Jeanine has sent me several lovely photos from Belgium and it sounds like she is having a wonderful time. I look forward to her return and will invite her to complete this post with the details of her visit.
Guest Blogger: Jeanine Calabria
Forty years ago Frances Verstraete spent a year living with my family attending my local high school and graduating with the class of 1981. I spent one month with her family in August of 1984 accompanying them on a car trip to Stockholm from Leuven where I learned how to drive a standard transmission and then spent time with my own Swedish relatives on their farm. So this visit was long overdue and it was wonderful to see each of her siblings this time. Instead of launching their studies/careers they were retiring and tending grandchildren! I enjoyed spending time touring Leuven by foot and electric bike and appreciated her taking me to the nearby Flemish historic towns of Bruges (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruges) and Mechlin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechelen). After my barrage of questions about historic buildings, she invited her sister Benedicte, who is a local guide of the city and former high school history teacher, to accompany us by e-bike . Most notably, I learned that the city of Leuven is transforming all the old breweries/factories, military barracks and significant historic sites into housing – complete with affordable options for students and refugees. Major destruction included the French Revolutionists that removed all religious statues and World WW I & II bombing of entire neighborhoods. The University of Leuven Library was burned down in WW I and US higher education institutes were the major financial backers of the reconstruction. I recognized many universities that family or friends have attend; University of Cincinnati, Union College, Indiana University, and the Middlesex Boarding School (in Concord!) inscribed into the stonework. I felt proud that my country had assisted with the rebuilding of this amazing structure. The tributes to victims of the Holocaust were sobering as I contemplate today’s rise in violent racist acts. My favorite part of my week with her family was playing with her new grandson “Fil” and taking our morning walk with Bélan, her 10-year old Vizla rescue hound! I left inspired by the complete transformation of the transportation system to promote biking over cars and how universal childcare subsidies makes a two-parent-working-family possible.
