notes from the war zone

The thirty-
first of December in the Neth-
erlands is a growing crescendo of bombard-
ments from mid-
morning until well after midnight when fire crackers go off on every street to ring in the new year.

The explosions have gone off intermittently all day long across our city of Almere. We've garaged our car and kept our cats safely indoors. Tonight we'll deep fry 'oliebollen,' the precursor of doughnuts, the traditional fried doughballs, filled with raisins and currants or plain and covered in powdered sugar, eaten on Dec. 31st.

The above photo is not of Almere, but of Groningen, a beautiful university town in the very north of the Netherlands not far from the German border. I recently visited it.

I wish you all a blessed 2008! Happy writing and reading.