Oh! What a relief!

As an incurable pessimist, my trip to UK and short excursions from there, to certain parts of Europe was fraught with images of events that could go wrong. But thankfully, everything turned out right. To overcome my irrational fears, I just think of where to go and what to do, one day at a time.

A few months before the trip, I had to book the air tickets. My immediate worry then was ‘what if either of my daughters could not pass their exams?’ It did not help when later, my younger daughter, who is just like me in being a pessimist, said that she is worried over a certain paper.

Anyway, nearer the date of departure, we got the great news that she had obtained Second Class Upper. To me, it was ‘one done, another to go’.

My elder daughter is such an optimist (she takes after her mother) that her dissertation was being completed as we were on our way there! My eldest, son, planned our itinerary in such a way that we spent time visiting Paris for 2-3 days, then to Leuven for a couple of days before we met up with Cheng. In other words, we had to stay away from her while she was busy finishing her dissertation: online copy by July 18 and hard copy by the next day! In fact, being a perfectionist, she asked for permission to extend by another day so that she could re-read her work before handing in! She wasn’t alone, as there were others, including Livina, a Bulgarian, who were still working on hers when we were there for a few days.

When we first arrived Differdange, an Italian student, Silvia, was about to leave together with her parents. We said goodbye to them, which involved ‘3 kisses’ and she could not help crying. Later, Cheng told us that she had been through a few of those teary goodbyes the past few days, which took a fair bit of her time!

Differdange may not be known to ordinary folks, like us, but it exemplifies Luxembourg and her slogan “So small, yet so great”. It seems, the company, which used to be called Arbed (it has been taken over by another company) produces the strongest steel for use in building the world’s tallest buildings, which include our Petronas Twin Towers!

I was truly impressed with Luxembourg the city and the country in general. Being small, probably the size of Singapore, but with a population of only half a million, it is rich enough to provide infrastructures which are more than sufficient for its own population. For example, we enjoyed travelling in their new double-decked trains which seem to be half-empty almost all the time we were there. We noticed the great difference on our way back from Brussels to Paris, travelling in a packed old train run by Thalys.

I could not get over the small palace of the Grand Duchy (by comparison, like our Samad building in Merdeka Square) and attached to it, a building which is a third of the size of the palace, its Parliament House! Luxembourg City is very picturesque with its beautiful valleys next to the old fortress and other buildings. It was great looking down from the road as well as looking up from the valley, seeing cars or trains travelling across the high- arched bridges.

Cheng planned for us a day trip to a German border town, Trier, to come back in time to watch the Jazz Festival held in the valleys of Luxembourg City. We managed to watch a junior orchestra playing some well known tunes, a group called ‘MG Blues Band’ with the logo of the car marque, MG, as well as a jazz quartet playing by the riverside, and a Latin group sponsored by Volkswagen, playing some latin tunes, before we decided to walk towards the station to catch the last train back to Differdange.