Are all our users in and around Belgium ok? I hope you guys are.

Where is antp? I hope he's okay.

Antp posted on the Admin board that he is ok.

Yes I'm in the Alps this week, hence my very low activity on the site

All right.

Good to know that you're ok
Did somebody had news from chicomarx and Exiv96 ?

I hope you guys are okay there

According to a mutual friend, Exiv was not working that day (and does not live in Brussels)
Chicomarx lives far away from Brussels so I guess he was not there either.

Good to know they are ok too.
Didn't knew that chicomarx wasn't living in Brussels but http://imcdb.opencommunity.be/forum_topic-3327-62904-interestingfunnyspecial_cars_sightings.html#p62904 made me believe Exiv96 was

He said "my commuter train to Brussels" : he lives in a city not very far and takes the train to work in Brussels

My bad, for some weird reason i thought commuter train was some light rail train similar to this.....

Should have checked first....

Here such light rail is called tram (tramway)

It's good to see you guys are ok ^___^

This evening I've called my uncle, one of the Euro-crates in Brussels. He is fine and his colleagues, too. Some of them have passed the subway-station a few minutes before the detonation. And one lady a few minutes after that...
One colleague was really lucky: he left the airport a few minutes before and went to town with the subway. He took the train before that one, which was bombed.

I do have a few people around, who are that afraid, that they don't visit big cities or events any more and don't travel to vacations neither. That's stupid and paranoic. You cannot be absolutely safe, nowhere, not even at home. Despite the fact, that the most deadly accidenty happens in the own home, noone can be sure, not to meet a maniac with a knife in his street.

I'm sure, that one of the next big attack will be in Germany. It was already very close in the past, see the bomb with the malfunction in Cologne. And the rumours about a planned attack at the Christmas market in Dortmund (10 minutes by foot from my office).

Generally I do have the "now more than ever"-attitude. I plan a trip to Berlin the second next weekend and I would go to Istanbul again - the last bomb there missed me and my wife for exactly one week. The Saturday before we bought exactly there some ice cream and some sweets.

It was already closer: in 1997 a bomb in Jerusalem detonated just 3 days after I sat exactly on the resting bench beside the dustbin, where it was deposited.

I've already made plans for leaving the country when a bomb detonates here...

Err... where you want to go?

O.k., my wife and me are thinking to emigrate in our beloved Scotland, when the circumstances over here become too bad - but at the time they aren't bad. Especially not as bad as in a plenty of other countries.

And when we do that, we will be always in danger, when we travel back to Germany - which will be neccessary at least monthly. For the purchasing of food, beverages, household and building supply.


P.S. Before you continue the irrational whining, read that thread:
http://imcdb.opencommunity.be/forum_topic-6837-46377-Goodbye_Syria.html#p46377

I've read that thread, and yes, the circumstances at the time force me to stay here.

I was thinking of Estonia - it's one of those countries that ISIS doesn't seem to care about. I do speak a few words of Estonian (I acknowledge that it's one of the world's hardest languages, and learn more every day, this was partially achieved by listening to http://www.google.de/search?q=rullnokad&hl=de&gbv=2&prmd=ivns&source=lnms&tbm=is- ch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiCwK2eqNrLAhWo_XIKHWEoBvIQ_AUIBQ ) and they speak English in Estonia as well, I'm sure of it.

I'd also note that about 300 ISIS fighters have returned to Germany as opposed to 1 in Estonia per Estonian wikipedia.

Yes, Estonia is a nice country with incredible many cute girls (when I had been there in 2002, I asked my Estonian K 70-fellow: "Is that here a permanent model-contest or what?" - but it's not real "safe" in all belongings. There are reasons, why the NATO became more active there in the last months...


And well, you are too young for that, but the life directly at the borderlines of more or less possible conflicts can really be smooth and comfortable. Were your parents grown up in Braunschweig? Just 50km away from the Iron Curtain, with direct Autobahn-access to the communist world (20 minutes when the A2 was empty - which it was back then)?

You know, which persons are most sad and angry about the fall of the Iron Curtain, The Wall? Those, who lived on the Western side just besides it. O.k., when the Cold War would have been become "hot", they would be the first dead - but otherwise they lived in a quite and calm paradise. No through-traffic, no foreigners, no burglary-gangs, just pure life-quality.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=782WGH9X5eU

title: "Russians"
refrain: "In 15 minutes the Russian are on the Kurfürstendamm"

Ah yes, I knew you would bring up the Estonian K70-fellow. But I'm not there (just) for the girls...
In fact, lately my relation to Estonia has been comparable with yours towards the DPRK...

My mother was born in Bargteheide, a small village north of Hamburg, while my father was born in the village of Elmshagen, in Hessen. They moved to Braunschweig in June 1999 after moving out of Hamburg and Berlin.

The Estonaian K 70-fellow enabled me a very interesting trevelling across this nice country, a homestay, combined with car-related visits on junkyards and car-meetings, plus "mainstream-tourism".


About the birthplaces of your parents: they were close enough to the Iron curtain, that they could join the

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleiner_Grenzverkehr#Grenznaher_Verkehr_zwischen_de- r_Bundesrepublik_Deutschland_und_der_Deutschen_Demokratischen_Republik

(the counties Stormarn and Kassel-country were included), which means travelling to the communist world without much effort.

Did they? I did (Hannover-country was also included). Fortunately, because the experiences in the cruel communist sphere were unforgettable and irretrievable.


P.S. My Estonian friend told me, that when you understand Estonian, you understand for ca.50% Finnish, too.
The people in the Estonian SSR could air the finnish TV and radio, so they were the only Soviet citizens with an access to Western media programmes.