Day 2 in Gent, Belgium – a Tuesday – so there was way more life in the streets compared to Monday when most businesses were shut down.  

Is it Gent or Ghent you ask?  It’s Gent here with the H added for the English spelling.  We’ll stick with Gent.  As in “He’s the hairy handed gent who ran amok in Gent, lately he’s been overheard in Mayfair.”  

Rhymes with bent.  

I bought a public transit day pass (a Vervoerbewijs) for 7.5 euros and rode the tram all over the place.  A couple of the lines pass through narrow, congested streets in the city center.  In stretches, there can be just six feet or so of separation between the outer side of the tram and shop storefronts.  It’s visually thrilling when you stick crowds of people in between with the tram moving at a good clip.  

Without an agenda in a city I don’t know, I really like to explore via the take-the-train-and-see-where-it-takes-me method.  It puts you with the real people and produces moments and lasting images way beyond what the guidebook touts.  

As an aside, have you heard about the kid from NYC’s upper west side who has become somewhat of a celebrity because he’s cuckoo about riding the subway?  It started off as a Patch piece and then went viral to the point the MTA is making him a poster child of sorts to counter the public’s fear about the current level of danger down there.  The kid is three years old!  He rides the train with his parents holding his hands.  It’s cool but the coverage of his exploits is overstating the amazingness and uniqueness of what he’s doing given his inability to process all that goes with riding a train in NYC these days. 

Weather was nice here Tuesday.  60 degrees with sun moving in and out of clouds.

I had broccoli soup at Souplounge on Zuivelbrugstraat.  It was excellent.  5.5 euros with a roll and an apple.  Earlier in the day, I had the bolognese sauce on a bowl of penne from a small stand at the Gent-Sint-Pieters train station.

Tomorrow, I go to Paris on a three-segment train trip.