Lilac Colored Glasses

The hearty green liquid was bubbling and roiling in the pot in a satisfying “double double toil and trouble” sort of way this afternoon as I prepared my laaaate breakfast/lunch of split pea soup with a slice of multigrain bread and a pat of butter. I was feeling pretty crappy, to be honest (still am), as we’d stayed out much later than usual last night despite my sore throat and gushing sinuses (summer head colds are the yuck). And all for the sake of seeing Eddy Wally, a septegenarian Flemish shlager, perform in the Sint Baafsplein for the Gentse Feesten. And trust me, he definitely wasn’t the fantastic discovery I mentioned in the title.

But let’s back track a bit, shall we?

CB and I decided to go to the Feesten yesterday evening for a few hours, but first we tried to go for some take out Chinese (I admit, the self pity from Friday hasn’t totally worn off yet so I’m occasionally making crappy food choices). After discovering that the Chinese place as well as the nearby Turkish place, and also the neighborhood grocery store were all closed (stupid we rioted in Brussels and created a totally dysfunctional country that no one is particularly proud of Belgium Independance Day), we decided to eat at the Feesten. We biked to the center, parked our bikes along the water and headed off towards the Sint Jakobsplein. It started to rain so we went a bit out of the way to the Patershol to seek shelter that wasn’t jammed by festival goers and ended up stopping in a crowded bar for a Rodenbach (my favorite Belgian beer).

After the rain stopped CB and I headed towards the Sint Jakobsplein from another direction. I was totally intent by now on hitting the Senegalese stand for some African food (still not the fantastic discovery, although the kuku na nazi was pretty awesome) and was caught totally by surprise when I heard someone calling my name from across the street. I looked at the woman who was calling me and waving as she crossed the street. She was smiling, stropke swinging, as she approached us.

I had no idea who she was.

Until she said, “I’m Felicia. I read your blog! Lilacspecs! I’ve commented a couple times. I was hoping I’d see you out on the street some day”

And I was like “…”

Cause how cool is that!!! Someone who reads actually recognized me on the street! And it’s a fellow American expat who moved to Gent to be with the man she loves. I was pretty gobsmacked, let me tell you! So Felicia told us that she was on her way to Bataclan (we were too after we ate) so we said we’d meet up with her there, which we did (after I got my African food and CB got some vegetarian non-hotdog and non-hamburger with a mojito cupcake…which had some of the best frosting ever, by the way).

And yay! What fun! It was so nice to talk to someone who is…well…basically in my exact situation (except that I think she’ll be more likely to find work faster when she wants to). This is Felicia’s first Gentse Feesten so her boyfriend Yves is making sure she drinks her fair share of beer and sees plenty of the different sites, including…you guessed it, Eddy Wally.
Which is how we ended up neck deep in drunken schlager lovers swaying their arms and chanting along to all the oh-so copmlicated “la la la la la la” lyrics that make up the refrains of shlager music. And the music? Okay, soooo not my thing? But the companionship and the rare discovery of a fellow American in Gent? That, my followers, was a real treasure!

Oh, and Felicia, if you get to reading this post before you travel, here’s a few links of my past posts with some Dutch music that is well known (including that finishing number that Marina covered last night) as well as one of the first Dutch songs I actually understood some of the words to. Enjoy!:

Vandaag is rood – Marco Borsato