MANIC MONDAY - WILL

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Last Will and Testament of Morris

Morris had died.

His lawyer is standing before the family and reads out Morris’ Last Will and Testament.

“To my dear wife Esther, I leave the house, 150 acres of land, and 2 million dollars.

To my son Barry, I leave my Big Lexus and the new Jaguar and $250,000..

To my daughter Shirley, I leave my yacht and $250,000.

And to my brother-in-law Aaron, who always insisted that health is better than wealth, I leave my treadmill.”

And here is my Last Will !

MANIC MONDAY - UNDER

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The word under didn't inspire me at all ! For help I looked under "under" in Google, but there was nothing special besides some boring websites. I then looked under "under" in my dictionary to find an inspiration but nothing fit !

I am not under fire and am not under represented. There is nothing I could plough or plow under in my garden. I didn't break under a lot of work and despite the fact what Jehova witness always preach the world didn't go under either. We are still there.

My cat Arthur was looking under the TV board for a Tennis ball he had seen on the screen during a match, but it wasn't there either, which disappointed him very much.



He had looked enough "under" !


But I think I did my duty and used enough under for "under".

MANIC MONDAY - PLAY - GREEK THEATRE

Quilly's Alphabet is here today : letter S = Greek Statues




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The Epidaurus (Greece) theater, where plays still take place today

This huge theater is famous for its symmetry and beauty, which is used once again for dramatic performances, the ceremonial Hestiatoreion (banqueting hall), baths and a palaestra. The theater was designed by Polykleitos the Younger in the 4th century BC. The original 34 rows were extended in Roman times by another 21 rows.

The theater is marveled for its exceptional acoustics to all 15,000 spectators, regardless of their seating. Tourists standing in the middle of the stage clapped in their hands and it could be heard all over the place. Pavarotti sang here too.

MANIC MONDAY - FRESH

Here is Quilly's Alphabet letter "E"

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When I hear the word "fresh" it makes me think of fresh air but also about a Sunday market where you can find a lot of fresh fruits, vegetables and food.



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Each Sunday morning Mr. Gattino goes to the Waterloo market to buy fresh pasta, cheese, ham and other Italian specialities at his Italian friend's stand.
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If you need plants or flowers, this is the place to get them very fresh !


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fruits and vegetables had been bought at 3 or 4 am at the whole saler market and are of course very fresh.

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Various cheese from various countries, Switzerland, France, Holland, Belgium, Italy etc.
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Of course you can also find fresh Bread, rolls, cakes and meat.

Each Sunday Mr. Gattino also buys a freshly roasted chicken which is always very yummy !

MANIC MONDAY - RIP or R.I.P

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When I saw the word for this week, I thought about R.I.P which I had seen on grave stones. As a child I didn't know what it meant because RIP in German has no meaning at all.

Later I learned that it meant "rest in peace". "Rest in peace" is a prayer that the deceased may rest peacefully, not in torment, while awaiting Judgment Day. The expression comes originally from "requiescat in pace", Latin for "may he/she rest in peace." In Italian, it is said as "Riposi In Pace." It was in Italy where I learned this meaning.

In Germany graveyards are considered as parcs and are visited by families usually on a sunday walk, even when they don't have any family members or friends laying there. Graveyards are usually very beautiful with lots of trees, bushes, plants, flowers, and banks to sit and rest. There also were beautiful and very interesting statues. As a child I used to play on the graveyard near my home in Bonn, together with my little friends. We played hide and seek behind the gravestones and always had a lot of fun. I am sure that most of the people burried there and "RIP" love to hear the children's laughter and jumping over the graves. At least I would.

Later I learned that this typical German behaviour seemed quite strange to other nationalities and that German tourists really got on the nerves of people in other countries, because they always wanted to see a graveyard and walk around there !









These are pictures of some German graveyards I found on Internet.

HOW I SURVIVED AN EARTHQUAKE

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MANIC MONDAY - QUAKE

I was laying on the beach, the sun was shining, it was warm and I felt so good ! I heard the sound of the waves and became very sleepy. Suddenly something heavy dropped on my belly and the ground under me started to quake. Fear came over me I tried to open my eyes but I couldn't ! I hardly could breath, I panicked and sat up.

It was dark around me, and I shivered. Suddenly I realized that I wasn't laying on a beach, but I was sitting on my bed in my room ! I switched on the light and saw cat Arthur sitting on my belly and scratching himself vigorously ! He had jumped on my belly so that I thought a rock hit me and his scratching made my bed shaking like with an earthquake ! That at least was what I imagined because I never experienced one.

Very relieved I fell back on my pillows and pushed my nearly 7 kg (15 lbs) heavy cat from my belly. The earthquake stopped immediately and a very offended cat disappeared through the door !


My private earthquake

MANIC MONDAY - BUD

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I find the Manic Monday word "bud" quite difficult ! For me a bud is a flower to be, but my botanical knowledge stops here. As I am not a man I don't have any buds or buddies. The only Bud I know is Bud Spencer, an Italian actor who played in a lot of "Spaghetti Western".

Before he started his career as an actor, he was a successful swimmer in his youth. Bud Spencer was the first Italian to swim the 100 m freestyle in less than one minute. He participated in the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, Finland, reaching the semi-finals in the 100 m freestyle. Four years later, in Melbourne, he also entered the semi-finals in the same category.

He then met Terence Hill, with whom he made a large number of Italian Westerns and other films together from 1968 until 1994.
Bud Spencer's film career slowed down after 1983, shifting more toward television. In the 1990s he acted in the TV action-drama "Extralarge". The only thing I really remember was that he always used his flat hand to hit his ennemies in the face and they all immediately fell down unconscious. It was never only one aggressor but at least 5 or 6 at once and he just "wiped" them out.

MANIC MONDAY - GETTING USED TO THE EURO

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The euro is the official currency of the European Union, used in 15 member states : Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain. It is also used in 9 other countries around the world, 7 of those being in Europe. Hence it is the single currency for over 320 million Europeans. The Euro was introduced in all these countries on January 1, 2002, except in the United Kingdom and Denmark.

This of course was a big change for all people and especially on the psycological side. In Belgium for example for 1000 francs which sounds a lot you suddenly only had 25 € in your hand. For the Germans it was not better because they got "half" of their salary the one who earned 1000 DM had to be happy with only 500 € with the same value of course. The worst was for the Italians. They all were millionaires with their Lira and to fill in a tank you had to pay millions. Suddenly for 1000 lira they only got 50 CENTS !!

To get used to the European currency was difficult for every adult and we all needed to calculate a lot with the help of all kind of conversion tables. Even lighters had the Belgian Frank = Euro table printed on them. But the once who suffered the most and still do were the elderly people. Some of them really couldn't understand why something which was worth 1000 francs was only worth 25 €. And the Italians instead of their millions only had 10 €.

A lot of people still calculate in their old currencies. The younger once got easily used to it and now there is the new generation who never knew another currency than the Euro. Amongst all my friends and people I know I think we are 4 or 5 who only calculate in Euro and don't think about the old currency anymore. But all the others still calculate in Belgian Francs or other European former currencies. My sister in law even in Lira ! When she tells me that she had bought something for 10 thousand lira you can imagine my face ! It sounds such a lot and in reality it's only 5 € !



Euros and cents

MANIC MONDAY - PULL

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The Mayor and I

When I saw the word "pull" for Manic Monday it reminded me of a Cocktail Party organized by the City.

The Cocktail took place in the beautiful decorated room of the City Hall in Waterloo. Everybody was well dressed and some politicians and the mayor were there too.

I greated everybody I knew, took a drink and looked after something to sit down. In this moment a lady came over to me and while I was talking with her, I pulled the chair towards me without looking. The chair resisted so I pulled a little more and suddenly heard a big boom behind me. The mayor had had the same idea and also wanted a chair and while I pulled on one side he had pulled on the other. Unfortunately (for him) I was the winner and when I turned around to see what had happened, he was sitting on the floor still with a glass in his hands and looked at me like a surprised owl.

Look of the mayor

People around started to laugh and I appologized but ever since when he sees me walking in the street I have the impression that he is avoiding me.

MANIC MONDAY - EGGS

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Last year after Easter I put my Easter decoration in their baskets in a plastic bag for the next year just like that, because the eggs in the baskets were anyway of plastic.

When I opened the first bag this year, a strange odor came out of it, something rotten, in short it smelled awful. I wondered from what this odor came from and even at a closer look I couldn't see anything. I touched the first egg, it broke and even more stinky smell came out and then I realized that I had completely forgotten to take out the real eggs I had added to the baskets and after a year in a plastic bag they had become rotten eggs !

As I am not in possession of a gas mask I had to take all eggs out like this and separate the plastic eggs from the real eggs but I didn't faint !




Even Rosie wondered about this awful smell. The dark blue one is a real egg.



Finally all rotten eggs were taken out and after opening all windows the smell was gone too and we could enjoy our Easter decoration !

A MANIC FUN MONDAY

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This weeks word : DRINK

When the weather is nice a lot of people like to visit the flea market in Brussels. There is a lot to see and some things which are sold there are really too funny, like false teeth or all kind of frames for glasses. Of course you can also find real antiques.



and usually after a long walk through the stands, everybody looks for a little place on a terrace to have a nice and cool drink.



All kinds of drinks are served here but people mostly drink beer



I had a drink too and when I went to the little place where everybody evacuates his drinks



I found this nice door leading to the women restroom ! (femme = woman)








Fun Monday this week is hosted by My husband calls me weird. She wants us to write about
"what created words does your family use?! Please share the story behind the word if you remember. If you don't have a made up word then tell us about the unspoken way you communicate with someone. Do you and your significant other have a look that means "This party is boring, lets split" or do you have a look that your kids know means their butt is in serious trouble? Please share!! And a picture of the look would be very entertaining!
OR/AND
2.) In honor of St. Paddy's Day, please share your worst green beer story!"

We don't celebrate St. Patrick's Day and I never heard about green beer either, although I could tell some very ugly beer stories I opted for the first proposition.

We always use to say "I'll kill myself" when one of us wants to change clothes. This remained from one day when we were on holidays at my aunt's in Madison/Wisc. She wanted to take us to Wisconsin Dells to the very beautiful "Indian Show". Our son, 15 at this time, didn't speak english or only a few words and as my aunt didn't speak any french they always spoke german together. But in this language too our son had sometimes a leak of vocabulary. I always remember the scene. He was standing in the middle of the living room barefoot and in shorts and declared : I kill myself now (german word umbringen) we all looked quite dazzled before we realized that he wanted to say : I get changed now (in german umziehen).

From this day on whenever somebody changes clothes in this family he declares "I kill myself"

For those who celebrate St. Patrick's today :



Share a drink with Arthur !

BELGIAN BEER

MANIC MONDAY LINK

This weeks word is CAN

Maybe you know that Belgium is the biggest beer producer in Europe.

There are approximately 125 breweries in the country, producing about 500 standard beers. When special one-off beers are included, the total number of brands of Belgian beer exceeds 1000.

Of course the special beers are not sold in cans but like wine in bottles. The most popular once are Jupiler, Stella-Artois, and Maes and you can buy them in cans or bottles.

About 100 km from Brussels in Lustin near Namur is a Beer museum.
18.000 bottles of Belgian beer and other items about Belgian beers, like glasses, posters etc are exposed here.

There you can try and buy more then 800 brands of beers and drink about 11 on tap.
The museum also exposes a book with more than 16.000 Belgian beer names and their breweries !

And to give you an idea you have the whole list of Belgian Beers here !



The Beer museum









And huge amount of bottles exposed !



Cheers !

Want to see Brussels' humour and fun in a Bistro ? Here is "Roger loves Beer" !

MANIC MONDAY - WANT

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One thing is nice when you are part of the third youth ! You can look back and tell yourself if you have got what you wanted in your life. In my case I have to say yes almost, and just now I am unable to say what I want right now, besides such unimportant things like a cup of coffee.

The word for Manic Monday this week is so easy that it becomes difficult. What could I write about "want" if I don't want anything ? About the criminal on the run of whom you see the famous "Wanted" poster ? Or because I am not in want of anything or did cease to want sommething ? I don't have an actual want and don't suffer no want ? It could go on endlessly.

So the only thing I want right now is to see what other Manic Monday people want !

And this is if you want to laugh :