Mount Pocono - Pennsylvania

On Sunday the 20th June we left Newark, Delaware, and headed off north to Pennsylvania and my cousin Anne in Mount Pocono. Mount Pocono is up in the mountains a couple of hours drive from Philadelphia. It is famous for having been a honeymooner's resort in the fifties. I guess the closeness to New York City (about two hours away) helped. It is still a resort, especially in winter when the mountains are covered with snow. The Poconos range is part of the Appalachian system.

I had not seen Anne since 1989 when I visited her in NYC. It was absolutely wonderful to see her after so many years! In an instant, those twenty years just disappeared and we just started chatting right away.

Anne lives with her husband Steve and their two youngest children Aubrey and Alex (19 and 14) in a beautiful house on a wonderful lake. Their eldest daughter, Asheley, lives in Ohio with her family.

Anne and Steve have four cats whom Georgie loved to chase around the house... They also have a cockatoo and a huge aquarium filled with fish, and also some mini-sharks. We also enjoyed all the animals outdoors, especially little Fred, the curious chipmunk.

We were invited to go and see a Mets game in Queens, NYC on Tuesday night. It felt almost surreal to drive from the mountains and then two hours later arrive in the metropolis. We saw the Chrysler building in the distance and all the skyscrapers around what used to be the World Trade Center. We arrived at the stadium in time to have a look-around. It was brand-new. We did some fan shopping (somewhat limited as we are Chicago Cubs fans ...!). We thoroughly enjoyed the setting and the explanations given by Steve and Anne and also the great hotdogs, burgers and ice cream. The game was fun and of course the Mets won over the Detroit Tigers ...

The following day we spent the afternoon at the Camelback water park. It was a great day with sun, fun and lots of rides. We tumbled around in the manmade rivers and slides (the Titan was a particular crowd pleaser). Anne's colleague, Betty, came with her two sweet little girls, Veronique (7) and Ashely (4), and Georgie had a ball. We all did.

(J)

photo credits: Steve

More guns everyone!

Today, I heard on Chicago's Public Radio that the US Supreme Court has restricted the rights for states and cities to enforce controls on gun ownership. According to 5 out of 9 judges, people in this country have a constitutional right to bear guns for self-defense. It's based on the second constitutional amendment dating back to 1789, that reads: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." There has been ferocious debate among US lawmakers as to the exact meaning to these words, but the US Supreme Court has just come down on the side of those who think their country is still living in revolutionary times, like fighting the British, or worse, caught up in a fratricide war, which somehow justifies the use of militias. God have mercy!

The news was of particular interest to me - apart from the fact that I'm opposed to gun ownership by civilians - because the Court's ruling was in connection to a legal challenge to a handgun ownership ban that has been in place in the city of Chicago and its suburb of Oak Park for the past 30 years. Of course, proponents of gun ownership liberalisation were thrilled, such as the National Riffle Association, which I personally find one of the most dysfunctional and thus dangerous organisations in this country. What do they really hope to achieve with this? More opportunities for violent crime, murder and accidental deaths? Boys and their toys... (and girls too, because gun-crazy people come in all sorts of genders).

It makes me think of a recent incident in Brussels, just a few metres from where we live, where an innocent woman lost her life because of a legal gun in the wrong place at the wrong time. It concerned the attempt robbery of a local jeweler. The robbers had a play-gun, but the owner of the shop had a real one. They were able to take the gun from the owner and leave the shop. While trying to get away from the crime scene using a car stopped near the shop, one of the robbers shot the woman driving it dead. While I still hold the robber who pulled the trigger responsible for this stupid death, I cannot stop thinking that she would still be alive today if a real and legally owned gun had not come into the picture.

I suppose owning a gun in a town of 2500 people, like so many small towns in the American "backwater" is one thing, but in a city with millions of people, like Chicago, or New York, is another thing all together. City governments enforce gun ownership bans for a reason; because they must handle significant levels of violent crime, with guns usually playing a fatal role.

My jaw drops every time I read things such as the ones in the BBC's article on this particular ruling: "The Supreme Court's decision follows a weekend in which 29 people in Chicago were shot, three of them fatally, according to local media. The Chicago Sun-Times reported that 54 people were shot, 10 of whom died, the previous weekend as well." So, all in all, 13 people were shot dead in the past week, while the three of us were savouring the beauty of the Chicago summer. That ain't right!

It is also chilling to read in a March 2009 study by the Crime Lab of the University of Chicago on gun violence among school-aged youth in Chicago that "A total of 510 people were murdered in Chicago during 2008. Eighty percent of these victims were killed by gunfire (yes, 80%!). Nearly half were between the ages of 10 and 25, and the vast majority were male (and black, I should add). (...) Chicago’s homicide rate is nowhere near the highest in the nation (apparently, this sad title went to New Orleans in 2009). Nevertheless, our homicide rate remains well above that of such peer cities as New York, Los Angeles, and London, differences that are driven mostly by elevated rates of gun homicide in Chicago."

Forcing Chicago to lift the ban is surely going to make things worse.


(L)

Delaware - cutie-pies

Georgie said before I took this picture: "Andreia is my baby and I'm her mother".

(L)

Winterthur - running on the Country Estate

Sometimes I wished I could have a garden this big...

(L)

photo credits: (J)

Winterthur - the Dragon-Lady

Can you hear the roar of the Dragon-Lady?

(L)

photo credits: (J)

Winterthur - Enchanted Garden

A few photos of Georgie playing in Winterthur's Enchanted Garden, where witches, elves, speaking frogs, giant birds and fairies are said to live.

Delaware - Winterthur

One of the highlights of our visit to Delaware, was the wonderful afternoon spent at Winterthur (yes, there's a place with the same name in Switzerland, for those of you with good geographical knowledge... I'm sure you all knew this).

Winterthur is the equivalent of an English Country Estate, smack in the middle of Delaware's countryside, and choke-full of American antiques, from the earliest European settlements in the mid-1600's to 1840. The house is the former home of Henry Francis du Pont (1880-1969), an avid antiques collector and horticulturist. In the early 20th century, he and his father, Henry Algernon du Pont, designed Winterthur in the spirit of 18th and 19th-century European country houses. It is an enchanting place. And there's actually an Enchanted Garden where Georgie spent many fun moments.

The du Pont name originated in France (Nemours). The first du Pont de Nemours moved to Delaware in 1800. His son, Eleuthère Irénée (I want a name like this too!!), started a gunpowder factory there in 1802. The family would rise to become one of the more important industrialist families in the US in the early 20th century.

The Estate was named Winterthur by Jacques Antoine Bidermann, an investor in Eleuthère's company. Biedermann married Evelina, Eleuthère's daughter, on a visit to Delaware to check on his family's investment in the du Ponts. He later purchased the property from the other siblings of Evelina and began the construction of a twelve-room mansion. They named it Winterthur after Bidermann's ancestral home in Switzerland.

Anyway, to cut a long hi(story) short, the man behind the beauty of Winterthur is Henry Francis du Pont, the only son of Henry Algernon and Pauline du Pont. Here is a summary profile of the man taken from Winterthur's website, with a tiny bit of editing on my part:

"In 1906 du Pont's father was elected to the United States Senate. Soon afterward, he ceded responsibility of supervising the garden at Winterthur to his son. (...) During these years before World War I, du Pont traveled extensively to study the great gardens of Europe, especially those in England. Henry Francis du Pont married Ruth Wales in 1916. Shortly thereafter, he became interested in American antiques and began amassing his renowned collection of early American decorative arts. He continued to develop Winterthur's farmland, raised a prizewinning herd of Holstein-Friesian cows, and worked with landscape architect Marian Cruger Coffin to blend the garden into the rural landscape. By 1925 Winterthur had its own turkey, chicken, sheep, pig, and dairy farms as well as vegetable and flower gardens, greenhouses, a sawmill, a railroad station, and a post office.

Between 1928 and 1932, du Pont doubled the size of the existing house at Winterthur and converted it into a showplace for his collections. Throughout the next two decades, du Pont and his family lived in a museum-in-progress. (...) In 1951 du Pont turned his house over to the Winterthur Corporation, a nonprofit educational institution, and moved into a smaller home on the estate, as the Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum opened to the public.

In 1961 the first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy, visited Winterthur and invited du Pont to head the Fine Arts Committee, which oversaw the restoration of the White House."

(L)

photo credits: Gary

Delaware - visiting Andreia and Gary

Between 17 and 20 August we were in Delaware visiting my cousin Andreia and her partner, Gary (from the UK). Delaware, albeit the smallest state of the US, is called "the first state", because it was the first state of the original 13 colonies to sign the USA Federal Constitution in 1787. Interestingly enough, the first permanent European settlement in Delaware was by the Swedes who came as early as 1638. They would later loose the land to the Dutch, which then lost it to the English. But imagine, we could have been saying tak instead of thanks in today's Delaware. But after this historical detour, let's go back to the family visit...

It was touching and fun to stay with Andreia at her house close to the town of Newark. I was so happy to see her doing well in life and full of projects. After growing up together, although she is ten years my junior, we sort of lost contact once I came to Belgium in 1996. We got back in touch two years ago and when Jarl and I started planning this trip to the US, visiting her in Delaware was on top of my agenda.

Andreia and Gary have a beautiful house. I was particularly jealous of their big kitchen. Jarl was in awe of their fluffy carpets. Andreia showed us their garden and I was summoned to help her get rid of caterpillars on her broccoli! I must have taken dozens of them with my bare hands. Those broccoli were in need of some serious help! Hélas, no pictures were taken to attest for my gardening zeal...

Georgie was enthralled with Gary's guitar and serenaded to us every evening. She has been asking us to get her a guitar for some time (two of her teachers play it in school). If her passion doesn't subside after the summer, we may give her one for Christmas this year. Another Tracy Chapman in the making? Or another Suzanne Vega? Father's pride to the side, Georgie really shows a natural tendency for music, and for playing the guitar in particular. You can see her and Gary playing the guitar in one of the photos. Gary instantly became "her favourite friend".

Two other photos show us having delicious fun at the "ice-cream farm" near my cousin's house. A place where they have ice-cream flavours called "Dirt" and "Chocolate Thunder". My forever favourite was the "Black Raspberry". Jarl and Georgie were partial to the pink! Peppermint and Chocolate. Yuuuummmy!

And there's also a photo of me and Andreia, the eternal babblers on the couch. I seem to be showing her something way up in their living-room ceiling... a very high one by the way.

(L)

BORDERS - the terrible, horrible, not so good, very bad experience

We have been away from Chicago for a week. Our first stop was in Delaware and then in Pennsylvania, to visit two cousins (one mine, the other Jarl's). There will be specific posts on these two visits very soon (we only arrived today in the evening to Chicago, after a 5-hour wait at the airport in Philadelphia because of a nasty summer storm that happened to pass through central Pennsylvania, resulting in all air traffic being grounded throughout the state).

My post this evening is about our terrible, horrible, not so good, very bad experience at BORDERS, the American chain bookstore, at Philadelphia's airport. If I didn't write it now, before going to bed, I suppose I wouldn't be able to fall asleep.

We are all big fans of books so we decided to kill the time before boarding the plane by heading to BORDERS to peruse the latest titles. I told Georgie to go and look at the children's books and see if she found something interesting for us to take home.

I bought a recent book by Chris Cleave (Little Bee) and Jarl a book by Martin Amis (The Pregnant Widow). We went for the Brits. Georgie chose three books, one with Shreck (passable), one with Tinker Bell (full of good advice about traveling through life) and one about Alexander and his terrible, horrible, not so good, very bad day. The latter is a classic of children's literature in English and I recommend it. Little did I know that it would fit our overall experience in the shop.

When I was about to pay for my purchase, the shop manager came to me, with fire in his eyes and spit around his lips, saying "that child is way out of control, way out of control; she takes the books from the shelves and shoves them back in; she's out of control, that child". The attack came so unexpectedly that I barely had time to mumble a "that's your personal assessment". The brute proceeded to tell me that he was going to force me to buy the books that I had just paid for because Georgie had sneezed on them without covering her nose. I told him I couldn't control my daughter's sneezes, to which he replied that I should teach her to cover her nose. "She's only five", I said, but he insinuated that we were one of those parents who think that "she has to be able to express herself", and made a funny mocking voice to make his point. Needless to say I was totally taken aback by his rabid attitude. The cashier was looking at me in total bewilderment and muttered a friendly "I'm sorry".

Although I was burning inside - and believe me, my feelings towards that man were far from being angelic in nature! - I was able to wish him a pleasant life, and more love in the future, because he was obviously lacking both.

Jarl returned his book and justified it with an "unpleasant service" comment. Hurrah for Jarl. I kept my books because three of them were for Georgie and she didn't deserve to be penalised for that brute's stupidity.

Georgie told me that she did have difficulty placing back some of the books in the shelves, but she obviously didn't do any damage to them (otherwise the shop manager would have forced us to buy them...). In fact, she told me that the manager helped her place them back and that she thanked him for it. Sounds civilised.

We are going to complain in writing of course, both to the airport's commercial authority and to BORDERS. Jarl and I are convinced that this was not so much about shoving books or sneezing without covering the nose, but a good example of homophobia, xenophobia and racism. You should have heard the sound of his voice. The man was incensed, outraged, like he wanted us out of his shop pronto. As if we carried some kind of communicable disease.

This happened on the same day that the Human Rights Campaign, a US LGBT rights organisation, announced that the 2010 Texas Republican Party Platform says homosexuals shouldn't have custody of children, that issuing a marriage license or performing a marriage ceremony for a same-sex couple should be punishable by jail time, and that it wants to restore 19th-century Texas statutes outlawing sex between men. This is not a minor party in the margin of political life, but the Texan Republican Party! (Bush junior, anybody?) I write this as a reminder that in this great country, viciously bigoted attitudes towards LGBTs - as well as racially motivated discrimination - are still very much alive and part of the mainstream debate in some states. It is also a welcome reminder that Belgium, for all its linguistic fights and loony party politics, is overall a haven of common sense and acceptance. Our family's haven.

I should like to add that one man's stupid behaviour is not enough to destroy the dozens of friendly encounters we have had with all sorts of people since our arrival to the US. It's just that a bruise of the soul hurts so much more than a physical one. And it takes longer to heal.

(L)

Arts and Crafts

Today we spent the whole day home. It was good. Aunt Becky came to visit us in the morning, and Debbie came over in the afternoon with pet dogs Martie and Morris. It made us feel really part of Chicago.

In the afternoon we dedicated ourselves to a bit of artistic craftsmanship (it sounds more sophisticated than the end result). There came a time when papa and papalu were more interested in finishing their projects than Georgie. Oh well, as I said to Debbie, "teach by example!".

And here are the results of our travails, for you to judge. You must agree they have sparkle! And sorry, but they're not for sale.

(L)

Boystown

Chicago has a Boystown (real name) - yep, the gay neighbourhood - on a section of N. Halstead and N. Broadway streets, not far from where we are staying. It's sort of a colourful place, I suppose, as was to be expected. And it's easy to spot since there are plenty or rainbow flags jotting the place. We went there yesterday afternoon. The more "risqué" shops had the good sense of keeping their windows simple and discreet, or ambiguous enough to make them difficult to read to the non-initiated, or more to the point in our case, to a child.

We went to the LGBT center, the Center on Halsted, and looked around. We were lucky enough to find the playroom where there were two mums and their two children, and two nannies too. All in all, 5 other little children to play with Georgie. I couldn't stop thinking how much the LGBT community has changed. You wouldn't find a children's playroom in an LGBT center 20 years ago. Well, you wouldn't find an LGBT community centre, period!

I was struck by the amount of black teenagers at the centre. Maybe it was "youth hour" or something, but it looked like some of them were sleeping rough, in the streets. There was a young woman there with a pink t-shirt saying something like "connection for the homeless", which further reinforced my impression. I know the amount of LGBT youth living in the streets is particularly high in the US, but seeing them there brought it home to me. I'm glad the centre is there for them. I'm glad they come to the centre. May it be a platform for empowerment and for finding their true self in a tolerant, nurturing environment. I hope they find the right, good role models they need as young people to grow.

After the visit to the LGBT centre, we decided to have dinner. The area is awash with bars and discos, and funny-looking shops, but there are very few restaurants. Bother!! Are LBGTs only supposed to drink and dance? Not really, but there you go... We found a small place a few blocks from the centre that looked nice; Nookies' Tree. They even had colouring pencils and a place-mat with dinosaurs for Georgie to paint. And a rainbow flag! Perfect.

Georgie and I tried Tilapia, a new fish for our taste buds. Jarl had a burger (always the adventurous..., but I know he must be careful with trying new food, so I'm just joking a little). There's a bit of a recent craze surrounding Tilapia (generic name for a fresh water fish found in Africa and the Levant), because it is very easy to grow in aquaculture. It has low levels of mercury due to its exclusively vegetarian diet, and is low in fat. It was tasty, but nothing to die for. I still enjoy my bacalhau better any day, any time.

(L)

From a Distance

Evanston is a university town (Northwestern University, founded by Methodists) on Lake Michigan, some twenty minutes north of where we are staying.

We went back there today to have a look at the dance school where Georgie will have her ballet classes in two weeks' time. The Dance Center Evanston is in a modern mall complex just east of downtown. The director remembered us from our email exchanges and showed us around. It looked very professional and friendly. Georgie's class is "pre-ballet 1", which sounds a bit daunting but should be fun.

We bought her her prescribed light-blue leotard, pink stockings and real leather ballet shoes at the ballet outfitters of Evanston. The very friendly staff member of Allegro Dance Boutique on Central Street told us that normally it is the family's nanny who comes to the shop ... It is that kind of town.

She told us more about the area: Evanston is part of the so-called "North shore communities", an area that became popular with wealthy people who wanted to escape the city for the suburbs, especially after the Second World War. Many large mansions were built. Evanston is the most urban of these communities and the one closest to Chicago.

Well, in fact it is a rather mixed place, as a lot of American towns are. On the way to the ballet shop we drove through some less affluent areas. There was even a homeless man selling the homeless' newspaper not far from Starbucks and the other cafés. He had escaped Englewood, an inner-city area of Chicago where crime is among the highest in the country. He is probably safer in Evanston.

As we were heading for the post-office, we passed the local library branch, which was threatened with closure. There were many signs of support in the neighbouring shops, but the clear trend on Central Street was: more cakes and less books.

The proprietors of the post office were a multilingual middle-aged Caucasian lady and an African-American gentleman. As soon as the lady heard where I was from, she started talking about the Wallander films and Ystad and how Mr Wallander likes to take early morning swims. Apparently, she had a friend of Nordic origins who also always went swimming early in the morning (but in Lake Michigan), and she thought it must be something in the Nordic genes ... As she was talking about Wallander, her colleague took out the official local postal mascot, Molly the doll, to show Georgie. Molly is a paper-eating doll. And he proved that she was, to Georgie's great satisfaction.

We turned to the right outside the post-office and walked, well, Georgie ran, to the playground in Independence Park. There were many forgotten - or perhaps simply left - plastic buckets, spades and fortresses just scattered around in the sand, perfect for the three of us to play with. The wet sand made superb building material.

We left Evanston and our sand castles behind, and headed back south to Uptown.

(J)

kite running

Pure bliss after running kites in Cricket Hill.

(L)

Angels in America

I told you in a previous blog about our Angels in America. They are Aunt Becky and Uncle Ed, and Debbie. They look after us, they guide us, they spoil us with mimos (tenderness? I can't seem to find the right word in English to convey what they spoil us with, but mimos sounds just right).

Becky and Debbie, both Georgie's foster mothers in Chicago, organised a beautiful welcome party and pre-birthday party for us and Georgie at Debbie's house (walking distance from where we are living). Georgie was the centre of all the attention, of course! We felt honoured, and pampered, and loved. Long live the "chicken mothers" of Chicago (sorry folks, internal joke).

Georgie learned how to print tattoos, make bracelets with beads, and painted papa's face green and papalu's face red. The adults talked about the economic crisis in Europe, and Greece in particular, about Islam in Europe, and the Netherlands in particular, and about the corruption scandal involving former Illinois Governor Blagojevich. It was intense.

Before the party we had lunch at our place with Aunt Becky and Uncle Ed. After lunch we went to Cricket Hill, near Montrose Harbour, to fly kites. The wind was not in our favour, but we played, and talked, and met all sorts of families created with the help of Family Resource Center (FRC), our former adoption agency. We felt empowered. Our soul-wings were emboldened and we flew real high in the sky.

One of the many, many blessings that came with Georgie's adoption is that we now have these American angels in our lives. It feels good to be protected, to be taken care of, to be loved. It feels particularly good to know that our daughter is loved by all these people, that she matters in other people's lives too, that other people in her country of birth are there for her. We thank them from the bottom of our hearts. Our Angels in America.

I feel tears coming as I write this. I will not hold them back. So if you will excuse me, I need a little private moment to let my eyes cascade and my heart soar like a kite.

(L)

cloudy John Hancock Center

Now you can see what I meant about people having to call the concierge to find out about the weather at street level. Can you see the low clouds surrounding the upper part of the John Hancock Center? Imagine what it must be like to live on the floors above those clouds. To wake up surrounded by fields of snowy mist blown by the wind. Would you take a jacket or a feathery boa?

(L)

the truck and the ice-cream

Today there was a huge downpour of rain in Chicago. It looked and sounded like a tropical storm. We were supposed to attend the Midsommarfest in Andersonville (the historical Swedish neighbourhood of Chicago) at 11:30 a.m., but in view of the weather decided instead - upon Georgie's instigation - to visit the Science and Industry Museum.

We saw simulated tornados, lightening and tsunamis, went inside a real Boeing 727 airplane, visited a replica of Chicago's "Main Street" circa 1910 (and had time to go inside the cinema theater and watch a short film, and eat an ice-cream in the ice-cream parlor), saw one of the largest train models in the world (it was fun to watch all those miniature trains going by), went on a simulated trip aboard a real train, the Burlington Zephyr, the first diesel-electric streamlined passenger train in America, from 1934 (the design of the train was beautiful and set the trend for future trains), and visited a farm, where Georgie was able to milk cows (fake ones!), drive a tractor and a harvest-combine (real ones, but with simulated driving experiences).

At dinner, when we asked Georgie what she had enjoyed the most about the museum, this was her answer: "driving the tractor and eating ice-cream". Well, Jarl liked the tornado the most, and I liked the Zephyr. We spent more than four hours at the museum, so it must have really been worth, all that rain!

(L)

a bit of cultural shock

Liability, litigation, we hear these two words almost every day in America. Well, almost every day is an exaggeration, but it feels that way. I call them "the Curse of the Double L". Because everything and everyone is liable, and litigation is just around the corner, companies in particular go to extraordinary lengths to make sure that they will not be liable under any circumstance. The most famous example is the one where X prints in their coffee cups "contents may be hot"; right, as if any one with a tiny bit of sense would expect anything else from a cup of hot coffee... You see, even I am becoming liability obsessed; I didn't mention any brands, in case they would come after me for ridiculing them on the web.

Today we came across two examples of the "coffee-cup syndrome" and we thought they were worth sharing. The first one is a supermarket paper bag that says "please hold both handles". OK, Jarl explained to me that supermarket paper bags in the US don't usually have handles, so this is to make sure that people see the difference, but pleeeeeeeeeeease, give me a break!, are there really people out there who would not realise that those are handles? Or that using both handles is safer? Or that a paper bag with handles is just like a plastic bag with handles? Did this company actually have to do this because someone sued them for dropping one of the bags, because they didn't explain that both handles should be held at the same time? Why not give more explanations, like "please make sure not to wet paper bag; water may damage the paper", or "please make sure not to touch paper bag with fire; fire burns paper"? Arrgggghhhhhh, this is all too much for my sensitive brain!

The second example is a sadder one. On a pack of chocolate soy milk we found the following warning "not to be used as infant formula". Did this mean that someone had actually used chocolate milk as infant formula? And that the company in question was considered liable? I mean, shouldn't instead the parent be charged for negligence, for being so ignorant as not to know that chocolate milk is not baby food? What kind of country is this?!

The "Curse of the Double L" leads to another negative result, a "nanny state", one where even the most elementary things have to be explicitly explained, and explained, and explained again, to make sure that nobody has any accidents or misfortunes, even if they happen to be the main culprits. It also leads to the corrosion of social trust, to a society where everybody is a potential litigant, where everybody sues everybody else for all and nothing.

(L)

playing ball in the garden

This picture was taken by Georgie herself, while playing ball with Jarl in the garden just after breakfast. It's quite a good photo, don't you think?

(L)

The Nature Museum

In the afternoon, we headed for the Nature Museum in Lincoln Park. We saw frogs, and turtles, and many different kinds of snakes indigenous to the state of Illinois.

The second floor of the museum is home to the "butterfly garden", where you can observe, become mesmerized and seduced, by hundreds of multicoloured butterflies flying around your head. We were so distracted we forgot to take a picture, so I leave it to your own imagination.

But Jarl took a picture of me and Georgie pelting the sample of the fur of a real polar bear (huge! and they wrote that it was only an average-sized bear...). What struck us the most is that in the middle of all that white, there were actually many black and brown hairs. And the hair was coarse, not fluffy at all, and like a thick mesh of cotton just above the skin; sure to make a nice warm coat for those arctic nights.

(L)

Ferdinand, Olé, Olé!

Georgie and I had a quiet morning today, reading Ferdinand, the bull who didn't want to fight, sitting on the comfy chair by the living-room's bay-window.

The story is one of those classical tales about staying true to yourself and not being afraid of thinking or behaving differently from the rest. Ferdinand is a bull who prefers to smell flowers and contemplate the fields, rather than to fight in the arena in Madrid. And he was very happy. What better end to a story?

The book was a present from Aunt Becky and is becoming one of Georgie's favorite stories. It was written in 1936 by Munro Leaf and illustrated by Robert Lawson. If you haven't bought it yet for your child, don't wait too long. You will enjoy it too!

(L)

Sue at the Field Museum

Sue and I go back a long time. She has been part of my (imaginary) world since at least 2003.
She's ferocious and enormous, and would probably devour me if we were ever to cross the same path, but it is impossible to remain indifferent to her charm.

I was in Chicago waiting for a connection flight to take me to Ottawa (those were the days I worked as Javier Solana's press officer), when I happened upon the Field Museum shop at Chicago's international airport terminal 5. I was intrigued by the t-shirts sporting a skeleton of a dinosaur with the name Sue. I bought one for me and one for Jarl and so started our interest in discovering more about Sue.

Sue is indeed a T-Rex, now celebrating 10 years at the Field Museum, although she is an old lady of some 67 million years. Nobody knows for sure that Sue is a she, but she was given the name of the paleontologist who found the fossil in South Dakota in 1990.

We visited Sue today. Georgie had heard a lot about her, and as every other child these days she too is obsessed with dinosaurs. Sue is the perfect fairy tale monster. We saw an almost real size robot of Sue at the museum. Georgie didn't seem to be scared; she shouted back at the beast every time it roared. The other children looked in amazement.

Publicity aside, Sue's fossil is impressive and worth spending time looking at. She is after all the biggest and most complete T-Rex dinosaur in the world. Just looking at the sheer strength of her anterior legs sends shivers through your spine. And we all need a fairy tale monster to keep us awake at night...

(L)

La Trotinette!

And here is the special scooter that left a trail of awed children and adults everywhere we went.

(L)

at the park

Today, in the afternoon, we went to the park. It was more of a playground really, at the Clarendon Park Community Center. It was Jarl's choice, and a grand choice indeed. Now, the community served by the Center is not one of the most affluent ones in Chicago, but the place felt genuine, friendly, bubbly and comfortable. Georgie loved the playground. There were two other papas with a little girl in the play area and, refreshingly, our light complexions were in the minority. It felt like being in Angola, and we loved it!

Georgie made friends "just like that"! We are proud to have such a sociable daughter, although she says she still feels shy to speak in English. She tried to play double-scotch, a jumping rope game for real pros. At first, the other girls didn't want to let her do it, but I spoke to them and they changed their mind. But Georgie needs a lot of practicing!

Georgie made a big impression with her scooter, double-wheeled in the front, hum, hum! A few kids asked if they could try it; they had never seen one like that. The other two papas also praised the scooter and wanted to know where to buy one too (it gives little children more stability). But it was a present from aunt Becky, Georgie said, so we really didn't know where to find another.

Below you will find a description of the Center that I got from the Internet. It's a place with history and it's worth sharing. Chicago is full of these little gems.

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"Completed in 1916, the Clarendon Park Community Center was considered to be the largest and most practical bathing beach in the country. Today, Clarendon Park Community Center features a gymnasium, boxing ring, fitness center and meeting rooms. Programming options include after school sports, aerobics, preschool activities and swimming at nearby Uplift School.

Clarendon Community Center takes its name from the adjoining avenue, honoring English statesman Edward Hyde (1609-1674), first Earl of Clarendon. Clarendon originated as a municipal beach. During the 19th century, Lake Michigan was rarely used for swimming because the heavily polluted Chicago River flowed into it. The new Sanitary Canal corrected the problem in 1900, and the Health Department began creating municipal beaches to provide the city's growing population with access to swimming as well as showers and changing facilities. In 1905, the city's Special Park Commission took over management of municipal beaches. Several years later, the commission began planning a state-of-the-art facility, visiting well-known municipal beaches throughout the nation such as Belle Isle Beach, Detroit; the New York City Beach at Coney Island; and the Atlantic City Bath Houses. In 1916, the city opened the Clarendon Municipal Beach, featuring an impressive brick building with two stately towers, separate open-air locker areas for men and women, and two smaller buildings housing a laundry and a children's playroom. Accommodating more than 9,000 swimmers and a promenade for thousands of spectators, the facility provided bathing suits, towels, and lockers for the charge of ten cents per adult.

The beach remained popular until the late 1930s, when the Chicago Park District expanded Lincoln Park north to Foster Avenue, thereby eliminating Clarendon's lake frontage. At that time, the city converted the facility into a community center, adding gymnasiums, club rooms, a playground, and an athletic field. The Chicago Park District assumed ownership of the Clarendon Community Center in 1959. A major renovation project in 1972 resulted in the removal of the building's most distinguishing features such as its tile roof and towers. In recent years, the park district has made the building accessible to people with disabilities, and upgraded the ball fields and playground."

(L)

the saga of the compressor nebulizer

What, you have never heard of a compressor nebulizer system? How is that possible? Well, we have a little story to tell...

A week or so before we came to Chicago the three of us were diagnosed with bronchitis. Nothing very serious, but serious enough for our doctors (yes, in plural) to put us on antibiotics. But that wasn't all, we were also supposed to do an 8-day treatment with a few products that you have to inhale into your lungs. This is done with a compressor nebulizer. A tiny machine that pumps air into a tube, and then turns liquid into mist (mistifies?) for efficient absorption by the lungs.

We brought one of those humming machine-bugs to Chicago in the hope that the plug adapter would be all that we needed. But on arrival we soon realised that the voltage was different (110V here, 230V in Europe) and that our nebulizer was, sadly, no more. It purred, and then it stopped. So, we decided to go on the hunt for nebulizers! Bring in Harrison Ford for reinforcements, please!

At our neighbourhood's Walgreens, a sort of grocery shop, pharmacy included, they told us that they had one indeed but we needed a medical prescription. So they advised us to go to Micro Center (I can't really remember where, I just know it was miles away...) because they might be able to get us a voltage transformer. Our friend Ed guided us there (thank goodness for that!). There they told us that they only sold "computer stuff". So they advised us to try The Home Depot, a sort of Brico for those of you familiar with Brussels (they sell all kinds of things for the home). The funny thing at The Home Depot was that the young man who was assisting us was very supportive of us being a gay couple with a child and even cited the research that one of his friends was doing showing that "we" (I suppose he meant "the gays") were very tolerant and patient parents.

OK, OK, sorry for the detour... anyway, at The Home Depot they told us to try Radioshack. We did, and they had voltage transformers, but only for 40W, which was way too little for our machine-bug. But the vendor was very friendly, and cute, and we ended buying two very cheap mobiles to use during our stay in the States. It makes life easier. Now, don't think that we did that because he was friendly and cute, we really wanted those phones. Those features were just an added bonus to our purchase.

We finally managed to get a nebulizer at Master Medical Supplies. A funny store if you ask me. They sold watches, and fuzzy animals, and 600 bandaid boxes, and erection pumps (yes, you read that right), and walking canes, and wheelchairs, and ties, and you name it! We found the shop's motto quite interesting "Established in 1983, Woman owned since 2003". A bit of identity politics can always do you some good!

Of course, to get the nebulizer we needed a medical prescription (are you still reading this? You are brave!). With our friend Becky's help we managed to get an appointment with Dr Lindeman, who happened to be Georgie's doctor in Chicago before we became her fathers. He checked Georgie's lungs (still a bit of mucus in the right lung, but overall her lungs were doing great) and gave us the prescription, or did he call it the order?

Now, why a prescription for this humming machine-bug that you can get in Brussels just over the counter? Well, according to the owner of Master Medical Supplies, people usually get the nebulizers via Medicare and Public Aid, and then when they don't need them anymore they sell them in the black market and this creates liability problems. She also told us that there is a big black market for prescription drugs in the US, because many people are reluctant to go to the doctor if they aren't insured (which happens to many, many people) and thus prefer to self-medicate. I must confess that it all sounded a bit too much for a bunch of spoiled Europeans who live in Brussels, the capital of easy access to medical care and products.

OK, but we have the nebulizer, it works, and Georgie can now do her treatment until the end of the week, which is all that matters for us. Long live the compressor nebulizer system!

Oh, by the way, you can't imagine how friendly people have been throughout all of this saga. I mean, Americans really know how to empathise with total strangers and say what you will, it makes life so much more pleasant. And then our friends here are just like little angels watching over us. And that makes life much, much, much more pleasant. Wings. Flutter. Wings. Flutter. Thank you angels in America.

(L)

Our home in Chicago

We are leaving tomorrow at 11h00, Brussels time. We will be living not far from the lake and very close to good friends.

This is the photo of the place that we rented. It belongs to Susan and Beth. They have been very friendly to host us in what used to be their home downstairs, and move to the upper floor of the house. We will be able to have a garden for the first time. It will be fun for Georgie.

It's a Victorian House, so yes, quite old, even for European urban standards. There is a magnolia tree in the front. Susan and Beth sent us this photo when the tree was in bloom this Spring.

We'll see the magnolia tomorrow afternoon, Chicago time. Ah, and very important, the garden has a porch! I always dreamed of having a porch in Chicago.

(L)

What's in a name

This is the first post of our blog for Chicago. We will be leaving on Saturday, 5 June and coming back on 31 August to Brussels. About 3 months in the US of A.

Why the name "What's the weather down there"? (purists would have added a "like" after weather, but it sounds better this way, you know, with rhythm, like in hip-hop). Well... I was once told that people who live in the upper floors of the John Hancock Center in downtown Chicago have to call the concierge in the lobby to find out what the weather is like at street level. Up there, surrounded by "eternal (ethereal?) clouds", the building's inhabitants don't ever know what to wear.

The TV show host presenter, Oprah Winfrey, has an apartment in the Center. I mean, a huge apartment. I can picture her calling the concierge and popping the question non-chalantly every morning and thinking, what jacket to wear, shall I take a scarf or a feathery boa?

The Center is the second tallest building in Chicago and was completed in 1969. It was an original project by the architect firm Skidmore, Owings and Merrill. The construction was financed by the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, hence the name. Chicagoans also call the building "Big John". It's an imposing structure. That black aluminium grid crisscrossing the façade all the way to the sky leaves you in awe when you stand at the bottom of the building.

In the birthplace of sky-skrapers there couldn't be a better way to start this blog. I hope the weather down there will be sunny and of a happy disposition.

(L)