sports hats

Walking around a theme park like Disneyland or Legoland, always I’ve had a certain difficulty of looking for topics, or even how and what I would write about, and for what. I don’t know why, but it is surely difficult to get a certain image of what I’ve encountered there, for example, in the course of my family vacation in this winter, especially with my son, of course.

This is the only story I can tell with a certain image, in the theme park, Disneyland.  

It was a rainy day in this winter, which may or may not be rare in here, Orlando, Florida, but the temperature on the day was a little bit unseasonably low at the time. In the evening, I and my son were rushing to one of restaurants in the park in order to be safe from the rain, and at the time, we both wore sports hats. In the restaurant, a female staff near the entrance door kept distributing a menu-card to each customer who happened to enter. When I said “hi” to her handing me a menu, she smiled us and said, “This is second time I saw you both”. 

With a big question mark on my head, I asked her how she could know that. Actually we came to this restaurant in the morning for a coffee break, but I thought both of us did not stand out from myriad people in the park, who were so diverse and coming from literally all over the world to enjoy themselves with ones of the most famously known and manufactured characters, at least in terms of business. She smiled again and said “Because you wear sports hats with a big “Legoland” logo on the front”. 

On the day before, we enjoyed the interlocking plastic bricks theme park, Legoland Florida. 

Orlando, Florida, all I can do is just walking around the theme parks. No brainer. 

small calender, brussels 2012

At this moment, just an hour before 2013, I have a small calendar in my hand titled “Brussels 2012”. Last year, I mean, in December 2011, my former colleague and his family came from Brussels to here in Maryland, and stayed for a while for sightseeing around DC area. At the time, they gave us this small calendar as a souvenir, and since then, I’ve put it on my desk next to my PC for an entire 2012. The calendar has twelve different pictures on each month, and they are, of course, a famous, beautiful piece of scenery of Brussels city I had once enjoyed. For example, crystal twilight Atomium at Heysel is in the page of September, and a Christmas tree in white at the center of Grand-Place is in the page of December.

Curiously enough, looking at these pictures now, I find there are few people in each scene. Here in pictures, there are just historical buildings, trees and flowers, and blue sky, sometimes, twilight-orange, water-blue sky. At the end of 2012, looking at familiar Brussels scenery without any people, I feel like listening to Gymnopédies, Erik A.L. Satie’s music, maybe something like a farewell for 2012 Brussels.

Anyway, having said Gymnopedies, I once went to Honfleur to visit historic Satie’s house, though I just found the house was closed at the time.

Brussels, Belgium in my small calendar.

philadelphia sauerkraut and bratwurst

It was just before Christmas when I was at the center of Philadelphia city, and just walking along with the Broad Street. Behind me, there was an old city hall famously known by the statute of the city founder sitting on its top. I walked up the street to go to the Kimmel Center, the home of Philadelphia Orchestra, to catch up the opening of its Christmas concert. I remembered that the concert at the time would be performed by the guest-Maestro coming from Vancouver.

It was in the evening, and the wind came from cold Delaware River to this skyscrapers’ valley, and made me or anyone walking around here quite chilly. At some point, I just turned back to the city hall. I could not see the opposite side of it I've already passed through. 

Around the opposite corner of the hall, there was a small squared park, which had a small fountain at its center. At this season, the park was occupied by the Christmas market, lots of small stalls and vendors selling small Christmas ornaments. At first, I felt the market seemed to be quite similar to what I often enjoyed around the cities in Germany, such as Köln’s, though the latter was apparently bigger than here. Later I found it was actually similar, because the market was organized by German society of Philadelphia, and more than that, at least I enjoyed the same smell of hot wine and taste of sauerkraut and bratwurst here in Philadelphia.

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

golden arch and flea market in warterloo

There was a golden arch of the McDonald at the corner of the relatively newly founded Carrefour in Waterloo, and on Sunday around noon, I used to drive to there to get just a burger meal. The taste was same, and maybe, the scene I saw inside this restaurant was also same as everyone could see anywhere under the same golden arch in the world. I heard that around the Ville de Waterloo, quite suburb of Brussels, was one of the favorite places for American residents commuting to the capital by car. Quite often, I heard American-English conversation in this restaurant from the families who happened to sit next to me.

The uniqueness of this McDonald was not belonged to this fast-food-store itself, nor a huge Carrefour store sitting next to it, but the flea market opened at the parking of these stores in every Sunday morning. This flea market was opened in the very early morning and closed around 13:00. So, sometimes, I was walking among vendors while biting a burger and French flies with my fingers, and looking for nothing, but enjoying looking at what they were selling. They were selling toys for children and antiques.

Here was Waterloo, Wallon Brabant, Belgium.