A visit from Belgium

Four days of fog descended upon Wolfenbüttel last week, which then brought gray skies, wind, and damp bone-chilling cold.  But, on Wednesday night, a bit of cheer from Belgium emerged from the fog to cheer us up . . .

Our friends Demmy and Dagmara, who also brought us some cheer of the drinkable variety:

That should get us through the week! Kidding.
Demmy and Dagmara drove over from Belgium to be our first non-family visitors in Germany. We know these two from Demmy's year at Harvard a few (Four? Five? Really?) years ago.  Besides the highly quaffable gifts they brought, it has been great spending time with friends, laughing a lot, talking about something other than our kids, and staying up too late.  They were very patient with our chaotic existence and early dinner times, and taught me more than I have ever known about Belgian culture and politics. Here is some Belgian trivia for you. I could do something clever like make you read my next blog posting for the answers, but in the event that you actually care about the answers, you could just look them up on your new fancy iPhone 4s anyway.  Sigh. I'm having some smartphone envy.

1. There are three official languages in Belgium. What are they? (Dutch, French, German)
2. What language is spoken in Flanders? (Dutch)
3. Where is the Queen of Belgium from? (Tricky. . . ) (Italy)
4. Does she speak Dutch? (no)
5. Which language is in the majority? (Dutch)
6. Do French speaking Belgians bother to learn proper Dutch? (no)
7. Do you suspect that maybe Demmy is from Flanders? (Yes)
Bonus question:
8. Which of the beers pictured above is a true Trappist beer? (Chimay)

This is making me thirsty. . .