Day of rest in Gent.
My rest doesn’t begin until late in the afternoon, once I had left Pieters. The morning I occupied myself with a little bike loving, and hitting a few words on my computer, tapping away at some drawings that I photographed in ta pool of sunshine on the floor.
I meet with my host for the night, Stefanie, at the train station and we go back to her beautiful apartment, high in the gabled roof of an old building, angle walls, that join in a point above her bed.
We wander the streets of Gent. I am snap happy in this beautiful old town. Stepped roof tops and church steeples in silhouette. She doesn’t know much about the town, but that suits me, I don’t know anything about it either, and together we explore and speculate, about the histories of this and that. We have a good time after our stroll, by the canal, watching the flow of people. Hen nights and hippies. I sample some beer and famous double dipped fries, which are crisp and decadent (the secret is to bath them first in 170degree oil, then a second time in 190, its an exact science here). As night descends we wander back to Stefanies apartment, where I try to repay her kindness with a delicious meal. the emphasis is on “try”, and the tomato pasta smoosh is average at best. Sedate I settle into a comfortabel chair to read “The Arrival” by Shaun Tan, while Stefanie’s pet rabbit flops around the floor, discovering the flat for the first and hundredth time. Its been a good night of conversation, good music and silence.
