Brugge!

Friday, November 4th, 2011

Well, I officially suck at blogs in the month of November. Considering that I wrote like absolutely nothing from the month of December... So, sorry to those of you who is trying to follow my life on here. If anybody is other than my parents... And, well, I did have to wait about 2 weeks to get pictures from Brugge, because about halfway through the day my camera died, and since Brugge is like THE prettiest city in Belgium, there is no way you make a blog post about Brugge without photos. So, it wasn't completely just me procrastinating. :)

Well, considering that this happened forever ago, there is the chance that I might not be the best at recalling the details. But then again, maybe once I start to think about everything it will all come flooding back. You never know... So I had made plans at the beginning of the week to go to Brugge with Katie, and some other random Belgian exchange students on our little Exchange Students in Belgium Facebook group. Even though I didn't really know the other kids going, in general exchange kids are just pretty amazing, and I had heard that Brugge was absolutely beautiful so I hopped on the chance of going. Then, the night before, Katie texts me saying she had had some troubles or something with her host mom agreeing to let her go, and I was left going with just 3 other people that I didn't even really know. I debated on whether I really wanted to go or not, considering that I didn't really know the others, but I decided that I was just going to make new friends because I had had something like this happen to me when a whole bunch of people were planning on meeting up in Brusssels, but I didn't really know any of them, so I didn't go and I definitely regretted it. I left early in the morning, don't remember exactly what time, but I knew that I was exhausted by the time I got on the train. I was by myself for a while, but once the train passed the main Liege stop, I decided to get up and look around and I recognized some exchange students. The seat next to them was full, so I had to just chill in my own seat and listen to my iPod for a bit, but then a few stops later the man got off and I got to talk with them.

I hadn't ever really talked to the three people before, but at least I recognized them! About halfway through the train ride (it was something ridiculous like 2 1/2 to 3 hours or something...), a random dude came up to us and started talking to us in English. Don't know why, but whenever someone does this I always become surpised. Even though I know that TONS of Europeans can speak very good English, I never expect people to stop and talk with me. Turns out he was an exchange student quite sometime ago, or something like that. He stood there and talked to us for forever, and at first was really nice, but it was kinda awkward towards the end because our conversation with him had clearly ended and he still stood there by us and listened to our conversations and tried putting in his two sense. He was just being a little bit too annoyingly nice. And he told us that we shouldn't go to Brugge, because it is boring and a dead, old city, but instead go to Ghent because that is where all of the good things were. Umm, ok?

When we first got there, we walked out of the train station happy to be in Brugge after such a long train ride, and then we realized that we had no idea where we were going. We didn't even really plan anything to do, we just all hopped on the train and went. Luckily, there was a book store right next to the train station so we popped into there, looked at a book about Brugge that was in English, and found a decent map that we looked at for a bit. But then, after a little bit of walking we realized we hadn't really looked at the map good enough. So we just followed the large masses of people, and decided that we would use the large cathedral that could be easily seen as our destination, figuring that it would be in or near the center of the city. We definitely took the long, round about way, but eventually we got there! I found this quote recently, and I decided that it pretty much sums up an exchange student's life, because we just go with as little planning as possible.

“Tourists don’t know where they’ve been, travelers don’t know where they’re going.” – Paul Theroux

First real look at Brugge... And it's already breathtaking <3

Michela and I

"Let's just get to the cathedral, I am sure it's near the center!"

Another church! Not actually really sure which one we decided wasin the center... Ha

Brugge = Dutch speakers. Luckily almost everyone spoke excellent English!

After a little while of wandering, we found our way to the center of Brugge. And I discovered that, at the least the main place of Brugge, just looked a lot like Grand Place in Brussels. But still different, and definitely beautiful. By the time we had taken the long train, and wandered around looking for the actual center, most of us were very hungry and we decided to stop for lunch. Of course, us being cheap exchange students, the only good option was a friterie, so I had some frites for lunch. The other 2 girls I was with were smart enough to bring there own lunch... Now me, I would do that, if I wasn't such a bad morning person who can barely even get ready on time!

Centre de Bruges! Corey kept getting in my way... -__-

Main Transportation for the Dutch = Bikes

After lunch, we decided we would try and find the canels that Brugge is famous for. This time, we didn't even have to wander too far and we found them quite easily! They were just gorgeous, absolutely breathtaking. And with all of the different colored fall leaves, stunning. After we got after the intial shock of the canels, we noticed that you could take a little boat ride through them for not too much money. So we decided to go on that, but first we had to go back to the main area not more than a 5 minute walk away and get some money out... Because nobody but Corey had money on them. Once we got back we had about 20 minutes to kill until the next boat left. We just walked around right by the boat place, looked at the tiny little market they had going on (which, unfortunately, wasn't all that exciting...), and I hopped into one of the little chocolate shops and bought myself a little treat. I got this thing that was basically a rice krispie, but covered in chocolate. But even better. I had seen people walking around with them, and since I hadn't seen them in my part of Belgium, I figured it was either a Brugge or Dutch thing and I wanted to try it out. and boy, was it delicious. Unfortunately, right before we got onto the boats, my camera's batteries died and I didn't have any more. But then Corey said that I could use his camera to take any pictures I wanted, and I was grateful for that.

Another random but cool building on the way to the canels!

<3

So, we hopped onto the boat and started our tour. And, not even 5 minutes in, Corey's camera dies and we are left to rely only on Michela. The boat ride was pretty cool, because we got to see the prettiest parts of Brugge in a unique and different way, and from a different view than you could get from the streets. Plus, it was a lot faster. Like we covered the same ground that would probably take a couple of hours in about 45 minutes. Seriously, everything was just so beautiful there. And it reminded me again why exactly fall is my favorite season. We had a tour guide, who was actually doing the tour in like 3 or 4 different languages, but since he had to say things over and over in all of the languages for everyone to understand (Brugge is a pretty tourist-y city), there wasn't much he actually had to say. But it's ok, because the beauty made up for the lack of actual information. The absolutely crazy thing that happened was that towards the end of the tour, when we had luckily taken the pictures we wanted, Michela's camera flashed a low battery warning sign. Seriously, Brugge must have something against cameras, because my batteries were fairly new, and both Michela and Corey said that they had charged theirs the day before.

See what I mean? Fall = Best Season EVER!

Some of the buildings literally went right down next to the water like this!

Favorite picture of the day! I made Micheal take several pictures of this :)

Where we got on the boat at... Our boat was doubling back and going the other way.

Love the vines!

Swans!

If I could be like those girls, just casually sitting there and eating lunch everyday, I would.

After the boat ride, it was about 3:30, and I knew that I had to leave on the train at 5. Considering that we got there around 12 to 1-ish, we really didn't have that much time there. But I was leaving on an earlier train than everyone else, becasue I had told Eddy and Pascale that I would be home by 8. The others, although they were very nice and all, didn't exactly want to do the same kinds of things that I wanted to do, and I wanted to spend the last bit looking through the tourist shops and the lace shops (Brugge is known for its lace!), and I didn't want to drag them along with me if that wasn't what they wanted to do, so I split from the group. I did some speed shopping, and went into tons of shops. I actually had a really fun time, because I love just loooking at things and finding out what makes a city that city. And I love looking for things that I could bring home as a gift for somebody, and I am always on the lookout for something nice. Plus, I had seen something in a shop that I knew I HAD to get for someone, so I found my way back to that shop too. Before I knew it, it was 15 minutes to 5 and I knew I had to make my way back to the train station.

Got my camera to work to take a picture of this piece of heaven... :)

And this gorgeous scene!

I had thought that I was all along making my way closer to the train station, but because we took a completely abnormal way to the middle of the city, I didn't really have the slightest idea how to make it back to the train station. I thought it would be at the end of the road, but the farther I went the more it seemed like I was making my way towards nowhere. So I stopped into a little book store, and asked someone directions. At this point, I had like 10 minutes left to make it to the train. Even though I am pretty darn sure I still didn;t even take the way the lady told me, I didn't really have time to turn around and ask someone else so I just kept going. Running, actually. I ran through this beautiful park, saw a bridge that I thought looked familiar (definitely wasn't), went across it, and ended up at this major bus station instead. So I kept running/walking, and ran into a main road. I almost turned around, giving up and deciding to take the train in another hour, when I realized I was just at the opposite side of the way we went to the city. So I ran the rest of the way, got onto the train, and literally after that the doors closed and it pulled away. So glad I caught that train, but also feeling very gross and actually sweating a bit considering I had run about half a mile in very warm winter clothing, which is definitely not needed when you are sprinting trying to get to the train station. I can only imagine what the people that saw me must have thought of me running through the city... and thus ends the adventures of Brugge. And it looks as if I have a pretty good memory after all, considering the massive length of this blog post. Until next time that I can convince myself to not be lazy and type for 30 minutes or more... :)