where's ieper? and anything goes in london!!
12 january 2003

after living through what felt like being in the midst of a war zone last year, gary and i vowed never to stay in amsterdam again on new year's eve. fireworks are legal that day and people set them off randomly and continuously. it rattles my nerves. so gary got on the internet and after some meticulous research, found us a reasonably priced hotel room in ieper, or ypres if you're french. it's located in belgium, in the flanders region, not far from lille, france. ok, so what's there to do in ieper? in spite of the lovely pictures and points of interest laid out on the website, some of our friends,{you know who you are} thought it was hilariously amusing that we would choose such a place that no one ever heard of with a weird name. when we purchased our train tickets, the ticket agent asked, "where do you want to go, the airport?" "no, ieper, it's in belgium," we said. "oh, i've never sold a ticket to ieper in the seven years i've worked here", and she proceeded to look it up in her book/map. well, that was comforting. so i was whining to gary that i didn't want to go but he felt confident that it was a good choice. shortly after that, we were at gary's company christmas party and were seated mostly with people we had never met before. the subject of new year's eve popped up and we told everyone, in a muted tone, that we were going to ieper. at that moment across the table, two very nice people raised their hands and announced, "oh, we're from ieper; we both grew up there!" it's a great place!, they both remarked with glee. imagine that. it was a real place and for the rest of dinner we chatted with them about what there is to see and do. eventually i got excited about our journey to the unknown.

i should have trusted gary; it was obvious the moment we alighted from the train that it was our kind of town. it's about the most charming place we've seen in awhile. it's very picturesque. trudging through the pouring rain to our hotel, we took in the architecture, lots of yellow brick with step gables and no dog poop mucking up the sidewalks. {it's getting worse here in a'dam}. needless to say, everything was decorated for christmas: giant cornucopeias filled with branches, festive christmas bulbs flanking shop windows, and tiny white lights outlining the gables were also abundant. the buzz about ieper is its history. it's a medieval town with some city walls still intact and despite the incessant rain, we walked along the ramparts overlooking the moat and the rest of the town. during WWI, lots of fighting took place there, many bloody battles left so many civilians dead that those remaining had to be evacuated, although many chose to return home to a city that was completely levelled by german artillery. there were also attacks of poison gas, of which mostly french and canadian soldiers were victims. on the path along the ramparts are plaques which show a network of bunkers, ditches, and other strategic locations. it was hard to imagine the rubble as we stood looking towards the towering cathedral, since rebuilt, as everything else has now been.

"in flanders fields the poppies blow
between the crosses, row on row,
that mark our place; and in the sky
the larks, still bravely singing , fly..."

are poignant lines from a poem written to commemorate the fallen. the most unique thing about ieper is that every night at 8pm, the last post is sounded to honor the soldiers of the british empire who died in these terrible battles and who have no known grave. their names, all 54, 896, appear on a memorial under a huge archway called the menin gate. we attended the short ceremony both nights that we were there. it's quite a chilling feeling, hearing the bugles' somber call, and i wondered silently why human beings still wage war upon each other and whether it will ever be any different. we learned more about the details of the war the next day when we visited the museum dedicated to the event that has given ieper so much of its history, which is housed in cloth hall, the largest non-religious gothic structure in europe.

like many european towns, ieper has a very beautiful gothic cathedral- i love those flying buttresses! ieper also has a cat festival. in medieval times, cats were associated with witches and evil spirits and once a year the sacrificial creatures would be tossed from the church belfry in order to purge the town. nowadays, there's a festival every three years and they only send velvet cats flying through the air. the event is represented by a black and white cat, and since i have a thing for any tuxedo look alikes, i bought one to add to my collection. there will be a festival this year in the spring. ieper has some great attractions but finding a decent dinner isn't one of them. there are a fair share of tea rooms but don't expect anything else. on new year's we got some pizza to go, hung out in the hotel room watching movies, and actually stayed up past midnight. not one firecracker was heard- the trip was a great success!!

on to london. i hadn't been there for more than a year and i was starting to get really bad withdrawal symptoms. timing is everything and gary had business there so we made a plan to have a four-day holiday in order to celebrate his 40th birthday. he's FINALLY catching up to me; at least we're in the same decade now. there's nothing like splurging as a mid winter pick-me-up i tell you. i arrived late friday evening and walked into one of the most awesome hotels ever. the lobby was covered in marble, adorned with orchids, and when i stepped into our spacious room on the 7th floor, i gazed upon a magnificent view of the thames, lit up by bridges and offset by the london skyline. there was an espresso machine in the room; that was a first for us. too bad the bed still had "the crack" in it. it's never sunny in london but we had three days of crisp, shiny weather and started those days by viewing the dawn's vivid oranges and pinks visible from our plush surroundings.

no time for lounging around in london. the city instills energy and calls for actively packed days. for example, by noon on saturday, we had eaten breakfast, outfitted gary with a pair of doc marten's, stopped for the best muffins on the planet at muffinski's, and bought theatre tickets for that night. after a short break, roughly two minutes back at the hotel, we traipsed across the bridge to the national theatre where we got lucky- tickets were availabe for the matinee of "the talking cure", a new play about the relationship of sigmond freud and karl jung and starring the charismatic ralph fiennes. his performance was on par with my expectations. his two co stars were equally talented and the play itself compelling. nothing like a meaty drama to stir up thoughts and it's a testimonial to the performance to be thinking about it the following day. gary predicts this to be a winner and that it will be made into a movie eventually starring, of course, ralph fiennes.

that evening's choice was not nearly as impressive. "hms pinafore", as most gilbert and sullivan, is just fun. the music was great but the performances, with one or two exceptions, were weak. oh well; there were some very funny moments. this was in huge contrast to "anything goes", which we saw on gary's birthday. it's a fluffy script but the music is by cole porter and this particular cast was super. triple threats everywhere and the choreographer created brilliant dances using the entire cast featuring the dynamism of the leading lady and her entourage, four tall, leggy, sexy beauties who made me wish i were doing musical theatre again. then i remembered the amount of work involved and was happy to have done it in times past. on sunday we rendezvoused with our friend june who lives in ireland and who happenend to be in london at the same time. she's currently working on her doctorate and we teamed up to hear about her studies in theatre and about living in a charming town called athenry in ireland. it was so great to spend an afternoon with a buddy from "home", catching up. we ate some tasty bengladeshi food and went to see an exhibition called "body worlds", a display of the human body dissected and cross-sectioned and preserved by a technique using plastic whereby you can really see the myriad of networking that is inside each of us. fascinating, if not a bit graphic.

the big day was monday. gary turned 40 finally!! anything goes when it's your birthday, at least that's my philosophy. we spent some hours in the national portrait gallery which houses a great collection of british subjects but there were two special exhibitions going on, one on americans, and one on lord byron, who was quite the rogue. apparently he inspired a cult, even influencing some people into the next century. the american stuff was interesting too. it's not everyday that you see original photographs of abe lincoln and other civil war personalities. afterwards, we stopped for a "quick" spree at gap and later opted for a taxi, as the packages were piling up. it was only a five minute ride to the hotel but we managed to have a little fender bender en route- a van rear ended us! no one was hurt and it was no big deal except that we had a momentary reaction of panic as we pulled over to exchange information because we had just seen the movie "changing lanes" the night before. if you've seen it, this will make sense; if you haven't, i recommend it.

the conclusion of my story has a surprise twist, {to say the least}. so i hope you've gotten this far because this is something i want to share. we had made dinner reservations at a restaurant called simpson's. we specifically asked if they served late as we would be coming after the theatre. "of course, no problem", we were assured. shortly after we arrived, everything started to go awry. we waited a long time to check coats and were seated in the large and formal, yet drafty dining room. i wanted this to be really special as it was gary's birthday dinner. he had another reason for wanting it to be special. we noticed that the place was clearing out and no one else was coming in and we started to get the feeling they were trying to close. it kept getting worse as they were out of everything we ordered. eventually gary ordered crab cakes and i, the mediterranean vegetarian dish. the salad arrived, brown and boring, and gary's appetizer was also not up to par. i was really disappointed as it seemed to have such promise when we scoped it out the day before and made our booking. what happened next was really comical. the waiter approached our table, wheeling a cooking table covered by a huge dome-shaped lid. i thought it was strange and that maybe they would be stir frying my veggies tableside. but no- with a great flourish, he removed the cover and revealed what looked like an entire cow!! he smiled, looked at gary, and asked, "how would you like your beef, sir?" he was ever so rattled when gary explained that he didn't order the beef and proceeded to leave the great monstrosity next to us while running off to the kitchen to clear up this obvious mystery. we could hear shuffling in the kitchen and the maitre'd came out and told us that the kitchen was actually closed so the beef or the veg plate were the only choices. we considered going with the flow but then just shook our heads and said, "this just isn't working". and so we left. i was trying to salvage the meal by suggesting we order room service and groove on our romantic river view. inside i was really disappointed.

but the wheels were turning around in gary's mind as he guided us to the lovely restaurant at the savoy hotel. lucky for us; they were still serving dinner. this was a REAL restaurant with REAL service, and a REAL view overlooking the thames. we were seated next to each other on a love seat and the room reeked of romance, the food excellent. we were midway through our pistachio parfait, laughing it up, and so proud of ourselves for having found perfection, when gary said to me, "oh there's one more thing i wanted to do today," and i thought, well, it's midnight already so what's left? he then said, "i wanted to propose". i immediately thought, propose what?, although on some other level i knew what he meant. it wasn't really registering even as he pulled out a ring box with a fairytale diamond, put in on my finger and asked me to marry him!!!!!! i know you're supposed to cry at a moment like this but i was in a state of shock, completely frozen. i'm pretty sure my face turned a shade of green and i felt as though i had disconnected from my body. i can't say i've ever quite felt like that before. eventually, when i could speak again, i said, "yes". this is a moment that changed my world forever and i know i will replay it in my mind a thousand times. it was the surprise of the century. i wasn't able to finish dessert as i already had something new to digest.

i'm sort of still not used to seeing my finger sparkle in such a manner but it's slowly sinking in. going on from here, we are now trying to decide where to be married. italy is a definite possibility although we may have a ceremony here and honeymoon there. nothing is simple in holland so the date may depend on when we can find a venue and an available officiant, hopefully within the next few months. we've waited this long, another few months hardly matters. what matters is that we've taken the step and the timing feels exactly right, and we're together. it's been a wonderful and unexpected start to the new year!!!

happy new year to everybody-

love,

deb