Arriving in Ghent & a wild night out (highly censored edition)
So today we arrived in Belgium! A new country, let’s do this! I usually don’t cover travel days at all, mostly because it’s just taking trains and getting irritate when they’re delayed. However, today was that (and worse) so I thought it would be entertaining to rehash the day.
The morning honestly was really smooth, and although the tram from Bonn to Cologne was delayed as well, I had already assumed that would be the case so it didn’t ruin the plans. I ended up having to get a tram from a different station in Bonn instead of the train, so it took an hour to get into the city rather than the 20 minutes I was used to. But I was still on time for my connecting train so it didn’t really matter. Actually I was very early, about 40 mins early. Except unfortunately for me my ticket didn’t have any platform info yet, so I had to go to the info desk and ask. Apparently it was a stupid question to ask, I got glared at and then ‘gleis 9’ was spat at me. I condescendingly thanked the employee profusely, saying ‘thank you for all your kind help, so helpful’, I could tell he was seething when I left. Good. I turned around, took one last photo of the Cathedral from inside the station then strolled my away over to my platform. I didn’t really have much to do, I was still very early, and everyone on the platform was waiting for the trains before mine, so I just wandered around for a bit.
Thinking I would double check everything was ok, I came back to my platform about 10 minutes before it was due to depart, and saw my departure had changed to orange (initially I assumed that meant delayed) but I figured out the added note meant that the platform had changed. This one display was the ONLY ONE on the whole platform that said it was changed, everything else was still saying the same thing so then I didn’t know which one was correct. I decided to run across to the other platform to see if it was there too, and it was. If anything that made me even more confused. I asked a couple people there who ended up all being French, which confused me again. They confirmed the platform had changed, so I decided to trust them, thinking that at least if they were wrong it wouldn’t just be me screwed over.
In a couple of minutes the train turned up, and the platform immediately filled with people from I don’t know where from. The French thing was explained quickly, the train would continue on from Brussels where I was getting off, and end in Paris. It was so reassuring to be around a familiar language (at least when compared to German) and just being able to pick up words here and there immediately made me feel more at ease about needing to ask for help if I needed to, at least I could try in French.
Initially everything went smoothly with the train, we left on time (a miracle) and I settled down to have a nap. This leg of the trip was almost 2 hours, then we would reach Brussels and I would change trains to one to Ghent, which was only another 40 mins or so. Unfortunately for us there was an announcement half an hour in saying that a truck had collided with the tracks a couple minutes earlier and there was a queue of trains banked up at the accident. We had to stop, change directions, and reverse back down the tracks all the way back to Cologne. Of course there were also several other trains on the tracks further up and back, so it was a very slow process to get back in. We all thought the train would just be cancelled, but they figured out a way to go around the accident, it would just mean we were really delayed. I didn’t want to try to rebook my ticket, as I knew there weren’t that many trains to Brussels everyday, so I just stayed on.
The 2 hour trip ended up being almost a 4 hour trip, I didn’t get into Brussels until just after 4:30pm. I was meant to have arrived in Ghent by 3pm. Luckily in Brussels the tickets are open, which means as long as you have one you can take any train, so I just got the next one into Ghent which left in a couple of minutes. It was almost giddying to go to the info desk and be able to ask my question in French in Brussels and then actually understand the response I got. As I’ve previously ranted about, I’ve felt really bad having to rely on English when that’s not the native language, so I immediately felt like a weight had been lifted of my shoulders to be able to communicate in a way most comfortable for the people I was speaking to.
The train from Brussels to Ghent was simple enough, and in another 45mins or so, I was there. But we weren’t completely done yet… We still had to get from the station to my hostel, which turned out to be an hour walk, or 20 minutes on the tram. Originally, I was considering walking, but when I emerged from the station I was surprised to find it was quite cold, with a strong wind and sideways rain. What a welcome! No way I would be walking in that, so tram it is.
It was quite straightforward as to when to get off, and then I walked the extra 10 minutes from the stop to the hostel. My first thought was that I selected the best hostel possible. It’s right on the river, meaning everything pretty I could want to see, and anything I could want to see, was right there. This was a pleasant change from having to coordinate trains every morning to get somewhere. The staff were so lovely as I was checking in, and there was something about Ghent I just immediately felt at home. The thing I wanted clarified that I got to ask the girl at reception was what bloody language was spoken here. In Brussels I used my French, but Ghent was definitely not French-speaking, so it was very confusing. Turns out Belgium is split in half pretty much between Ghent and Brussels into French and Dutch speaking. So when I go to Brussels (next stop) I’ll be back to French, but Ghent is in the Dutch-speaking part. But the Dutch are much more welcoming to English speaking tourists than the Germans were, and it helps that a lot of people who travel within Belgium also can’t speak the other language, so English is acceptable for them too. Made me feel much less of an idiot tourist which was a great start.
Of course I was on the top floor, which means 6 flights of stairs to climb, but it was worth it. I’m in a room that was a bit tucked away, which I prefer. I got set up in my room and had a bit of rot time, before making plans on the hostel group chat to go out for some drinks that night. One of the guys in my dorm, Adi and I, ended up sitting on our room floor and having some hummus and yapping for a while, until plans had been finalised and I was ready to go. Another girl in the dorm who’s name’s Alma was from Guatemala, and she came back from a beer house midway through our yap sesh. We asked her how she was going, to which her only response was ‘honestly, a bit drunk but happy to be in Ghent.’ Which we thought was a pretty perfect response. I asked her if she would like to go out again when I left, and she was up and following me immediately. I had invited Adi too, but he had had food poisoning the last couple of days, so an early night was probably a good idea for him.
We waited for our other people in the lounge downstairs, as Eva had been doing a night walking tour, which finished outside the hostel at 10pm. I suggested she see if anyone from the tour would also like to go out, and she ended up bringing another 2 guys to our little group. They were Alek and Nick, and we all hit it off as soon as they came up to us. Eva and Alek were both from the US, and Nick was from the UK, and as luck would have it we ended up having a great night out. At the first bar we found our last person to meet up with, Veronica, who fit into our dynamic in no time.
I was a bit disappointed in the first bar, as it was a bit too quiet. But it ended up working well, as actually could get to know each other before going somewhere busier. Somewhere busier ended up being the place next door, where we got some more drinks (and some more drinks). I knew I was in for a night when Nick started talking about suicide shots, and I was the only other one there who knew what they were. You do a tequila shot, still with salt and lime, but instead of licking the salt you snort it, then instead of biting the lime you squeeze it into your eye. Yeah, it’s absolutely awful, and I’ve only done it the once before, but everyone was so convinced Nick and I would be doing suicide shots at some point that night. I tried to pull the eyeliner card but that wasn’t going to do much. I ended up getting convinced (it’s for the plot ok) and when the shot was bought for me I thought oh well at least it didn’t cost me anything. To be honest it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, although the lime did sting really badly (of course it did). If anything it was the taste of straight tequila with nothing afterwards that really did it for me. I ended up grabbing a lime after anyway, raw dogging it was not worth it.
We stayed at the bar for a little while longer, had a bit of a dance, and then decided (in a quite drunken state) we should all go clubbing. It was the Latinos and I (Veronica and Alma) that convinced everyone else, though are we surprised? Of course we’re going to want to go dancing. Mistake #1 was giving the job of directions to Veronica, who ended up taking us everywhere but a club. I didn’t mind too much, walking around with a bunch of nice people at 1am wasn’t the worst way to spend my time, and Alek and I ended up having great Game of Thrones chats. Apparently they saw a statue of a guy during their tour that looked a lot like Tywin Lannister, and with a photo reference I validated him on that. No one on the tour was a GoT nerd like we were, so I loved yapping with him while we walked, it was great. Everyone else teased us for being little nerds, but we didn’t really care. GoT is COOL ok.
We eventually made it to the club which was an underground cave situation. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed the music they were playing. I was expecting EDM, which was what everyone had told me would be the norm, but I was pleasantly surprised with afrobeats, hiphop and some really cool remixes. And I was with the perfect group of people to dance with, we had a great time. It was such a good bonding experience, we finished our drinks with one last round of tequila shots, biting limes out of each other’s mouths as apparently is custom over here.
Guys I didn’t go to bed until after 5:30am that morning, which is by far the latest I’d ever been out so far. Just as we were getting the sky was getting very light, and we knew we were dangerously close to seeing a sunrise. I don’t think I could handle that, so I tried to get a couple hours sleep before waking up around 9am. Only reason I did this awful idea was so I could have breakfast downstairs at the hostel, and though I think I was still a bit drunk when I woke up (very weird feeling) I knew having food and coffee was going to be imperative to having a good rest of the day. And I had to explore the city! I couldn’t sleep all day, what a waste.
Did I have to censor this edition slightly? Yes, I did, absolutely. I know that the whole point of this is to be an honest travel diary, however I do have my entire family keeping up to date with these uploads, so I do need to keep it a tad PG sometimes. I was just happy the coffee in the morning did it’s job, I honestly wasn’t tired at all, just a bit queezy. Let’s go explore Ghent, which I could already tell would be my favourite city so far!
Currently MIA,
Lauren x
P.S sorry for the lack of photos (I’d say proof of too much of a fun time to remember to take any)
