?  It was palatable, and it wouldn’t have been half bad if I hadn’t known what it was.  Years ago in junior high, a friend offered me a piece of chocolate that tasted like a crunchy chocolate candy bar.  “How was it?” he asked with mischievous cackle.  “Great,” I said, after which he gleefully informed me that it was a chocolate covered grasshopper.  It would have been OK had I not known – It’s mostly mental. 

The fact is, dietary preferences have cultural roots and are neither right nor wrong.  What is appetizing and appropriate is culturally conditioned.  For instance, many Australians devour large quantities of Vegemite, a dark brown yeasty, salty goo that tastes to the uninitiated like something scraped out of a rusted water heater.  Is it unappetizing?  Not to them, because they have grown up eating it.  On the other hand, I have met a number of Australians who are repulsed by the taste of peanut butter, which is, of course, the manna from heaven referenced in the Bible.

So what are the lessons from this?  First, all joking aside, we shouldn’t judge others’ foods and eating habits.  Listen to yourself, and when you hear yourself using words such as weird, gross, or repulsive, you’ve crossed that line.  Stick to describing and not criticizing.  At least be willing to say, “It is gross to me.” Or “It’s not something I like to eat.” 

Also, eat what you like, but be willing to stretch your dietary comfort zone a little.  If nothing else you’ll have something new to brag about!   This is also a critical part of cross-cultural etiquette.  In many cultures, turning down an offered dish is not interpreted as merely a personal preference but as a social snub.  In parts of Asia, when you are offered the eyes of the fish being served, be honored and not repulsed! (Play like that squish and spurt is a grape…)

Another point of personal reflection is around the amount of waste of edible foodstuffs in our lifestyles.   In light of world conditions, many of us waste an obscene amount of food.  No, you don’t have to eat the chicken’s feet or the cow’s stomach, but do take a look at what you throw away in a week and make responsible adjustments.

Well, it’s lunchtime, so I’ll stop for now.  Anyone up for a salad?

It had only been a few days since we three siblings sat by Larry’s bedside as he fought the last rounds of his fight against liver failure.  And now we stood in the hot Texas sun at our brother’s funeral at the Plano Municipal Cemetery, only steps away from the burial plots of our mother and father, both buried less than five years earlier.

Larry was a year younger than I but looked years older, both from the ravages of the disease and a 50-year life lived hard. A few months earlier, when he was weak but still lucid, I travelled back from Europe to spend some time with him before the imminent end.  We sat talking for several days in the small frame house in the country where we were reared.  There was a palpable awkwardness as we struggled to make casual conversation, with an elephant in the room being that we’d had very little meaningful contact over the past 25 years.  But the mood relaxed during the times when we would reminisce, looking out the window over the pecan orchards of our former ranch, down to the creek and woods where years ago we hiked and fished and camped, and to the fields where we chopped weeds and baled hay.  Much of this was in the mind’s eye of our memories, for now the former home place was bisected by a six-lane street and dotted with columned mansions, a community college, and a megachurch.

In some ways, Larry’s was not your typical funeral.  For one thing, we laid him to rest in a casket spray painted in camouflage and covered not with flowers but with an arrangement of cattails, fishing net and a duck decoy.  The paint job was the creative inspiration of my older brother and younger sister, who deemed it a fitting tribute to our avid hunter/fisherman brother but which no doubt led to some interesting conversations around the coffee machine at the Ted Dickey Funeral Home.

There in the funeral crowd stood Mr. Green, my high school history teacher, as well as Mr. Millender, my junior high football coach/geography teacher. (In those days, a standard combination).  And there was my seventh grade science teacher/third cousin Lester (or as I was instructed to call him back then, Mr. Prince).  There were various relatives and several high school acquaintances, many of whom had never moved away and seemed stuck in a time warp.  I hadn’t seen some of these people since LBJ was President, but they greeted me as if we had just talked at our lockers after math class.  (“Man, it’s good to see you, Donny!  How have you been?  Hey, remember that Boy Scout campout where we put that can of chili in Tim’s sleeping bag?”)  

Back in the hometown I left 35 years ago, I took a look in the mirror, and my roots were showing.

Like most of us, there is much of my past that I embrace and some memories that are less than fond.  My parents were urbanites who in 1954 decided to move from the city to the country, so I grew up with a foot in both camps. This urban/rural dichotomy was part of my early years.  My grandfather was a CPA in a big accounting firm in the city, but he had an illiterate brother who lived down the road from us in a small house with no indoor plumbing.  I spent hours fishing on the creek bank but also had opportunities to attend the theatre and classical concerts in nearby Dallas throughout high school.

There is much I appreciate and miss about my younger years, but when the time came to physically and emotionally leave home, it was not a difficult decision.  And my life since has been a journey of expanding horizons.  In college and with every subsequent career move, my involvement with the world has broadened.  Long before moving to Europe, I was involved and interacting with people from around the globe.  Before relocating to Belgium, I had travelled to other countries over 80 times. Now I have lived overseas three times for 14 years.  The cumulative effect has been the development of an increasingly global mindset and a greater cultural awareness, but here’s the thing:  It is built upon the foundation of my own cultural roots.

This is a key intercultural paradox:  In order to accept, understand and adapt to other cultures, a necessary first step is to understand and embrace your own cultural heritage and social identities. Why?  Because your world view, values, behaviors, and perspectives are greatly shaped by the sum of your cultural influences and the social groups to which you belong.  Being aware of “where you’re coming from” makes you more conscious of your biases, ethnocentricity, and reactions to different people.

So how does examining my cultural roots make me more interculturally aware and adaptable?  In and of itself, it doesn’t.  It’s only one key ingredient, but it’s a major first step.

When I am put in a situation or encounter that crosses culture or other differences, I am better able to do three things:

First, I can be in touch with my emotional reactions to differences.  At times I may feel irritation, impatience, confusion, embarrassment, or any number of emotions when I encounter differences.  It’s easier now to realize that hey, something’s messin’ with my Cultural Comfort Zone (See those Texas roots?) and react to the situation accordingly.

I can also be more aware of my tendency toward ethnocentrism.  It’s natural to see the universe through my cultural lenses, but it becomes a problem if I unconsciously make negative judgments about everything that is different.  Being conscious of my cultural conditioning makes it easier to say, “It’s different” rather than “It’s wrong or inferior.” This is not to say that the gut reactions totally disappear or that my picture is now included in the dictionary next to the definition of “patience”.  When living in Brussels, it still bothered me when I arrived home to find someone parked in MY driveway, but not so much when I realize that I capitalized MY because of my cultural norms and values around privacy and property, which are different than those of my European neighbors.  I still don’t like people cutting in line, but it helps me to be more patient when I am aware that I grew up with a different view of lines and orderliness.  I can be more comfortable when someone violates my personal space, more tolerant of what feels like a blunt response, or even more open-minded when someone says something critical of my home culture.

And I can be more sensitive to how my behaviors and attitudes may hinder my effectiveness.  The more I can examine my actions in light of the different culture I’m encountering, the more I begin to notice where my “typical” behaviors may at best lessen my effectiveness and at worst offend or alienate others.  Certain things that are quite acceptable in my home culture may not be in other parts of the world.  I can decide to just act the way I would back home, or I can opt to move out of my comfort zone and choose to behave in a culturally-appropriate way and thus relate more effectively.

Don’t misunderstand – cultural adaptability does not require you to be something you’re not or to abandon your heritage or identity.  In fact, it is just the opposite –  when you are true to yourself and have a clear view of your own identity, it frees you up to develop the perspectives, motivation, and skills needed to relate to just about anyone, anywhere.

A foreign language phrasebook can be a lifesaver when you’re in a place where the local language is Greek to you (Athens, for instance).  Perhaps you’ve been in Copenhagen and were able to feel right at home when you could whip out the phrasebook and confidently say, “Jeg savn toilet tissue rask!” (“I need toilet tissue – quick!”)  

In the past few years, I have spent much time perusing foreign language phrasebooks (mostly French) and their cousins, beginner foreign language lesson books.  Both can be entertaining reading when you let your imagination run free. 

I began to imagine what might happen if a language phrasebook were placed in a time capsule, not to be unearthed until centuries later by archaeologists seeking clues as to what social life in the 21^st century was like.  Given only the written record of foreign language phrasebooks and lessons, how would they describe the inhabitants of this time in the distant past?

These future archeologists would deduce that 21^st century humans spent an inordinate amount of their time on public transportation and in hotels, restaurants and shops.  They were evidently focused on survival.  In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, they seemed to hover at the base of the pyramid, devoting their time and energy to seeking food, shelter and the most basic needs.  Forget Self-Actualization and Fulfilling One’s Potential – These people were constantly poring over menus seeking something to eat, searching for a decent place to stay, and shopping for various personal items.

According to the phrasebook manuscripts, these ancient people were a forgetful and perpetually lost lot:

• I’ve lost my hat.
• I left my umbrella on the train.
• I cannot find my hotel.
• Where is my overcoat?
• Which way to the airport?
• I’ve lost my way.
• Where might I find public facilities?

Walking around disoriented, they were forever asking directions to the post office, a hospital, the bank, or the cinema.

They were also a very giving people.  One page of the phrasebook reads:

• John gave it to him.
• He gave it to me.
• I gave it to her.
• We gave it to you. (“Did they not know about antibiotics?” the archaeologists muse.)

And then there are the people we read about in the language lesson books – We’ll call them the inhabitants of “Language Lesson Land”, who are also a strange bunch, as seen from their lifestyles and conversations.

(Note: I possess a somewhat dated French language textbook.  All quotes below are the verbatim English translations straight from that book, although admittedly out of context…)

1.  The inhabitants of Language Lesson Land are very nosy and gossipy.  They constantly pester each other with intrusive personal questions.  Where do you live?  What is your phone number?  What are you doing?  Where are you going?  Are you married? Do you have any money? 

• Who was that woman I saw you with last night?
• She was my aunt who just arrived from Europe.  (Yeah, right…)

The hotel clerk is a little too familiar with the guest’s mail:

• Guest:  Is there anything for me?
• Clerk:   Yes, a postcard, two letters and a rather large package.  One of the letters comes from Italy and another from Spain.  The stamps are very beautiful!

• Guest:  Yes, that’s true!  Is there anything else?
• Clerk:   Yes, a registered letter.

Outside Language Lesson Land, you would get slapped if you asked this series of questions, say, in a bar:

• What is your name?
• What is your phone number?
• Where do you live?
• What are your prices?

2.  Not only do these people constantly ask personal questions, but they also dutifully answer any and every question they are asked.  They have no personal boundaries.  They are never offended by this intrusive invasion of privacy.   Just once, I’d like to hear one of them respond, “Casse-toi!”  (Bug off! [the clean translation])

They are very transparent and self-disclosing.  For instance, listen in on this casual conversation between a dietician and a businessman (who evidently just happened to run into each other on the street):

• Dietician:    Good morning, sir!
• Businessman:  I think I’m putting on weight.

• D:    Oh?  You’re not managing to lose weight?  Why not?
• B:         I’m always hungry.  I’m always thirsty.

• D:        Do you exercise regularly?  Seize every opportunity to eat salads.
• B:         And what must I not do?

• D:        Never choose cakes.  Never choose ice cream.  Never choose cheese.

3.  These people gossip about and comment on everything.  I picture Jacques and Eric leaning in and speaking in conspiratorial tones:

• Renee and Marcel live with their parents.
• They work in a bookshop.
• Yes, and they “go out” a lot. (air quotation marks gesture imagined)

Other catty remarks:

• He never works.
• Pierre works slowly.
• She exports nothing.
• Marcel does not play the piano.
• Alice is less humorous than Betty.
• She speaks more distinctly than Paul.

4.  People in Language Lesson Land can be blunt and tactless as well.  In one conversation, when Helene shares her New Year’s resolutions with Michel, he responds:

• “I’m sorry, I heard that last year!  I don’t want to discourage you, but I’m certain that you will never do anything!”

When a customer brings a faulty answering machine back to the shop, the shopkeeper says:

• “All of our products are of excellent quality.  If you haven’t had a single message in two weeks, the only explanation is that no one calls you!”  (Where’s Dale Carnegie when you need him?)

5.  These folks, all named Pierre, Luc, or Laurent, Nicole and Marie, are a very jaunty bunch.  They seem to spend most of their time in spirited and jocular conversations in cafes and discos.   

Listen to the banter of these two suave guys at the disco.  (I picture them in bellbottoms and shiny floral print shirts):

A:        Do you see that woman over there?

B:         Which one?  There are many of them.

A:        The pretty one with black hair.

B:         The one who dances with the old gentleman?

A:        Yes, that one.

B:         Well, she is pretty enough, and she dances well. 

A:        Do you know her?

B:         No I don’t.  And you?

A:        Neither do I, of course.  That’s why I’m asking you!

B:         OK.  I can see that she interests you.

A:        Let’s go see Louis.  He knows everybody!

B:         Yes, let’s!

6.  Language Lesson Land citizens live fully in the present.  “Carpe Diem!”, they would toast each other at the sidewalk café (if they spoke Latin instead of French).  They waste no time reflecting on the past, and they rarely set their sights on the future, other than discussing where they might dine that night.  I suspect that there is a more literate group of Language Lesson Land denizens who can carry on finely-nuanced conversations using the imperfect and present subjunctive, but they frequent other cafes in advanced lesson books that I’ve only dreamed about being able to comprehend.

In reality, of course, language phrasebooks and guides are very helpful.  I’ve compiled a list of actual items from phrasebooks that I find myself using quite often:

• Ou est le chat?     (Where is the cat?)
• J’ai besoin d’acide borique.         (I need boric acid.)
• Ou est le fronton?         (Where is the jai alai court?)
• Que diable voulez-vous?            (What the devil do you want?)
• Qu’ est-ce que l’amour?             (What is love?)

And these are useful phrases that I keep at the ready in case they are needed:

• Do you know where I can rent a typewriter?
• There are four of us but only three sleeping bags.  (Possible pick up line)
• Which ambulance do you prefer, this one or that one?

Here are some sentences that I’ve yet to use:

• Allez-vous me donner un bon caddy?     (Will you provide me with a good caddy?)
• Je resterai ici tout ete. Je voudrais une chamber qui donne sur l’ocean.        (I’ll be staying here all summer.  I’d like a room facing the ocean.)

Here are some I get tired of hearing or using:

• Laissez-moi tranquille ou j’applele un agent!      (Leave me alone or I’ll call a policeman!)
• Ouvrez vos bagages, s’il vous plait.        (Open your bags, please.)
• Je veux un avocat.         (I need a lawyer.
• Pouvez-vous pousser ma voiture?          (Can you give my car a push?)
• Il n’y a pas d-eau courant.         (There is no running water.)

Well, there are many other examples, but it’s time to close.  I’ve searched my

phrasebook for a statement both dramatic and profound with which to close these notes.  And I think the clear winner, there on page 86, is:

“Ma tante doit vomir!”

Thursday afternoon had finally arrived, and it was time to clock out.  We were in the Kingdom of Bahrain, and as in the rest of the Arab world, and the weekend was upon us.  We were completing a hectic week that had involved a high level of interaction with a group of Saudi Arabian senior executives, and ahead of us lay two free days before we repeated the process with another group the following week. 

We were three CCL facilitators and one training manager from the Saudi host company. We were discussing options for the evening, feeling like a group of high school guys with the keys to the family car.  One of the group decided to stay in for the night, and who could blame him?  Home base was a fabulous five-star hotel, owned by the Royal Family, a paradise of palm-studded seaside acreage, with a pool with waterfalls, a private beach, and numerous restaurants.  But outside the walls of our luxury cocoon, the modern capital city of Manama beckoned, the lights of its skyline twinkling three miles across the desert.

John and I joined Joe, a long-term U.S. American expatriate to Saudi Arabia.  Joe drove an old U.S. utility vehicle – a Blazer or Bronco or some such big rig – with two-tone paint, oversize wheels and a tattered interior.  As I climbed into the back seat, I made two automatic assumptions:  (1) That he was a safe driver experienced in the ways of Middle East driving, and (2) That he spoke Arabic, having lived for years in the region.  (The first would prove to be true but the second false.)

The three of us barreled out of the palatial front gates of the hotel, headed for a wild night of fun.  You need to realize that “wild” is a relative term.  On the “Wildness Continuum” of the United Sates, for instance, Manama would fall somewhere between Little Rock, Arkansas and North Platte, Nebraska.  But when the standard of comparison is Bahrain’s neighbor, Saudi Arabia, it’s more like Las Vegas.  Here, alcohol is legal, and live bands can play rock music (albeit both restricted to hotel bars).  OK, that’s about all the wildness there is–but remember the benchmark.

Manama, home to 600,000 citizens, is a modern city with nice hotels, restaurants, shopping centers, and a lively souk.  Because part of the U.S. Fleet docks there and it is a popular holiday destination for well-heeled Arabs, it has a thriving tourist industry.  It is separated from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia by a 25 kilometer causeway, but in some ways it feels light years away.

The main Dens of Iniquity here are hotel bars, where alcohol is served and live music blares into the night.  There is usually a bandstand and dance floor, complete with silvery disco ball and strobe lights, and there are tables receding into the smoky darkness, where Arab men, dressed in traditional white thobe and checkered scarves, sip beers and watch from the protective  anonymity of the back tables.  Many of the music groups are from the Philippines, who, under contract with the hotel, spend an indentured season there, rehearsing by day and performing by night, rarely leaving the hotel and even then only by permission of the management.  A Filipino band in Bahrain is typically three guys (guitar, bass, and keyboard) fronted by two or three young female singers, clad in short, tight sequined dresses, who dance and sing American pop standards in English.  Between songs, the patter is in halting English, but when they break into “Proud Mary”, it is might as well be John Fogerty singing those words.

It was to such a night spot that we set out that warm spring evening, but we never made it, thanks to a moment of distraction and a fateful turn of events.  A simple word of advice:  If you must be in a car accident, try to avoid Bahrain.

It was a simple U-turn less than a mile from the hotel, prompted by a suddenly-remembered-left-behind-something, on a two-lane street in the rush hour dusk.  At the precise moment that Joe slowed and swung into the turn, a large panel van decided to pass on the left, and we turned into the path of the van and were broadsided on the left.  The two vehicles came to a screeching halt in the middle of the busy street.  Adrenalin pumped and hearts raced as time seemed momentarily to stand still.  Because we were encased in tons of Detroit automotive steel, we sustained only a side panel crumple and escaped bodily injury.  The large van also looked to have sustained only minor damage. We and the van driver rolled out of our doors to face this new turn of events, as traffic immediately began to back up in both directions.  The three of us gathered in the center of the street and spoke quietly to each other before approaching the other driver.  John and I, deferring to Joe the “local”, asked “What do we do now?”  Joe shrugged and said “Hell if I know!”  A sickening panic set in at the realization that, like us, Joe was a foreigner, across the bridge and the border from his adopted country, unable to speak the local language, and all of us definitely in deep doo-doo.  (I don’t know the Arabic phrase but am sure it exists.) 

Of course Joe felt bad and quickly said to us, “You guys walk back to the hotel – I can handle this”.  But after being tempted by that option for a brief second, we dismissed the offer as ridiculous.  This would be a “one for all and all for one” deal – the Three of us Musketeers would stick together.

The van that hit us was a large windowless panel van, the type used in the U.S. by plumbers and UPS, and this one was transporting South Asian laborers back from a construction site.  (Bahrain has a large number of immigrant  laborers from such countries as India and Pakistan, who cling to the bottom rungs of the social ladder and are employed in many low-level jobs.  “The attitude that they were deemed “second class citizens” would not be an overstatement.)

Rather than approaching us the driver went around to the back of the van and opened the rear door.  As he did so, a stream of young men began to pour out.  All were clad in identical sky blue jumpsuits, and they kept coming and coming – it was like a circus clown car – until a total of seventeen had emerged from the rear door.  (They were crammed unbelted on benches in the windowless back.)  They trotted single file to the side of the road, where they squatted in a straight line, looking straight ahead stoically.  Several of them, however, began to dramatically dab dirty handkerchiefs to an elbow or forehead, but there was no blood in evidence.  The driver walked over to check them out, and the dramatics increased as the injured showed him their wounds.  (Remember, as a child, when you slightly cut a finger and squeezed it to make it bleed to increase the effect?  That was the sense I had at this moment.)

Several passing motorists had already called the police on their mobile phones, so by the time the other driver approached us, a police officer on a motorcycle was pulling up.  Luckily, the young officer spoke limited English, but the other driver had the advantage of speaking to him in Arabic.  By this time, darkness had settled in.  John and I stepped back several yards along the roadside, feeling that our contribution was minimal at this point.  We watched the traffic back up into the distance in both directions.

As we were surveying the situation from this vantage point, a Mercedes sedan pulled up to the curb, and two well-dressed South Asian men got out and walked over to us.  (We later learned that they were the owners of the company that owned the van and employed the laborers).  They had been following the crew at some distance back from their worksite.)   One sidled up to me and asked what had happened.  I said, “Well, we made a U-turn, and…”  He quickly interrupted me, wagging his index finger in my face like a metronome, saying, “Oh, U-turn is veddy veddy bad!  Veddy veddy bad!” In this instance, I guess he had a point…

As John and I watched helplessly, the police officer talked to Joe.  He was listening to English, a language of which he had mastered only the crude basics. Joe was saying:

 “Officer, I am certain that this driver is obviously incompetent.   Do you think I didn’t look back before carefully making a U-turn?  This other driver obviously attempted to recklessly and illegally overtake me on the left. I’m sure you will take me at my word on this.  I would not execute such a maneuver quickly and without looking.  Thanks for your consideration.”

 The Bahraini policeman was probably hearing something like:

“Officer…I am…incompetent…I … did not look…recklessly and illegally…take me…execute…quickly…without…consideration.”

The van driver then fervently pleaded his case in Arabic.  We stepped in to have a quick huddle with Joe, and when we turned around, the two Indian “owners” were filling the police officer in on their account of the events.  He wrote and nodded enthusiastically as they gestured and pointed, indicating directions of approach, points of impact, and extent of injuries, obviously giving specific details that might have been cogent had they actually been present at the time of the collision.

At the direction of the police officer , the driver and workers piled back into the van, which sped off down the street.  Joe conferred with the officer and returned to us, saying that, since several of the passengers were injured, we must follow the officer to the hospital until the extent of the injuries was determined, and then to the local police station nearby for questioning.

 My expectations for the evening had been that by this time I would be sitting drinking a beer and listening to “Tie a Yellow Ribbon”.

Needless to say, when you are in a strange country and don’t speak or understand the language, you are constantly working with incomplete data.  We followed the policeman’s motorcycle with some difficulty, because he was erratically zipping in and out of traffic ahead of us, going to who knows where – a hospital? a police station?  I figured that we’d find out.

Luckily, we caught a glimpse of our police escort turning left some distance ahead.  We followed him into a dark parking lot next to a hospital.  We parked, and he motioned “come on”, so we followed him into the hospital.  He talked to the hospital personnel, to us, and again to the van driver, who had delivered the injured to the emergency room.  After 30 minutes, he ordered us to accompany him across a parking lot to the local police substation.

Police hut would be more accurate — it was a small two-room building with a parking lot adjacent to it.  He motioned for us to come in.  (From this point on, no one involved spoke a word of English.)  Everyone was polite but very serious.  None of us was tempted to clown around or crack a joke.  There were four or five police officers around, several carrying automatic weapons.  The average age seemed to be about 17 years of age, but, given the circumstances, these guys came across as very mature.  Though looking young, every one of them sported a huge bushy moustache.  A youthful-looking officer sat behind a simple desk, a ledger book the size of a library dictionary before him.  A cigarette with a long ash dangled from his lips.  Smoke swirled in the harsh fluorescent tubes that buzzed overhead as he slowly and meticulously transferred the reporting officer’s data to the ledger book with a stubby pencil.  Since Joe was the driver, he was the focus of attention and answered what few questions they asked.  The quiet was deafening.

John and I walked outside into the warm desert night and stood on the porch looking out over the police station parking lot.  As we squinted into the darkness, we saw several young police officers talking animatedly in Arabic to someone – We realized that it was the ever-present and exceedingly charismatic Other Driver, who, in my mind, was clearly emerging as the Plaintiff in this developing case.  All of a sudden, they all burst into laughter at something that had been said, and the van driver high-fived one of the policemen.  I turned to John and remarked, “Man, that can’t be good.”

We were there for at least an hour before Joe came out to announce that we now had to accompany the officer to another police station across town.  We hopped into the dented Land Barge and took out in pursuit of the motorcycle cop disappearing into traffic ahead of us.

We drove for what seemed like an hour (probably 15 minutes) through dark streets, in areas of the city that stood in stark contrast to our luxury hotel oasis.  Disoriented by the circuitous route, we had no clue where we were as we pulled into the parking lot of the police station somewhere on the outskirts of town.  We were led into the building, down a long corridor, starkly-lit and painted in that universal institutional green of government buildings.    The officer led us to a waiting area, where he motioned for John and me to sit and for Joe to come with him through a door to…who knew where?  We would sit there for an hour and a half, having no clue as to the eventual outcome of this adventure or the well-being of our friend somewhere behind that door.

We sat watching a shift change, as officers came in, exchanged pleasantries, laughed loudly at each other’s comments and stories, and then wearily trudged out to head home for the night.  By this time, it was approaching 11 o’clock, and the desk sergeant changed places with his replacement and walked out.  The new guy eyed us warily but soon forgot about us and went about his business.

When Joe emerged, he looked a little more relaxed than before.  He explained that, because there were injuries, this was a serious offense.  Luckily, all wounds were superficial.  And it was fortunate, he had been told, that these were immigrant laborers and not Bahraini citizens, whose lives are evidently much more valuable than theirs .   Even so, his car was being confiscated until his court appearance, scheduled for the next day.  We were free to go, but without the benefit of our wheels.  This was a challenge, since we were at least 5 miles from our hotel.  The desk officer pointed to a pay phone, and we called the hotel, who promised to send someone.  Fifteen minutes later, a black Mercedes pulled up, and we recognized the burly hotel security guard who stepped out.  As we walked out, he spoke to the desk officer briefly, and they both threw back their heads and laughed heartily.  Though I don’t understand Arabic, I think I got the punchline of the joke (us).  We sat silently in the back of the hotel car as we were chauffeured at breakneck speed through the deserted streets on Manama.

Fast forward to the next evening.  That day, Joe had appeared before the Bahraini judge, who leniently fined him and gave his vehicle back.  It was now time to attempt our night on the town once again.  As we walked out the front entrance of the hotel, we looked across the desert darkness toward the Manama lights beckoning us.  Without even thinking, we all simultaneously shouted to the doorman: “taxi!”

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined it possible, but here I am, drinking a beer with Michael Jackson.

Yes, the Michael Jackson.

Not the late pop singer, of course, but the world’s foremost expert on Belgian beer.

[Author’s Note: Jackson died in 2007, 4 years after I wrote this piece.]

Michael Jackson was well-known in the beer world as a pioneer in studying and writing about beer, long before the craft beer era. He wrote 16 books, translated into 21 languages, the most famous being The Great Beers of Belgium, first published in 1991. He received honors in Italy, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Finland, the United States, and Belgium, where he has been honored by the Royal Family and the Belgian Confederation of Brewers. 

In case you are not aware, beer is big in Belgium.  This small country is a hotbed of beer brewing with over 200 breweries, which produce around 800 different beers in 50 to 60 styles.  Since the 12^th century brewers throughout Belgium have created beers that run the gamut from the more “usual” types of beer to many that are sweet, spicy, sour, nutty, fruity, chocolaty, wine-like, strong, or flowery.  Where else but Belgium can you taste a peach or raspberry beer or some that contain 12% alcohol?  You might say that the high regard given to fine wines in many countries is bestowed upon beers in Belgium.  And to add to each beer’s individuality, each is served in its own unique glass, with the brand imprinted on it and shaped to accentuate the beer’s characteristics. Some are shaped like brandy snifters, some are flutes, and others are wineglass-shaped.  (When presented at the table, the server scrupulously turns the beer logo on the glass to face the drinker.)  You never see anyone drinking a beer from the bottle – except perhaps at a trendy bar for twenty-somethings, featuring the latest craze from the U.S., like Corona or Coors Light.

In Belgium, beer and religion are often intertwined – Belgium has a saint of Brewing, Saint Arnold of Soissons.  Belgian brewers pay homage to St. Arnold each year in a worship service in Brussels, culminated by a processional to the Grand Place, in which the brewers are robed as the Chevalerie du Fourquet – the Knights of the Mashing Fork.  A number of beers are brewed by monasteries and religious orders.  In fact, there are five Trappist monasteries in Belgium that have commercial breweries, run by monks, and protected by a Belgian official designation as “Trappist” breweries.  Others associated with religious orders are called “abbey” breweries.  In addition to the dozens of beers named after saints and religious orders, there are some named from the darker side of religion, such as the brands Satan, Lucifer, Judas, and Duvel (Devil).  Some have otherwise interesting names like Deliriens Tremens and Mort Subite(Sudden Death).

Summary:  Belgians take their beer very seriously. This is more so in terms of quality than quantity – They rank fifth in per capita consumption, behind Germany, Ireland, Denmark and Austria.

Another feature of this beer-saturated culture are the numerous annual beer festivals held across the country.  A typical festival features booths by many of the breweries, where their regular brews and the occasional new offering are showcased.  Some festivals are open-air events and others are held inside, but all have tables spread around the area, where crowds of patrons gather to sample beers and chat with others.  As the festival progresses, the crowd expands (in number and girth), and the mood becomes, shall we say, more convivial, as the sampling continues.  Ruddy-cheeked brewery representatives mill around, singing, drinking and greeting people.  Mostly middle- aged men, they parade around in a variety of costumes and robes, some resembling university professors at a graduation ceremony, if professors at graduation were to carry around gigantic goblets or bottles of beer. 

There are sometimes small brass bands that wander around playing.  Many sound as if their musicians started their musical careers only recently.  They stop in front of selected booths to play a few spirited numbers, after which the musicians quaff a beer from that brewery.  My presumption is that these are “beer bribes” that the breweries are happy to provide in exchange for the attention it brings in their direction.  The bands move around frequently to maximize their exposure (and alcohol intake).

But back to Michael Jackson…

Cheryl and I have driven to the Wallonian city of Tournai for the night to experience their annual beer festival.  It is June, a cool and rainy Friday night opening at the festival, with only a smattering of patrons milling around the high-ceilinged community hall on the town square.  Quite frankly, I am disappointed and a little underwhelmed with the turnout and the energy level in the place.  While standing at a book table perusing a copy of the book Michael Jackson’s Great Beers of Belgium, I glance across the large room and see a distinctive-looking gentleman, dressed in rumpled sport coat, baggy khakis, beer motif tie and sporting a frizzy head of hair.  My eyes move back and forth several times from the back cover photo to this man before I realize that it is indeed the author in the flesh! 

Remarkably, this celebrity of sorts is standing alone in a corner, and I cannot resist walking over to introduce myself.  We strike up a conversation, and he is polite and personable. (Probably thinking to himself, “Oh, no – another beer festival groupie.”)  But then he asks where I am grew up, and I mention Plano, Texas, and he says, “Oh, yes, Plano.  Let’s see, several years ago, I was on an island in Scotland on a tour of whisky distilleries but was simultaneously the guest on a call-in radio show in Dallas (by mobile phone), and a caller asked where in the area he could find [a certain obscure Belgian beer].  I told him he could definitely find it at [obscure Plano, Texas beer store].”  I am really impressed by his photographic memory and flattered that he knows of my hometown 5000 miles away.

After a few minutes, he says, “Well, it’s time for me to go to work – Join me if you’d like.”  “Work”, I figure out, is to do research for the next edition of his Belgian Beer Bible.  So he consults a little spiral-bound notebook, scans the brewers’ booths, finds his target and heads off in that direction.  What the heck, I think, and follow him across the room.

We walk up to the selected booth, where the brewer, a man of around fifty, introduces himself and places two small glasses of his beer on the counter in front of us.  I gulp mine, stifling a belch, which should have immediately blown my cover as a beer connoisseur.  By contrast, Mr. Jackson takes tiny sips, swirling, slurping, smacking and smelling and generally savoring that little six ounces of unique Belgian beer.  He pauses to ask questions on the type of hops, fermentation specifics, and grain mixtures, jotting notes in his little notebook.  The brewer watches nervously for any signs of approval or disapproval, scanning Mr. Jackson’s face and discreetly trying to see what he is writing in that little notebook.  After all, a favorable mention in his book could mean greatly increased sales and notoriety for a local or regional brewery.

The brewer turns away and returns with two more small glasses of a second variety of beer. (He has three or four in his repertoire.)  He places them before us, eyes darting between the two of us, and it now dawns on me that he thinks I am with Michael Jackson (assistant, agent, partner, fashion coach — whatever).  And for the life of me, I can think of no compelling reason to disabuse him of the notion.  So I go through an instant persona shift.  I begin to sip slowly, hold my glass up to the light, nodding thoughtfully with furrowed brow.  This continues at another booth, until some festival dignitaries come to whisk the celebrity away to a dinner and press conference.  So, left standing before the brewer, I smile, nod, give a hearty thumbs up and stride off authoritatively. 

I decide that I’ve had my peak experience for the night, so I wander off to locate my longsuffering spouse, who is happily reading a book at a table in the corner, sipping a cherry beer, and we head down the street to our hotel.

My chance meeting with Michael Jackson was a memorable serendipitous experience.  In spite of my brush with Belgian beer fame, though, I’m not really motivated to become more of an expert on the subject.  Like art, I know what I like, and that’s enough for me.  Over my first four years here I’ve sampled perhaps 70 different Belgian beers, some great and some mediocre.  That leaves around 730 to go.  I would write some more, but I’ve got work to do!

It’s January in western Europe, when the daylight hours are short, and the daylight hours are usually short on daylight, come to think of it.  It’s cold and dark this morning, and inertia kicks in when the alarm jars us from our mini-hibernation…

Can it be possible that we’ve completed a full year living in Belgium?  It seems like only last week that we arrived, all giddy and starry-eyed, on the honeymoon of our overseas assignment.  I had carried Cheryl over the threshold of our new apartment.  Okay, I made that up.  (Darn, why didn’t I think to actually do that?)

But here we are at the end of Year One.  Rather than giving you a general and abstract report, I thought it would be fun to describe a typical day in the life of an ex-pat.  (Remember, it could be worse – I could be sitting in your den right now with a slide projector…)

I’m up and out the door at 8:00 am, already shifting into second gear, but the world around me is just deciding to start the engine.  This morning person is out of sync with a culture where the office workday starts at 9:00 and most cafes aren’t open early.  It’s a challenge to find a convenient place to indulge my decades-long habit of beginning the day with an early morning coffee in a cafe before heading to the office. 

As I close the front door behind me, I return Marc’s wave as he opens his locksmith/shoe repair shop across the street.  (This is a common combination in Belgium.) The sign says “Serrurerie”, a sadistic French word with an “r” to pronounce in every syllable.)   Marc is in his forties and seems to be a neighborhood unofficial official who knows everybody and, at least in warm weather, spends as much time in sidewalk conversations as in his shop.  He is a friend of our landlord, who advised us to get to know him because he “keeps an eye on the place.”  (I wouldn’t be surprised if he has a key to our building.)

I look to the right when I hear the clatter of the metal doors being rolled up at The Shoppy.  (Yes, “spell check”, that’s correct: The Shoppy.)  Jean greets me with a hearty “Bon jour!” and one of his irrepressible smiles.  The Shoppy is a typical Belgian convenience store that doesn’t feel like one because of its fresh produce, cheeses, meats and wines.  Jean is from India (I suspect that “Jean” is his nom de l’ èpicier.)  He is owner, buyer, stocker, cashier, and everything else.  He is open thirteen hours a day, not counting buying and stocking and inventory, and he is the sole person there.  And he is always smiling!  It seems like there are never many patrons there, so I’ll often stop by after work to buy a tomato or two, just for the cause.  (He probably wonders what the American guy does with all those tomatoes!)

Our apartment is almost perfect.  We occupy the middle floor of a three-story building on a corner.  We have a garage and an elevator, rarely used.  Our two bedrooms face a shady wooded lot on the side.  We look out our front windows in two directions onto this lively neighborhood, with residential streets behind us and commercial in front.  We can walk to numerous cafes, restaurants, bars, and shops.  Public transport is a three-minute walk, a nice park is nearby, and work is 3 kilometers away.  The apartment is cosy and light.  Double the toilets to two and it’s perfect.

I walk around the corner to our patisserie, passing Dominoes and Pizza Hut on the way.  Thankfully, my table is free.  I take my seat in the Non-Smoking section, which consists of one table with a “non-fumeur” sign taped to the wall above it.  I get a café, which costs around 1.75USD, which at 44 cents per sip, is worth every penny.

I arrive at the office and greet my co-workers.  Talk about an international staff:  Surnames such as Sarzedas, Virilis, Benozzi, Plettinx, Pham, Eilers, Mallon, and Bruno, along with the Foxes and Kosslers and Olmsteads, reveal the rich diversity of this team who must work closely together across cultural and linguistic barriers.  We work through the morning, sending e-mails to our US colleagues, some of whom have just arrived at REM sleep.

At lunch I stop by the bank to pay our utility bill, which like most bills here, is paid electronically from the bank.  Personal checks do not exist here – Your bill has the payee’s bank account number on it, and your bank transfers money directly into their account.  Of course, we have just made the transition to the Euro now, and things are still a little confused around the continent.  It’s a welcome switch to us U.S. Americans, since the Euro is close in value to the US dollar, making mental conversion simple.  But imagine the stress and grief for people who have grown up with a national currency and now have had to give it up and recalibrate their lives.  I notice an older woman as she leaves the bank line, pauses, and stares blankly at the strange new coins in her hand.  In every store, clerks are slowly and cautiously handing back change, counting out loud as they examine each unfamiliar coin.  (It doesn’t help that there are 8 different coins.)

We have received a notice from La Poste that a package is waiting for us to be picked up, not at our post office around the corner but one in a distant inner city locale.  I am making the hour roundtrip there for the second time.  I tried yesterday, but as I approached the area, I encountered roadblocks, police in riot gear, armoured personnel carriers and water cannons.  No, it had nothing to do with our package but rather with the protests surrounding the European Union Summit taking place several miles away.  I turned back and drove home, realizing how many things I’ve often taken for granted, such as running to the post office to pick up a package.

So here I go again, searching in an unfamiliar area with only a street name to go by.  The street appears on the map to be only 4 blocks long, so I figure it can’t be too hard to spot a post office.  I park my car and start walking.  I walk from one end to the other and see nothing resembling a post office.  I retrace my steps but still find nothing.  By my map, I’ve walked the entire street. I am one of the lightest skinned people on this predominately Middle Eastern bustling street.  I am not nervous but rather self-conscious.  I decide to ask the first person I pass for directions.  As I approach a middle age man, I ask if he knows where the post office is.  He thinks for a minute, brightens, and tries to tell me where it is.  Finally, he pantomimes “Walk with me.”  We walk in silence the three blocks to the end of the street.  He points around the corner and down a hidden extension of the street to the familiar red post office sign.  I thank him profusely; he smiles a faint smile, shrugs, and walks on.  I feel the familiar feeling of warmth and gratitude that I have experienced so often in the past year as strangers have gone out of their ways to be helpful and kind.

I finally retrieve my package and start the drive back to the office.  By the time I am finished, I will have spent two hours on this errand.  The quality of life here is wonderful, but sometimes the logistics are a real pain.

I arrive home around six.  Cheryl and I decide to go out for a drink and hop on the tram to ride to a bar called L’Atelier (The Workshop”).  It is near the university and serves over 200 different beers.  Cheryl, not historically a beer drinker, has discovered one she likes, and L’Atelier has it on tap.  It is a cherry beer, which seems like an oxymoron to most beer drinkers, but not to the Belgians.  I am not a fan – It tastes like a mixture of Robitussin and cherry Kool-Aid, but I’m glad Cheryl has found her beer.  We feel a little self-conscious at this place, because we stand out.  Being near the university, the average age of the patrons is around 19.  We feel the stares as we walk in, imagining what some of them are thinking: “Whose parents are here checking up on them?”

We return home and prepare a simple dinner.  Afterwards we turn on the TV to check out the evening’s offerings.  After the reflexive check of CNN, we surf the channels looking for English programming, but as usual, the pickin’s are slim.  There are two Dutch language stations that sporadically offer English shows, but they are usually not current ones.  Tonight it may be “The Rockford Files” or “Quincy”.  And they are heavy on U.S. made-for-TV movies, all of which seem to star Patti Duke or Farah Fawcett and have titles like “They Stole My Baby!”  Luckily, we also get BBC.

So that’s about it.  We feel that we are at the appropriate level of adjustment for the one-year mark.  Milton J. Bennett has a cultural adjustment model that moves through stages from “Ethnocentrism” to “Ethnorelativism”, the latter ending with complete integration into the new culture.  We are obviously not there, if for no other reason than our lack of language facility, but we are moving in the right direction.

As I read back through this account, I may have given the false picture that life here is more idyllic and carefree than in reality.  There are headaches and hassles every day.  The weather gets depressing when there are weeks of overcast skies.  I’ve shared some of the good, so here’s an example of the bad and the ugly.  I have just gotten into a verbal dispute with an elderly neighbor, when I happen to step out onto our small front balcony to see her small dog squat and poop in the middle of our driveway 20 feet away.  I wait to see how she will respond.  I can reasonably predict her reaction, having spent the last year hopscotching down innumerable sidewalks, dodging hazardous wastes every few feet, as is typical in Brussels.  True to form, she and poochie shuffle on down the sidewalk.

I feel compelled to speak out, but the language fails me.  Although I can confidently order my Vol au Vent in French, I am ill-equipped to create the impact necessary to convince this woman to see the error of her ways.  So I revert to my mother tongue and shout, “Madame, please clean up your dog’s poop!”  This unleashes a torrent of indignation, accompanied by dramatic facial expressions and shoulder shrugs.  This is not the first time I’ve encountered this indignation/resignation defense.  I once nicely but firmly confronted a woman who had blocked our driveway while she ran errands in the neighborhood.  “But Monsieur”, she whined emotionally as she shrugged her shoulders, “there was no other place!” (Case closed.)

So my neighbor and I reach an impasse, with her walking away muttering and shaking her head in disbelief at this strange, rude foreigner. And me, well, I watch her until she turns off the sidewalk, carefully noting which apartment is hers, plotting, just in case there is a next time…

                                                                                    January, 2002

One Saturday morning in Brussels, on my way to the newsstand, I was stepping around a pile of trash on the sidewalk when a discarded book caught my eye.  I reached down and picked up a copy of Arthur Frommer’s famous Europe on 5 Dollars a Day, 1962 Edition.  (When the guide’s last edition was published in 2007, it was Europe on 95 Dollars a Day.)  I took it home, settled in, and took a nostalgic journey through its brittle yellowed pages into the world of international travel decades earlier.  I invite you to step back with me to 1962 in the U.S.:  John F. Kennedy was U.S. President.  A new TV show called “The Beverly Hillbillies” competed for viewers with “Candid Camera” and “Bonanza”.  A singer named Bob Dylan released his first album, and Elvis Presley would have five number one hits in the year.  The top movies were “Spartacus” and “West Side Story”.  The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted that year, and astronaut Alan Shepard became the first American in space with his 15 minute flight.  What was it like in 1962 to travel from the Unites States to Europe?

The guide takes us on a tour of the major European cities, from London, Paris, and Rome, to Stockholm, Amsterdam, Berlin, Athens and Madrid – 17 cities in all, with brief notes on 50 other cities around the continent.  This is a different era, where the nexus of a city-to-city journey is not the “air terminal” but the central train station, and where the new Eurailpass (180.00 for 3 months unlimited first class rail travel) is referred to as a “gimmick” the traveler may want to consider.  This is a time when a traveller to Europe still has to decide between travelling by air or sea (almost identical in price – air gets the nod), and where all airlines are completing the transition from propeller-driven to jet planes for transatlantic flights.

In 1962 a taxi ride across Rome costs 80 cents.  London is a great bargain destination where a three-course meal can be had for 79 cents, the most expensive live theatre ticket goes for 2.80, and a ride on the central London Underground costs 3 cents.  Hotels around and even in European train stations are safe and clean, and the chapter on Amsterdam mentions neither the Red Light District nor marijuana coffee shops.  There are budget hotels in London that serve breakfast in bed to honeymooners, have cold beer stocked in the communal fridge, provide free babysitting till 11pm, and sponsor weekend dances.  Copenhagen citizens often patriotically offer their homes to tourists in the few peak summer vacation weeks – in fact (or so the guide claims) recently the Prime Minister of Denmark opened his home to an American tourist family in need of a place to stay the night.

All airlines in this pre-deregulation period charge exactly the same fares, which are quite steep in 1962 dollars.  European flights depart from only two cities – New York and Los Angeles.  The roundtrip economy fare from New York to Paris is 526.40.  (Keep in mind that the US median income in 1962 was $500 per month.) From LA it is 805.40.  There is a special provision, however, called “extra city fares”, whereby the traveller could stop over at other cities on the way for the same fare.  In fact a traveller from New York’s Idlewild Air Terminal (now JFK) to Rome could stop over free in up to 19 European cities, including London, Paris, Brussels, Geneva, Milan, Frankfurt, and Copenhagen!   And are you a little strapped for cash?  No problem – the airlines offer an installment plan where, with decent credit, you can fill out a form, offer a couple of references, and then, with a 10% deposit, pay off the balance in up to 24 monthly payments.

So, what are some of the guide’s “Rules of the Game” for savvy 1962 travelers?

1.  Do not spend more than 5 dollars a day per person on lodging and meals.  That breaks down to 2.50 for a double room and 2.50 for three meals (per person).  Many hotels are recommended with the disclaimer that doubles are too expensive at 3.00-3.50 but may be worth the budget-busting splurge. 

2.  Never get a room with a private bath.  This is silly, because “few Europeans regard a bath or shower as a daily necessity”, and, besides, since rooms with baths are a rarity, they are triple the cost.

3.  Eat breakfast outside your hotel.  The huge breakfast of eggs, bacon, and all-the-trimmings to which most Americans are accustomed will cost a fortune in the hotel (up to 1.00, double the daily budget for breakfast).  In Paris, for instance, you can have coffee and croissants in a café for 25 cents.  If you can’t live without a big breakfast, order 2-3 continental breakfasts, Frommer advises.

4.  Always ask to see the room before renting.  Let them know that you are

willing to keep looking, because, after all, there is no need for advance reservations in most cities, even in busy summer months.  But remember, there is no reason to become an “unreasonable horse trader” in these dealings.

5.  Eat only in restaurants that display their menu in the window, and go for the prix fixe meal.  Be watchful about hidden charges.  (An extra 25 cents can wreck your meal budget.)

6. Be creative.  You can while away a whole day sitting at a sidewalk café for the price of a cup of coffee or at a bar “nursing a single drink for hours on end”, because no European waiter would dare ask someone to leave.  And why pay the 1.50 entrance fee to the Sound and Light Show at Rome’s Campidoglio when the resourceful tourist can see it for free from the hill behind?   

7. Eat three huge meals per day.  The word “huge” is used often in conjunction with meals.  The guide favors places that serve “mountains” of food, which attract “a serious heavy eating crowd”, and where, as in Nice’s restaurants, you need to “loosen your belt, take a deep breath, and pitch in.”

Europe on 5 Dollars a Day is awash in hyperbole and romance.  This is a world where prices are “too good to be true” or “so low as to make you blink”.  “You’ll be thrilled to the marrow” by Berlin and receive “the thrill that comes only once in a lifetime” when you see the Parthenon in Athens.  “Renoir alone could capture the pastel hues” of a particular “breathtakingly beautiful” Copenhagen restaurant.  Every city is cross-referenced to a movie or novel.  Every American’s view of Rome is based upon “La Dolce Vita”, and, we are told, one can almost envision Don Quixote and Sancho Panza  riding across the plains of Spain near Madrid.  There are streets that look “like a set out of ‘Othello’ or “The Student Prince’”.  Stockholm is even likened to Camelot.  One gets the sense that life definitely imitates art in Europe.

The guide is definitely written from an unenlightened “1962 male” perspective.  The chapter on Stockholm contains a whole section on ”Girl Watching”, where one discovers that “the girls of Sweden are that nation’s chief export, best tourist attraction, and most highly developed achievement.”  There are times in Stockholm, he notes, “when you’ll simply stand with mouth agape, drinking in the view.”  Frommer, who refers often to his wife and travel partner Hope (who also writes a chapter in the book), seems to enjoy his girl watching.  In Paris, one can schedule an afternoon watching “the babes with a little less on” at the Piscene Deligne (20 cents to watch).  (Obviously Hope is off shopping.)

In some ways the guide seems ahead of its times, urging readers to learn some of the local languages and espousing an egalitarian world view, where one adventurously plunges into the cities of Europe to rub shoulders with its citizens and to experience the cultures up close and personal. One travels to Europe to see Europe and Europeans, not other Americans, the introduction states. But then there are all those references to popular culture and the stereotypical images of Europe that dot the pages.  In this version of Europe, you might expect to see Dutch people clomping down the streets of Holland in wooden shoes or Germans on the way to the office wearing liederhosen.   One curious reference in the chapter on Paris states that Paris’ low prices allow “even a low salaried Frenchman to live in a most enjoyable French manner”.

To be fair, the guide’s world view and perspectives have changed with the times.  (So have mine – of course I was 12 in 1962.)  What hasn’t changed is the basic premise that travel doesn’t have to cost a fortune to be fun.  The “dollars a day” guides, first published in 1957, paved the way for the numerous budget travel guides that are so common today.  And Mr. Frommer is our paternalistic friend and guide.  Of a particular hotel, he advises, “The price is __.  Write me if they charge you a single shilling more.”  (emphasis Arthur’s)

There is a helpful chapter on packing, penned by wife Hope.  The Frommer packing philosophy is summed up in the statement, “A light suitcase means freedom.”  You buy the lightest suitcase possible, and then you pack it with “the skimpiest set of clothing your courage will allow”, and then you should remove half of what you’ve packed.  Mrs. Frommer has streamlined the European vacation packing list to the bare minimum, which for the traveling woman consists of:

4 pairs of nylon panties

6-8 pairs of nylon stockings

2 petticoats (nylon)

2 bras (nylon)

1 Cardigan sweater

I pair of sandals

1 pair of good sturdy walking shoes

1 pair of dressy high heels

1 bathing suit and bathing cap

1 wool or cotton knit daytime dress

1 Wash ‘n Wear cotton daytime dress

1 Wash ‘n Wear cotton travelling suit

1 Wash ‘n Wear cotton blouse

1 wool or cotton knit dressy dress or suit

1 pair of nylon pajamas

1 cotton robe

Jewelry, scarves, and accessories for each of the above outfits

1 all-purpose travel coat

1 giant-size purse

Miscellaneous items – makeup, cold cream, etc.

Your “traveling to Europe” outfit – (“You can afford to wistful about this.”)

And no need to pack such things as water purifying tablets and pharmaceuticals, we are informed – “You’ll soon discover that Europe is civilized”, and these are readily available.

Well, back to the 21^st century.  In many ways, 1962 was a simpler – and cheaper – time to travel. Cheryl and I sometimes visit Paris from Brussels, and we stay at the Hotel du Mont Blanc in the Latin Quartier.  Like true Frommer devotees, we typically stay at a 2-star hotel in a central location.  Our philosophy is that, for a quick trip, a hotel is just a bed in which to crash after a long day of exploring.  Cheryl, however, draws her line in the sand over the private bath issue (and the girl watching thing at the Piscine Deligne).

The 1962 guide cautions that our Hotel du Mont Blanc is at the high end of the range at $3.50 for a double.  It is now around 150.00 but still a bargain for Paris.  We recently walked the neighborhood looking for the Grand Restaurant Saint Michel, where, in 1962, a three course meal with bread and wine would have run us 80 cents apiece.  It was not to be found, and we were exhausted, so we settled for the U.S. burger chain in the same vicinity, where our hamburger combo meals for about 15.00 for two, was two courses, if you count the lettuce as a salad.  With an ice cream cone we would have had the third course, but that would have put us way over our budget for the day.