This week has been pretty uneventful in Gent but there were some highlights...

On Wednesday we all went to eat at this local Italian place that we had gone to almost every night for dinner. The pizza, baked lasagna, and calzones are all so good. Our waiter came and took our order. While the food was baking, the waiter and owner started to get into an argument about something. I think it was along the lines of the owner wanted the waiter to do something that the waiter I guess didn't think was his responsibility. They spoke in Flemish for almost every word except for the curse words. As the argument progressed, there was increasingly more and more English. Finally the owner kicked him out, fired him, and told him never to come back. All the while we just watched and kept eating. It was all pretty humorous for us. We were certain that they were going to start throwing down but it didn't happen. But I guess we did get a free show with our dinners.

On Thursday, Ryan and I took an afternoon trip to Antwerpen, Belgium. It is considered the Diamond capital of the world, where over 80% of the world's diamonds pass through. There were streets upon streets of nothing but jewelers. Ryan was there to buy some diamonds so we found the store he was looking for and walked in. There was only a lobby. A woman came and asked Ryan a few questions and had hime fill out a card. She then directed us to go upstairs where we had to walk through two security doors and another woman met us coming through the last door. She then helped Ryan get what he was after. Meanwhile I walked around a little in an area where you could observe through windows men cutting, shaping, and polishing uncut diamonds. After that we walked around the city for a while, snapping pictures here and there. I also had my official Belgian waffle. It was very, very good; it had an apple filling and it was all I could do not to buy 3 more.

Today (Saturday), we went downstairs to the hotel restuarant for breakfast and were sitting there eating when I looked outside and saw two men fighting in the street. One was a skinny guy and the other was a little shorter and fat. The fat guy kept trying to get ahold of the skinny guy so he could connect on his hay maker. The skinny guy was using the kick-to-the-shin and swing at the head technique. He never really connected because he had to stay just far enough away so the fat man could not grab him. Eventually, the plice arrived and bum rushed the skinny guy. Of course he kept restraining so the police got pretty physical with him. While this was going on, the fat guy was trying to casually walk off like he wasn't involved. About 3 min after they tackled the skinny guy they jogged off to try to find the fat guy. All the while we are sitting inside the restuarant drinking our juice and eating our croissants. It was very entertaining!