Saturday 4 April 2009

BELGIUM PT 2!

Last night in Belgium my friends... and let me say, what an interesting place (if only because I do NOT understand Dutch at ALL. This is why I need to travel around with a Liliane in my pocket). When I last left you, I believe we had one night left in Brussels... and what a WEIRD night it was. Let me just wrap it up by saying that I was given the offer of French lessons from a 60 year old Parisian if I would visit him. I believe that about sums it up. Oh and also getting surrounded by pubescent Belgians in the Grand Place later that night. I love them young.

So, the next day, we choo choo on over to Bruges. Although I haven't seen the movie (booo) it is SO ADORABLE I can barely handle it. It looks like a Disneyworld version of a town, or, as I kept saying, Genovia. You know you love me, xoxo. Cobblestone streets, canals cutting through everywhere, beautiful Northern Renaissance architecture, just picture perfect. Strangely enough, as we are checking into our hostel (Snuffels -- and may I say we are on the 2nd aka 3rd floor and there is only a rickety spiral staircase to get up... and we have a month's worth of stuff... ADVENTURE)... as we are checking into our hostel literally two minutes into it, some of Molly's friends from GW walk in the door! Talk about KISMET! So we all make friends, agree to meet up later, and then we shuffle out the door to enjoy Bruges.

Virtually all of Bruges is walkable, at least the historic, center part of town (and it only has 20,000 people that live in the center of town, so it's not huge), so we did a LOT of hoofing around squares, narrow, windy streets, and so on. We mostly walk around for the afternoon, although we did scamper in the park with the windmills for a little while, and then do the momentous task of climbing almost 400 stairs to get to the top of the BELL TOWER. Surprisingly enough, it was not that difficult! Or we just kick booty, take your pick. After saying hey boy heeey to Quasimodo, my phone interview, and a delish dinner, we pack it in for the night... but THE NIGHT WAS ONLY STARTING! Thus began one of the funniest nights I have had in a while, consisting of playing board games with Jenny, Molly, Molly's friends, and their Australian roommate... and let me tell you, nothing can beat watching someone playing Taboo try to get his partner to guess "penguin" by saying "it's a batman movie! it's an animal! it swims and has wings!" and his partner just staring at him blankly. of course then you have me and Jenny on a team -- all Jenny has to do is look at me and say "Kate wears this at the end of the movie," and I instantly guess "lifevest." Pure magic. We also broke out the monopoly, only it was the BRITISH version, so even classier. It gave me a thrill to see "Old Kent Street" even though it was only worth about 60 quid. 

So, after a fantastic (albeit smoky) night, we spend today doing much of the same: walking around town, taking a canal cruise, and going into two churches that actually have remarkable things. One church has a statue of the Madonna and Child by Michelangelo (and a wedding that we creeped on later that afternoon.... bride's dress was kind of ug, but they had an old-school party bus that made us happy), and another church had a vial containing some of Christ's blood. It was actually a very solemn, special, and unique experience. 

As for now, we're taking a break before heading out for one last Belgium-ish meal (waffles and fries DUH), then heading to Amsterdam tomorrow! Helllllllo, Holland!

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