You Ghent What You Give

I learned several very important lessons while mistakenly visiting Ghent:

1. Accidentally visiting Ghent for the second time sure beats visiting Luxembourg for the first time.
2. I need to branch out – next stop has to be someplace both memorable and not a place I’ve been before.
3. Ghent is certainly a place worth visiting twice, even if it was an accident.
4. I would state that I’m astoundingly scatter brained – but I believe this has already been made crystal clear.

The famous Ghent street during daylight.  My camera was dead so this is all taken with my horrible new smart phone.  Never, ever, ever, EVER get an HTC smart phone.  Or visit Luxembourg.

Ghent is well known for having great shopping and restaurants.  The boutiques have gorgeous clothes that even made me want to shop.  So of course they are insanely expensive.  I went into this store to buy a scarf and then I realized it cost 300 euro.  And although the window display was tempting, I passed on this get up too.  Now that I’m back in AMS I wish I would have at least tried it on.  I have lived in Europe for more than 2 years and still wear 90% American clothes…it’s time for a change and this could be the new Christy.

I think the stirrup leg warmers are a piece of genius.  And Ladies, lime green is apparently the new black this year.
 Go for it!

Instead I stood in line to buy mustard.  But not just any mustard!  Some of the most famous mustard in Ghent.  I mean Belgium.  Probably still famous in portions of Europe.  Anyway, I paid a lot for it and this stuff is so pungent it will burn your nose hairs off.  And if it doesn't do that, it definitely tastes like it could cure cancer, but I can't be sure.

I did enjoy the food in Ghent, although the first night was not so good (it was a recommendation from the B&B owner which will explain itself later).  I ordered a vegetarian salad and it came with toasted pine nuts, corn, apples, pears, beets, pineapple, tomato and goat cheese topped with wasabi dressing.  I thought that was strange.  But for lunch I went to the lovely vegetarian restaurant Avalon that I highly recommend to anyone who has heart for veggies.  Essentially all you can choose is the soup and plate of the day and it’s anyone’s guess what that will be.  But the pumpkin and lentil soup was fab and the plate of vegetarian delight was even better.

This might not look like heaven to you, but I promise it was.

Ummm...So I stayed at a curious B&B with a most odd owner.  I thought she might be on to something with her B&B concept.  Now I just think she was on something.  Her idea was a B&B and small spa combo.  It's a centrally located B&B where guests can sleep and get a mani pedi in the same place.  Perfect. It even crossed my mind that I might enjoy opening up a similar business.  Then I experienced it.

To be fair, it wasn’t the concept’s fault that there was no heat and I had to sleep with a hat and gloves on.  Nor that the walls were so thin I heard every movement, cough, laugh and burp in the building.  I pretended not to hear the farts.  Perhaps it was just bad luck that the night I stayed there it was so windy that it blew through the walls.  It also wasn’t the concept’s fault that the owner was so interested in our conversation about travel that she lost track of time and gave me a 90 minute massage instead 60 minutes.  Normally this would be a blessing, but considering I nearly passed out because my head was dangling  through the extra large hole in the massage table, it was torture.  

Let's call these executional details that could be addressed and this idea might still be brilliant.  The good news is that I had my very own sun bed in my bathroom, and when have you ever had one of those before?

Considering everything was broken here, including the shower, I didn't consider trying it.  Broken sun beds = danger.

To cheer myself up I went on a canal cruise and then had some fine Belgian beer.  People sit outside at cafe's here even in the freezing cold.  The nice thing is there are heaters and lots of blankets, but I still froze, having never thawed out from my B&B experience.

I love Belgian Beer.

So it was a good trip to Ghent, but I learned lesson #2.  Time to book a trip somewhere new!  Next stop - Oslo.  They have different currency, a different language and I swear to Sven I've never been there before.


This might not work out well considering it is one of the most expensive cities in the world, but also I will have to go straight to the airport from a 3 day offsite in The Middle of Nowhere (otherwise known as The Netherlands).  

The good news is that I will do my Bana proud by finally visiting her Motherland.  I know she wonders how I could travel the world and never go back to "the most beautiful place on earth" and finally I will get a sneak peek.  I still fully intend to make a return trip with the Olsen Mommsen girls, but that might be in a few years and I just couldn't wait.

This is a castle in Ghent I avoided going to a second time.  My muddy memory says...don't go back!