22. Surviving

For those of you who have not had the distinct pleasure of meeting my father, I am sorry. He is a very intelligent, goofy, and, most importantly, punny man. If I ever crack a joke that makes you groan, he is to blame.

Why do I bring this up? The title of this post, of course! If you have met my father, you know that when someone, especially a stranger or unsuspecting store clerk, asks "How are you?" his response is almost always "Oh...Surviving."

This is not to be confused with the actual sentiment that I wish to convey: I am, in fact, surviving, despite nature's all-out assault. I got up early, snagged a shower and some breakfast and headed to Ghent. I wandered from the train station through a park and into a GINORMOUS GOOSE. I stopped. I waited to see where he and his friends wanted to go. Apparently I was in the way, so I moved. He mirrored my movements and headed straight for me. I moved again, this time diagonally backwards. He changed course and charged. I shrieked like a little girl. He flew away. Jerk.

Then I fled quickly to the botanical gardens. They were lovely. Small, but lovely. Lots of trees. With spiders. Apparently I look like little Ms. Tuffet. No curds and whey here, people! And then---did I mention that I was the only one in the botanical gardens at this point?---I was traipsing through the woods, singing good morning songs to the birds. No, seriously. I was. What do you mean people don't do that? Who do you hang out with, because it is obviously not me. {insert eye roll here}

Traipsing and Singing. Goooood morning! I am on a rock paaaaaaaaaaath! It is lovely!!! Tra-la-la-la-leeeeeeee! and boom! FROG ATTACK!!!!!!! It jumped on my foot! I think it may have peed on me...

So I ran back to a paved path. Obviously. As I made my way to a greenhouse, a cat pounced out of nowhere. That is what cats do, after all. Pounce. Hiss. Meow. Then it came for me. I was past my limit at this point and this cat looked wild. At least like an outdoor cat. Clearly I ran away but, much like the goose, the cat chased me. Bah! foiled! foiled again! I finally evaded the cat and ran into a building. That contained nothing but offices and toilets. damn. I used the toilet (free ones are hard to come by in Europe) and when I exited the building, the cat was waiting for me!!!!!!!! I kind of faked it out and ran, but I think the cat thought that we were playing and long story short, scratch. But at least not a bit, because I am pretty sure rabies shots are not fun.

It is probably a good thing that I did not go to the carnivorous plants house...

I then proceeded to do stuff (eat Belgian Waffles) and see things (The Adoration of the Lamb, a cathedral, climb the Belfry, a Castle) and then I escaped to Bruges where I also saw stuff (Michaelangelo's Madonna and Child, a castle that I can't spell because Dutch is a ridiculous language) and did some things (free harp concert! street vendor exploring).

As I navigated through both of these fine cities, I could nto help but notice that, devoid of the dual French/Dutch street names like Brussels, I found myself incapable of reading, let alone pronouncing any street names. They all came out as "Dresde-dorffle-gloop" or "Schtarffle-garffle-mooff." They all look like gibberish. I am not trying to be culturally insensitive: their words are just made-up. That is all that there is to it.

Oh and I got sunburn on my forehead. I must have missed a spot. It looks funny. And it is peeling into my eyebrow, so it looks like I have eyebrow dandruff.

But there is more! Nature continues the attack. Apparently my body does not like my post-Contiki sleeping schedule. I have been going to bed so late (10pm) and getting-up so early (7am) that I am sick. So, more sleep than I get on any given work night is not enough, apparently. My camera battery died just as I was leaving Bruges (phew!) so I put it in to charge as soon as I got in. With nothing to do but wait, I decided to have a bit of a nap before heading out for some fun. It was Saturday night, after all! Not in the cards. I woke up at midnight, figured I had missed everything and rolled over. I woke again around 4 because of a sudden, cacophonous burst of Portuguese music, rolled over. I woke for realsies at 9:30am. Just in time to catch some breakfast before leaving to go to church. Yay?

I toured the Royal Palace after mass. Lovely! I want it in my back yard. The park, though, just sucks. Royally. Pun intended. See opening remarks. Also, I went pee in a palace. And I stole some royal toilet paper. Yay! Also, ALSO! when I got done with the tour, I just started all over again. Heee. The ballroom was my favorite. John, remember when we went to Versailles? It was like that, but less mirrors and more chandeliers. And, also like Versailles, there was a random art exhibit in the middle of everything ruining all of my photos!! Lame. At least it wasn't smiley faces again. It was just "faces" as the theme. Faces and masks. Weird. The exhibit labels were so informative, too. "Mask." "Tribal mask." "Ceremonial Mask." I could not make this up, people. But it was still lovely. Especially the room with a green chandelier.

Mass, by the way, was in French. I can handle that. I cannot, however, handle getting legitimately scolded for giving the responses in English. I did not think that I was being loud or distracting. I guess she also has some problems with saying "And with your Spirit".