Friday 17 August 2007
And so we packed up and hit the road to Ostend. We had about an hour altogether to look around Ostend before the ferry home, so we looked at another church (outside of which some giant festival appeared to be in the process of being dismantled - there was a forklift truck carrying an ENTIRE CARAVAN, yikes) and then wandered along the pier enjoying the sea breeze and dodging strange multi-person pedal-bike tour things before buying some greasy food (to replace the garbage that we'd inevitably find on the boat) and leaving.
Stop and start forever and ever on the queue for the ferry. Belgians: so relaxed.
Irritating rattling noises and irritating kids made sitting up front in the ferry impossible. I considered buying a beer from the bar but that would put us at 86 and we wouldn't have finished together so I decided against it.
A short way into the journey, a Belgian Air Force helicopter started pacing the ferry to the port side. It was almost impossible to get a decent angle to see this happening, and I was low on camera space, and the windows were mucky, so I didn't get any good photos, but I did clearly see a guy get lowered onto the boat from the chopper, before ultimately three guys were winched back up again and the chopper accelerated away ahead of us.
Bizarre. Based on the ambulance we spotted in the hold on the way out, we conjecture this was some kind of medical emergency. Fascinating stuff to see, though.
We dropped Julian at Ramsgate Station - which is unbelievably poorly signposted, that is to say, not at all - and then drove all the way back around the M25 - which seemed to take forever - and then I went all the way home on the train, lugging my gigantic quantity of beer with me. Got home after midnight, having taking a ludicrously extortionate taxi from the station. £11 fare. It ticked more than once as we were standing still at traffic lights.
Long week.
Overall comments, then: a totally positive experience. The Lonely Planet Guide to Belgium and Luxembourg was useful, but contained an overwhelming amount of information and was relentlessly positive about everything it listed. Its road maps are better used on foot than by car! The Good Beer Guide to Belgium was hugely informative, very accurate and honest and generally invaluable. Sunglasses/hats/shorts were unnecessary because Belgium's climate is basically exactly the same as the UK's. Driving is a good way to go if you want to be especially flexible and visit breweries, but you would probably be better off going by train if you're sticking to major cities. It's a small country which you can see a significant fraction of in one week. Beer: extremely good. Cuisine: not bad at all. Service: slow. English: universal, don't bother taking a phrasebook.
I'll put up our formal beer log in a day or two.
Some of my readers still have beer/chocolate awaiting them.
I've finished working at the Deanery and I have a job interview on Wednesday. More as it happens.
