Author: Zhaoyang

(这篇中英文在一起) English and Chinese will be in the same post …

Friday, July 6

Today is our last day in Ghent. In the morning, we returned to our AirBNB and now the water situation has returned to normal. We enjoyed our morning tea and coffee on the roof balcony, washed some clothes, checked my autumn class schedule, etc. The morning was very relaxing.

At noon, I have an important thing to do, and that is to meet an old friend, Helen! She came to visit on an intercity train from a city in Germany called Aachen, near the border with Belgium. She and I first met when I had just arrived in California, and we were in an English class together at an adult school in Mountain View. She left California to return to Germany about six years ago and I was particularly happy to see her today in Ghent! We had lunch together, took a small boat tour in Ghent, and then drank a Belgian beer together to catch up on the time, to talk about politics and talk about life.

中英文在一起

Thursday, July 5th

If you see me wearing a fisherman’s hat in later photos, it’s not because I particularly like this hat, but it’s because I have to wear it ~~~~ After more than 20 days of wind and sun, my face finally couldn’t hold up, especially around my nose and mouth. The skin under my nose became like leather and scratchy like a layer of cockroaches. 😭😭😭 I bought two bottles of PF50 sunscreen and moisturizer in a pharmacy in Paris but it seems that it still didn’t improve. Today I went to a pharmacy here in Ghent. The salesperson recommend a moisturizer for inflammation and post-operative skin care. She had a look of apology and even helped me to check if it was some sort of a disease. Finally, in order not to let my face get shackled by the sun, I bought this big hat, plus I added my own shoe lace hat band that prevents the hat from being blown away by the wind (really with shoe laces) … I feel a little more practical. 😅