A couple weeks ago I spent a week in Terneuzen, the Netherlands for work. There's not too much to Terneuzen. The weekends before and after were spent in more interesting cities in Belgium.

I flew out of MBS on a Friday afternoon, connected in Detroit, then in Amsterdam, and then to a "City Hopper" from Amsterdam to Brussels, Belgium. It had been about seven years since I took an international flight. The entertainment has improved dramatically. There were audio/video-on-demand systems in every seat. I listed to some of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" and then watched three films: The Last Kiss, All the King's Men, and There's Something About Mary. More about those later. Europe had recently born the brunt of a major storm with very strong winds, so the landings in Amsterdam and Brussels were a bit rough.

When you fly to Europe on Friday, you arrive Saturday morning. I took a bus about 30 miles from the Brussels airport to Antwerp for 8 euros. I was expecting it to drop me off at my hotel, but instead it dropped in the city center. I walked around a little bit and then took a taxi (maybe a mile) to the hotel for about 11 euros. I stayed at the Crowne Plaza. I know you're supposed to stay awake to adjust, but I was too tired and took a brief map. Then I took a bus back to the city center and walked around a bit before having pizza just off groen plaats (green square) and taking the bus back to my hotel.

When I go to exotic locations like this, it's not for the food. As another example, after my senior year in high school I spent a couple weeks in France, England, Switzerland, and Italy with friends and teachers from school. Dinner was arranged for us every night, and we generally weren't too sure we would like it...so we ate lunch in Pizza Huts all over Europe to make sure we got at least one substantial meal each day.

When I was in the city center on Saturday, I made a mental note of the time of the first mass on Sunday morning at the cathedral, planning to return the next morning for that. I overslept. I took a bus to the city center, hoping there would be other times of mass. There were. I had breakfast in McDonald's (for lame justification, see previous paragraph) and then attended the noon mass at the cathedral. It was in Dutch, so I didn't follow too much of it, though it was trivial to recognize Galatians 3:28 as it was read. It seemed to some kind of youth-themed service. Several kids were "baptized", several more made readings, and a big bunch of kids even sang a song.

The Cathedral of Our Lady is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture. It's construction began in 1352 and was completed in 1520. It was destroyed by fire in 1533, was devastated by iconoclasts in the 16th century, was deconsecrated by anti-clerical revolutionaries in 1794, but gradually came back to life after the defeat of Napoleon. To attend worship in such a place on Sunday morning was something special.

Rudy, a colleague who lives near Antwerp met me on Sunday afternoon and gave me a walking tour of the city center. The art of Rubens is a major element of Antwerp.

Rudy dropped me off at the hotel after dinner and then picked me up early Monday morning to drive to Terneuzen.

• Extras
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• The Simpsons
• Inside the NFL
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• Battlestar Galactica
• The Office
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The Associated Press reports that Ted Haggard has emerged from three intensive weeks of counseling "completely heterosexual." Completely. Really, he really is.

I mentioned recently that the US incarcerates a larger fraction of its citizens than any other country in the world. Yesterday I came across a couple more tidbits:

1. The state of Michigan spends more on prisons than it does on public universities
2. Spending on prisons takes approximately 20 % of the state's general fund.

So sad. Something has got to change.

From the current issue of The Week magazine:

Volos, Greece

An entire convent of Greek Orthodox nuns has fled to another convent to avoid paying close to $1 million in debt from their failed knitting business. The 55 nuns splurged on purchases of industrial knitting machines and by attending foreign fashion shows to get ideas for patterns. The wool clothes they made were popular in Greece, but the business went under when a bank called in the loan. The nuns are now holed up in a convent in Volos, as the Holy Synod negotiates with the bank on their behalf.

From an article of the same title in the LA Times by John Johnson Jr. and Alan Zarembo:

A NASA astronaut was arrested in Florida early Monday and accused of attacking a woman she considered her rival for the love of another astronaut, Orlando police said.

Navy Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak, who flew last summer on a shuttle mission to the International Space Station, drove nearly 1,000 miles from her home in Houston to intercept the woman, who was just arriving at Orlando International Airport, police said.

Nowak, 43, accosted 30-year-old Air Force Capt. Colleen Shipman in a parking lot and sprayed her with pepper spray in an attempt to kidnap her, according to a police affidavit.

That's not funny, of course, but the wacky part is this:

Police said Nowak drove from Houston wearing diapers so she would not have to stop to relieve herself, the Associated Press reported. Shuttle astronauts wear diapers during launch and reentry.

I'm always skeptical of slippery slope arguments, but here is some supporting evidence. I guess once you start wearing diapers, the convenience makes it tempting to do so under a variety of circumstances. ;-)

From an article of the same title by Neela Banerjee in the NY Times:

While churches have long provided meals, occasional shelter and indoor worship services for the urban homeless, a small but growing number of congregations now recognize that many homeless people will not attend traditional services indoors. So these congregations now go outdoors to bring church to the homeless and anyone else who happens along.

"When you become homeless, you become very aware of how people treat you," said the Rev. Anne-Marie Jeffery, who runs Street Church. "It's hard to walk into a church, and it's even harder when you are homeless because you're worried about how you will be received, or if you smell bad. Some people never go inside at all, because they worry that they can lose all their stuff," as in shopping carts that must be left outside, "or be sent to a mental hospital or to jail."

Ms. Wyman, trying to introduce outdoor worship elsewhere as well, says she is working with churches and other groups, about half of them affiliated with the Episcopal Church, in 40 cities in the United States and abroad. Already some such worship is under way in cities including Asheville, N.C.; Atlanta; Cincinnati; Portland, Me.; and San Francisco.

The worship service lasts 15 to 20 minutes. People line up for Communion (expect grape juice, not wine) and then lunch on two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches each, along with chips, fruit and water. Office workers sometimes stop by. Street Church volunteers hand out bulletins as they would to congregants at a Sunday service, and stay afterward to eat and talk with whoever shows up.

I think this is a very good trend...churches venturing out to minister to the least of these rather than expecting them to come in.