I'll have a ticket to Belgium... and a triple-bypass please

Greetings from Belgium! As you may or may not know, Belgium is the land of fine chocolate, beer, and French fries. Belgian chocolate is some of the finest in the world, and there are more than 2000 shops (all home-made) in the country. Think the Germans make a lot of beer? Or the United States? Wrong – Belgium has the most varieties of beer in the world, with over 500. One of their claims to fame, the “Trappist Ale,” is brewed only by Trappist monks. Belgium has six out of the seven Trappist monasteries in the world (the beer-producing ones anyway), and Belgians love their trappist ale. One of them is so rich and dark that it actually has the nutritional equivalency of half a loaf of bread. I hear it’s great for that low-carb Atkins diet. Belgians are also the creator of the fried potato, which the French quickly stole and re-branded as their own. Way to go, France. You can find fry shacks all over Bruges, and they are *always* double-fried, and if you don’t want to look like a tourist, you order them covered in mayonnaise, as the locals do. These are called “Flemish Fries.”

I arrived here in Bruges around 2:30pm, but lost an hour because of the time difference. The train ride this morning went fine – the Eurostar train is amazing. It’s incredibly smooth, and when you look out the window you can barely focus on anything because you’re moving so fast. I spent most of my time in the galley car, which had long windows that I could just sit in front of as we rolled through the British (and Belgian) countryside. Arriving at the station, I quickly realized that Belgium was not going to be as “easy” a country as Britain. Nothing was in English – I mean nothing. Each sign was in two languages (Dutch and French I believe) but English was never anywhere to be found. After a little help at the international travelers’ desk, I was on my train to Bruges (the Eurostar only got me as far as Brussels).

Once I got into town, I started walking to my hostel. One nice thing about Bruges is that you can walk from one end of the city to the other in thirty minutes. Thus, no need for public transportation… I’m glad about that, as I spent more than $50 on public transportation in London. I found my hostel in no time, and was checked in by 3. This hostel is awesome as well. Each one has its own personality and little things that make it unique. This one has a spiral staircase that goes all the way up its four floors, which is really cool. As of now there seems to be only two other people in my room, both of which I have yet to run into. We also have an in-room bathroom with shower, which I didn’t have at the last hostel. NICE.

So anyway, after putting my bags down I headed out into the city to get some lunch. Bruges is a really pretty town; all the streets are cobbled and the houses, while you can’t really tell from appearance, are actually centuries old. There are narrow winding lanes, broad squares, and a canal here and there offering tourists boat rides. While there are barely any cars, there are tons of bicycles, mopeds, and scooters. As I type this, all I can hear from my window are birds chirping and the sound of horse hooves on the cobbled roads (carriage rides are very popular). And yep, there’s a chocolate shop on every corner.

After realizing that all the food shops shut down between lunch and dinner, I sprung for some of those famous fries instead. As much as I hated to do it, I ordered them with ketchup, as I figured the people of Bruges would rather have me look like a tourist, than get sick all over their beautiful square (I hate mayo). With some food in my stomach, I decided to tackle the 83-meter-high Belfry tower, which houses a vast display of bells that still chime every fifteen minutes, the heaviest of which weighing over six tons. It’s a good thing I had those fries for energy, as the climb was 366 steps up, 366 steps down. And it’s all done via a narrow, very steep spiral staircase. Heading up and down the thing, I wondered to myself how many tourists roll down these 366 steps each year; it had to be at least one a week, I thought. They should have sherpas guiding people to the top, like they do on Everest.

Once at the top, the views were indeed pretty amazing. It was foggy out, so I couldn’t see all the way to the North Sea as you can on a clear day, but I did get an awesome aerial view of the city. And all for just four euros ($6). I like the prices here. I also met an older couple from Arizona that were really nice, and I talked with them for awhile.

After taking some sweet pictures of the square by the Belfry tower, I went to another main destination in Bruges – the Basilica of the Holy Blood. Not only is this a stunning basilica (much bigger on the inside than it looks), but it contains an impressive relic – a vial supposedly containing the last drops of blood of Jesus Christ. It was brought back from Jerusalem, and every day the relic is taken out and placed on a pillow to be worshipped. As I was not there during service, the relic was locked up in its large crypt-like altar, and I was unable to see it. I did get some pictures of the altar and the inside of the basilica, but only because there were no signs saying not to. I was pretty discreet about it – quick pictures with no flash. One woman that looked like Barbara Streisand was walking around pointing and clicking like it was a beauty pageant. Not cool.

As I walked back to my hostel, I picked up a grilled ham sandwich for dinner and 100 grams (almost four ounces) of authentic Belgian milk chocolate, with hazelnuts. I had the sandwich at the hostel with a Brugge Zot – the only beer still brewed within the city limits of Bruges. It means the “Jester of Bruges,” and it won a world beer award two years ago. The brewery is actually about five minutes from my hostel, so I think I’m gonna go take the tour tomorrow. Free beer, woohoo!

Fast-Forward 3 hours… Well, as I was writing my blog earlier, those two roommates that I had mentioned came back, two girls from Argentina named Cecilia and Marins, and we’ve actually been talking for like the past two hours. They’re from Buenos Aires, and have been traveling through Europe for the past two months. We talked a lot about our respective countries, traveling, and even politics. Something that I’ve realized over the past week that I can’t believe is how much the rest of the world knows about and is invested in what America does. Every person I’ve met so far has known exactly where Maryland is in the US, knows landmarks, important historical events, politicians, you name it. These girls even knew that Obama and McCain were going for President, and the details of their campaigns. The one girl, each time she talked to her mother, would ask if there were any updates on the U.S. election. It’s not that they’re political buffs or anything of that nature. She said the reason that she follows US politics is because whether or not we know it, the actions and policies carried out by the US have a profound impact on every other country in the world, and particularly South America. I felt bad that they knew so much about my country when I knew nothing about theirs. It was a really interesting conversation to have – to get a different perspective, if you will. Besides that, they also gave me some sweet travel tips and advice. However, as they have to get up at 5 am tomorrow for a train to Paris, they had to call it a night and so I came downstairs for a bit. They’re going to be in Paris for six days, which will be the same time I’m there as well. We’re going to try and meet up, as well as one other Argentinean that they met in Berlin. I have their e-mail addresses, so hopefully we'll be able to. Anyway, that’s enough for one night. It’s been a great day in Bruges, and I can’t see what tomorrow has in store.

To see the rest of the pictures from this day in Bruges, please click here.