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USA meets
Europe!
July 10-16,
2003
A report on
Carli's visit to Frank and his family.
In 2000 I got
introduced on the Africancichlids E-groups (now Yahoogroups) list by
George. I must admit that this was quite an experience for me. I had
to improve my English very fast and learn all popular acronyms to be
able to keep up with all conversations that were going on there. On
that list I also met Carli who was a very active member. She almost
seemed to be online 24/7 and helped me with all of my language
problems. I also spent many hours online, and soon we started
exploring the chat options of that list. We spent quite some time on
IRC, and became friends that talked about our hobby and family on
a very regular basis. After all Carli and I both have young kid(s) .
As I already met George & his family last year in Greece, and I also
had George, Francesco & family as guests on the 2001 ABCV cichlid
show and Carli coudn't be present on both occasions, we decided we
finally had to meet too! After discussing all options for quite a
while we agreed that Carli would come to Belgium for a week, more
specifically from July 10 till July 16, so she could be introduced
in our Belgian way of life and also to have a look at the
cichlidkeeping hobby. Here are the highlights of what we all did and
experienced
with also Carli's comments in between.
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1. The arrival
Early in the morning on the 10th of July I
drove to the Brussels airport to finally meet Carli and bring her to
my home to spend a short, but nice family holiday. Due to the smooth
traffic I was there well in advance, so I observed all the people
coming out of the central exit gate for more than half an hour to be
sure not to miss her. The waiting seemed to last forever, but hey,
there she finally was! Carli was all messed up by the lack of sleep
due to an exhausting trip, but all in all she arrived in good shape.
A quick smoke and a firm welcome hug were enough to get her going
again! 45 minutes were needed to get to Beerse where my wife Hilde
and the kids awaited us to give Carli a warm welcome. After a quick
refreshment and the unpacking of the nice presents, it was time to
meet our little country! We took our guest to one of the 6 baker's
shops and also to one of the 5 butcher's shops in our village and
brought some delicious pastry and cakes and meat along for supper.
The time seemed to fly (that was the predominant feeling during all
of the 6 days) and after the food and some wine Carli got overtaken
by extreme tiredness. Travelling for more that 19 hours, layovers
included, skip some time zones and having no sleep for more than 30
hours wears you out, and there was no exception to this rule for
her! Time to sleep early to get in shape for the coming days!

A nice set of long drink glasses that we got from
Carli as a present.
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Carli:
After flying for most of a day’s time, I finally landed, exhausted,
in Belgium. Or, rather, my plane finally flung itself roughly onto
the runway of the airport in what was either a suicide attempt or a
true, yet misguided, effort to land. Regardless, the landing did
manage to wake me up a bit! Once my life stopped flashing before my
eyes, I was ready to meet dear friends with whom I had conversed for
years but never seen in person, as well as Belgium herself!
My first impression of Belgium was that she is much like home…very
green and rather rural…simply beautiful! My first impression of
Frank was that he is very tall. I mean, very, very tall!! I was so
tired and overwhelmed with excitement at the initial meeting that I
was unsure how to act and simply allowed myself to be led to the car
and taken to Frank’s home in Beerse to meet his lovely wife Hilde
and wonderful children, Matthias and Catho. In the midst of the
excitement, I managed to take a bath, and be taken on a trip to
explore a baker and a butcher’s shop. Both of which was a very new
experience for me, as I am used to large grocery store chains, not
lovely little specialty shops! I knew within hours that I could live
in Belgium and be a very happy girl! |
2. The Cichlid shops
We are both African cichlid
enthusiasts, so leaving out a visit to the best cichlid shops in my
neighbourhood would be a real sin! I had three reference shops in
mind, all within reasonable driving dista.
The first one was the Aqua Blue
Zaire shop in Beveren, Belgium. Frank Jansen, the owner of this
retail and wholesale shop welcomed us and showed his latest
acquisitions. He imports all kinds of wildcaught cichlids from both
Lake Malawi and Lake Tanganyika. It happens frequently that there
are rare species in the shipments he receives. We took our time to
explore all the tanks and among the more *usual* species were some
beautiful Altolamprologus calvus chaitika "white" that Carli seemed
to like very much. Frank also had some very neat Sturisoma aureum,
which appealed me very much! It didn't take very long for me to
decide, especially when I saw the price tag! 4 of them were bagged
and paid and soon after they were taken back to Beerse.

Carli behind the broken down Aqua Blue Zaire
advertizing board.

Carli admires the numerous African cichlids.
Continued in next
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