KONINGSTRAAT (29 july 2008)
The Koningstraat (lit. King Street) at Oostende, where my sweetheart and I have rented an apartment, is inhabited by many elderly people. But by no means can it be called a boring street.
Reading a book on the sixth-floor terrace, I suddenly heard a terrible bang, about as loud as an avalanche bomb. I considered going out to look, but then I saw there was no crowd of spectators. If it had been something serious, it would no doubt have attracted onlookers, but no ...
About fifteen minutes later I heard sirens and no fewer than three fire engines entered the street.
I hurried down and could just see helmeted firemen enter a house.
But hardly had the last man gone into the building when the first one came out again. I concluded that there can be explosions that do not cause a fire.
* * *
Last night I also heard loud bangs in our neighbourhood. It soon turned out they came from fireworks which in Oostende is held every Monday in the summer.
The fireworks did not take longer than half an hour. But hardly had it finished when a second fireworks began, this time offered by Mother Nature:
I know there are people who are scared shitless by lightning. But I for one found the second 'fireworks' more impressive than the first ...
* * *
By the way, the Koningstraat itself is not completely devoid of amazing events. So far, I thought that cars rudely parked on zebra crossings formed the ultimate in mindless motorism(click ). But today I saw one who deemed it necessary to shamelessly park his repulsive piece of transport right across the pavement so that the passage for prams and wheelchairs was completely blocked. Utterly speechless, I can only show a picture:
KRG-779
In case you think I only concentrate on the negative, here is a picure of the skyline above the Koningstraat by twilight:
