In Bruges

Wednesday and Thursday were different sorts of days because the two were completely opposite. Alex knew that she would have to spend at least a day or two doing school work which worked perfectly with me because I procrastinated the blogs long enough that I had three more of them to do and they were due Wednesday night. Wednesday was spent that the University doing work and while Alex found herself incapable of focusing on more than a page at a time, I was pretty productive since I managed to finish my blogs, check the grammar and spellings (which was pretty horrendous since most of the posts were typed quickly on my phone), compile them into a word document, and e-mail them off to the professor. Granted I had an advantage because my time schedule was still 6 hours ahead of everyone else because they were all back in the states. I also had the extra bonus of not having classes... giving me more time than they had even with touring Brussels and watching Game of Thrones. That was pretty much all of our Wednesday since Alex did not have class that day and neither of us felt like doing anything after a long day of questionable productivity. I think it was Wednesday night that we then walked to the grocery store, bought almond flour and other stuff so we could make gluten free pizza and watched another two episodes of Game of Thrones that we let buffer while using the school's internet because it was considerably more reliable than Alex's apartments internet. The Internet in Europe is not as good as we are used to, especially because her apartment had this weird thing about only two devices being allowed to connect at the same time. This really sucks when you have both laptops and smartphones. Now, this is a first world problem if I have ever come across one.

Thursday it was decided that I would make a day trip to Bruges since Alex had been there several times and did not feel the need to go again. I decided to go without her both to get out of her hair since I had been with her non-stop since Sunday and also so I could get some alone time. The return (round trip) ticket only cost a little more than $20, which is no worse than getting into NYC when I am living with my parents and the train ride only took about 50 minutes in total. The hardest part of the day was figuring out which way to leave the train station to get to the city since there were entrances on both sides of the station. Some family tried asking me for directions and they tried in both Dutch and Spanish, both of which were pretty epic failures. Eventually, I figured out which side was the city because the church spires were kind of hard to miss. There are at least four towers that loom over the rest of the town (I guess it is not quite big enough to call it a city?) so using one of those as a focal point when walking around makes adventuring alone through the city much easier. Fortunately, the landmark I chose to follow was the Church of Our Lady (Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk) which also happens to be the tallest building in Bruges, with the oldest parts dating back to the 13th century. After googling it, I also found out that it is the second tallest brickwork tower in the world behind St. Martin Church in Landshut, Germany. I don't remember much about Churches but it was really pretty on the inside. The sculpture of The Madonna and Child was created by Michelangelo but I don't think I took a picture of it because the building is currently being renovated and large portions of the main chapel cannot be accessed, really hindering my ability to take cool pictures. That and the day was also incredibly overcast, as is most of Belgium in the winter. Fortunately, it cleared up by the time I got out and I had blue sky for most of the day.

Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk

Altar with The Madonna and Child by Michelangelo in the center

The preacher's pulpit 

One of many churches in Bruges

Looking down one of the canals

I made it to the Main Square of Bruges and spent a few good minutes admiring the Belfry of Brugge and deciding whether to pay the fee to go to the top of the tower. Unfortunately, I decided to use the Euros and get Durum with samurai sauce and french fries (inside the durum! Think shwarma with french fries and you are right on track) instead, which is something I regret. I spent most of my time there just wandering around the streets of the city since it was nice out and I could do whatever I wanted to so hey, why not. Eventually, I did make it over to the windmills and saw more churches (big surprise) on my way there and even a mosque. The most unfortunate part about this day was that I forgot until the end of the day that I had a guide book to Brussels and Bruges and since my Dutch is non-existent and my German is definitely on the crappier side, it might have been nice to have remembered this before my day was almost over. I did go to the Groening Museum next to the Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk, which was definitely worth the visit. There was a lot of work from well-known artists whose names I obviously cannot remember now, especially seeing as I was there more than two and a half weeks ago and I suck at updating this thing. One that I do remember pretty was is the series of engravings by Jean Cousin II, 'Last Judgement'. As depressingly downtrodden as Revelations artwork always is, I find it to be among the most interesting because there are always so many interpretations and its a welcome break from the near continuous Madonna with Child artwork that dominated the time.

Belfry of Bruges

Main Square looking out from the Belfry

Belfry of Bruges

600 kinds of beer, 600 different glasses

Windmills on the edge of Bruges

Looking down one of the canals with Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk in the distance 

After finishing up with the museum, the weather had taken a turn for the worst and started raining. Fortunately, I had an umbrella and was on the closer half of the city to the train station so I was not entirely soaked when I finally made it there. The only souvenir I bought from Bruges was a chocolate penis that caught my eye, so I decided to buy it for Alex since she was being a good little student and studying the day away. How can you say know to a penis chocolate mold for €1.20? I wanted to buy beer since they had too many stories advertising '600 Belgian Beers' with each one has a special glass that is nearly criminal drink the beer out of something else. Unfortunately, traveling with beer is not the greatest idea and it does not fly well due to carbonation so that put a pretty big dent in my plan. After fighting with myself about this, I made my way back to the train station, read some game of thrones at a Starbucks to kill an hour and a half until the next train to Brussels and managed to find my way back to Alex, who was at the school studying. It may have actually been this night that we made gluten free pizza and watched Game of Thrones. I can't remember. One thing I can tell you is we definitely watched Game of Thrones because we made it to episode 8 and she has a really hard time dealing with things that don't go the way she wants them to end. Spoiler alert if you don't watch Game of Thrones; nothing goes the way you want it to. Be Prepared.

An entire aisle of just wine