More pictures from Luxemburg (Photos: Helena Hurme)

Here is the rest of the pictures from Luxemburg (but of course there are a lot of pictures left which I have not gone through). There are more pictures in the former post as well.

I have been thinking much of the visit to Luxemburg. Professionally, everything was fine. On a personal plane I have never in my life been as humiliated as there. The worst incident was when one of my doctoral tudents, Marta R. (I have two Martas!) and I entered a small kiosk on they way to the bridge over the valley at 17.32 on our last evening. She wanted to buy a fridge door magnet as a present for her cousin. There was an elderly couple in the shop. I said "Bonjour" and told them in French that Marta wanted to buy a magnet. The couple told me in French that they would close at half to six (they were not even close to the door and did not look like closing, neither did they apologize, nor tell us that we could not buy anything). Marta was at the magnets on a rack on the wall and took one out to show me. We were speaking Polish as usually in order to keep up my proficiency in that language. The lady suddenly came to us and said to Marta in English "Where did you take that one from? Put it back immediately from where you took it", like she would have been a child. She did as told and then continued to say to me in Polish that she would like to buy another one. She did and as we were about to leave I wanted to apologize for the couple to have to stay after half to six and told them in French that I thought they would close at six (because that was what I was told in the tourist office). The lady started to shout at me (her husband was silent all the time) in French that they are a private company and close whenever they want. "No one can tell me when to close!!!!! I have been working since five in the morning!!" I told her calmly that I am a university professor and that I also often work twelve hours a day. Marta was at the door already and I told her something in Polish which unfortunately sounded like "adieu" in French at which the lady said "adieu". I would have wanted to leave without saying it.

I interpret the incident as a racist one and as such I was a healthy experience for a Finn. We are not used to be the target of such attacks. I think it was the language, which to many sound like Russian, which set off the whole thing. I have been thinking of writing to the tourist office of Luxemburg, attaching a picture of the package with the magnet, of the shop and a picture of Marta with the magnet. I would like to point out that such behavior gives an extremely bad impression of the country and of the city. This was not the only incident, but the two other ones were minor compared to this one. They both had to do with me taking pictures. I have published both "forbidden" pictures in this blog. The first one was a florist shop, where a man came and took away the flower pot I was focusing on. I focused on an adjacent one then. Did it not occur to him that he cannot stand in the shop all around the clock watching if someone might make pictures of his flowers when the shop is closed? The second one was a shoeshop. I had my camera hanging around my neck and asked the lady in the shop in French if I could take some pictures of their flower arrangement. No, she said. It is forbidden (! Why of the flowers?). She told me that the owner has forbidden picture taking. I started discussing with her about people wanting to send photos taken by their phone (but perhaps the Luxemburgers are not that technically advanced yet?;)) to their friends, asking for advice on which shoes to buy. Then I shot a picture without aiming and told her that I already took some pictures and that it was that easy.

The Parisians have a reputation of being rude but they are lambs compared with the Luxemburgian shopkeepers. Shame on them!!!!