The Bottin household is comatose this morning. I am in bed with Jean-Philippe: he looks a bit scary when he is sleeping. He respected me last night and stayed on his half of the bed. Sebastien in on the floor beside me and Thierry is on the floor beside JP. Getting out of bed without disturbing them isn't easy, but I can't stay in bed all morning like they can. I shower, dress, do the dishes and then slip out the door to get some fresh air.
I buy some yogurt and two bottles of wine at the corner store, one for JP and one for Monique and Guy. I walk along one of the beautiful canals, before I return. Ghent is full of canals, like Brugge, and the buildings are more stately and elegant. What a gem of a city!
When I return the rest of the household is up. We share a
continental breakfast with coffee and rolls but Thierry leaves to practice his lines. Sebastien has chores to do too, so JP and I wander around the old town. JP is French. He fell in love with the city and made increasingly frequent visits to it over ten years before moving here at the start of the year. It's all still new and exciting to him. He tells me all he knows about the history of the town, about abandoned buildings, statues, fish 
and meat markets and the ancient, massive "Mad Mag" cannon that has never been fired. From the 11th to until the 13th century, it was the second largest city in Europe after Paris. Now it only has 230,000 people.JP takes me to the chapel of Saint Bavo Cathedral to see the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb by Hubert and Jan van Eyck. He tells me it is one of the greatest masterpieces
in the world. I had seen pictures of it before but never knew its name or where it resided. It’s a polyptych panel painting of remarkable skill. I stare at its symbolic details for an hour without seeing any brush stokes. It is disturbingly Christian, but I suppose all of Europe was at that time. My next lesson is about Belgian beer. JP takes me to a pub for another one of his liquid meals. He tells me there are over 500 types of beer manufactured in Belgium, including beers made with an infusion of cherry or strawberry juices or wine added.
There are also lambic beers made in open vats in the attics of houses with old slate roofs. Belgians will try anything. Their beers are generally categorized as blonds, ambers or dark. There is even a beer served for in a special tall glass for horse-drawn carriage drivers, designed to fit into a slot on top of the carriage so the drivers can drink and drive. It is said to be especially bad luck to break this type of glass so when someone orders it a bell is rung and they must surrender one of their shoes, which gets hoisted in a basket by rope and pulley to the ceiling. If they break the glass they do not get their shoe back. An elegant young woman orders one while we are there JP and I return to his home at the end of the afternoon. He leaves at 6 for an evening rehearsal and Sebastien is napping. At 10, Guy and Monique are back home so I bring up their bottle of wine and have a visit with them. I cut it short at 11 so I can wake up Sebastien and drag his ass down to the Vooruit to meet JP and Thierry at the end of their rehearsal. We share a couple quick beers with them and then the four of us search for a place to eat. This isn't so easy as most kitchens are closed by midnight. We eventually find a Greek restaurant and have a rather large meal for so late at night. It is past 2am before we get back to JP's.
PHOTO 1: Gravensteen Castle
PHOTO 2: Ghent Theatre, JP's favourite building
PHOTO 3: Adoration of the Mystic Lamb
PHOTO 4: Mad Mag, the unfired cannon
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