The anzac long weekend is a rare occasion for my work, where we are on holidays but the rest of the world continue?. I had told my friend Louise about the Gent flower festival in passing and she looked it up. She discovered that the flower festival only happens once every 5 years, and this was the year... and the upcoming weekend ("the weekend after next") was when it was on and finishing. next thing I know, we have a hostel booked, flights organised and that is where I am going for the weekend. Right.

I took the Friday off so that I could use up some of my overflowing flex time and have an extra day of exploration. As the day of my flight approached though, things started to look a bit less sure. The volcano in Iceland had closed the flight paths for most of europe and left hundreds of people stranded. The weekend before our trip, the planes were still grounded, Monday... Tuesday... Wednesday... this was not looking good. But Thursday, the airlines fought hard and got permission to fly. My flight was at 6am on Friday morning and thank goodness, it flew. Getting from Brussels airport to Gent is a breeze as there are trains directly from the airport. The hostel looked very easy to get to, being very near a tram stop that went from the train station. The reality is a little different, as there are major changes taking place throughout the centre of the city. Once it is all done I am sure it will be very beautiful, but at the moment it means it is giant dustbowl. Blech.

The buildings, however, are very pretty.

24 April

Took a day trip to Bruges by train. After a little wander we were both pretty hungry and stopped for lunch at a cafe. Fun presentation of the food, with the very yummy fresh bread coming in its own little paper bag; cute.

The city of Bruges is very pretty, and we wandered happily, checking out shops (doing a little bit of retail therapy), going through one museum, and taking a boat ride together. The boat ride in particular was a hoot, as we ended up with a merry bunch of Italian tourists, and had a bit of a giggle with them. We also enjoyed an incredible hot chocolate at the proverie tea room - I can see why they are quite famous for them!

In the evening we headed back to Ghent and found a great African restaurant for dinner... damn, where did I put their business card?

25 April

Time to go to the flower show. I really had not realised just how huge this thing was. We spent some three hours there, and I used up completely the battery in my camera long before we reached the end.

It is is hard to really see just how big this is	But this is it from another angle	Can you see... full height trees?

For our last morning, we headed to the castle to check it out. The 'interactive' listening tour is actually pretty well done, kind of flipping back from a medieval tale of the castle, to the modern actors. There were some nice views over Ghent, and some interesting bits of arms and armour.

Time to bid farewell to Ghent under construction and wend our way home. Luckily we got home ash free!

My easter trip to Amsterdam was very much last minute

The plan to go somewhere was not last minute. Aida and I had decided a few weeks before that we should meet up, it was just a matter of where.

In the end, Amsterdam was a relatively inexpensive choice for both of us. With a bit of serious web hunting I managed to track down quite a decent hotel in the centre of town for what looked like a reasonable price. Aida arrived before I did so was well and truly oriented by the time I got there.

Travelling with Aida is huge amounts of fun. We swing randomly between serious deep and meaningful conversation and hilarity. Both of us love a bit of "kulcha" but leavened with some retail therapy (mostly window shopping). An afternoon of investigating the Amsterdam historical museum was followed by a delicious 'eat what you are given' meal at an Afghani restaurant called Mantoe. Basically, you take a table, and (dietary quirks aside) the restaurant basically serves what they are cooking tonight. No choices, no decisions. I love the concept and the food.

Here though, are just a few of the highlights of the museum.

The weather was sadly pretty much miserable for our whole time here, cold at best, drizzling as the norm and pouring and hailing at the extreme, so we were forced to duck in and out of shops and doorways as we explored. Mostly we seemed to head in the one direction... towards the Jordaan.

It was in the Jordaan that Aida and I gained our certificates in cheese tasting - we are theoretically now trained cheese tasters.

On the way back to the hotel, we came across a wonderful happening in the town square: a giant pillowfight! Wish I had had a spare pillow.

Through a marvellous coincidence we found out about a concert taking place at the Paradiso by a band called the New Cool Collective. Specialising in big band jazz they play all original compositions but all sounding familiar in the way that jazz like that does. The place rocked out and we rocked out with them, throwing ourselves into the mood with abandon. We had a spot quite close to the front so could see really well, and when we went up to have our CDs signed a couple of the band members commented that they had noticed us and how much better it was playing for an audience that moved and danced instead of just standing and watching. Believe me, it would take some real effort to simply stand still when watching this group perform!

For our next dinner we chose again a foreign food, a restaurant very near Aida's friend Mia who wandered in and said hello. We arranged to come back the next day to bring her a particularly interesting Finnish dish called Mamie. This dish is apparently a traditional Finnish easter dish and seems to consist of a gooey mixture of rye and molasses. Gummy, sticking to the roof of your mouth and, well, basically pretty bloody 'orrible. I could see that potentially it could be edible with a good custard, but really I would prefer to eat the custard alone.

Mia was lovely, and I do hope we get to meet up again. Aida had to leave the day before.me. It was sad to say farewell; she really is a hoot and we do laugh a lot together.

I made up for my sadness by indulging in rather a lot of retail therapy - a new pair of shoes and raather noice designer suit.