68. Can't We Just Stay Here?

With shouts of "Brody, stop killing me!" met with the response "Get out of my way then, Scarlet, and start destroying everything in the room!" I sit here uploading pictures finding it hard to believe this week has gone by so fast and tomorrow, we will be in a new house, most likely not furnished with an American wii and the Harry Potter lego game. It's been so great to live in a fully furnished home this week. And to get a little taste of American foods our hosts left us. But in the spirit of adventure, it's time to pack up and go!

For our last full day in Belgium we took a trip to Gent which we pronounced hhhent with a guttural g. We prevailed in finding a parking garage underneath the middle of the city, and set out for a self guided walking tour with none other than Rick Steves.

Here's lunch in one of the many town squares with the gothic styled stair step gabled roofs in the background.

After a satisfying lunch of PB&J's with an apple, we headed to St.  Niklaas Kerk or St Nicholas Church. Whatever. The highlight of churches today though was St Bavo church where there was a famous Vaneyck altarpiece. We knew there were two sets of this painting: one original, and one copy. To see the original, we had to pay, so we passed on that and headed for what we thought was the copy. There was some hustle and bustle in this chapel - two tour groups and the Friend Family. This should have tipped us off, but there was no one asking for tickets, so we marched right up to it, and even touched it a little. Afterward we went to a chapel across the way and saw a miniature version of the altarpiece. So now We are pretty sure we accidentally touched the original. The Art Gods are frowning on us today.

 This is something we haven't seen yet. This entire street is dedicated to young artists, with the need to express themselves.

Our last stop was a crowd pleaser. We took a tour of the Court Castle, built not to protect the people, but to intimidate them. Cue the torture rooms!

The blade on this guillotine is original. creepy.

This room held various items of torture, descriptions of use, and manikins set up to make sure the process was clear. Also creepy. Arden loved it.