First, I just wanted to make a comment about the randomness of music in Europe. Everywhere we go, the music is always American. All the restaurants, all the shops, all the city squares. The rare exception is Spanish music which is occasionally playing in a completely non-Spanish location (ie an American bar in Strasbourg run by a middle eastern guy. The one place you’d expect to hear American music (or maybe middle eastern music?) and they were playing a mix of songs in Spanish!). It makes me wonder two things: (1) does anyone else have a music industry??; and (2) if everyone hates America so much, why are they listening to our music all the time??.
Generally, the songs are hits from the 70s, 80s, or 90s. Occasionally they are more recent hits (ie “Low” by Flo Rida blasting in Grand Place (the main market square) in Brussels). Oddly, the most time and place appropriate music I’ve heard so far was that Katy Perry “I Kissed a Girl” song playing on an old am/fm radio in a random rest stop bathroom in Bastogne, Belgium where I had to pay .40 Euros to use the WC. I say time and place appropriate only because the UK is closer to Belgium than the States are, and that song is a current hit. Obviously, not time and place appropriate in the sense of me using the women’s bathroom in the middle of nowhere, Belgium. (and also the kissing a girl part, I don’t kiss girls ;)).
When we were walking through a square in Luxembourg City, “When a Man Loves a Woman” was blasting. Really, Luxembourgers? When we came out of dinner at a little place down an alley in Brussels, a guy with his guitar was surrounded by a crowd on a corner as he performed “Hotel California.” It’s everywhere! We went to an Irish Pub in Belgium and they were playing CHER. I don’t know why I find this so interesting… I just would expect to hear something other than American music SOMEWHERE, and it’s nowhere to be found! Anyway, so that’s my random tangent on music in Europe.
The other thing I wanted to do in this posting is to post a few pictures from the war memorial in Luxembourg. I realize this is kind of an awkward combination for the post, but I really wanted to share some pictures to go with my earlier post discussing seeing this.
5,076 Crosses for 5,076 U.S. Soldiers
Unknown Graves
Flag
General Patton's Grave
General Patton actually died after the Battle of the Bulge in an unrelated car accident, but he was buried here in the memorial with his troops on Christmas Eve 1945. Originally he was buried mixed in with everyone else, but there was so much foot traffic it was making all the grass die on other soldier’s graves, so they moved him here and placed his grave at the front of all the other soldiers. An appropriate place since he generally was right on the front lines with his troops.
The Daily Chelle 