Day 36-38

We hopped on the train and sat in the first class area for about 20 minutes before we were surprised to find out where we were via one of the crew and sent to the regular area. But it was well worth it ;). Arrived in Bruges at 5:15pm, it was getting dark, but we found our hostel, which was a great deal of only 28 euro for two nights! And we had our own room! After we threw down our bags we headed out in the dying sunlight, already this city screamed character. Everywhere we looked there were 400 year old houses or towering churches and buildings. Canals ran about through the city. This city is absolutely beautiful, as you can see by the pictures... I don't think my eyes were ever set in front of me. I was constantly looking up, around, everywhere. I do think that is how you can tell if someone is from wherever you are - if they are only looking straight when they are walking, the appreciation of the beauty of the city either left them or they never realized all of it that is surrounding them. Anyway, we headed down every cobblestone street and quickly found ourselves at a pasta shop, 3 euro for a giant cup of pasta with almost any sauce you could think of. A great deal! We had that, then headed in around 8pm. A free breakfast buffet is served from 8am to 930am at the hostel, and we intended to make it. I headed downstairs after a quick nap around 9pm, got a 1 euro pint during happy hour and bought a half hour of internet time. After that it was back upstairs for bed time!

An early 7:30am wakeup was in store for us today. But I was wide awake, thankfully. After all we did get a good 8-9 hours of sleep. I pounded all the food there was to offer at the breakfast buffet, filling up on oats&dried fruit, and toast. Followed by a few cups of coffee and a few cups of chocolate milk. We rented some bikes for 6 euro and set off on a 10 hour adventure. The city of Bruges isn't too big, I would say it was around 10km to bike the circumference. And that is just what we did. There were only 4 entrances into Bruges back in the castle days, they all were guarded by huge towers and gates. We saw 3/4 of these during our bike ride. Got an all-inclusive museum pass for 5 euro and went to a few. We saw where supposedly Christ's blood in contained behind a sanctuary in a church. We went to a lake filled with swans, where ancient nuns use to roam around. We climbed the 366 steep steps of the Belfry, where the treasure use to be held, and saw the city of Bruges from a birds eye view. We went on a boat tour throughout the canals of the city. We saw an original Michaelangelo creation. We went to every tower, every building, every nook and cranny of Bruges. We saw windmills, and we saw waffles. Basically saw it all. I'd say a good 80% of the streets containing stores had this layout: restaurant, waffles, chocolate, beer, fries, waffles, chocolate... and so on! After a huge day of countless hours of bike riding we headed in around 6pm. Immediately passing out and falling in and out of sleep until around 830pm. The girls went to get ready at about 7:45pm, and I didn't see them until well after 9pm! So, being that there was supposedly a bell concert at the belfry at 9pm, I went to go see it. Unfortunately, someone got their info wrong, and there was no concert - so I went to see if this local spaghetti place was open, where they serve huge portions for 3 euro, it was also not happening. What a disappointing jaunt. When I got back the girls were in, we decided we were going to spend our last night in Belgium honoring their love for beer. But before we did that, we had to get some food in our tummys! Off to the market square, there are two identical fry stands here. Same menus, same price, different families. These two fry stands have been competing since 1896! Shannon went to one, Rebecca and I went to the other. We told our guy that we were testing both of them, and I think that gave him some extra incentive to treat us oh so nicely. We got free samples of multiple sauces and he gave us a huge portion. The fries were delicious, they both were, I decided our guy was better - but I could be biased. We washed down our fries with some Leffe Blond beers, which was one of my favorites on the trip. I believe it was 6.6%, nothing compared to what was to come.

After fries I had a mental map of where the next two pubs were, apparently I refused to bring the map... anyway, turns out the first place we were going was down a two foot wide alleyway. We had to ask our fry guys where it was. But after we got there we all ordered Garre's, which is at the restaurant De Garre, and is also the only place in the WORLD that you can get this beer. It was very satisfying, and set the night off right. From there I actually managed to get us to our next destination, Bruges Beertje, a local pub with over 100 Belgian brews and a good atmosphere. We stayed there for our next two pints until late night having some quality conversation. My first beer I got was a Stradik Hendrik (don't quote me on the spelling), which is in the picture, it was a 9%-er. Also delicious. The next I had was called Delirium, and going by the name, was also a potent one, 9.9%-er. We were the last ones in the pub, chatted with the bar keeps for a bit then headed back towards the hostel. On our way back we popped into a local mini-mart for one last brew, I got a Kastelsteen (or something like that), and drank the 11%-death-wish right before bedtime. Great night!

Now when I woke up at the crack of dawn the next day I was not feeling so awake. But I toughed it out and lumped down the stairs to breakfast. I definitely got my fill, the girls even left me before I was done eating! A big bowl of cereal, and five pieces of toast, coupled with some tea and lots of water. I sat down with some guys from the netherlands and one from Sao Paulo, Brazil. We talked about traveling and places to go, things to see, it was a lot of fun... and now I was ready to go once again. Checkout was at 10am, so being it was 9:45, this was first on the agenda. We got all our stuff out and put it in the storage, it was now approaching 11, and we had to get a bus to the train station around 3. Four hours left in Bruges. The girls had already told me they wanted to go shopping and take it easy. So when I was planning this day out the day before, I pictured I would go to a few museums, walk around the town and then call it a trip. But then I thought about it a little more, and decided to rent a bike once again! Now that I have endless opportunity in front of me, I looked at a map, asked some people where somewhere cool to go was. The consensus answer was a town called Damme, 8km away. I was gone. Yet, I couldn't find the road to get to Damme, so I asked a jogger if he could help me out. He literally jogged with me as I rode next to him for 15 minutes until we reached the road. During that time we talked about a wide array of topics, (which was impressive he could hold a conversation during this!) he told me a little about the history of Bruges and some other places he has lived in. And then I got to the road, which is in the picture posted, it was such a peaceful time for me. Just riding a bike. I got to Damme a little before 12. It was a small town out in the countryside - there were miniature horses and houses. From there I rode another 12km to a castle in a nearby town, which unfortunately, looked nothing more than a castle-house. Not to mention the wind was at incredible speeds... directly into my face... making my bike riding seem as if I was on an elliptical at the gym, hell I might as well have been! But I finally made it back to Bruges, with a good 2 hours to spare! I went down every alley, saw every tower, every old house, everything. I could draw a map of Bruges from memory. It was great. From there I headed over to the modern art museum, but apparently my all-museum pass fell out during my bike riding around the city. Hopefully some other tourist picked it up because it still had another full day left on it! I still went to the museum, which was closed, but the viewing deck was open on the top floor, and I chatted up the receptionist and I was let through without paying ;). What a deal right? Another beautiful panoramic of Bruges. I stayed up there for a while, I was all alone on top of a towering building in a different country, and it was great. I then headed into the market square and people watched for a bit, mostly just relaxing from my bike ride. I tried to get food, but no where would accepted swipe cards, and I was flat out of money. . . so I decided to spend my last 45 minutes in a locally praised book store. I was talking to the owner for a few minutes, and then he took me to a section in the back that had academic and philosophy books. I was overwhelmed, there were writings by Plato (unfortunately, these were in dutch), others dating back to the 1500s, countless Egyptian hieroglyphic deciphered books, ancient roman works, books about spells and witchcraft... I found a few I truly enjoyed, I figured I would pick them up to read on the train/plane home... but I was only to find out at the end that the book store, also, did not accept swipe cards...

We went to the train station not knowing when a train would be arriving, and seeing as 20 people were killed in a train crash the day before in Brussels - unsure if one would be arriving at all. Workers were on strike in the French side of Brussels, but luckily we got into the train station at 3:50 to find a train leaving at 3:58, we rushed over and jumped on. Off we go.

We made it to Brussels, got on our bus, got trucked back to the airport, where we waited for our plane... and once again, off we went...

Edinburgh, home sweet home, for now.