Travel SNAFU #1

We left Ghent this morning for the Brussels airport to return our faithful Vasavagn and board our 15:55 flight out of Europe. I like to arrive at airports early; I don’t mind being bored and I do mine being stressed and rushed. We added 45 minutes to the drive time (in case of traffic), added another half hour for possible complications returning our car, and aimed to be in the airport two hours before our flight.

The drive worked out okay, but the airport was under construction and we missed the rental car return sign so the extra loop through the construction zone added about thirty minutes. Returning the rental amounted to throwing the keys over the counter and saying “see ya!” Very simple return. So, we get into the airport terminal about two hours and forty five minutes before out flight… only our flight wasn’t on the departure board. Another flight to Marrakech was, but it left at 13:55 (in thirty minutes time).

Oh shit. United had notified us that our itinerary had changed, but on a 20 segment RTW ticket, it is very difficult to see what changed. We’d missed the flight change! Amazingly, the lady at the counter was polite, helpful and fast! Bags checked, Star Alliance Gold fast track through security. We got to gate ten minutes before boarding. The only thing we failed to do was getting Moroccan Dirham.

The flight actually had a stop-over in Agadir and though it left two hours earlier, it arrived only ten minutes shy of our originally planned arrival time.

The Comfortable City of Ghent

Ghent has to be one of my favorite European cities. As with so many other things we like, sometimes the words to describe why we like something fail to simple feeling of oneness. I am Ghent. It’s a rather small city as cities in Europe go, there aren’t too many people here. The tourists come, but don’t fill the streets or act as an impediment to daily life; they are a truly symbiotic part of the city itself. The architecture in Ghent isn’t the most impressive, but it is consistently wonderful and interesting. I suppose it is a fantastic city that managed to not overwhelm. New York, Paris, Moscow, London, and so many others are amazing, but can be overwhelming when you want to just kick back and take it slow. Ghent accommodates.

We stayed in a two story flat that occupied the top two floors of a four story row home. It was wonderfully composed, clean and a pleasure to relax in. That said, we spent a good bit of our time out and about downtown.

I wanted to have some good Belgian beers while here and I wanted the whole family to experience good Belgian waffles. Sounds like an easy check list for a three day visit! The day we arrived I took the family to a tiny brown house called 't Galgenhuisje that serves snacks and beers. It was quaint and wonderful and everyone enjoyed me enjoying my beers.

The next morning we went to have Belgian waffles but the place I wanted to go was closed due to bridge construction. Instead we tried Agrea, also closed! I was frustrated, but the place next door served waffles, so we went to Hof van Herzele to experience the amazing Belgian waffle. Complete failure. These had to be the worst waffles I’ve had in years in any country; crap, plain and simple, and overpriced to boot.

We needed to get some travel supplies (specifically some new pants for the human beanstalk that is Gianna) as well as some quick-dry travel towels as we expected many a pool in our Moroccan future. On our way to the outdoor equipment store, we passed the Australian waffles and ice cream stand. I bought one waffle for 2€ and we shared it. It was divine. The next morning we returned at Tori’s request and she produced the 12€ she had carried with her from Maryland to buy us each a waffle. With left over 2€ she bought a sixth waffle and gave it to a homeless man near the store. This was, unequivocally, the highlight of my Ghent experience.

One of the side effects of having a large van all to yourself for ninety days is that it makes light work of over heavy bags and other crap that one might carry forward from place to place. We were about to leave Europe to Morocco and there would be no more carrying of nonessentials. We’d picked up food which is easy to leave behind, but also keepsakes (a plate from Cuneo), lots of paper memorabilia, and clothes that we bought to attend Heinrich’s wedding and clothes that not-so-little ones have outgrown. Ghent was where we said goodbye to these things and shipped them back home.

Ghent generally feels like a very safe city and the apartment we were staying it reinforced that feeling. Lisa and I were comfortable enough to leave the girls to themselves for an evening and we went to experience Volta. Volta is a fancy restaurant with a multi-course dining experience. The food was mixed, some fantastic and other plates simply didn’t work well. The service was nice and slow and Lisa and I enjoyed a bonafide date night. That was likely to be the last date night for a long while.

There is an epic french fry restaurant in Ghent called De Frietketel and we all went there for dinner our last night. It is an interesting dive joint with a cult-like following. I have to say that I was quite unimpressed. I’ve had better fries and better atmosphere. There was a place in Sodermalm, Stockholm called Prime Burger and the fries there were worth writing home about. I think we are all happy that we went to De Frietketel to experience it, but none of us feel the need to return.

Interestingly, I was so comfortable and at home in Ghent, I never even removed my camera from its bag. I took a picture here and there with my phone, but aside from that I just relaxed and Ghent let me do that. I did not feel like a tourist, I felt like we were living there. I believe Ghent is definitely one place in which I would be comfortable living; though I’d get fat off the waffles.

Paris in October

This marks the first time that I have visited Paris in October. While our stay was very brief, it was filled with enjoyment. We had four things we wanted to do and we managed to do two of those and a few very special things not on our check list.

The Louvre

Gianna loves art as does Lisa, but it is clear to me that the rest of us thoroughly appreciate it as well. We hit the Louvre like a tourist wrecking ball. As Lisa and I had visited here on our previous trip we knew that without a vicious plan of attack you’ll see maybe 0.5% of the Lourve instead of the 2% you might hope to achieve in a single day’s visit. While I’m sure that if the Lourve was closed with no visitors, a decent athlete could run its halls in its entirety in a single day, though they obviously would not take in or enjoy any of the art. The Louvre is a dangerous and wicked place for those that want to see all there is to see… you will always fail. As I told my girls, if you really want to see the Louvre, spend a year in Paris and come once or twice a week every week for a year… at that pace, you might even enjoy it and you’ll be able to see almost everything you care to.

The young ladies, particularly Gianna and Tori wanted to see the Mona Lisa. So, first step: storm the Mona Lisa. I mean literally, moving quickly, no time to gawk at anything. Follow the signs, head down, jostle back politely when jostled and PUSH to the front of the tourist hive that is like rough water against the dam of soft velvet rope in front of this mysterious painting. About fifteen minutes in we had seen it, got some pictures and were out of the throng. Why first? Because after you’ve spent some time here you just don’t have the energy to attack the problem with vigor.

The rest of our three or so hours in the Louvre were wonderful and relaxed. Gianna got to choose the areas we visited: “Egyptian,” “Etruscan, Roman & Greek,” and “Islamic Arts” to which we added European paintings. We, of course, didn’t tour the sections exhaustively. That can be overwhelming for an adult, more so for three children and even more so for an adult with three children. We flowed through them like a lazy stream. We didn’t visit every rock and were comfortable getting stuck from time to time in a little whirlpool here and there.

All of these sections were amazing and, in particular, the Islamic Arts section was fantastic given our recent stay and many tourist activities in Seville, Spain. In Seville (and Córdoba) we stood witness to wonderfully preserved artistry from Islamic influence and now got to see it within the curated halls of the Louvre in a personal context that I believe would have otherwise eluded us.

The paintings were, as always, amazing. One could get lost for hours in a single room of the Louvre. Truly the works of masters; you can stand and stare for hours processing the feelings you see as you lose yourself in the works.

After the Louvre, we walked past the bridge that used to have all the love-locks on it. The weight of the locks was causing structural problems so they setup a new shore-line location for people to use instead. Seeing it brought back a lot of memories of Lisa and my first visit to Paris. We went to stop by Berthillon for ice cream on the the little Island only to find that they were closed for a few weeks. So disappointing, but as they stock basically every café in Paris with ice cream we went to the café across the street to share the experience of Berthillon Glace with our children. Much enjoyment, but it lacked the panache of the original.

Dinner with friends

And old and dear friend of mine lives in Paris and we got to meet up with him and his wife. They both had met Zoe before (so long ago that Zoe has no memory), but this time they received all of us in force! We met at his delightful place in Le Marais with a quaint view of the Eiffel Tower. Brief chat and splendid drinks had us heading to dinner at a small restaurant nearby. Delicious food, good company, and fluent English speakers put everyone at ease. The pleasure of seeing familiar faces on such a long road trip produced smiles all around and an easiness that is foreign and hard to come by. The eyes and ears develop a yearning for the familiar in a way that cannot be understood by those surrounded by it.

Eiffel Tower

Zoe desperately wanted to see the Eiffel tower, so we hit that the next day. Lisa wanted to travel there via the Seine on a boat taxi/tour. We failed to navigate that successfully and ended up taking the RER from near Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower. Our stay at the tower was brief; we got some nice pictures and Zoe told all of her friends back home she was in Paris at the Eiffel Tower. We feigned for the line to the top of the tower (but the top was closed that day) and quickly abandoned that to go to Catacombs — my top item.

Catacombs and Sushi

We got to the catacombs around 16:30pm and they close at 18:00. We were told that we might not make the entry because we were so far back in line, but we thought we’d chance it anyway. I really wanted to see them and apparently my ladies understood that and were in it to win it! We stood in line for nearly 90 minutes through rain and wind. All in all the experience was miserable, but oddly no one was impatient or angry. I am amazed how a 13 year old, 11 year old and 8 year old could handle themselves for 90 minutes in completely unsatisfactory weather without a single complaint. Zoe and I told stories from dinner the night before that the others hadn’t heard. Eric, as a teenager, used to break into parts of the Catacombs for parties and told stories of running from police and coming up in weird places. Wild!

Alas, we were at the front of the line and subsequently denied access. That’s right, they shut down as we were about to enter and turned us away and the nearly 100 people behind us. We stood around to make sure that the decision was final, but others got angry and rude. People just doing their job; it is what is it. Still we were left with the cold (literally) reality that we had wasted 90 minutes of our precious time in Paris waiting for the one thing that I wanted to do and failed. How does one recover from such a blow? Sushi.

Across the street from the Catacombs sits a little place called Akko Sushi and it was so completely satisfying that even I as placated. We retired to our apartment via a wine shop and went to bed completely content with our ventures in Paris. I will return at some point to actually visit the Catacombs.

Departing on Back to the Future day

We left Paris on October 21st, 2015 (Back to the Future Day). On our way to the parked car (about a mile from our apartment) we saw this in the street. Experience complete.

We took a lot of pictures in Paris, have a look!