Fifth post from … well, Europe

[aadler]

 
… because Susan and I are in Belgium right now.

The day after the conference ended, we checked out of the hotel, and took a cab to our next lodging. How she found it, I couldn’t stay, but Susan set it up so that we would spend that night in a small boat out on the harbor. Once we had our luggage stowed in the (tiny) cabin, we went for a brief walk to look over the shops along the waterfront.

Back aboard the boat, Piccolo, we had a light lunch, then went out walking again. Among the goodies we’d received on registering for the conference were tickets to a canal tour; we found the proper place to redeem them, and rode in a glass-sided boat through various canals while recorded commentary filled us in on historical details. On the way back, we stopped at a sidewalk café to get a baguette for Susan and a cup of traditional Dutch pea soup for me.

Our evening aboard the Piccolo was leisurely and relaxed. There were ten cabins, but we were the only ones registered for the day; we lounged, talked, read, and took a bedtime well after dark. The bunks were barely wide enough for a person apiece (I took the upper, being more nimble than Susan), but they were warm and comfortable, and we settled in snugly for the night.

Yesterday morning, we had a nice breakfast aboard the boat — prepared by the ‘captain’ — and then got a cab to the central train station. We bought tickets to Antwerp, where we booked passage to a smaller Belgian town called Gheel. Unfortunately, Gheel was a very short stop, and when Susan pushed the button for the doors, they didn’t open, and we were carried to the next station. There we explained the situation to a railroad official; he put us back on the train, we rode to the end, and then it turned around to retrace the route. This time the conductor not only came to inform us of the stop, he opened the door for us himself.

We were quite a bit later than we had expected. The address of the hotel where we were pre-booked was Stationsstraat (Station Street) 50, so we figured we were close, but we didn’t know where to look. A man who’d been waiting in the station heard me asking about the hotel; he not only showed us the way — about three blocks, we were close — but pulled Susan’s suitcase for her.

Our current lodgings were in a converted carriage house. Very nice, better even than the hotel room in Amsterdam, but the cost was €130 a night. Cabs and trains had eaten into our cash store well beyond my advance estimates, and it was suddenly clear to me that we absolutely would not have enough money, after lodging in Gheel, to cover our expenses until departure.

Susan tried her phone, and — against my expectations — was able to make an international call to our son. Only a few minutes before we lost the connection, but I asked him to borrow some money from friends of Susan’s and deposit it into our bank account. Repaying the short loan won’t be a problem, she has a large automatic deposit that will post on Friday, we just need something we can use the day before we fly back to the U.S.

*               *               *

Breakfast this morning in the carriage house’s parlor. Susan needed to rest afterward — we did a lot of walking yesterday — so I did a solo recon downtown to scout location and route for her. When she became Catholic, Susan chose St. Dymphna as her patron saint; Gheel is where Dymphna settled after fleeing Ireland, and where she was killed (by her father) on being tracked down. I found the church named for her … but when I returned with Susan, both the church and museum were locked. Maybe we’re outside the regular tourist season, plus I could see that work was being done on the church.

We returned to our room, and worked on planning the next few days. Susan found and arranged for rooms in Loenen, back in the Netherlands, near a place where she’ll be meeting a colleague; our remaining money will barely cover that plus travel, but an online check showed that our son had deposited the requested loan, so — assuming we can draw on it before anything else unexpected pulls money from the account — we’re good for the remainder of our trip.

Susan wants to pack before we go to bed, so that we can be ready to depart in the morning. Sounds practical to me.