Visiting an older version of the Old Country

Jason and I were visiting Leuven, the Belgian university town where I lived for two years. But the town, as always, was completely different. Everything was very, very old. We went to a pub that had funny, bonsai-like formations growing all over its walls. I said, "This pub is older than Canada."

We drank very strange beers, even stranger than real Belgian beers. Later we walked through a field with four or five ancient oak trees in it. They were all contorted and twisted in thousands of layers. And they had all been cut down, as a kind of art project commemorating the second world war. Relics from WWII were strewn along the road beside the field.