Day 10: Journey to Ghent

Today we only had one item on our agenda: traveling to Ghent. The conference starts tomorrow. We could have squeezed in another activity in Brussels this morning, but it seemed to make more sense to take it easy, so we just hopped on the tram to get over to the train station (ugh -- we ended up transferring twice and the trams in Brussels all have stairs). We took the train to Ghent and Nuri slept the whole way. Once in Ghent, we hopped another tram which literally stopped in front of our hotel. The hotel is very nice, but even smaller (didn't think that was possible) than our hotel in Brussels. Like our hotel in Brussels, it features two twin beds, which is what you find in "double rooms" in Europe. We feel a little like Lucy and Ricky, but Nuri enjoys sleeping in the crack between us, provided we can keep him from falling through. There's no minibar, so we have to keep Nuri's antibiotics downstairs in the hotel kitchen fridge.

When we arrived, we ran into one of my fellow grad students and his girlfriend, and we went out with them in search of lunch and the conference registration. The conference had organized walking tours of Ghent, so we went on a nice walking tour (Nuri fell asleep again and slept the whole tour, thankfully) of the downtown. We saw the old guild buildings (kind of like medieval unions) where they would sell grains and meats. We also saw an old fortress, the cathedral, and the belfry, and ended at the town hall where we met for a reception. The Alderman of Ghent and the Chancellor of the University of Ghent met the conference attendees at the reception. The town hall building itself is quite unique, as the construction was stopped and started again in various architechtural eras as they ran out of money or got involved in wars. The city of Ghent is a rare find in Europe. While so many other cities have been ravaged by war and rebuilt, there are very many old, preserved buildings in Ghent that were undamaged by Nazi occupation and Allied liberation.

We went out in search of dinner after that, and went on an unsuccessful search for waffles. Most things close around here by 7, so we had to settle for ice cream instead. The next few days won't involve much sight-seeing for me, but I'm sure Sal and Nuri would be happy to update you on what they see during the day!