my name is mwd

Last weekend I was in Gent at a workshop at the University there. Thankfully getting to Belgium is quite easy thanks to the proximity of the Eurostar (it’ll be even easier next year once the Eurostar comes into King’s Cross), and the Eurostar is quite comfortable. A nice bonus is that also you can get to any Belgium station on the Eurostar ticket - win. Gent was very cold and dull, just like Cambridge was when I left it, but despite that I was exposed to some of it’s charms thanks to Fluf, a friend I know from hanging out on Ars Technica’s IRC channels. He took to around, including to a wonderful kitsch cafe called the Pink Flamingo, which contained a chandelier made from numerous barbie dolls, which I’ve failed to capture at all in this picture:

Gent also seems to have an amazing desity of huge churches/catherdals/etc. (I’m sufficiently ignorant about religious matters I can’t tell the difference). I’m sure in the sun it would have been a nice place to look at :) As it was I settled for some nice food and the ever nice Belgium beer…