Belgium - Holland
Before breakfast we pondered what to do with the day. Should we stay, visit Ghent, go on to Brugge, or head back to Hoogeveen. Much depended on whether a room might be available in the old historic centre of Ghent where we wanted to go yesterday. We phoned the tourism office in Ghent and asked if the accommodation situation had changed from yesterday.
We were told one of the hotel prospects from yesterday had a vacancy. We called there and reserved a room for one night.
Over breakfast we had second thoughts, and were leaning toward going back to Hoogeveen. We decided to go to the train station in Ghent and get the train travel folks to show us a schedule for travel to Hoogeveen. If the travel would get us in to Hoogeveen too late in the evening, we would spend the day in Ghent.
At the Ghent station we found out we could get to Hoogeveen by 6:15 pm, with a departure out of Ghent at 12:30. We decided to go.
Now we had to call Hero and Marty to let them know of our arrival time. The only public phone available required a prepaid phone card, not Visa. I approached a couple of policemen and asked if there was any other way of making a telephone call to Holland.
One of them said to me, "Is it an emergency, say 'yes'."
I said, "Yes."
He said, "Follow me," and took me into the police office. I gave him the number and he dialed it up for me and handed me the phone. Marty answered and I had a conversation with her in dutch, to update her on our travel plans and our arrival time in Hoogeveen. She said she would meet us at the train station.
The policeman complimented me on my dutch and asked where I was from. I told him I was born in Holland, but came to Canada just before my 7th birthday. I also told him I retired from the RCMP after 31 years of service. He said he'd always admired the uniform of the RCMP. It was a nice chat and I thanked him for his kindness in letting me use the phone.
Since there was an internet 'hotspot' in the station, I intended to send an email message to the hotel in Ghent to cancel our booking. No such luck, however.
Unlike other 'hotspots' that charge for connection time through a credit card directly, this one requires you to register and apply for a minimum of 24 hours. They will then send a message to your email address with a username and password.
Question: How are you supposed to retrieve that message without access to your internet email account?
Useless. The Dutch refer to this (in a kind way, I’m sure) as ‘Belgian logic’.
We had lunch at the station restaurant and risked indigestion from eating it so fast. They seemed to take their sweet time in the kitchen and only brought it to the table 15 minutes before our departure time.
It was time to go - before we look like this ...
We switched trains in Antwerp and at Amsterdam's Schiphol station. Then on the train to take us to Hoogeveen, with stops at Amersfoort and Zwolle, but without having to switch trains.
At Schiphol we had a one hour wait, so I used the internet café to send a message to the hotel in Ghent. However, it was immediately returned as undeliverable.
Hero and Marty met us at the Hoogeveen train station. We had a lovely dinner with them at home and, like excited children, told them all about our experiences.
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