Ghent! (& some Amsterdam)

Hello again, another train, another blog. Many train rides on this trip, but this will be my last. Off to London via the Eurostar. Should be an exciting trip through the chunnel. But before I start talking about London, let’s recap the past two days since I last train blogged about my time in Brussels.

o   Amsterdam

§  Heineken Experience

§  Anne Frank House

§  Getting lost among the canals

§  Hanging out in Dam Square with food and street performers

§  Night scene

o   Ghent

§  Gravensteen Castle

§  Gruut Brewery

§  Sint Baaf’s Cathedral

§  Belfry Tower

§  Graffiti Street

§  Grote Kanan

§  Drinking and eating along canal banks

Out floating hostel boat

Tuesday was spent in Amsterdam for the day and night, then yesterday, Wednesday, was spent in Ghent for the day and the night. We left Ghent early this morning (got up at 5am) to take the train back here to Brussels where we caught the Eurostar train to London. Amsterdam won’t be the main focus of this blog, so sorry to anyone who was expecting that, it’s just not one of my favorite cities and anyone who knows me can see why. There were a couple neat parts that I’ll talk about though. 

Bartending with Adam

First was the Heineken Experience, which was the first thing we did. It’s at the spot of their former brewery but now is a very modern, interactive and informative ‘experience’ about everything and anything Heineken. You learned stuff, did neat interactive things, watch cool movies, went on a simulator ride and got 2 and a half beers free included! Not too shabby for Michael. The other notable experience was of course visiting the Anne Frank house. It felt odd transitioning from the brewery right to this, emotional roller coaster. Everyone knows her story and read her book so I’m not going to talk about all that but just being there in that house was very sobering (figuratively and literally – remember all the free beers?). Hearing the story of her dying just a month before the liberation, and thinking that she had no one left, not knowing that her dad was still out there was just so sad. And those pictures, letters and stories about the concentration camps, just terrible. I’ll stop depressing people but just take a minute to think about how awful all those events were and how you can play your part to make sure something like that that never happens again in our world. Of course there’s the other dumb side to Amsterdam which was a whole other area of emotions but I’m not going to waste blog space about that.

Gravensteen Castle

Although physically similar, Ghent was much better Amsterdam in every single way. It was another quaint old town, with lots of canals, bicyclists, bridges and open squares but that’s where the similarities stop. It was just such a nicer city. First was Gravensteen Castle, a medieval castle dating to the 1100’s when believe it not, Ghent was one of the biggest cities in Europe, up in the top 5 along with London and Paris. It wasn’t like any castle I had ever seen before. Instead of being in shambles and crumbling walls like most are, they actually restored this one to look like its former self. Although this took a little of the authentic feel away from it, because you could tell which stones were clearly new or thousands of years old, it was neat seeing what it used to look like, sitting there towering over the city and river. Inside they had everything a castle needs from torture rooms to swords and armor. Very cool castle overall, high rating by MikeAdvisor, speaking of, I’ve got some beef with TripAdvisor but I’ll complain about that issue another time.

Gruut Brewery Beer Sampler

After wandering down the canals and small streets of the old town, and visiting a couple impressively large cathedrals and towers, we went down to a brewery called Gruut. It’s a local beer, they only just started exporting their beer out of the country (albeit only to the Netherlands) but it was really good. It was a small small place, with mostly everything taking place in one big room, which neatly doubled as the bar/hang out area. We went in for a tour but they said you needed a reservation for that but since the place was empty and the bartender was the sweetest nicest lady I’ve ever met, she basically gave us one anyways. After sampling their stock, a white, blonde, amber, dark and ‘inferno’ beer, we ended up liking it so much that we bought another round or so and some souvenir glasses and some more beers for later in the evening to drink on the banks of the canals with all the other youth (it was definitely the thing to do for people our age, even though it was a Wednesday night the canal banks were still very crowded with people enjoying some drinks and food with their friends). Gruut was the epitome of a small friendly brewery feel, much different than Heineken the day before of course. Their coasters do a neat ‘anamorphosis’ thing as they call it, with the glasses when its empty, difficult to explain but I’ll put up a picture perhaps. Or I can show you once I get back, granted that TSA lets me carry my beer glass on and it doesn’t break.. After that we went and visited the ‘graffiti street’ which is exactly what it sounds to be, very cool (look at my fb album for those pictures too – everything’s there already from these two days). Hmm..Oh then was dinner, which I did at “Quick” for one last time, man are their chicken nuggets good. I supersized my meal and even got extra nuggets – #SoAmerican, but it was totally worth it as my last meal for awhile there. We took our dinners down to the canal and ate there with our Gruuts then we strolled around some more, drank some more by the river and just repeated that for the rest of the evening, enjoying the peaceful town, medieval streets and local brew. A really great city, we didn’t really put a dent in the city guide recommendations (which was the most well put together city guide of any city I’ve been to yet – bravo Ghent) but we couldn’t stay any longer. If you’re into getting out of the bustling European cities and going into an old medieval town that was once a powerful city state, and also want to perhaps be one of the only Americans in the whole city (which I felt at times, I rarely heard a passerby speaking English – British or American) then Ghent is the charming town that you need to visit.

Graffiti Street in Ghent

"Anamorphosis"

 Needless to say, I liked Ghent a lot. Anyways, the trains hustling through the Belgian countryside now and we’re getting close to the water so I think I’m going to take a nap and rest up for the remaining 48 hours of my EuroTrip, wow is that really all that’s left? Time flies when you’re having a good time. Hopefully the hotel was WiFi so I can upload this when I get there, or else I guess I’m just typing to no one, which I might still be doing, I don’t know if people still read this blog. O well. I’m excited to write my final blogs on the plane ride home, you can expect a lot of them. I still want to tell everyone about the neat differences and similarities between Italian and American culture, then I’ll probably write another blog about how great Belgium is ha, we’ll see how long my computer can last. Ciao for now, onto London!