paris marathon, not this year

Back in Paris, the Paris marathon was my first full marathon, and one of the most enjoyable runs in my narrow running history. One of the most memorable moments for me came at the very first of the marathon. We just began running through l'Avenue des Champs-Élysées to the Concord square. At 8:30, still just a few crowds were on the both sides of the avenue, and a few runners, who might miss a precious opportunity to go to the restroom before start, were just wandering around there to look for a toilet. 


We were heading to place de la Bastille, then going to bois de Vicennes, and coming back to Bastille square again. Then we found la Seine on our left. I remember that I saw only the top of cathedral Notre-Dame while running, but it was soon disappeared. After going through a tunnel near the riverside of Concord square, many found la tour Eiffel suddenly over la Seine on the left, maybe, it was around 30 km. And at the point, I remember I reduced my speed significantly simply for being tired, and mainly for fully enjoying scenery of rest of the course. After this point, I surely enjoyed the race with very slow speed, occasionally walking, but curiously enough, I have absolutely less memories of this last 10 km than the first 30km with my maximum speed for a long run. For last 10km, we went into bois de Boulogue, then headed for Arc de Triomphe, the official goal of this marathon. 


One impressive memory. It was maybe just 500m before the goal, I fully enjoyed my walking with seeing the surrounding, including both sides of the course, and its crowds, then seeing the back, thinking how far I've just run at this moment. Maybe, a runner walking and seeing the surrounding with pleasure (especially in front of the goal, not using final propulsion power) like me seemed to be very rare, so at the time, some crowds and runners coming behind me encouraged me, saying "don't give up! you are almost there!" With smile, I fully appreciated them, their kindness. 


Here was Paris.  

sipping a cafe at the coast of nice

Sipping a cafe at the coast of Nice, I just remember that one of my colleagues in my previous office came here, in order to participate in two weeks French language program at the center of this city, as his summer vacation. He then lived in Brussels, so took a flight to go here, and lent an apartment room/studio near the school for two weeks. It was a small, but cozy room, he said, and everyday he prepared for French lessons, and studied in the school during the day, then came back to apartment and cooked for dinner. 


That did not sound like "vacation", I said to him after he came back to the office at the time. And his response was that, of course, he and fellow students in the same course, occasionally or each weekend, went to a bar or restaurant for dinner, for getting to know each other, or just for joy. 


The program had one day field trip in the city to learn city's history by visiting its landmarks, by walk. And my colleague said that he had an pretty interesting impression on the historical background of one of its fountains. I almost forget why he had such an impression, and at this moment, I have totally no idea where that fountain is/was in this city. So now, all I can do is just sipping a cafe again, and listening to the sound of eternal sea waves.


Nice, France.

walking along with avenue de toison d'or

Walking from Louise square to somewhere along with Avenue de Toison d'Or, I was passing through literally the shopping center of Brussels city. On my right side, I found lots of  somehow affordable apparel shops and other stores including HEMA, dutch casual chain-dimestore, and on the left across the high-way like Tunnel Louise, I saw seamless luxury shops and a tallest hotel around there, which was once crowned Hilton name on it, but recently Swiss-capital bought it and renamed it, just "The Hotel". 

The name of Avenue Toison d'Or seemed to be quite popular here in Brussels, like 5th avenue in New York City or Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, maybe from my personal viewpoint. On a night of Friday or Sunday, I watched a local talk show on TV in French (by the way, Brussels has two languages, and I often watched French programs), and in a show, the male host/middle aged was costumed like a quasi-taxi driver, and whenever a guest/celebrity of Belgium came to his show-studio/ Taxi like set construction, the guest says her/his destination to go. And watching the show at the night, the actress like pretty woman said to the driver/host, just "Toison d'Or !" with an impressively chic accent. At the end of the show, the actress actually came to the Avenue, gotting off the real taxi (without paying, of course), at the very front of newly built galeries de la Toison d'Or/ shopping arcade containing a cinema, a couple of restaurants, and young apparels like scotch and soda, also Dutch chain, again.

Here was casually kind of the center of Brussels, Avenue de Toison d'Or.  

brocante at heros square

There is a small street named "rue de nieuwenhove" near Heros square in Uccle commune area. On the side of this street, I was just sitting and looking up at the nicely blue sky on a sunny day in late May, because this was the space I was given by the local chamber of commerce for its annual brocante/ flea market at the square. Though it was at the end of May and nicely sunny day, but here in Brussels, many people including me took a coat at a certain point on the day, simply because it was enough cold to do so.


Anyway, on our space, my wife offered used tableware including several dishes and cups, clothes, and toys for babies. And I put my old collections consisted of several books (all in English, they were about sports or business), a baseball cap (Chicago Cubs), and a soccer/football neck scarf (Paris Saint-German FC, a souvenir of my first visit in Paris). All were just for 1 euro at the time.


I still remember my first customer, who was a junior high school boy near Heros square, coming alone. At first, he took a look on a neck scarf of PSG, but showed more interest in biography books, particularly four of them, which were about football coaches, Mr Mourinho (Portuguese), Mr Wenger (French), Mr Cappello (Italy) and Sir Furguson (Scottish). Again, these books were all in English, and the boy spoke French, his native, and average-Dutch (both are must-learn-languages in Brussels school), but had totally no idea of English. While all these four people nicely attracted this boy because he took so much time to check all of them (actually checking pictures on the books), only, but a sky-high-barrier of English language prevented him from choosing neither of them. So, I actually helped him. I offered a special discount only for him, one for 25 cents (centieme euros), saying he surely could learn English with them. After my encouragement, he took Mr Mourinho's for 25 cents decisively, because it was the thinnest book among them.


Here was in the middle of Heros brocante, Uccle, Brussels.   

twilight sky at louise stop in summer

I'm not quite sure how many times I was just looking up at the twilight sky at Louise stop, especially in summer like today, while waiting for tram 92. Tram 92, my only commuter-tram, no alternative, was rarely coming soon whenever I was at the stop, and I saw always two or three tram 95s sharing Louise stop, coming firstly there. I do not know why so many 95s always came first before single 92 coming. I still think 95 trams did not outnumber 92 trams during evening-hours. And also I saw two or more 92 trams running opposite direction (inbound) before my destination's (outbound) coming. For several years, I've learned, maybe, it was just a nature of tram 92 outbound. 


Waiting for tram 92 outbound at Louise station, in the evening, I used to look up at the billboard of red "Q", Quick Burger chain-restaurant, Belgian version of golden "M" arch, at the top of the building standing at the corner of this Louise square. Then, usually I moved my focus on the opposite corner, where the Nespresso store was under construction at the time, later newly built. 


Sometimes, I saw a car with big "Red Bull" drink can/display on its roof led lots of roller-bladers, -skaters, including kids and adults, along with avenue Louise. On the other day, that Red Bull car also led lots of cyclists with lousy music. Each time, police cars followed them for safety.


Maybe, since I was waiting at Louise stop for such a long time, in total, I think I still have lots to talk about the events I happened to encounter there. Nonetheless, at this moment, just the twilight sky I looked up at in the summer evening keeps coming in my mind. So, the colors of Louise square were always orange and water blue.


Here was Louise, also a nice shopping center in Brussels. 

running uccle 10k event

The commune/ town Uccle has had its running event crowned with its name, Uccle 10 K, and in my memory, it's inaugural competition was held in the early summer in 2008. The entire course was 10 kilometer, having mix of up and down hills. So, it was really quite tough one. One of its uniqueness was we started from a horse race track at the very beginning of the race. We have to finish the entire horse truck before going into bois de la cambre/ Cambre forest park, then passed through la observatoire/ observatory, and jumped in Saint Job square, then went up to Fort Jaco, and finally came back to Cambre park and crossed the finish line at the horse race track, welcome back. 

Each time I participated in, a local TV camera took a shot of the start-dash of most competitive runners who eagerly occupied the front line of the entire participants. After on your mark, getting set, then go-signal echoed, several high school student-runners always got pretty good start-dashes. In a particular year, I found one of those "dash men" even did not wear a running shirt and pant, but put a casual T shirt and jeans on, with a pair of Converse sneakers. And as everyone can easily expect, these dash men slowly lost their propulsion power, like after launching of a space-shuttle putting into orbit, then they were among the mass stream. 

Here was in Uccle. The mascot of this event was a blue running man, quite simple. 

delhaize proxy in saint job square

Usually, on Sunday, there were few stores open for customers in Uccle. So, at the beginning of my Brussels life, I often wandered around my apartment in each Sunday morning, in order to look for any glossary stores, which could be open on Sunday and offer any slices of breads possibly consisted of my simple breakfast. And it took 15 minutes walk for me to reach a Delhaize proxy, a mini-supermarket, which was obviously a chain-shop of its parent company "Delhaize supermarket group", and open 7 days a week. I'm not quite sure how this store could be an exception to the strict Belgium rule banning Sunday operation for any stores and shops.


Anyhow, on every Sunday in Uccle, unless I was in a vacation-trip, I surely went to that Delhaize proxy, by walking, by running, and sometimes by taking tram 92. When walking, I cannot count how many times I crossed a bridge over the railroad to reach there, though the government owed railroad corp did not run any commuter-trains on Sunday, so, I did not see any train whenever I crossed. Passing the bridge, I went down a slope along with tram 92 line, and sometimes, the tram 92 was passing by me. I over-looked the saint job square from the slope, while already smelling baguettes or petite pains in that store.


Saint Job square, here was in Uccle, Brussels. 

going to delhaize through marronniers arch

The nearest supermarket I used to go so many times in Uccle was "delhaize". In my memories, there were two delhaize supermarkets around there, and to go to one of them, I usually came around the street slightly sloped down from la observatoire/ an astronomical-observatory. There were tall marronniers/ horse chestnut trees along with this street, and in the early autumn or at the end of summer, whenever running under these sacred-arch-like tree-tunnel, I often found lots of house-chestnuts accidentally crashed under my shoes.

At a certain point, I used my car to go to that delhaize. I always chose same avenue and street to go there from my apartment, hence, I drove down that same street under same tall marronniers. Maybe, since then, I never care house-chestnuts and its trees, and literally never saw them while driving. I also never thought about the sacred-arc-like tree tunnel, until I missed them now, with help/hidden-power of a glass of biere/ "coors-light", in here, in Maryland.

It was in Uccle, Brussels. By the way, I also miss the landscape I saw from the roof parking lot of that supermarket. Lots of tree-greens and browns, and also orange-brown roof tops of houses nearby, that's absolutely beautiful.

tram's chauffeur goes to a boulangerie at an intersection

Maybe, it was a mild day in the morning in Brussels. As always, I took a tram to go to my office, and the tram, as always, already had several commuters on board, and several seats were still empty when I got into it. I sit on  literally the front seat, just behind the tram driver/chauffeur. And as the tram was going, I was just looking at the scenery from the tram window, just as always. 

It was a nice day, so, sun was shining in the morning in Brussels, and I think it was rare in here. 


When the tram passed through several stops, there was a boulangerie near an intersection, which was not big, not like franchise-chain store, but seemed to be a family owned and managed small bakery, and always had various sweet rolls, croissants and brioches in its showcase. And at the time, I realized that I was not the only person who just wanted to take one of these good looking sweet rolls. While the tram stopped at the intersection with red traffic light, the driver quite naturally went outside, and quietly entered the boulangerie. He seemed to say "bon jour" to the baker, and pointed his finger at a quite nice sweet roll. It took just 5 or 6 minutes for him to go back to his seat with a nice roll, but the traffic light already turned from red to blue, and then red came again. This means that  he had time to take a first bite of the roll, at least until the traffic light allowed the tram/him went on.


Here was Brussels, maybe, in spring or early summer, several years ago. 

same rainbow

Today, I saw a rainbow hung in the western sky in this Maryland. At the time, dark clouds gathered as if we would have a huge evening shower sooner or later tonight, and as my everyday routine exercise, I was running through the country road leading to nowhere, but a local supermarket or discount wholesale warehouse. While running, I found that that rainbow was quite similar to what I saw when taking "tram 92" running through Uccle, southern Brussels, almost 4 years ago. That rainbow was above a small, local chain supermarket, named "GB". At the time, GB was already purchased by Carrefour S.A., French hypermarket giant, but allowed to remain its name for a while. I remember the billboard painted with strong colors of red "G" and blue "B" on the top of this supermarket roof, and above these, again, a beautiful rainbow was hanging. And maybe, that was the very beginning moment of my Brussels life. 

That was in Uccle, Brussels.