In Bruges. 4/12/10.

What a fitting title.
We were in Bruges, Belgium for the day on Saturday, and I must admit, it was certainly an experience...

Could not for the life of me get to sleep the night before, and woke up a bit later than anticipated, left my passport** in my drawer with all my important documents, realized this before we got to the metro but decided not to go back** in order to arrive on time at Gare Lille-Flandres, where we acted like super tourists and took a group photo before departure...


Hopped onto the train, all was well. Our fine regional train started chugging along, but had not made it more than 5 minutes before an emergency alarm sounded and we came to a stop on the tracks. It was a bit scary, and Georgie was not pleased at all. After sitting around for 10 minutes sans un mot from anyone with authority, we finally began moving again. Several more minutes passed, and the alarm went off again. Turns out some crazy and possibly drunk man on the train desperately wanted to get off, so he kept pulling the alarm to get the conductor's attention? Bizarre. Otherwise, a fairly pleasant journey, until we were told we'd have to make a connection in Kortrijk in order to continue on to Bruges. Fine, fine, we all exited at Kortrijk upon arrival at the station, went down below the rails and were stepping onto the escalator to come back up to the top at our new platform and........ the escalator malfunctions. Turns into stairs. Completely stops moving. Well, not completely, seeing as it MOVED BACKWARDS. And considering I was on the very first step that comes out of the floor (Yeah, you know what I mean, I'd like you to try to explain it...), it RETRACTED. Disappeared! Went back and disappeared into the floor again. So what did I do? I fell. There was a collective scream from everyone. Laura touched a man's butt. Christine stepped on me. We were all in hysterics (a combination of laughter and tears and panic, but mainly laughter) for several minutes afterwards. My knee is fairly bruised, but at least my tights didn't rip. (I was a bit underdressed for the snowy weather, but I had been out of clean socks, so I've been wearing my wool socks over tights in my rain boots for the past few days...) In any case, I'd sworn off escalators for the rest of the trip.

(Aforementioned hysterics.)


Next train was bumpy, but we spent our time conversing and all was well, and we arrived in Bruges without more problems. We wandered into the town and lunched in a little place with big, yummy portions of spaghetti (which was a bit silly, considering I eat a fair bit of pasta on a weekly basis anyway..) Jovial times.

(She looks so good in Iowa garbbb!)

From there, we entered the city and explored the Christmas Market located right in the main square and a bit of the town.


Headed off to the CHOCOLATE MUSEUM, which was kind of frustrating and too packed, but I bought the most absolutely delicious chocolate creation I have ever tasted:
chocolate over speculoos cream.
Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

(Chocolate demonstration!)

(Speculoos flavor! Let's see what's inside!)
(SPECULOOS CREAM? SHOCK. SURPRISE. HEAVEN.)
Went to the French Fry Museum (more interesting to me, but small and quick and without a free sample :(.)

(HAPPY AS A POTATO.)(Hope this doesn't bring any bad memories back, Jeremiah..)

From there, we mainly meandered some more. Found the most perfect little shop to buy specialty teas and teapots and kettles and it was just lovely! Bought some Belgian chocolates (all already have been consumed...). Wanted to buy more Belgian chocolates.

We decided to have a beer and chat until we had to get back to the station for our train, so we did so, just as the weather took a turn for the nasty. Upon arrival at the Bruges train station, we learned that our scheduled train wasn't even running, so we'd have to wait an extra hour and go through Kortrijk again. Not good news, especially as Jeremiah wasn't feeling so great. But we made it through, enjoyed our day together in the snow in quaint Bruges, and were home by 11pm.


(Please note Georgie and one-legged me in the background...)(No idea what the point of us posing was...)

(An almost successful photo...)
**Passport/not returning to get it and bring it with me:
There's this thing in Europe called the "Schengen Agreement". It covers a large part of Western Europe and allows for free travel between other Schengen States (read: sans passport). Thus, despite having traveled across the border between France and Belgium, the Schengen Agreement renders them effectively "borderless" and passport/ID checks are really rare. Luckily for me, really.