like something from an old movie

It's easy to spot duff planning with the benefit of hindsight and arriving in town the day after the "prestigious Ghent internation film festival" finished could be counted as a slight fail, as could arriving just in time for the first full day in town to be on the day when most visitable structures are closed. As an added bonus the place we were aiming for to get an initial coffee and cake turned out to have completely disappeared since the guide was written. This was only a problem due to some food-selling places being shut on Monday too. The place we eventually found was mildly pricey but did nice coffee, supplied additional un-asked-for cakelets and did omelettes. We'd chosen seats by the window so that we could marvel at the invigoratingly carefree attitude of the workmen digging up the pavement outside the café. Several pieces of pavement-ripping-up in Bruges seemed to progress blisteringly quickly, sometimes as much as twenty metres' cobbles being laid during an afternoon. Part of the reason for the swift work seems to be the absence of extra people to stand around holding things, watching things or otherwise doing fuck all as is practised in the UK. Whilst it takes a moment to adjust it all seems to work and we didn't see anyone get brained by the swinging-about business end of the excavator. By letting people do what they would naturally do (not walk where they're likely to get reversed into or have their toes angle-grinded off) there is no need to waste loads of time building temporary walkways and putting up loads of fences and signs telling people where to walk.

The seats had the added advantage of apparently being the usual table of the codgercouple who arrived just as we were paying and who seemed jowl-wibblingly huffsome to find their table occupied, even counter-productively butting in to try and order their stuff before the waiter had finished taking our money.

The only major tourist-style undertaking undertaken today (besides bumbling about and looking at stuff (and happily chancing upon another branch of the homewares shop I ended up not getting anything from in Bruges)) was popping up the Belfort. Though it threatened to have a lift the lift was either broken or just not being used, which suited me but which meant Nicky stayed at the bottom, correctly assuming that the presence of a lift might indicate the presence of narrow and twisty steps of the type she's not keen on. Though not particularly high (even compared to the Bruges version) the last couple of flights up to the interesting views were narrower and steeper than the narrowest and steepest bits up in the spires of the Sagrada Familia, occasionally narrow enough for the widest bit of the step to be too wide to be barely wide enough for a sideways-foot to be placed. I took some moving-pictures as well as normal pictures and might try and YouTube them before the five-day edit limit expires. As well as views of the city and surroundings (there's some excavations taking place in the square beside the bell tower at the moment which looked good from almost directly above) there's a room containing the automated chime-drum mechanism and a few old bits of machinery and clock, a chamber containing previous bells (racked-up but still pingable with fingers) and a video showing the bell-casting process and a couple of clips of people playing carillons, the keys being thwacked with half-clenched fists rather than fingered like a keyboard, a room containing nothing but the massive hour-chiming bell, one containing the two model dragons formerly posted atop the entire structure and a room showing a bit of the building beneath the tower which they've just started to poke at recently. As with all high structures it's at least worth the entry fee for the view but the additional bits (particularly the bell-manufacture process clips) are all also worthwhile.

Although it looked extremely quiet yesterday evening when I spotted it and tested the wifi the café I'm currently sitting in is now much busier to the extent that there are currently no tables not at least partially occupied and and also considerably more permissive of smoking than anyone living anywhere where fags are now banned in cafés, pubs and coffee-shops would expect. It's not overpowering and my eyes aren't nipping but it'll certainly be noticeable on my clothes tomorrow and it's lucky that having had my sense of what coffee-shops should smell like shaped in the mid-1990s that it's at least familiar. I might just sit outside it when next visiting to upload, though. It's not particularly fast (especially when uploading three pre-typed entries in as quick succession as possible) but for now it'll do. Anywhere which has an informational video-advert above the bar recommending the use of earplugs to protect the ears from loud music deserves at least a little credit, though warning against fag-smoking would hopefully save lives as well as just hair cells.

I've only just thought now that I didn't check for the presence of internet in the place we went to for a coffee and waffle at the beginning of the evening, though it would be rather anachronistic of it to have had any form of communication more advanced than a speaking-tube, given the decor. It appeared to be non-smoking but had possibly only given up after a fight and several hundred years' wall-tarring and ceiling-yellowing. It appeared to be called Mokaboom and was located on the Donkersteeg if anyone ever passes by. Nice and cheap, though as with almost everywhere over here the coffees tend to be short and kicky rather than larger and wth a better surface-to-mass ratio for lingering over. Having marked the location of the place pictured above it should hopefully be easier to find some other places nearby tomorrow, as it took a good half hour of wandering almost randomly to chance back upon this after going past this morning but not paying particular attention to the location.