The Prince, the Princess, and the Accordian Player

We spent the afternoon with Serve the City, Brussels.

On our way, on the metro, we entered the last car. In the area just where two cars join, there is a section with just two seats, close to the door. It was about 11:00 in the morning and there was a man, who looked like he might have been homeless, curled up in these two seats, sleeping cozily. At the next stop, a man got on with an accordion. We see him from time to time on the metro, playing for spare change. Well, he got on the metro and stood directly in front of the sleeping man, playing loudly. The sleeper stirred only slightly, but never opened his eyes. All of the passengers in our car got such enjoyment out of this, that we knew we would have to give him a coin. After he walked through our car with his cup, he passed by into the next car, giving one last loud pump on the accordion. A few moments later, the sleeping man stirred again and finally opened his eyes and reached for a large bottle of coke from his bag.

This was a special day for Serve the City, because Princesse Claire and Prince Laurent came to serve with us. At one point in the program we were to give a hug to three people we didn't know. The Prince and Princess got more than their fair share of hugs. Dan and I did not try to give them a hug.

The focus for the day was elderly people. There was a group that stayed in the community center and elderly people came for a dancing lesson. The other groups went to nursing homes and passed out chocolates. Dan and I were not in the group that Princesse Claire went with. She went with a group of teenage girls from a private school. The last we saw of Prince Laurent was him running (literally) in the opposite direction as the princess headed off down the sidewalk with the girls. I don't think he was scheduled to actually go to the nursing home.

This is the first time I have been in the presence of royalty. I wondered if you would have to bow or curtsey, but I didn't see any of that. They seemed to be pretty normal. Dan and I didn't try to actually meet them. We would like to have met them, but we didn't want to impose. We didn't take any pictures either, but a lot of people did. It seemed a little "paparazzi" to me. Still, I am very excited to have actually seen them.

The Day my Apple Died

Most of our days in Belgium have been very enjoyable.  As in “Can you believe God has called us to meet such wonderful people and live in such an agreeable climate?”  At least we think the climate is agreeable.  We like that it has never gone above 85 degrees Fahrenheit or below 30 degrees (so far this winter). 

Last Sunday was our second church meeting.  We had visitors, so we felt very blessed.  Afterwards we went to an Irish Meetup, which was another good thing.  The food and the company were very good, although the Irish jazz singer was ill and was absent.  We felt bad for the organizer. 

Then afterwards it happened that the macbook died almost completely (it was in the ICU).  The keyboard and trackpad quit working!

So, I started researching, and again, it is a very common problem with Macs.  What you need to do to correct it is remove the power source, then remove the battery, wait 30 seconds, reinstall all of the power sources, and then you push the switch.  That seems easy enough, but you also have to push the apple, option, R and P keys all at the same time and hold it until the PRAM resets, (about a minute).  It would be nice to have a Chihuahua to help.  It worked the first time and lasted about 5 minutes.  It worked the second time and lasted 2 minutes.  Then nothing happened.  But it would work with a USB mouse.  So I thought maybe it would work with an auxiliary keyboard.  So I went to bed, not to sleep right away though. 

The next morning I woke up, did everything I needed to do, and researched some more and found the extended warranty had expired last month.  I could buy a replacement keyboard for $65 to $129 USD.  I went to a computer shop that sells inexpensive accessories and bought a USB keyboard for less than 20 euro, but that didn’t work to reset the problem and it wasn’t QWERTY.

Then I decided that I would go to MacLine, the Apple authorized reseller, and see if they could at least tell me for sure that the keyboard was bad.  The keyboard was bad, but it was still under warranty because I had recently had it replaced there, and they had a rash of bad keyboards, and you could have the keyboard replaced three times over the life of the machine.  So I came home very happy and they even did the work while I waited.

So that is a good story to illustrate our life here.  There are lots of ups and downs.  We do a lot of research to do the simplest things.  We are so thankful for our friends here who are making the transition to a new country enjoyable.  We are also thankful for technology.  Even though technology is responsible for at least half our frustrations, it also makes it easier for us to live here.

Keep remembering us.

Dan and Elizabeth