Gent

St. Bathe's Church with the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb

Working on the Dutch assignment

Courtyard outside Gravensteen

Belfry Tower

Three towers from the top of Gravensteen

Chase and I at Gravensteen

Wrestling Professor Forni's sons (Its amazing how many 4 and 5 year olds I can fend off)

View through the arrow slits

Gravensteen roof

Gravensteen Castle

Walk along the river

Belfry Tower

Hello all! Wow is it Sunday already? I just realized today that I hadn’t written a blog for last week yet – when I started formulating ideas for this week’s blog. I guess last week was boring! Or it just didn’t fill me with a captivating story for you all to partake in. Nonetheless, for the sake of tradition I suppose I can relay to you this past week’s events.

The past week has been relatively simple for me, basically evolving around my exhaustion from staying up late to watch the Yankees games – if they would just win already my life would be easier. Especially with all those extra inning games, they’re killing me. I sit up watching the blips on mlb.com and silently cheering or jeering (both my roommates are asleep at this point) whatever the website’s “gameday” setting tells me – celebrating the trials and tribulations of my favorite sports franchise based on one line blips about the games action. Perhaps that is why the past week appears to be one big foggy dream for me when I try to recall stories. What did I do? Let’s see.

It’s an odd thing being an American abroad especially when it comes to relaying my feeling about baseball. In the land of “futbol” very little is heard about other sports. Martin stares and mocks me openly as I sit up watching the website, cheering or cursing at each pitch. It’s a hard expression to relay. I’ve tried explaining to him how each pitch is important, each out means something, each strike is vital, but he just nods along at me in agreement – the evident sign that what I’m trying to tell him is going right over his head. On the plus side, I think I’ve at least convinced him that the Yankees should be his favorite team – to which he nodded.

The past week had two major highlights: our trip to Gent and our Unit dinner. Last Saturday, the gang headed out to the city of Gent for the day. The trip started out being very entertaining and teetered off as the day went on.

We began our trip by taking a trolley from the train station up to see the world renowned Gent Altarpiece or the Adoration of the Mystic Lamb. This twelve paneled masterpiece, started in 1426 by Hubert van Eyck, and finished by his brother Jan in 1432, has been the center of a lot of controversy over the course of Belgian history. Belgium, being neutral in about every large European engagement for the past 300 years, has naturally been victimized by every large European power from the Spanish to the French to the Germans. During all of that victimization, the Gent altarpiece has seen a lot of different places, at some times being divided among the victorious parties and other times being moved as a whole. Some of the highlights of its interesting history are in 1566, it was hidden in the St. Bathes Belfry during the protestant revolts throughout Europe to prevent any damage being done to the work. In 1792, it was taken by Napoleon’s soldiers to Paris. In 1816, several pieces of the alterpiece were sold to the King of Prussia. Then in 1920, all of the panels were united in Belgium as a result of the Treaty of Versailles – only to be again taken by the Nazi party in 1940 to a castle in Bavaria, upon Hitler’s orders. Then finally in 1946, it was recovered by American troops and returned to Gent where is has remained for the past half century. Today it resides behind bulletproof class in a temperature controlled room in the Villa Chapel, and is visited by millions of visitors each year.

After visiting the Mystic Lamb, we headed over to the Gravensteen castle. The castle was the highlight from my last trip to Gent so I remembered it vividly. The castle, in its current form and architecture was built in 1180 by Philip of Alsace. It was modeled after the crusader’s castles the count encountered while he participated in the Second Crusade. It was really built as a model of power in the city, but also served defensive purposes. Over the course of its history, Gravensteen has had a number of different roles from its 1300’s use as a courthouse and prison to its 1800’s uses as a cotton plant where it interior was allowed to deteriorate and foundations became week. Then in 1885, the castle was set to be demolished as a part of city reconstruction. However, the city government bought out the construction company and remodeled it to its original settings to be a symbol of the city as it entered into the tourism age. Therefore, though the foundations are 900 years old, the remodeling is only a little over 100 years old.

As you walk through the little square outside Gravensteen, the giant fortress stands out like a massive rock amongst modern buildings. Its brown stones, and medieval architecture aren’t enough to call it breathtaking, but the beauty in the building lies in its history not necessarily in the design. Along the back side of the castle, the river snakes along the edge of the wall. Throughout the interior there are dark, narrow hallways that lead to the various parts of the current museum. Inside the museum, suits of armor and weapons, polished and shining, make up a majority of the main halls. With everything from giant ornate swords, to primitive guns and cross bows, the museum has a wide variety of artifacts. One of the highlights is the torture room, which is full of in-depth descriptions and diagrams of various torture methods done to prisoners. From the top of the roof, the guard tower of the castle looks out over the city. We happened to catch it on an interesting day when clouds adorned the east and sunshine broke through in the west. However, the most beautiful of the views was the three spires, of St. Bathes, the Belfry, and St. Nicholas’ towers. These monuments, jut out from the regular skyline, and are evident from the top of the castle.

From there, we spent the next two hours doing a Dutch assignment, yes, our Dutch professor met us in Gent to deal out an assignment that we had to complete in two hours and return to her. Though it was annoying and bothersome, the assignment did allow us to see more of the city. To lighten our spirits at the end of the day, a majority of the group grabbed a brew at a local beer house that offered over 100 beers.

The second highlight of the week was our unit dinner at Professor Forni’s house. The Nachbahrhuis is divided into 6 different sections or units. My unit, number 1 (for obvious reasons) is comprised of my three man room, and 4 other girls’ rooms. Together, the seven of us headed over to Dr. Forni’s house for a home cooked meal. This experience gives us, and Professor Froni and her husband, a chance to get to know the group a little better. We enjoyed pasta with pesto (good, but not as good as moms), salad, and chili! I had never had chili before, but seeing as how it is one of the more American things to eat, I decided to dabble in the meal – and it was worth it. The homemade chili was done by Professor Forni’s father, who is in town for the month with Professor Forni’s mother visiting Belgium, and was fantastic. Then we topped off the evening with some apple pie (my favorite) and had ourselves an nigh. It was enjoyable to go out and get a nice, free, home-cooked meal and to catch up with most the members in our unit.

All in all, we had a relatively quiet week. Though yesterday, we traveled to Flander’s Field and Iepers to see historic WWI locations – so my next blog should be entertaining and a little bit more enriching that this last one. See you all next week!