March 21, 2003 : ghent and brugge
Today we headed out in Debbie Diahatsu which is now Debbie, the modern woman with a hyphenated Datsun-Nissan.
First we headed to Knokke and down to Blankenberg to the very windy sea-side and then on to Brugge. Mid-journey I had to borrow Jennifer's sunglasses because the sun was so intense. I swear they have been two of the luckiest souls to visit thus far. (my mother coming in a close second) We've had nothing but beautiful weather...weather almost perfect for their American fleece. :)
Unfortunately, today I was a lot like my father. I suppose that's the wrong sentence to say, as I mean today I was a lot like him when he is stressed. I was stressed about time and our 2-hour parked car. I was stressed about their not seeing everything you can see in Brugge in two hours and then coming back to our car with either our first parking ticket or no car. (towed) I made them run from location to location until Eva finally told me to "chill the fuck" out of which I completely deserved and will hopefully remember the next time I come under the spell of time-restraint vs. good time.
We then went on to Ghent where I calmed down over a couple of beers at Ghent's version of Hut Roze Huis. We discussed "passion" not in relationship to people but in relationship to our own lives. Out of all of us, Nichole seems to have the most "direction" in this respect. She at least has some sort of idea what she would do if she could do "anything she wanted to do." The rest of us seemed pretty hopeless. It was at this particular cafe that Nichole fell in love with Orvaal beer which comes in it's own perfectly sturdy glass. Consequently when we were about a block away and headed in the direction of the rib-shack, Jennifer revealed that very glass from her satchel. Now if that's not a keepsake, I don't know what is.
We ate at the rib-shack until we were stuffed senseless (I opted to get stoofvlees instead of meat-on-the-bone-that-you-have-to-fight-for) and Jennifer, who opted for steak, requested a potato that consequently never came. Eva asked our waiter about it, and since Eva's the Dutch-speaking person out of our lot, she kept filling us in that the entire staff kept talking about Jennifer's potato. One would think that for some reason they were completely potato-less or something. Like she had asked for something as bizarre as a taco. We never figured it out.
After our great meal, we retraced our steps, passed Ghent's Het Roze Huis cafe, took a left, found our car, and headed home. We almost had an accident when a man pulled over to the side of the street like he was either going to flirt with a scantly-clad woman on the sidewalk or go into the frituur for some fries. While I was passing him (with oncoming traffic) he decided to pull back out and we missed being hit on both sides by a few hairs and my promptly stopping. This pissed off the man driving the pulled-over car, and I think it had more to do with the fact that he had another male in the passenger seat and somehow they had interpreted my passing him as being similar to remarking that he had a small male-member.
He spent the following 20 minutes following us and bright-lighting us, following us around round-abouts several times, and being right on little Debbie's back bumper. I though the more we got outside of the city the less he would be apt to continue in his following but he persisted. At a certain stoplight I simply headed onto a highway not caring if I was entering a highway that was a tube directly to Siberia. (which it wasn't) And he didn't follow.
Men named Richard driving in cars. Now THAT's a nice title for a film or short-story. If you're not a native speaker of English you'll be happy for the helpful info that Richards often go by the name Dick. (back in the days pre-slur) Richards in their cars seem rampant here. If you hear a car coming down the street with boom-boom music pouring out it's sealed windows, you can bet your last Euro coin it's a Richard. If a car is going 160 km/h on the highway blowing the doors off of Debbies and Grettas and Panda 750s, you can bet it's a Richard. If you're wondering around in Wilrijk late at night with a broken down scooter and two identical Peugeot silver sport-hatchbacks are racing in the same direction with one car in the lane designated for cars going the other direction, you can be that it's 2 Richards. What luck!
I know there are a few female versions of Richard, though I don't know what their name would be. Girls don't tend to hang in packs in the parking-lots of closed shopping centers talking about woofers and how to install neon lights under their beloved tweaked-out autos. Unfortunately, some do tend to be drawn to Richards, but that's just something we can't help. They giggle a bit and flutter their eyelashes...
Thank you for this opportunity to rant.
We finally got ourselves directionally organized in Ghent for the ride back to Antwerp. Nichole was passed out in the back seat, Jennifer was nodding off, and I think even Eva curled up into a ball a bit leaving me the sole alert driver. Somehow we made it home even though I was sleepy as well. We had run out of time to get together with our friends and so we met up with Bart, Patje, and Tom at Poppi and remained there for a few hours before closing down the bar and the four of us headed home.
I daresay Jennifer and Nichole aren't used to the sort of late-night hours "going out" here entails. Apparently Nichole usually goes to sleep around 10 or so, which means this past week has had her internal clock all in a tizzy. It's a shame they aren't staying here longer. Not only would it give me longer to calm-down about having a car/driving, it would give us more opportunity to see more of Belgium and set their clocks to the late-night adventures we sometimes happen upon.
IN THE NEWS:
The United States launched a ferocious, around-the-clock aerial assault on military targets in Baghdad and other cities on Friday and invading ground troops penetrated 100 miles into Iraq. Fires lit the night sky over the capital as bombs struck.
ALSO IN THE NEWS:
A Dutch passenger train collided head-on with a Belgian freight train yesterday, killing one person and injuring 37 others.
