After 8 nights and 10 days living and wandering around Gentse Feesten atmosphere I’m able to describe what my 5 senses absorbed.
The city centre was packed. If I didn’t miss any main stage there were 7 spread in the old and most beautiful part of the city. Besides that, there were some tents and bars which provided us a lot of different styles of music and also gigs and anonymous groups of musicians playing on the streets. Music for every taste!
Uncountable street theatre artists. Some of them really good – those one can watch twice without blinking. After some afternoons seeing loads of them, I could already smile and nod as a greeting sign.
In the afternoon children licked the leftovers of their chocolate ice-cream on their lips while giving little steps between the clown who turned balloons into animals and the girl who made their wishes come truth when they dropped a coin for her.
Enough is not enough for Gentians so several different activities and initiatives were held everywhere. You could get in a caravan and listening some comic guys singing a song in a funny way, see ice sculptures, learn different kinds of dances – the Irish ones were definitely the funniest; you could even feel that you and the rest of the people there were a consistent dancing group and not some people who randomly gathered… - buying every stuff one can imagine in the market, eating the biggest waffle ever seen :P, drinking mint tea in a Moroccan tent, going mad on a funfair attraction, …
Good food. Good fast food. Too many carapils – cannot drink them anymore.
Best concerts: Bonobo and Boshemi – ok I should have seen more and strolled less…
Spots to be: St Jacobs plein and Boudelou Park.
Everything for free.
One of the best festival atmosphere where I have ever been.
They won! I love Gent even more! =)
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But, (there is always a but...) after 10 intensive days we realize that 10 days is way to much. That’s why the Gentse Feesten experts skip some nights in the beginning… to assure they can enjoy until the last second…
I also recognized (and I admitted it with knot in my throat…) that this isn’t my city anymore… … … my beloved ones are almost all gone… I don’t have much to do here but to face reality (this is over) and live on memories… and there is no sustainable and joyful life based upon memories.
I love my Belgian friends, but they often are away from Gent when they don’t have school… besides, it’s holydays time…
It’s time to go home…
p.s. A footnote for Ritita… Gentse Feesten wasn’t the same without you! :) I’m soooo glad I had you back in our town… Living with you, wandering and appreciating little moments, long talks until the dawn… as you said, we will still live a lot together, now I know it! :)
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