Trip to Ghent/Gand/Genk

So Duncan's off to school this morning after three days at home last week plus two on the weekend. After such a leisurely schedule, you can imagine it was like pulling teeth to get him out the door on time.

It started around 7:00 with a refusal to get up, then a refusal to come downstairs, to say "please" at the breakfast table, etc. There was one bright point in that he got dressed without complaint, but then he tried to dictate the walking route to school and balked at walking the regular way. At one point I had him in the fireman's carry going up the street with him hollering his head off, if you can imagine. In any case, he's back in school for the next few hours, and I'm back to work.

Saturday we had a great Lithuanian-style meal at Malcolm's friend's house, with lots of conversation with his family, who are from Vilnius. The boys ran around like maniacs, they were so excited, and made lots of noise... Duncan wasn't left out of things, which was nice, although he did spend quite a bit of time quietly playing lego, while Malcolm and his friend acted out increasingly loud ways of killing each other in duels. We need to find a friend for Duncan to go visit with and have play-dates with. It was a nice time, but a little bit of a late night for the boys.

Sunday afternoon Malcolm and I got on the train to Ghent, which is about 70 Kms from Brussels, to go see a matinee of Mozart's Le Nozze di Figaro. The season sold very quickly, due no doubt to the recent restoration of the Antwerp opera house that Flanders opera also uses, and the only tickets I could get were very cheap ones up in the fifth balcony. Malcolm wasn't too impressed at the restricted view: he said, "Dad, what's the point in going to see an opera if you can't SEE the opera?" I must say I agreed, and so after two acts worth of listening to the beautiful music and admiring the right-hand third of the set (I don't think we ever actually saw the characters of Bartolo, Basilio, Marcellina or Antonio, because they never were on that side of the stage) we left at the intermission following act II and walked back to the downtown area, had dinner and then got on the train to come home. All in all it was a cheap afternoon; opera tickets were 5 euros each, the train ride was free for him, and only 7 Euro 30 for me return. One cool thing; if you show your opera ticket to the transit driver (bus, tram, etc.) on the day of the performance, you don't have to pay to use the tram. Pretty smart idea, eh? How's that for an incentive to reduce traffic and encourage transit use?