checking in...

Well, this is proving difficult.  Days are pretty much filled with seeing things, so publishing things takes time.  Mostly our itinerary includes a morning tour, lunch, then an afternoon tour leading up to cocktail hour.  So spending a couple of hours sharing our experience is hard. Stop complaining Feeder!   Okay….

A short note about..... food!

we do have pretty good fare on board:

(by the way, i did NOT drink any of those, a good Dry Manhattan story eventually)

But we did also get to sample stuff ashore, like

the famous Belgian Frites (and a local Belgian from the Haacht brewery), as sampled at a little corner café in the Market Square in Ghent.  And yes, that is mayonnaise, and yes, that IS ketchup hiding back there, as served in a place that somewhat catered to tourists, mostly Americans.  While I enjoyed the fries, MFO also tried some ice cream.  They do nothing by halves

While the above were good, the ketchup kind of threw me off a bit.  Fortunately one of the side excursions was a “tasting tour” of Antwerp, with a stop at a "local" place

This was in a “local” place and you will note there is none of the red stuff.  

A side note about the “frites”.  Mostly I ask, and yes they are AWAYS double fried.  For the “local” ones above, I also inquired about the fat used.  As you know, in our country, Duck Fat is very trendy.  Anyway the answer came back from the kitchen:  Ox Fat!!  Oh, my!  Most of the ones I have sampled have been good despite looking like something we see fairly often in the states.  They have better flavor, and are more crunchy.   As for they Mayo, I think that will take a bit of getting used to

Well, in the interest of time, I am going to pause here.

We have seen a lot. And there will be more  reports to come.  For those of you who dabble in Facebook, I do try to post more pictures there..

we will cover more ship board food in the future, and also a comment on some of the fellow traveler’s habits of

DFD