Day 8: Ghent

We slept in on Friday, and headed out to Ghent a little before noon. On the way to the train station, we saw this statue. Obviously parts of this guy are rubbed -- hopefully for luck since Gloria and I took part!
Once in Ghent, our first order of business was finding someplace to eat. Using the recommendation of our guidebook, we found a lovely vegetarian restaurant (notice that we are drinking water from Spa!)
Ghent has a belfry, but we decided that we'd climbed enough over the past week and bypassed it. We went to Gravensteen castle, which was very impressive.
I didn't take too many pictures of the inside of the castle; however, here's Brian looking at the torture museum:

What should we do next?

As we had the day before in Bruges, we decided to take a canal tour to see the city. We preferred the tour in Bruges, but this one was still nice. The guide had to give the tour in four languages: Flemish, French, German, and English.

Here's Claire, waiting for the boat:
After the tour, we stopped in a little bar that served only peket. But in hundreds of flavors! I think I got pineapple flavor, although for some reason the only one I remember for sure is that Claire got kiwi. Brian decided against having any.

Back in Brussels, it was dinner time, so we stopped at a falafel shop. Brian decided to try a yogurt drink with his meal.

Here he is, anticipating the drink:
Mid-drink:
And somewhat regretful that he doesn't want to be wasteful so he's going to have to drink the whole thing: We walked over to the Grand Place, which was only about 2 minutes away from our apartment. We just happened to be in town the weekend of the Brussels Jazz Marathon!
We were able to scare up a table and four chairs since we arrived rather early. When we left, there was a rush of people trying to take our table.

In Belgium, it is apparently acceptable to bring your own beer to events like this. They were selling beer, but only a few options, so Brian and Gloria went to the grocery store to offer more choices.

Claire is a bit embarrassed to be drinking store-brand beer:Did Gloria drink all of this herself? Of course not!Here's Claire with a shadowy Brian:And Alice and Gloria:Brian had a hard time opening the door to the apartment:And then he had to open the second door as well:
It was rather complicated, with lots of turning and pushing. I don't think we ever figured out exactly how to open this door!