ghent and gent

We komen aan Gent

And, success! Not only did we board the correct train, but we also found seats in a very quiet and luxurious section of the train. We giggled and as we stared at the crowded section of the train a few cars down, and remarked about how lucky we were to have found such a spacious part of the train.

The person on the train who comes along to check tickets arrived and we gave him our passes and he punched holes in them.

a: when he was punching our cards, he looked at them and said, "when you see a '1' on the trains, that is first class. you paid for second." he kept on walking afterward, we expressed our shock and gratitude, and took it as meaning the next time we ride a train...and remained seated until our stop.

Our French friend told us that this was not the first time she had made this mistake.

So we arrived in Brussels and there was more confusion about which train to take to Gent, but we figured it out and sat in the proper “class”. The train ride from Brussels to gent was only 30 minutes, so before we knew it we were heaving our packs onto our backs once more and more confusion came about how to get to our friend’s house that we were staying with in Gent. I had directions that Kate had copied from a face book message written down, but we had no idea what we were doing. We walked around the perimeter of the train station a few times before Jennifer confidently decided on a direction to head in.

Walking was difficult. We were sweating, exhausted and confused. We saw bicycles everywhere. Hundreds of bicycles locked to buildings and bicycle parking lots and this was my favorite thing about Gent. People ride bikes everywhere and cars drive fast. It took us a while to find Tom and Courtney’s place but once we did, we were elated.

Courtney, you are awesome. Thanks for letting us in your house. Tommy, you too, buddy.