Lloyd Coffee Eatery in Gent has become a home-away-from-home for me.  And what makes a home?  People.

As servers start recognizing me as a regular, they learn my name.  And their “Hi” is beyond the usual employee/customer interaction.

Gilian is one of those.  He’s around 20, I’d guess.  When he’s not super busy, he approaches me to talk.  A gift right there … initiating contact.

And Gilian has questions:

Do you know how to escape from an alligator?

Okay … I wasn’t expecting that.

The answer was no.  So Gilian enlightened me …

Alligators don’t see movement well, so walk away from them in a zig zag pattern and you’ll be fine.

Good to know.  I’ll be in fine shape the next time I encounter an alligator on the Korenmarkt.

More recently, the subject was lobsters.  I’m pretty sure they don’t move as fast as alligators.

Do you know the colour of lobsters’ blood?

I had to admit my ignorance on the subject.

Blue

Huh?  Gilian was continuing to scatter my brain cells.

One more time … with feeling:

Do you know that snakes can predict earthquakes?

Uh … no

Sadly, I didn’t find out exactly how these slithering reptiles do that.  And I’m heroically resisting the pull of AI.

Fill me in next time, Gilian

Thanks for the engagement