My lovely friend Rebecca and I headed to Ghent yesterday to visit the Ghent Festival ... also known as "10 Days Off". The city literally shuts down and parties for 10 days. Needless to say, it was fantastic. Ghent is a gorgeous little university town about 30 minutes by train outside of Brussels. Old stone castles, beautiful rivers, old beautiful guild houses ... you can definitely feel the history walking through the streets. It is in Flanders though so speaking French is a gigantic faux-pas. I spent the entire day not feeling bad about speaking English ... I think that may be a first since I arrived in Europe over a month ago.
The festival was really great. You basically just walk the streets and everytime you turn a corner and come to a new square, there is another stage playing great music. The biggest stage ... sponsored by Pole Pole ... was constructed over the river. Rebecca and I had a few (too many) mojitos and danced for a while by this stage.
In addition to listening to music and dancing, we wandered the town, made some great purchases at a very hip boutique that had its own DJ playing Dr. Dre and Rage Against the Machine (I felt like I was back in LA), and sipped homemade spirits at a bar on the river. I had the lychee flavor - yum!
I had one of those "I can't believe I am living in Europe" moments while we were waiting for the train back to Brussels at midnight. The moon was almost full ... the weather had been surprisingly great all day long ... and when a train pulled up heading to Bruges and Oostende, I had this overwhelming feeling to hop the tracks and get on that train. But then I remembered I can go anytime I want cause I am here for another five months! Yay!
Next up ... my friend Carson and I are spending next weekend in Champagne. Look out France!
No comments:
Post a Comment