Three Water Pictures

Brussels Junior Sailing Club Fall 2015

Behind the Scene Tour of Parker River Wildlife Refuge Winter 2016

Late Winter Boating on Little
River Newbury 2016

I picked out the three pictures above to submit to my photo club's monthly themed slide show. Water was the theme this month.

Let me start with the Brussels picture.

Last fall we traveled to Amsterdam, Brug, Luzancy, France (to visit my husband's great uncle's WW11's grave), and Brussels to pick up a Croisi Europe's River Boat Cruise that was titled "The Treasures of the North; Through two extraordinary countries: Belguim and the Netherlands."
We flew into Amsterdam and had a few fun days touring, drinking great beers, and eating fabulous aged cheeses.

Soon, we boarded a train from Amsterdam to Brussels. It was not until we were on our way, that we realized this was the train that a few months earlier was hijacked and three US soldiers stopped the hijacker in his tracks and saved the day. As we approached the out skirts of Brussels, my husband say large  tent cities that we quested were immigrant housing. At the time we were not aware that  we were seeing the  beginning of the greatest immigrant migration since WW11.

We both had been to Brussels in the 70s, not together, we would not meet until many years later.
My taste at 20 was rather eclectic. I remember loving the french fries, the cheeky Manneken Pis, and the truly amazing architecture of the Grand Place. The city was alive, happy and free. Also, the Grand Place was holding a market of pet birds. Hundreds of birds in little cages. That was my memory.

We arrived at the main Station in Brussels and took a transfer train to the North Station. We arrived to a dirty old station and purchased tickets for the next trolly to go north. We had a long wait. People were sitting and standing in every available space. A gang of twenty year old arabic men were playing a game of soccer with a improvised ball made out of a Starbuck's paper coffee cup. We found two seats and tried to relax. The seat next to me became available and a very jumpy type man sat next to me  looking for money.

I did not feel comfortable, and got up to find a quieter, calmer place.  I found the Starbucks and we moved our selves and baggage. The Starbucks had not walls so, we sat a table by the window. We placed our bags by the window under the table and slide our chairs into the window.

There we many youthful men wandering from table to table. Every one around us spoke arabic. At one table an elder man was talking to a woman and her children. She was very upset, the man was giving her advise and she was staring intently at him. Everything and everyone around us was very intense.


Finally, our trolly was called and we moved outside a got on a trolly that was headed North towards where our boat was docked. For the next half hour, we passed Arabic stores, women in full covered gear, and a very crowded & bustling outside scene.  Inside the trolly, we watched more of the same type of an environment. This was not the Brussels that we knew in the 70s. I was nervous and it was not until we got to our destination that my husband told me how nervous he was. Once we left the trolly, we walked to the boat landing. On our way, we passed the Brussel's Sailing Club. We were now in a safe, happy environment. For the first time all day, I took out my camera and started taking pictures of children set up their small boats for a race.


Newbury, I live in Newbury because it is a very safe place, quiet, pretty, near woods, beaches, and one of the best birding sites in the country.  Parker River Wildlife Refuge is my favorite birding venue. We had tried to get on the Behind the Scenes Tour for years.

We live near the Little River and walking over the bridge on a winter day, I was surprised to see a motor boat in the chilly water.