Tag Archives: Europe

A Storm By Different Names

I thought naming storms was limited to hurricanes and typhoons. Which means that Sabine has taken me by surprise. Not the storm itself – people in my area of Germany have been talking about it for days. On Saturday events scheduled for this evening were being cancelled. On a bright sunny day that surprised me. […]

Brexit Sunshine

Did the sun rise this morning? I guess Brexit wasn’t so catastrophic after all. The United Kingdom is no longer a member of the European Union, though the details of the divorce may not be finalized until the end of 2020. Until then I expect there will be a certain sense of uncertainty. My guess […]

Frustration Sets In

Allow me to vent for a minute. I was just in the kitchen, and killed at least a dozen flies. There were more when I finished than when I started. It is 31 degrees Celsius, so closing the windows isn’t really an option. I want to cook some food, but not myself. In Canada this […]

What Election?

There’s an election going on, and I have no idea what the issues are. For a political junkie, that is painful. Even worse, I just discovered there are not one but two elections underway in my area right now. I don’t have a vote in either. I think. Today I’m going to ignore Sulzburg’s municipal […]

Killer On The Loose

I am a killer. And I make no apologies for that. At least this time I remembered to take a picture. When vacationing in Europe a few years ago, I noted the absence of screens on the windows and wondered if perhaps Europe didn’t have the same issue with insects that we have in North […]

Freiburg Cathedral I

It was a grey Saturday when we were in Freiburg last month, but we visited the cathedral anyway. I’m not sure if that was the right move. Certainly the building is impressive from a distance, and just as impressive up close, even surrounded by the stalls of the Saturday farmers’ market. Inside though it felt […]

Cultural Differences – I

I mentioned not long ago that I was planning on doing a series of posts on cultural differences I had discovered between living in Canada and living in Germany. I’ve got a few posts started, but nothing finished yet. Then I remembered. When I started this blog most of my posts were reflections on a […]

Brexit

Tomorrow Britons will finally answer the question posed by The Clash in 1981, just a few years after the U.K. joined the European Union: Should I stay or should I go? I’m sure I will not be the only one with that song running through my head as the referendum ballots are counted.. The latest […]

V.E. Day

On the television news all week you have probably seen them. Old men, their chests covered in medals, on the streets of Holland, there to celebrate the anniversary of the Liberation and to visit the graves of their fallen comrades, one last time. Seventy years ago today the guns fell silent in Europe with the […]

Impresssions of the European Parliament

I’m a political junkie, I’ll admit it. Wherever I am I follow the local political news. In Maine in August I bought a newspaper each day because this is an election year in the US (just not a presidential election year, so there isn’t as much frenzy). I wanted to see what the candidates for […]