Pushing Sixty, one day at a time!

  Sunday, some citizens from the European Union went to the polls and did their civic duty by voting for members of Parliament. I say some, because not enough went, if you look at the results. The far right upset records by obtaining 30% in France. In the past eight years, I’ve been proud to live in a country that isn’t governed by an extreme party, as the USA was and may again be. Well, I hope I don’t have to swallow my pride. Even on “normal” years, elections in Europe are a culture shock for newly arrived Americans. More than a dozen parties vied for power in this election. Also, parties are allowed limited advertising, a huge change from the US of A. Since parties that receive at least 5% of the vote get government subsidies, it doesn’t take much to get on the ballot. For example, the “Animaliste” party. I make fun of them, but some of them make sense to me—convert to a more plant-based economy, get away from intensive farming, etc. But what differentiates them from a “Green”?

  I could continue my new blog with an entry about everyday life, but isn’t a trip description more interesting? This trip celebrated our 25 th wedding anniversary, which happened a year and a half ago. Not that we didn’t celebrate it at the time, with a couple of small parties, but that’s another story. I really wanted to go to Venice, but that would have involved more time, vacation time, airplane hassles, and of course, money. So, we went to the Venice of the north. Bruges was great. Simply delightful. Four days before, I had a bad migraine crisis. So, I cancelled everything for the next three days and rested up. We drove up on a Thursday, taking about four hours including traffic and a rest stop. It turned out that the hotel was more expensive during the weekend, so Issam took Thursday and Friday off of work. The hotel was great- a couple of hundred yards from the Market Square. Before going out, I had a cup of tea and a bite of what I thought would be fried shrimp fro