Un souper de famille

Shortly after I had found my apartment, but before I moved in, I received a call from my uncle Marco Jonckheer. Technically, he's not my uncle, he's my grandmother's cousin's son, but after experimenting with several greetings (Marco, M. Jonckheer, Cousin Marco) I settled on Oncle Marco as a proper greeting for 70+ year old relation. He called and invited me to Antwerp that afternoon. He and his wife, Tante Poussette (I had resolved to apply my convention indiscriminately to all members of my Belgian family) had recently returned from Brittany and they were going to Antwerp to have dinner with their children and grandchildren and invited me to come along. I quickly accepted, and they came to pick me up at a metro stop outside of Bruxelles on their way to Antwerp from Asse.

.

Fortunately for me, my grandmother had the foresight to be descended from a Francophone family (which meant that I could spend the evening participating in the conversation, rather than smiling and nodding) so the trip was quite pleasant. Before arriving at my cousin Tyl's house, we went into Antwerp to visit the house that my great-great-grandfather had built in the art deco style in a fashionable area in Antwerp. Unfortunately, we couldn't remember the number of the house, but we got an eye-full of the best Flemish architecture.

.

We arrived at cousin Tyl's house with about 150 oysters. Tyl and I went to the back room to shuck the oysters. This brought back memories of home and New Year's to me, which was sweet, but I'm still a lousy shucker and so pretty soon, Cousin Tyl had shucked the double of my oysters. At least I succeeded in not skewering myself with the oyster knife, though I would have been well attended if I had, owing to the fact that Marco, Tyl and Cousin Carine are all doctors, and that Nephew Jop is in med school.

.

After the shucking, I met the rest of the family, my cousin Carine (Tyl's sister), Tyl's wife, and my various nephews and niece. There was Catherine and David, and then Jop, Jim and Jan, which I think was needlessly confusing to inflict on a poor foreigner.

.

The dinner was a huge success. The 11 of us sat at a long table which was just sufficiently large to fit all of us. In addition to the oysters, there were several different types of bread (including one which was home-baked) and many, many cheeses and lots of wine as well. The conversation was mostly about medecine, but once the topic turned to evolution, I got in some good quotes by Stephen Jay Gould and swore up and down to read Richard Dawkins.

.

After dinner, Jim, who is a jazz pianist (he had shown us his studio earlier) gave us an impromptu concert with his cousin David. Overall, it was an absolutely incredible evening. I hope I get invited again.