The Ghentian Spell !

Too much write ups on life! I guess i h've been donning the 'thinking cap 'a li'l too long , so abandoning it till its gets back ! So back to travel memoirs.  I’m gonna write up about my trip & stay at Ghent & Brussels at Belgium.

The flight took just 2 hrs to get to Brussels, but early hours = less sleep, restricted baggage allowance= packing everything to a 20 kilo luggage carrier for a 2 month stay = Hopeless? The moment we touched down Brussels, ran around clueless but finally arrived destination via three connecting trains .The heavy baggages , long hours at the airport, slow immigration clearance made the journey impossibly tiring. So, we decided to leave Brussels out for another day and stuck to getting down & sightseeing  Ghent.

Now, when I’m referring to ‘we’ , I mean ‘K’ & I. “K”  & I went to post grad school together and even though we come from different backgrounds, countries, cultures, traditions…( fill up the rest by your selves), we got along well and she still remains to be one of my closest allies  till date. The course required us to take up modules at other European Universities and Ghent was the first of ‘em.

Getting back to where I left, we arrived at Brussels and took three connecting trains and finally reached ghent. We, checked in at out student accommodation and went for a stroll around the city.

Alas, Ghent is magical ! The city has the effect to make you feel like u have lost the present age and have been deported to the old European Renaissance Period but another sect equally competes for boasting of having anything and everything technologically advanced. We walked around gaping at the UNESCO heritage sites, the Gravensteen Castle, the huge metallic spider web, the city centre, the malls and yes! By the river!

 I fell in love with the Castle, the Church, the bridges, the buildingsJ. So appalled by the European architecture, I could n’t help stare at some of the buildings speechless to which another pal ‘C’ remarked, “ Guys, these buildings look like the miniature ones I put up during decorating the house for Christmas ” ‘C’ is of an Italian heritage but second generation Canadian immigrant. C was a fellow classmate as well and three of us decided to step out out student accommodations to check Ghent out!

Along the three weeks we covered the Belfry, St Nicolas Church, St. Michael’s church , St Bavo Cathedral with the ghent alterpiece, the gravensteen castle and the architecture along graslei harbor. A personal favourite was the latter where I used to love hanging out whenever I could! Hopefully, The ghent authorities should take notice of the number of times I visted the graslei and rename it as ‘S’ harbor or something: P

 The post office, old but huge and very much intact inspires one’s architectural understanding. The meat hall caught my eye as well. Some of the paintings seen at St Bavo Cathedral by Reuben & Bosch educated me on the same yet so take me by surprise by their deep rooted, well known characteristic paintings.

We walked around, bought some necessities & grocery and got back to the student accomod. Retired early to begin fresh for the beginning of a new course at a different school from host tomorrow!

I loved my student room, the facilities were so-so but I simply loved the window right above my ceiling in the centre. I could watch the stars and moon in the night drifting away to slumber land in the night and in the mornings wake up to a room flooded with sunlight right in the centre.

But, the window still didn’t keep me from strolling and wandering around ghent. I feel, the air at Belgium is so distinctively specific- love the waffles, chocolates, oyster clams, frites with mayo--- Btw, did you know that French fries did not originate from France and it did from Belgium. Belgium is divided into two areas, the Flemish region speaking , the wallon region speaking french & german and Brussels, the capital is bilingual.During the World War 2 , frites with mayo got very popular and the Americans who went back termed the dish as ‘ french fries’ and thus the misnomer stuck. Both K & I went on a waffle tasting spree and finally awarded the best one to a wafflemaker at the Kornmarket. 

As Victor Hugo rightly puts in "Gent- It is a marvelous city, the meeting place of four rivers, the Scheldt, the Lys, the Lieve and the Moere. A network of streaming water dividing the town into 26 islands. With its barges, its bridges and the reflection of the old facades in the water, Ghent is a kind of Venice of the North”, I had to agree that nothing else could ever better this description of the beautiful land.

School was interesting but loaded with assignments and scores of literature to go through for the written testand though we were occupied through the day, we ventured out in the evenings catching up with the city happenings, shopping, tasting local delicacies & spending time with other classmates.

We frequented ‘S’ pad since he was the best Indian cook and quite a dear teddy bear with a huge heart ! Our class was a mix from all corners of the world, from Canada to Vietnam and it was a great experience to exchange information, experience and have fun together yet in a foreign land. During the Three weeks at Ghent, we went for two field trips, one to the Grolsch distillery at Netherlands & to the Duvel factory in Belgium. It was also somewhat confusing to hear that the ‘Abbey beers’ produce by priests are some of the best Belgian in the world. And to think a priest can brew a  beer which can turn it to a best seller!!! 

'A' also joined us for frequent walks to the city centre & waffle tasting :) ‘A’ is a Mexican, smart, amicable person and a very health conscious one :P. I remember, we used to jog giant laps at 5 am in the morning at ghent and do gym& swimming back at Dublin. The jogs were more like a brisk walk session for her and more of hardcore panting sessions for me due to excessive running to keep up with her. Gradually, i gave up trying to pace with her while she finished another two more laps :) 

The end of class, due hard core examinations saw us passing out to be happy  & relieved master brewers  but  all of us missed the GHENTIAN spell we were in while we relocated to the next one.