Hitler is Dood

That was the phrase plastered on a poster inside the entrance lobby of the Breendonk Concentration Camp today. For anyone familiar with the term "dood" back in the US, it should NEVER be applied to Hitler unless in extreme sarcasm, and probably not even then...

We looked it up when we got back to the flat, and apparently in Flemish "dood" means "dead." Felt I should clear that up.

On another note, we made it to Gareth's apartment today without any trouble. Turns out the street we were looking for yesterday doesn't exist...not even on Google Maps. Possibly just minor dyslexia on Lizzi's part when she was looking at street names. She couldn't pronounce the name of the street and only knew that it started with an N. The actual street we wanted was Rue Colonel Chaltin. Mm.

Gareth drove us today about half an hour outside Brussels and into the Flemish area of Belgium. Not only are all the signs in Flemish, city names are nothing close to their French counterparts. If I were driving to France via northern Belgium, I would have absolutely no idea where I'd be ending up until I actually arrived in France itself. And while having studied German does help some, the difference between Flemish and Dutch is about as great as the difference between Dutch and German. Therefore, I have to bridge a very large gap in my translating.

Thanks to construction, it took us an extra 10 minutes or so to actually find the concentration camp's entrance, even though it's located just off the freeway. We asked a man for directions, and he pointed us down the street we'd already driven down 3 or 4 times saying "go left, then turn around before you get there." We're still not sure what on earth that was supposed to mean.

Somehow we finally made it. The entrance to the camp on this gloomy overcast day was about as barren as I'm sure it would be to a stream of people exiting cattle cars or whatever other modes of transportation facing a bridge, moat, and concrete prison.


It was a very lonely and depressing audio tour of the compound. Most pitiful of all is that it's right in the heart of a gorgeous Flemish countryside. The view would be beautiful if it were not in such a horrendous context.

I don't want to upload all my photos here because 1-I took a lot of them and 2-that would take a great deal of time to upload. Easier to do would be to go look at my Facebook Album. I don't think you even need to be on Facebook to access this, but if so...odds are you know someone who has an account.

After the tour had ended (about an hour and a half longer than Gareth predicted), we went back to Place Flagey. He dropped us off and we were all starving, so like good college kids we headed straight over to the fritterie that had been closed on Monday. This one serves, as determined by guidebooks and travelbooks abounding, the ultimate best fries (frites) that you will ever taste. We tested this theory and determined that they were indeed quite delicious. One eats frites with mayonnaise here in Europe, which we did, and I have to say that although I detest mayonnaise as a rule, this was wonderful. Hopefully I don't fall into the habit. But here in Europe, it's difficult to ignore. They're so tasty!


We've been sitting at home now waiting for our landlord to come by and collect our inventory sheets (which, by the way, were entirely in French. Thanks for the household items vocab lists, Madames). He said he'd come between 5 and 6. It is six o'clock right now. We're going to stick around for another 15 minutes, but we have class at 7:00 downtown and can't wait for him really.

Most disappointing is that we wanted to go to the Grand Place today, but came back solely to wait for Roger. He still isn't here, so that was a waste of an afternoon.

Must. Buy. Jacket. It's so much colder than I anticipated here, and the rain doesn't help.