Belgium- Day 4: Oostende Day 2- July 8, 2018

I had to stretch today, so I got up at 7:15. My husband K slept until 7:30. He was able to go to breakfast at 8:10, but it took me 5 minutes longer. We had a nice breakfast and then went back to the room, where he warmed up and I did cross stitch.
Finally, at 10:05, he felt it was time to leave for the Kinepolis. When we arrived at 10:20, there were two girls sitting there to check badges. They asked about mine and my husband identified me as his wife. They said I had to pay 10 Euros. I said this was the only thing I was going to and then I was leaving. They tried again and I said it made no sense to pay for something that lasted only 20 minutes. Finally, a guy who was helping out with the venue recognized my husband from last year's ClarinetFest and said he would take care of it. Later, he got the money back that the saxophone accompanist  G had been made to pay. K. didn't like that the wife had been made to pay, too, so he gave back that money himself.
My husband and G played at 10:35.  I had K's program, so that G's wife and I could know what was being played. She recorded the performance for G. The performance was excellent, of course. When they finished, we congratulated them and G, his wife and I headed out at 11:10.
I recommended the Disney sand sculptures to them and they planned to see them. They were going to a saxophone conference in Croatia tomorrow. As we passed the hippodrome, they told me about being there to watch on a big screen the Belgian game and how cool it was to be among all those fans. I said good-bye to them at the tram and I was in the hotel by 11:40 to rest a bit.
K was back around 1 and we both left at 1:10. It was 23 degrees C ( 73.4 F), but felt warmer. Once again, there were interesting buildings to photograph. We reached St. Joseph's church at 1:30, but it was closed. I decided to come by another day to visit.

 At 1:35, we reached the Mu.Zee, which had not been here, when we were in Oostende in 1999. Very oddly, the name of this art museum is only on papers on the door. You just have to know this is it. K went on to the conservatory for performances, while I paid 12 Euros admission to the museum.
Unfortunately, photos inside were not allowed. I put my purse in a locker and headed for the second floor. The building is weird in that there are two sides to the second floor that are not connected. There are a 2a and a 2b, as well as 1a and 1b. The second floor proved to be incredibly hot.The temperature improved the lower I went.

Museum exhibits reminded me of the existence of the former Belgian Congo. There was a special exhibition of African art from Kinshasa. Some of it I liked, but a lot of it was unappealing. I really liked an exhibit on the works of Belgian artists Leonard and Flouquet and Hungarian Kassak. The exhibit referred to the "architecture of images during the interwar years" and this avant-garde movement with its focus often on geometry really appealed to me. I recognized the names of magazines such as Der Sturm and De Stijl. When I got to the gift shop later, I sought out postcards of some of my favorite pieces.
It wasn't until the ground floor that I found pieces by local boys James Ensor and Léon Spilliaert. I'd already seen an exhibition on another floor devoted to Raoul Servais, an amazing animation filmmaker. I really liked the films I saw and was disappointed to not find more stills on postcards. Ensor I'd never heard of before the girls and I visited his house in 1999 and came away really not liking his work. Just too weird and focused on death for us. Since then, I've heard of him a bit more. Spilliaert was totally new to me and definitely more to my liking.   Some are weird, but others very cool. I so wish I could have taken photos!
I had a bit of a chat with the girl in the shop, even though she'd been engrossed in a book before I reached the register. We got to talking about my Capital One MasterCard and she was very surprised to hear that it pays me back. Credit cards do not do that in Europe.
I had not expected to be long in the museum, so I had postponed lunch. Unfortunately, it was 4:33, when I left and way too late to eat. I headed for the waterfront, but when I saw a park a couple of blocks north of me, I decided to head there just because and was pleased to find a cool breeze under the trees.
On my way up the street, I discovered this cool fence across the street at what turned out to be a school. As best as I can determine, it was a project for the school year 2017-2018. They wrapped the fence and made the flowers from wool. The school is the Freinetschool De Zonnenbloem, so, of course, the flowers are sunflowers. Freinet, according to Google, is a whole school movement.

 

The park turned out to be quite nice. It was so pleasant to stroll through! I took relatively artsy photos and then stumbled upon art in a pond. It is Leo Copers' Allegorische koppen, which I translated correctly as Allegorical heads. Based on a photo on a sign, the pond used to be lower in water level.

I soon realized I needed to hurry along to church. I saw the Mercator, the boat below, which the girls and I had toured. I noticed the cool juxtaposition of the old crow-stepped facades with the stair-stepped building behind, which reminded me of a cruise ship.

 

I tried to cut down a side street to save going all the way around to the street in front of the train station. However, I'm not sure it helped, as it wasn't as direct as hoped. Still, I was in church and seated at 4:53.

I wish I could say I remember St. Peter and Paul from 19 years ago, but, alas, all I remember is a paper they had with the readings and a meditation in multiple languages. They did not have that today. They did have a sheet with what seemed to be prayers and hymns in Flemish. I paid the requested amount of 0,20 Cents for the upkeep of the church and kept the sheet.
I was surprised, when K sat down next to me just before the start of Mass at 5. He'd told me he would try to catch up with me after Mass. So, nice surprise.
The priest was African and the Mass was fairly well attended for that hour. There was canned music with people singing. Most of the words to the songs were on the paper. The great thing about a Catholic Mass is that it is pretty much the same everywhere. So, when they skip something like the Creed, which they did indeed skip, it throws you off a bit. As is typical in Europe, communion was under only one species.
After Mass ended at 5:45, we roamed the church a bit taking photos. It really is quite lovely. The stained glass was unusual for having figures of Belgian kings rather than saints. Of course, relatively speaking, Belgium is a young country. The style of the Holy Family stained glass betrayed it as being rather modern. I left a couple of the rosaries that we'd made at my church back home. However, I couldn't leave too many, because folks from the ClarinetFest started converting the church to a concert space by turning the chairs toward the back. Evidently, it was to be clarinet and organ. K was not planning to attend. 

At 5:57, we exited the church to a cold wind in the shade. We headed for the street along the waterfront, the Visserskaai, and walked along it in the direction of the promenade, looking at menus as we went to find a restaurant for dinner.

We finally settled on De Maalboot at 6;15. We decided it was too chilly to eat outside, even with the protective windows. Inside, we were pointed to a table next to the window overlooking the outdoor seating.  The decor was nice, with a large model of a boat named after the restaurant- or vice versa- that seemed to be a freighter.
My coke Zero was 2,70 Euros, while his 50cl Jupiler was only 5. There were no menus in English, but the waitress said she could explain what we couldn't figure out. K chose the 18 Euro Oostends vispannetje, which was a local fish stew. I opted for vegetarische lasagna for 13,70. I discovered that, while the restaurant didn't have free WiFi, there was free city WiFi, which we used to help with translation. This free WiFi seemed to be good all along the promenade, I later discovered. Once we'd made our decisions, it took a long time for the waitress to come back for our order. It turned out, there were only two people working the restaurant, which is purely crazy.

When the food came, we both found our meals to be delicious. I did feel, however, that I had to find something other than Italian food to eat one of these dinners.
Some young people sat at the table next to us for a while, but bailed, when it was taking so long to order. Meanwhile, we were having trouble paying. K finally caught the waitress' eye about 7:45 and asked for the check. When she hadn't come by 7:51, he had to leave to reach the concert in the Casino on time. It wasn't until 8, that she brought the bill. And, then I had to wait to actually pay.
I thought about using the credit card, but rejected that as taking even more time. The bill was 39, 40, but I wound up paying 39, 30 due to the change she gave me. I said something about how long it had taken to pay and she said that there were only 2 of them. Then, don't take so many guests.
Anyway, I was finally out 8:08. I walked the promenade, looking for the dessert that I hadn't dared try to get in the restaurant. I came up on the other side of the monument and got a look at the statue at the base. I also noticed this cool older building across the street. It looked like they just build around it.

There were plenty of people on the promenade, but, perhaps, not quite so many as yesterday, since today was Sunday. I'd seen people the past two days heading down the Visserskaai toward the train station and figured they were heading home after a day at the beach.
I settled on Lilly's again at 8:42, but this time for gelato. I chose Mascarpona and Chocolade. I walked over to the other side of the promenade to sit to take this photo and start enjoying the wonderful flavors. I finished it while walking back to the hotel. I saved the cup and shovel spoon for use with my crafts.

When I got there at 8:58, I was rather aggravated to see that the maid had not noticed the empty soap dispenser by the sink. That meant reaching into the shower for soap. I had Scotch tape in my bag and planned to attach a simple note to it before heading out tomorrow.
I was rather tired, so I went to bed before K got back.