Monday, October 22, 2007

Europe, after a while

You’d think that Brussels, Belgium has a lot going for it. It has after all more Michelin Star restaurants per capita than any other European country, it’s the briefcase capital of Europe, and it’s here where the richest countries in Europe enthusiastically cede their sovereignty to the EU, a body that appears to be out of control and answerable to no one. That aside, once you’ve done a couple of circuits of the Grande Platz in the capital and looked politely in the windows you begin to find yourself glancing at your watch and wonder if nine-forty-seven in the morning is too early to start drinking.

Being European demands that you drive a small car, live in a little house in an ancient town and love soccer, and be relatively unmaterialistic, law abiding and have drafty hotel rooms and cosy inviting places to eat and drink. This aside, you can never be sure of anything in Europe. When I first visited Europe I realised it takes a special kind of vigilance to make your way across a continent on which people voluntary ingest tongues, kidneys, horsemeat, frogs’ legs, intestines, sausages made of congealed blood, and the brains of little cows.

However, when I arrived in Amsterdam I was briefly cheered by its openness, its tolerance, its relaxed attitude to dope and sex and numerous other sins. But I found it oddly wearisome that the people of Amsterdam were rather stuck with their tradition of tolerance, like people who take up a political stance and then have to defend it no matter how untenable it gets. Because they’ve been congratulating themselves on their intelligent tolerance for all these centuries, it is now impossible for them not to be nobly accommodating to graffiti and burned-out hippies and dog shit and litter.

It’s possibly an inevitable part of life – like the weather in England and the ability of Britons of all ages and social backgrounds to get genuinely excited by the prospect of a hot beverage, and their ability to go without, and the fact that they actually like their pleasures small.

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posted by Cindy-Lou Dale @ Monday, October 22, 2007

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