Ghent by Day

14 January 2014

It was raining hard enough to soak our shoes this morning.  Our hopes were not high for good pictures today.  

We spent a while in Saint Bavo Cathedral (which I keep reading as Saint Bravo, and why not?), which houses a storied altarpiece.  It's a cavernous, musty place.  I watched a cleaner in the distance and it was all CSN&Y's "Cathedral" from there.

The reason we're in Ghent is that Jack was invited to give a talk at Ghent University.  We met Sandro and a subset of his nine PhD students for lunch, which went long and ended with a tray of sweets.  "You have to try these," they said.  "They're a Ghent specialty called cuberdon.  We also call them 'noses.' They're very sweet."

Think of the consistency of a candy corn with the intense flavor of raspberry, and with a gooey raspberry filling inside.  One of these babies and you won't be hungry again for hours.  "I have to bring home some of these," I said.

Jack's 2:00 p.m. talk didn't start until 3:00.  Nobody appeared bothered by this.  Besides Jack and Sandro, and me on the sidelines, there were seven PhD students.  Sandro walked with us back into the center of town around 4:30.  "You have half an hour of light left," he said, after leading us to a chocolate shop for gift boxes and depositing us in front of the town's nose cart.  

After securing enough cuberdons to feed the lab and a handful of hungry bikers, we walked back to the bridge to get the pictures I've been aiming for since last night.

When we walked back over the bridge, the heron was still there.  I aimed for his reflection this time.

We were walking in the direction of noses, so I took some pictures while Jack bought us a warm Belgian waffle.

Then we went into a pen shop because pen shop.

We only had a few more minutes before it was too dark for decent pictures.

"I wonder," I said to Jack, after taking this picture:

"If Starbucks is as annoying to Europeans as it is to Americans."

Jack said, "It's not annoying to most Americans."

Sigh.  I admit I like their coffee too, but I only go to Starbucks under duress.

"The moose shop is open!"  Jack said, gesturing towards the chocolatier we'd spotted yesterday.  Sadly, the shopkeeper told us that she had no more of these, and this one had spent too much time out in the open to be edible:

As for the small, tan moose in the window display, there is no story behind him.  "No story, just a display," the shopkeeper said.  "It comes down tomorrow."

Tomorrow morning we board a train to Antwerp and change there for a train to Amsterdam.

Ghent by Night

Perhaps none of it happened.

13 January 2014

The Eurostar got us to Brussels.  From there we took an overcrowded train and stood for the half hour ride to Ghent.  By the time we had settled into our hotel room, the sun had gone down.  We wandered through the old part of the city; when I get photos of the architecture by daylight I'll post them here.

I wasn't going to bother with the camera at all until we found another one of Jack's kin hanging out in a chocolate shop:

One of Jack's Facebook friends wrote,


"Okay you're going to have to trust me on this, as it's quite odd and basically fodder for whenever they start filming the Belgian version of "Hoarders", but you really need to go get a beer at a place called Velootje on Kalversteeg (2-4) in the Patershol next to a slightly dive-y Turkish restaurant. No food, just beer, and only whatever the owner feels like giving you. But there are dozens of amazing restaurants near by and it is such an experience it is worth some stalking to find it open. You'll only know you're there by a pile of bicycle-related junk outside unless someone has finally done something re: enforcing a health code. It kind of defies description except it's only open in the evenings when the owner feels like it, it's where bikes go to die, it's a deeply unsafe fire hazard lit by small candles and shrines and you really need to see it."

We found it.

Gingerly, Jack pushed open the door. "Good god!" he said, and pushed back a thick curtain that led to a small room, lit by candles and a fire. A white-bearded man in a Christmas sweater and knit cap approached. "Beer?" he asked.  We ordered just one.  I asked permission to take pictures, to which he agreed without hesitation.  He gestured to the end of a cluttered table where two people were already sitting, and lifted a red book.  "You must write in here where you are from," he said, and disappeared.

You really need to click on these pictures to take it all in.

While Jack paid for his beer, I took a look at the kitchen.

Outside again, I said, "That didn't happen."  Jack wasn't sure either.

We're convinced that if we pass by tomorrow, Velootje will not be there.

Tomorrow we will see the city by daylight.  For now, here it is by night:

We're looking forward to breakfast because we saw this in the breakfast room:

Jack Visits Relatives in London

12 January 2014

One of the museums we visited today was the Natural History Museum, where several of Jack's relatives live.

First up, the extinct giant deer:

Jack's antlers are, of course, bigger.

Here's the family history:

Behind the giant deer skeleton is a stuffed moose:

On this trip, Jack has seen three sets of giant deer antlers in Oxford (before I joined him in London) and two here. I've instructed him to record all of his antler sightings in his new giant deer notebook that I gave to him for Christmas.  Jack had found the link at the Natural History Museum's online gift shop.  We never got to the museum on our last trip, so I ordered it online when we got home.  I paid far more in postage than the notebook cost, but it was worth it for the surprise.  And, it turns out, the notebook is no longer for sale at the shop.  In fact, I can't even find an image of it online.  Maybe Jack has the last one.  The notebook has gone the way of the giant deer.

We had dinner with Mazz and Graham, a tradition we've kept for over a decade now whenever one of us is visiting the other's country.  It was about 10:30 p.m. when we left the tube station.  A typical English rain was falling, the kind that gets everything wet but doesn't appear to be falling out of the sky.  We passed our tree shadows again:

Tomorrow we're off to Ghent, Belgium by train.

London Again

11 January 2014

I'm blogging to stay awake.  Today I arrived in London.  Jack was in Oxford all last week.  Despite the flooding that shut down most rail service to London, he managed to get a bus into the city without a reservation.  He got to the London hotel before I did because I dallied over a bowl of coffee while I finished blogging via iPhone.  The coffee didn't work, but the upload did.

Jack texted that the room -- in a luxury hotel that we found at less than half the going rate -- was something to behold.  Well, now that I work in a glass mansion, I should expect luxury.  Right...

Right.  The room has a balcony that overlooks Hyde Park.  We're in Mayfair, so it's no surprise that we found a pen shop.  Tradition dictates that we have to go in.

Our plan was to see an exhibit at the British Library.  Most of the time we walk, with the understanding that if we see something interesting we'll stop, and that if we never reach our destination, so be it.  That's what happened today.  We found ourselves at the Burlington Archway.  I recognized it only because a scene from the Fry/Laurie Jeeves and Wooster series was filmed here (the one about the cow creamer).

At both ends of the arch are iron gates guarded by top-hatted beadles who ensure that nobody brings in a soggy umbrella or an oversized bag (this according to The London Compendium, a book Jack picked up today).

Regent Street by night:

Harrod's, a department store, sells sports cars.

They also display anatomically correct horses in their windows,

 so, ouch:

 Urban art at one corner of Hyde Park.  Weirdhenge.

Trees cast shadows from the streetlights:

Okay, it's almost 11:00 p.m.  If I can stay awake just a little longer...