A series of pictures and factoids for Create's NaJoPoMo Challenge.

Back in the early 80s, Carnival in Cologne was fraught. For about a week, the place was full of noisy drunks and folklore feminists. Men who wore ties went into hiding, due to the local custom of allowing women to cut them off with scissors. This was an ancient custom, allegedly. It was also unnecessarily Freudian. Our boss, the Cologne counterpart to Quigley from Ballykissangel, put on a hard-to-cut silk tie, which was regarded as bad sportsmanship. I stuck to turtlenecks.

Many Cologne residents sought escape from the forced jollification and beer-bottle-strewn streets. The solution? Head for a non-Catholic part of the world. This was not always successful in those pre-internet days. The Deutsche Bundesbahn booked tours, but were insufficiently religion-savvy. The Thirty Years' War was all but forgotten, you see…

One Carnival fugitive of our acquaintance, a rather staid lady, went to Switzerland. The Bundesbhan had assured her that this was a quiet resort town. Boom! She was awakened at five a.m. by a marching band with the Swiss equivalent of Lambeg drums. Part of Switzerland was Catholic? Who knew?

One year, we, too, fell afoul of geography. Like the others, we fled Cologne. In our case, in the direction of welcoming Belgium. We settled on Ghent.

Guess what goes on in Ghent? Yep, Carnival. They marched all around, and made noise. At least, they didn't chop neckties.

Ghent has all these beautiful old buildings. They would be even more beautiful without the Times Square-like digital readout on on that central building. And the McDonald's, nestled in the ground floor of the 500-year-old antiquity. Progress, phooey.

We stopped for a day in Bruges, or Brugge. Amazing town, straight out of a fairy tale. We had pancakes there. I have a language problem in Belgium. I speak Dutch, but with a German accent and bad French, but with a Belgian accent. In Francophone Liege, I was accused of being Flemish, a nd had to pretend same to keep the peace. Then, in the museum, I was taken for a German and lectured too in very slow Dutch, which the curator thought was how German sounded.

In Bruges, I got some grammar point wrong, and was mistaken for Walloon. I spent the meal muttering, Merci', and hoping no French speakers showed up. This was particularly galling, as it was a restaurant, and I hate figuring out bills in Romance languages. Numerically, I think in German, even when I speak English.

Have you seen the filmIn Bruges? If you haven't, you should. It's a funny, surreal, and touching story. Ralph Fiennes, Brendan Gleeson, and Colin Farrell are amazing. The reason I mention this is that watching the film forever changed our view of our beloved Belgium. You can't say Bruges anymore without wanting to put a certain rude word in front of it, thanks to Farrell's performance. I won't link to it, for fear somebody might yikes it, but if you're interested and over 18, look up 'In Bruges' on Youtube. You'll recognise the clip from the naughty word attached to the title.

That's not how I felt about Bruges. But it was how I felt about the Mickey D's in that historic building. Take those hamburgers back to Texas,people. And give me some fresh pannekoeken, with lots of butter.