Tweet29-08-2011 om 08:09 by Sueli Brodin

My parents came to visit us last weekend and were able to experience first hand what I like about living in a cross-border region.

My children and I went to pick them up at the Guillemins train station in the neighbouring Belgian city of Liège 30 minutes by car to the south of Maastricht.



Nowadays they prefer travelling by train, because they say it's much more comfortable and faster than by car. The trip by high speed train from Paris , where they live, only takes 2h10.



We suggested to spend the Saturday afternoon in the German city of Aachen to the east of Maastricht, just across the German border. My parents were surprised when I reminded them that the city of Charlemagne was only 30 minutes by car from our home. When we arrived at the Market square, they were even more surprised when we stumbled upon an art performance by Designmetropole Aachen and saw me greeting two of the organisers, Fabian Seibert and Patricia Yasmine Graf, whom I knew through their involvement with PechaKucha Maastricht.



Patricia started explaining me the idea behind the euroregional Walking Westwall project when suddenly a cameraman handed her a microphone and proceeded to film while she asked me to share my first impressions about the art performance and my thoughts on the meaning of borders, both physical and mental, in Europe today, especially in view of the recent terrorist attacks in Norway.



The aim of the project was to recreate the Westwall, also known as the Siegfried Line, an anti-tank defensive line built by Germany in the 1930s on its western borders,  and to make people reflect on the fact that even if physical borders have practically disappeared in Europe, some may still exist in our minds. By creating a mobile Westwall and making it walk, the project showed in a simple and playful manner that borders can be lifted up and that their straight lines can be broken and rearranged into all sorts of new and unexpected formations.



I heard someone calling out my name from under one of the dragon's teeth and recognised the eyes of my Romanian friend Catalina Goanta. She spontaneously invited my children to join her inside, which they thought was lots of fun.

We suggested Patricia and Fabian to bring the project over to the Netherlands and Belgium as well and were happy to hear that they were working on it.



It looked like the city of Aachen was actively in cross-border mood that day: just a few meters away, a mixed race wedding ceremony was taking place on the stairs of the magnificent old city hall.



I had been told that there is a large Turkish supermarket in the centre of Aachen but we looked for it in vain. Instead we found an Indian grocery shop which I will have to tell my Indian friends in Maastricht about.



On Sunday we drove my parents to the train station in Liège where they took the high speed train back to Paris.



When I see how fast and easy it is to travel to Paris, I wonder why I don't do it more often!



Instead of going straight back home, we decided to pay a visit to the famous Sunday market of La Batte.



My children especially enjoyed looking at the various birds and poultry for sale and managed to convince us to buy a new little hen.



They chose a small little grey Dutch crested and spent the entire trip back home looking for a name for it. As our two other Dutch crested have Hong Kong names (Lee and Suzie), we first came up with Jackie, but in the end the choice fell on the more the Latin American sounding name of Chiquita Coco Maria.



In the afternoon, while my children were taking care of their new little friend, I searched for more information on the Westwall and found out that there are still impressive remains of it to be seen near Aachen. A good idea for our next cross-border excursion!



Link: Photo gallery of the Walking Westwall project

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