I ride my bicycle!!

Ok so I don't really have a bicycle...however I thought I'd take this time break from my studies to tell you about all the bikes in Gent. No I don't mean Harley's.

You see Gent is about the size of Tulsa, Oklahoma but in Belgium it is known as a university town. I think the University I go to has some 26,000 students. However because the city...and the whole country for that matter....is flat everyone uses a bicycle. I mean EVERYONE. I guess the high gas prices don't help things either. When Cherith and I first got here we were considering renting a bicycle from the school. I asked the study abroad coordinator how often bikes are used. He said he rides his to work every day and has only had to use the tram once because of bad winter weather. There are fleets of bikes everywhere in this town. However make sure you have a good lock because otherwise it just might be indefinitely 'borrowed'.

Here are a few pictures from around the train station. It is the best place to find hordes of bikes, especially on the weekend when many of the students hope on the train to go home.

The bright yellow ones are the ones you can rent by the month from the school. They are actually really good quality.

The difference between Belgium and the U.S. can be seen in the bicycles. Except for the school bicycles, everyone here rides rickity bicycles. They are completely rusted and make horrible noises as they are ridden around. If this were the U.S. everyone would have nice shiney new (or at least look new) bicycles plated with chrome, spoilers, oversized tires, etc. I think the difference is quite humorous.

I'd have to say that the multitude of bikes and the occurrence they are used was the first thing that stuck out to us about Ghent. So why are we just getting around to sharing it with you? I guess we were just saving the post up and never got around to it, oh well. :)