Bruges

I caught a train from Switzerland to Bruges, with a few changes along the way. i always freak out when i have to change trains, i always think i'm going to miss the stop and be stranded somewhere. anyway, as you can imagine, Switzerland to Belgium is a bit of a hike and i didnt end up getting into Bruges until about 2am. but if you've been wondering whatever happened to the guy from the band 'simply red', i'm pretty sure he is now a train conductor.

my plan was to come to Bruges to get closer to Amsterdam, because i'm meeting my friend Sarah there at the end of the week, but also for a bit of R&R, i think i've been burning the candle at both ends for the last month, especially in Switzerland because it was so expensive to stay there, i got into my room, and just my luck, 2 guys (who later turned out to be an Aussies) were snoring there heads off. it looked like R&R was going straight out the window. i was laying there for a while, praying something mysterious would happen to him like a giant magic cork would appear out of no where and plug his mouth. after a while he turned over and stopped snoring long enough for me to fall asleep. problem was, i was woken up at the crack of dawn to the sound of drilling and banging hammers. the people at reception forgot to mention that they were having renovations. but i did see a light at the end of the tunnel. the hostel provided breakfast, and not a crappy breakfast, a half decent one. i havent been eating that well of late so i couldnt get enough of this. also when you ate at the hostels resturant you got to sample some of the beers. you can't come to Bruges without sampling beers, theres something like 160 of them to choose from. so that was a bit of a bonus. i tried one of them that was cherry flavoured, it brought back bad memories of when i had a cold or something when i was a kid, becuase it tasted a bit like medicine. i couldnt finish it.

The first day i was here i didnt really think much of it, i think it was mainly because i was tired and restless. but after the second day i started to get into the swing of things. Bruges is a cute little medieval place, its got some canels that run through it, sometimes its called 'the Venice of the north' but i dunno about that, its a pretty big call. all the things to see an do are in the old town, there isnt much out side of that. On a wednesday in the 'Grote Markt' which is big square in the centre of town, they had a food market, they roast chickens and waffles, chocolate, cheeses, fries with sauces, all the vices in life. this is where i started to enjoy being able to afford things again. actually, getting back to fries for a second, they are so mad about there fries here, they even have a museum about the humble potato and how to make the best fries, supposidly the trick to making great fries is to fry them twice

They have this Church here called the 'Basilica of the Holy Blood' which is where they supposidly keep a vile of Jesus' blood handy just in case of an emergency blood transfusion... kidding. i went there, and i'm constently amazed how the church will screw money out of people. to actually see the vile or blood you have to pay something like 20EURO's. i couldnt really give a rats behind, but its the people that really believe in God that actually pay the money that i feel sorry for. but it made me think, if we 'have' Jesus' blood, have the church allowed scientists to do DNA samples on it? and would they consider letting Jesus 'rise again' through cloning?
another churchy thing they are quite proud of here, is a Michelangelo statue of the Madonna and child they say it 'is to Bruges what the Mona Lisa is to the Louve', again, really MASSIVE call, and i didnt think it was that great but they love it.

But overall, i think Bruges is just a nice place to chill out for a bit, i did a fair bit of walking around here, they have some nice little quaint parks here where the canals run through, its seems to be where all the swans hang out. so that was nice, also the buildings here are so old and have quite a lot of character with there high pitched roofs and ornate carvings. while i was walking around i noticed a funny looking post sticking out of the ground, when i got closer i noticed it wasnt a post, it was an old cannon sticking up out of the ground. turns out it was left behind by dutch troops in the 1600's but nobody really knows when and how it got stunk in the ground like that, and why it was left there. crazy!

after a couple of days i was a bit sick of Bruge, it was nice and all but a little on the boring side. also i wanted to catch up with Celine, who i stayed with when i was in Brussels towards the start of my trip (click here to check out the Brussells post) she had just begun moving to Gent when i was in Brussels so i wanted to see how she was getting on.

first of all i forgot how nice Gent is, its kind of like it has a fascade of an old town but its got plenty of cool stuff going on around it. i think theres a arts university there so it has a studenty feel to it. i really like it there. anyway, back to Celine. Celine came from Brussels and only spoke French so moving to Gent (even though is under an hour from Brussels) is a pretty big move becuase she had to learn a whole new language, Flemish. she said learning the language was coming along, but tricky at times because she was limited in explaining herself, but her house mates sounded pretty cool and they helped her by speaking french some of the time. also she still worked in Brussels and so i imagine it would be hard to practise. but was looking at getting some work in Gent to help her use the language more.
but it sounded like she was keeping busy, she is designing some hats for a fashion show which is great news, and some of her illustration work, that she was doing while i was there last, got given the go ahead and was given some money to create it. it was really lovely catching up with her for lunch, shes such a nice person and it was great to have a conversation other than 'hostel chat'. another great thing about catching up with her was Celine has a sweet tooth and took me to an amazing cake store for some cup cakes. they were so good!

so decided that after having lunch with Celine i would head up to Antwerp and stay the night there. i'm so glad i did. from the moment i got out of the train i knew i was going to like this place. the station was really beautiful, with a massive glass arched roof. and right next to the station is a zoo, which turns out is one of the oldest in Europe. i was pretty sick of lugging my bag around by this point so i went and found my hostel. the guy that owned it with his wife, was so lovely and helpful, pointing out areas to check and what not. there place was more like a home than a hostel, that evening i sat down and watched a couple of DVD's 'Coffee and Cigarettes' which was ok, a bit hit and miss at times, but the part with Steve Coogan was gold. and the other guy in the hostel wanted to watch 'Monsters Ball' which i'd seen before but, whatever. it was great to zone out for a while and not do too much for a change.

the next day i ventured out to explore the city. and was soon kicking myself that i stayed too long in Bruges and didnt come here earlier. there were plenty of great bars, nice street art and clothing shops, supposidly some great fashion labels come from here, but i mainly checked out the vintage clothing stuff. i pretty much spent a lot of the time doing my best to get lost to try and find things that werent on the tourist map. i found a little make-shift auction that was in a market place, some of the stuff they were selling was quite good but i particulally liked the auctioneer yelling 'do-i-hear-four-euro?-four-four-four-five-euro-five-five-five-six?-once-twice-three-times-SOLD! to the man in the brown jacket" but obviously he said it in flemish, but it was cool. but, on the tourist side of things there is a couple of things to see, the house of master painter Rubens is one of them. you can see where he painted thousands of paintings (with a little help from others) as well as see a couple in the flesh. i'm not sure a huge fan so i didnt bother going in, plus a didnt have much time here because i needed to get to Amsterdam to check-in to the other hostel.

at the moment here in Belgium there is a big discussion on whether or not to devide the country between the Flemish and French speaking. one of the main partys behind this movement is from up this way and there are a few people that say that people in Antwerp at quite racist. i found that really quite hard to believe becuase i found the place extremely mulitcultural, esspecially in the 'diamond district' which is, funnily enough, where they have a big diamond trade, but its also extremely jewish part of town.

it was a pain that i spent too much time in Bruges and didnt come here earlier, i wish i spent another day or so here, there was so much more to explore. but in someways its like a little Amsterdam and i was heading to the real thing, so not to worry. i love hearing funny laws and stuff like that, while i heard while i was here that its actually legal to carry 3 grams on pot on you along as your coming from Amsterdam.

Something i found a bit annoying was i didnt meet anyone at either of the hostels that i would consider keeping in contact with. i met one american guy who was constantly googling topics in our conversation on his iPhone. and of course there were the two Australian guys who were bogans, if i were to rate them out of 10, 10 being the most bogan, i would probably give them about an 11, maybe even a 12. i just had nothing in common with them, it didnt help that we didnt get off on the right foot when they interupted my sleeping. but also they were a bit younger than me (straight out of school) so i think that might have made a difference

but i'm really looking forward to going back to Amsterdam, its easily one of my favourite places i've travelled too, but most of all i'm looking forward to seeing Sarah. i've kind of found it a little bit tricky the last couple of months being by myself, so i think hanging out with a friend will be just what the doctor ordered, more when i get there.