Oh, happy day. The headline from my online Luxembourg newspaper today is “Enjoy the sun, on Wednesday it's over!” For a small country, ALL the news gets reported. Every weather change, every event, every car accident, and pretty much everything their 2 ½ reporters can dig up.
It’s a small country when:
1. You can follow this lead story headline: “Could Ryanair be coming to Luxembourg soon?” with this: “This is the rumour since an employee from the Irish low cost airline contacted Luxembourg Airport for information on the airport's tax rates.” One low level tax accountant makes a call, and rumors start flying. Actually, upon further reading, it wasn’t even a Ryanair employee – it was a Ryanair consultant. I think I will make a call to the Ministry as a Starbucks consultant and see what happens.
2. Another headline: “Luxembourg Army continues commitment to EU's Congo mission” is followed by this: “A new sub officer from Luxembourg Army has been sent to replace Sergeant Francine Schmit on a European Union mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.” You read that right. One soldier. With all due respect to Sergeant Schmit and his replacement, do we think the Congo knows this or might they assume he’s with the Belgians?
3. A man tried to rob a supermarket with an Axe. I don’t recall the last gun story I’ve seen in Luxembourg, or the last Axe story I’ve seen in the US. And given that this is a banking country, why a supermarket?
4. The country’s second, and completely incompetent, Internet provider can have 3,700 households out of service for the weekend (with 650 of them still having “issues” on Monday) and still be in business. And while Numéricable said that it will try to contact customers directly, they also recommended that affected users try to contact their billing department. We personally know that billing department, and the 2 people that work there, and can guarantee those 3,700 households to expect more “issues.”
5. And while I can’t confirm this, one local told me recently that in an effort to increase the national identity – if you are of Luxembourish descent and give birth to a 5th child, Duke Henri of Luxembourg will not only come and visit your newborn but also officially be his godfather. I don’t know what godfathers are like here in Luxembourg, but that’s a lot of future birthday party commitments at Yoyo for the royal family.
Now off to the enjoy the sun!