It was raining this morning and cold. It felt like the end of October.
Cameron had a tummy ache and was not in the mood for touring. The rain didn’t help his demeanour.
Church bells rang out around us in the pouring rain as we ran to St. Bavo’s Cathedral (Which has the Van Eyck brothers “The Adoration of the Mystic Lamb” alterpiece). Unfortunately, being Sunday morning, a service was going on so we couldn’t go in.
I kept peeling my eyes, but no Mephisto Store in sight.
We walked through the rain to the Castle of the Counts. It was a typical castle with turrents, a vocal pigeon hiding under the floorboards and a museum of torture devices and weapons. Somehow Cameron’s tummy ache had disappeared by this time.
The weather was starting to clear up when we left the castle. We walked past the old fish and meat markets. There are gorgeous old buildings everywhere you look. After wandering around the streets and checking out a few street markets we grabbed lunch and made our way to the Museum of Industrial Archaelology and Textiles.
We really learned a lot from the guy demonstrating the old printing presses.
When we left the museum, the sun was finally full out. After exploring more streets, we decided to take a boat tour of the canals. A boat tour is a definite must do when visiting Gent.
We decided to go back to St. Bavo’s Catherdral so that I could see the Mystic Lamb. It was open. We toured the church however couldn’t get in to see the lamb because it closed at 4:45. Ahhhhhhhhh!
Wandering down an nearby streets my eyes alighted on the much sought after Mephisto Store sign….but the store was closed. Ahhhhhhhh!
We still weren’t hungry so we all got ice cream and sat by the side of the canal and admired the gorgeous buildings. Unfortunately a really scruffy, unwashed guy with a guitar on his back and a store model naked torso of a woman (??!?) under his arm comes directly in front of us, hacking a lung out and picking up old butts from the ground. He is mumbling away…something about drugs and then coughs up a big goober and spits it onto the street. It just about put me off my ice cream.
As he finally walked away, the family discussed whether he had a wife or girlfriend. Graham seemed to feel that no matter how bad, there is probably some partner out there that would be interested in him. Still grossed out, I wasn’t so sure.
At that point, he ended up coming around again, this time coughing, spitting and picking up used cigarette butts behind where we were sitting.
When we finished our ice cream we walked to Pizza Hut for supper (not my choice).
The setting sun was still shining brightly, and I realized that I had forgotten to take a rubber chicken shot in Gent so we went back to the canal and who should we see?
The gross guy was standing by the bridge surrounded by four good-looking twenty-something year olds, trying to light one of his used cigarette butts for him. Then he pulled his guitar around and started singing…he wasn’t bad and the beauties were in no hurry to leave him. (I have pictures to prove this).
My husband took this opportunity to explain to the boys that even if you are really disgusting, if you play and instrument well and sing, you can still get the chicks. Hmmmmm.
