Another Belgian Waffle

Well I've been spending most of the weekend trying to come up with a good Ghent-based pun, but I can't find one. There must be one there - I feel like my punnability has deserted me.  All through the city there were signs with "Gents" on and each time I assumed that it was either a toilet or a male only do (e.g. Gents Circus).  It never was.

Still Ghent is a spectacularly ugly name, especially for somewhere that is (in the main) spectacularly pretty.  I say "in the main", I get the distinct impression that they don't expect visitors to walk from the (fairytale) railway station to the centre of town. Not exactly chocolate box stuff.

So yeah, I've been to Belgium, I spent a day in Ghent doing Ghent-type stuff wandering around cobbled streets, eating noses and whinging that the light show is somewhat over-hyped. And drinking beer. Them Belgians seem to have a different view to beer to us, there's no way that they could drink it in England quantities, not with so many unfenced canals about.  I had a low alcohol beer - "For the ladies" - it was 6%.

Spent yesterday in Brussels.  It's weird for me to take an instant dislike to cities but me and Brussels didn't get on. Couldn't quite pin my finger on why. Maybe it was because everyone I encountered was rude.  Or because the street sweepers didn't street sweep until tourist crowds were fully mobilised.  Or because it was really hard to get a map. Or because the Manneken Pis is easily the least spectacular "site" I've seen.  Or maybe it's just a rubbish city. That said, the Grand Place is impressive (even if it does have an wieldy amount of idiots in it), as is Atomium and I stumbled across a neighbourhood between Gare-midi and The Courts of Justice that seemed like a lot of fun, pity I had to get a train before exploring. It didn't seem interesting enough for me to rush back. Ho hum.

I ate me my first steak tartar.  That's another one of those weird food boxes that needed a ticking.  Not been a bad week for firsts, this one.

In other news, I spent the travelly part of the trip reading Half Plus Seven; definitely worth a read if you fancy jumping on the new Welsh literature bandwagon.  And frankly who doesn't?