Ex: If you were expecting Michael Steele to stay angry at Republicans over his defenestration from the Repub. Party, you were wrong

#2 Flibbertigibbet: a silly flighty person
Ex: I was good at being quite flighty and dippy and a flibbertigibbet.

#3 Kerfuffle: disturbance; fuss
‘Glee’ Cast Members React to (the) GQ Kerfuffle

#4: Persnickety: fussy about small details; fastidious
Ex: I have seen the most reluctant and persnickety buyers change before my eyes,
when they at last encounter the Perfect House.

#5: Callipygian: having shapely buttocks
Ex: hard-bodied heroes and bosomy, callipygian damsels in distress.

#6: Serendipity: luck that takes the form of finding valuable or pleasant things that are not looked for

#7: having a smooth rich flow. Ex: a newspaper reporter delivering lines in a mellifluous radio voice. Zoetgevooisd

#8: Discombobulated: upset; confused

#9: Palimpsest: writing material used one or more times after earlier writing has been erased; or, something with diverse layers or aspects apparent beneath the surface
Ex: Rome, the old hands always say, is a palimpsest

#10: Sesquipedalian: long; characterized by the use of long words
Ex: he has a weakness for sesquipedalian excess: Look out for such terms as ‘epiphenomenal,’ ‘diegetic’ and ‘proprioceptive.

Before the interval, the Ukrainian performed Rachmaninov’s first piano concerto.
As an encore he also played the incredibly difficult transcription of Mendelssohn’s famokus Wedding March.
After the interval, the Rotterdam Philharmonic performed Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, conducted by Yannick Nemet-Szeguin (?)

I had set my mind on the so-called Google Phone, aka HTC G1, ever since I’d heard of it. However, I’ve also been a happy Palm user since November 2000, first an m100, then since 2005 a Tungsten-C.

Yesterday, Palm presented their new Palm Pre, and now I’m so tempted to get one of those instead… Hope my – sometimes temperamental – Nokia will still last until the Pre hits the stores here.

First I failed to use the official Packard Bell Master recovery DVD, which didn’t come with the machine. No, you had to create them yourself, which I did about a year ago. However, after booting up the Win/98 PE version, it just crashed with a stack overflow. Wonderful! So I installed a student version of XP Pro Swedish, which seems to work fine.

However, I was still missing PackardBell specific drivers (like for video, audio, touchpad, etc.). Luckily I was able to download them here .

In the afternoon, we went back to Carrefour at the Euralille train station, to search for an inexpensive ‘cabin size’ suitcase that I had seen in an ad in the TV guide. We found it, and unlike the well-known Delsey and Samsonite brands, which only come in red and black, this “Faraway” brand (from China, where else?) had a nice BROWN color. So it will require a lot less effort to recognize it on an airport conveyor belt (for those times I can’t keep it in the cabin). Will show a picture of it later.

For dinner we went to Le Palais du Dragon on the corner; I just couldn’t stand having stayed in that area for 5 times without having tried the Chinese restaurant there. We had
- fried fish fillet with lemon
- fried fish fillet on a hot plate with sweet&sour sauce.
- beef with “satay sauce”: my dad got this, but was disappointed by the curry-like taste of it.

In the afternoon, we first took a look at the Christmas market at Place Rihour; due to the cold we didn’t stay that long. While my parents did some grocery shopping, I went to the Palais des Beaux Arts, which has a temporary exhibition on Nordic painters visting in France. A few very well known names: Munch, Larsson, Zorn, and a few slightly less famous names, but still very nice paintings. What more could a Sweden fan ask for?

(Georg Nicolaj Achen: Intérieur)

Dinner was had at the Flunch near the hotel. The food was okay, but a noisy and badly behaving teenage gang (of North-African / Arab origin), made the other people at the restaurant a lot less pleasant. While there was a (very alert) bouncer, they didn’t go far that he had to intervene, but unpleasant nonetheless.

Although the hotel rooms are still the same as in 2004, a great improvement is that Wifi by orange is now free! Back then, you got a scratch card valid between 18:00 and 9:00; now you get a 24 hours pass valid from the moment you first use it. Each day you need a new code, but you can just get one from the reception.

At 18:30 we went to the evening Christmas mass at the big St. Maurice church, which was within walking distance. A few interesting things of that mass happened:
- During the last half hour off the mass we had to come forward to the altar.
- When it was time for the “Our Father” prayer, we had to “connect” by putting our left hand on our left neighbor’s shoulder, while holding the right hand horizontally opened.
- For communion, we did not have to line up in 2 or 3 orderly queues, but it was distributed by many people, at different points in the church.
- After the mass, most people did not return to their seats, but maybe went somewehere else. A few even left before receiving the blessing…!

After that (a bit after we had dinner at the hotel restaurant (Estaminet), which had awesome menus: for a mere €10, you got a main course + a dessert. I had a delicious warm smoked salmon, and for dessert a fantastic apple tart, with lots of apple on it.

Went to an amazing concert. Although the performers were not very famous, the way they played was great.
The conductor, Ludovic Morlot, was a short and modest man, and he conducted without a baton, but what impressed me most, was that he also conducted the orchestra without a score… He knew all of Tchaikovsky’s Fourth Symphony by heart!
The violinist, Valery Sokolov, was a young guy from Ukraine, who similar to the conductor, played without bravura, but quite skilful yet calm. Hardly seemed tired at all at the end, although Sibelius’ concerto is quite demanding.
We sat at row Pf, which is De Doelen code for “6th row”; so quite near the front. And unlike the Concertgebouw, in De Doelen you don’t have to look up a meter when you’re close to the stage.

Before the concert we had dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant with the suitable name “Pavarotti”

Oh, and 45 minutes before the concert started, we attended an introduction, by an old lady, who had a voice with resembling the Polygoon Journaal from the 1950s But she gave some interesting background info on the composers and the works we were going to hear.