Sunday July 22 – Warm and sunny

Desperate for clean clothes, Karen hand washed some things and left them out to dry. Of course it rained again. After trying to dry the clothes in a dryer for a couple of hours we just laid the stuff out in the back of the van and set out for Gent where a ten day music festival was winding up.

Feeling pretty good about getting around, we found Gent without a hitch. Parking would be another story. After thoroughly touring the entire downtown area in ever widening circles we finally found a parking spot on a rather seedy side street.

Gent was fabulous. The streets were packed with tens of thousands of people, spread over a very large area of the town. There was street after street of tents, stalls, food booths and stages as well as interesting open-air patio restaurants.

The tourist information center was great. It is in an old tower central and easy to spot. The staff was very helpful searching out and booking a campsite for us. Unlike the Netherlands, many services were free. Because it was Sunday we used an ABM for some immediate cash. We had to poke around the music festival first to get an idea of how much would be adequate for incidentals. That’s one of the disadvantages of traveling into a new country on a Sunday.

The campground was really nice. The sites were large with shrubs all around them. Unfortunately we were not sure what it cost since we didn’t know the exchange rate.

We parked the van and headed back downtown to the music festival. We were very glad that that Donna recommended we stop. The festival was really excellent. Everywhere, for blocks and blocks in all directions, it seemed were tiny little streets with old, old buildings, music playing and thousands of people. We ate fries (frijeten) with mayonnaise, which Belgians claim to be theirs.

We indulged in Belgian chocolate, and various treats from the food booths. The girls had a strip of hair done in embroidery thread and were very well pleased.

We arrived home about 11:30 pm feeling like we had a full day and experienced a lot. The socks are still not dry!

After eating we went in search of the cyber café we had noticed the day before. We were surprised to find a Clare Casey, The First Lady of Escape sitting there. Clare was the Australian escape artist we had seen performing the day before. She gave us her card and she has a website, http://escape.ozserver.com.au. We haven’t been able to check it out yet. She was very friendly and the kids loved her. She has even been to Canada to perform and, if you can believe it, been to Moose Jaw! If you see her, say hi from us.

Be careful of Belgian Beer. Once back to our site we sat back and tasted an assortment of local brew. (Sorry, I didn’t note the names, as a friend would like us to be writing our journal on Beers of the World) We had a couple and really noticed we were more than a little tipsy. The beers we had so carefully grabbed off the shelves were 9 to 11 percent alcohol. We were off to bed with a buzz….

Camping Notes

Gent campground – Kampeerterrein Blaarmeersen (09-221-53-99), very nice