Monday, May 23 -- Going to Ghent

Tiiti dreamed of haploid humans, who only have one of each chromosome, and woke up. We ate rest of the oatmeal and packed. Both of our backs were aching, so we gave each other a massage. Arne went to work and we walked to the railway station. We had enough time to enjoy the sun in front of the station. Tiiti had a discussion with a four-year-old lady and gave one of the animal stickers we had received from a grocery store as a present. Children are the most challenging people to discuss with in a foreign language: you can't fall back to English or any other language, and they speak in a chirping tone. We had some noodles and ice cream for lunch and still had a moment to spare on the park bench, right next to some local bums.

ICE doesn't require an extra payment anymore, not even on international connections. Yay! We rode right behind the driver to enjoy the scenery. The engineer's cabin is separated by a glass panel, which randomly turns creamy and opaque every once in a while. We enjoyed the speed of 250 km/h, but were expecting more. The compartment was supposed to be silent, but contained three rejoicing children, and our voices were nothing compared to theirs.

We were surprised to find a train connection to Ghent arriving a full hour before we had planned. At least the connecting train in Brussels was late and the information on the changed platform was only available in French. We were lucky to be given the information by a friendly fellow passenger in a comprehensible language. Just to make the confusion perfect, an empty train rode to the correct track at the correct time, but the doors wouldn't open. We had just enough time in Brussels to see the same glass tower, which we had seen ten years earlier. There was probably something unusual going on at the station, since the main ticket office was closed in the middle of a weekday.

Our early arrival caused a busy situation for the hosts, but Patrick promised to pick us up. We admired the station for a while, for it had magnificent paintings on the walls and the roof. Outside an old man was torturing his violin as if it had deceived him. We had just sat down when Patrick arrived and grabbed us.

Our hosts at Ghent, Patrick and Luigi, are Tiiti's friends from conferences. Tiiti met Luigi in Berlin in 2009, perhaps at Luigi's poster, since Luigi is also researching wearable antennas. You probably guessed by the name that Luigi is Italian, but he lived his post-graduate time in Ghent. Patrick is Luigi's associate, whom Tiiti met in Barcelona 2010. Patrick is not doing research on wearable antennas as such, but is interested in how they function in difficult surroundings. When the ash cloud stranded them in Barcelona, Tiiti, Luigi and Patrick were forced to have a nice vacation together.

At the university we met not only Luigi, but also several other Italians. We got some tea (sencha?) and barely evaded discussing work-related topics. Professor Rogier remembered Tiiti from the year 2006. The hosts worked for a while more and then we took a long detour to Luigi's to drop our luggages. The trip would probably have been faster on foot with the urban traffic being itself, but the pregnant traveller should not be allowed to get tired. Luigi lived right in the middle of the city, with the historical centre unfolding right in front of our noses. The downside, as we were told, was that the bands start way too early on the marketplace below the apartment.

The four of us strolled around the beautiful centre of Ghent. The city officials had worked overtime to prevent ugly neon signs from claiming any space on the buildings. We failed to get in the first couple of sights, a church and the belfry, but managed to find a third one, which turned out to be Timo's favorite church this far. Ghent somehow succeeds in combining new, old and ancient buildings to a harmonic whole. Even the castle fit right in with the new buildings. Some ugly apartments do exist in the city, but one has to actually go looking for them.

Luigi surprised us all with his local knowledge. An Italian who moved in just four years ago to study should not know much about the place, and definitely not more than a local who lived there for twenty years! Luigi knew something about each church, every remarkable building, and the city history. We did spend quite a moment under one statue, since neither of our guides could combine the guy with the coats of arms. The final explanation was that he had brought Flanders together to a whole.

Tiiti had to try the local specialty called Waterzooi. It was practically just chiken soup with the chicken leg as a whole. That was something we could make at home. Timo had ribs and other grilled meat and studied beers. Tiiti was glad to find out that this civilized country had milk available in the restaurants, even though it didn't taste right.

We walked some more among who knows what beautiful houses, which had hosted some nuns or other religious people, and then had another beer. Tiiti had apple pie instead, since beer is not so great without the alcohol. It was pretty late when we finally got home.

Luigi was kind enough to sleep on the couch, while we used the bed. The nights was as hot as in Italy.

Tuesday, May 24 -- Brugge

Luigi's grandpa accidentally called at six in the morning to the phone that had been forgotten right next to our bed. Luigi told us that this grandpa keeps his phone under the pillow and has all the relatives on the speed dial buttons. Luckily we got to sleep some more. Later we had insanely good bread for breakfast. Patrick came to pick us up around nine, and we drove through the pretty countryside toward Brugge. Brugge is famous and can even be found on the Unesco list, but it turned out to be somewhat monotonic and tourist-oriented. There were a lot of horse cabs and lace shops. Brugge certainly had more than its share of old beautiful buildings, but still, Ghent was more attractive. Brugge itself is a world heritage site and contains another heritage site, namely an old monastery area.

The guys decided to climb to the belfry. Tiiti wasn't so fond of climbing a lot of stairs and remained in the sunshine of the courtyard. The day was sunny, but also so windy that one had to wear a jacket. At the next full hour the bell didn't start to ring, so the guys did not become deaf. The belfry did have some bells and a huge music box to play them. The view was build of red roofs. Ghent was not visible, but the port on the Atlantic shore was.

At lunch we discussed the differences between the Flemish people in Belgium and the Dutch. Why don't you divide Belgium and join the Netherlands? Do you feel any cohesion with them? We heard that the Dutch have mistreated the Flemish in the dawn of history and the people are, of course, not the same. A funny detail was that the Flemish are supposed to prefer quality over quantity in food, and the Dutch vice versa. We probably could notice that in the sizes of our portions. Anyhow, it would be interesting to hear what the Dutch think about the Belgians.

We had planned to go to Knokke to see the beach, but Patrick decided to drive to the coastal city of Cadzand-Bad in Holland. Why not, this would be another country for the baby. We found a big hotel and an even bigger beach behind the dunes of sand. We walked through the wind on top of the dune and visited the ocean behind a field of soft sand. For some reason the smell of sea was very faint until we were right next to water. There were dried medusas on the sand, with patterns looking like four-leaf clovers still distinguishable. Timo collected some seashells and when Tiiti wondered why, he answered that don't kids like seashells--why don't we bring some for them? The sea was full of cargo ships and in the distance we could even see the same port that had been visible from Brugge. There was also a radar on the beach.

We took Luigi home and quickly grabbed our backpacks. We told Patrick that we would be done packing in five minutes and we got back to the car in about that time. "Did you time us?" "No, should I have?" The trip to Patrick's home town was quite tiring, as we were crawling in a traffic jam. While Tiiti slept, the others saw a motorcyclist who popped a wheelie and started passing cars. Maybe there was enough room to do that with both wheels firmly on the ground?

At Patrick's we met Renata and their girls, Axelle and Sarah. It was weird that we had no common languages with the kids, even though we speak six languages and they speak two. In Flanders the kids learn French before English, which only begins at 12. We used the evening for relaxing with football and badminton, and seeing the girls' school notebooks. Patrick was somehow surprised when Tiiti started to knit--have to take a photo! Sarah told Renata that she should take some knitting lessons from Tiiti.

As always, we got to bed too late. Again we were put in the master bedroom, since Tiiti was pregnant and therefore automatically considered a poor thing. We found out from the bedroom wall that it had been Patrick and Renata's 15th anniversary today.

Wednesday, May 25

Renata had prepared us a hotel breakfast out of everything sweet. Now we finally remembered to give the children some elks and Renata a Finnish vase to hold a tea-light. Children went to school and us to the university. It seems its not customary to let 9-year-old children ride their bikes to school alone in Belgium, even if the school is quite nearby.

Tiiti gave a presentation at the university radio lab. There was a lot of interest and discussion of possible cooperation. She also had plenty of time to visit the measurement equipment at the lab. Patrick tried to show the radio anechoic chamber, but the access key refused to let him in. So professor Rogier was recruited to show Tiiti around. Besides the anechoic chamber equipped with an az/el-positioner, the place also had a very interesting waveguide construction for teaching purposes. In another lab an old professor heard that Tiiti is interested in old measurement equipment and showed her his personal collection. It is sweet that a modular reflectometer has a separate part for measuring and a place to connect a display: one can then either buy a CRT showing phase and magnitude, or needle displays for both.

Meanwhile, Timo visited the port: Outside the historic centre, Ghent started to look more like any other town. He was sad not to find any abandoned ruins, though the place looked like something like that could be available. The single most memorable thing was a shop selling slot machines.

As the others continued working, we escaped to see the city alone. We walked through some royal park, where the grass was well utilised as schoolkids were playing football on their physical education class. We randomly ran into a Unesco sign, which marked a 'beguinage,' meaning some kind of home for a monastery-like society. The rules in this kind of society are not as strict as in a traditional monastery and no oaths are taken. We were left in the belief that the area is nowadays occupied by ordinary citizens. Each house had been named after a saint. The noise and hurries of the city did not reach the closed area, which was very tranquil.

Luigi had told us how one is supposed to eat a 'bicky burger' at three a.m. in Ghent. It will then explode in your stomach and let you sleep happily. We found the burgers, but did not experience the effect.

Saint Nicholas' Church, which had been closed last time, was now open and even had a friendly old guide inside. He told us how a certain painting had been under repair for the whole fifteen years that he had worked in the church. It appears that there are too many old buildings and churches compared to the repair budget. Half of the church was being repaired right now, except we were told that the repairmen only appear every now and then. The old man also explained us the meaning of the obiit-signs on the walls. They had been on the coffin during the funeral and were then hung on the wall. The areas represent parts of the coats of arms of the dead noble's ancestors.

The castle of Ghent looks like a fantasy castle made out of Lego bricks. We hesitated a bit before deciding to go in, but it was well worth it. One of the best things was seeing how much decorations all kinds of weapons used to have in the past. Why do we see so little applied arts these days? Timo read all the long descriptions while Tiiti just marvelled at the inscriptions of the items. The windows looked like they were made of bottoms of wine bottles. Suddenly a knight appeared, left his sword lying around and just stood in an old chapel/prison. Later we met a group of medievally dressed children.

It was time to start walking back to the university. There were several beautiful closed churches on the way. It has always caused us trouble to find grocery stores abroad, an this time was no exception: we clearly saw a store selling fruits, but the entrance was nowhere to be found. After a while we understood that the loading dock was the store! We also ate some waffles, since we thought you are supposed to do that in Belgium. Later we started to think if it was "Brussels waffle" and "Belgian creps". After all, Brussels and Flanders are two completely different things.

We tried to see what a Belgian library looks like, but took the wrong door and found ourselves in a city bureaucracy centre, wondering where they put all the books. The library was pretty much identical to the Finnish ones, only larger than most. We didn't have time to see what Finnish books had been translated into Flemish. The children's department had recommendations with a one-year resolution.

Patrick drove us and Luigi back to his place. We were having a barbeque, and Renata said she hasn't done much, but had not gone to work all day, which meant the table was overfilled with everything. Patrick roasted ribs, sausages, lamb and even bananas. We had had chocolate-filled bananas before, but never with excellent Belgian chocolate. We offered our salty liquorice (salmiakki) chocolate in exchange, but did not value Finnish chocolate too highly otherwise. To fit more food we had to burn some by playing 3 vs 2 badminton matches. Timo tried to explain Renata the differences in what Finns and Europeans consider being polite.

As the night got darker, Patrick wanted to show us his bat detector. It works by mixing ultrasound down to audio frequencies. Since the backyard was void of bats, we had to take a walk on the surrounding countryside on dark little paths. Tiiti took the chance and tried to find Scorpion, the constellation. Neither of the sought after animals showed itself, but we saw a cat, some ducks, a horse, and heard a sheep. The walk was very relaxing.

Next stop: Bacharach.

Leave the train.