The first of April would be a very important day of Kitri. It would be her glorious introduction to RyanAir. This experience was made more fun by the fact that I think she was still suffering from jet-lag.
After a somewhat short day at work and an abbreviated day of sight-seeing for Kitri, she met me at my office and we enjoyed a quick snack. I had planned on leaving a scant 2.5 hours ahead of schedule, figuring that we'd pass through security quickly. However, shortly before traveling I suddenly realized that we may not be the only people in Stockholm who would be taking advantage of the long weekend. In the end we decided to leave an extra hour early, and thank God. The traffic was ridiculous, and our bus out to the pathetic RyanAir airport moved at a snails pace. We then waited through numerous lines, moved luggage from one bag to another to get around their ridiculous weight rules, and then go and wait in other lines before finally getting on the plane.
When we arrived in "Brussels/Charleroi" (late) we took a long bus ride which took us to the south train station. The next task, to get into the checkin office, which was not the same location as the hostel. Thanks Hostel owners! We looked for the metro options but everything had stopped running, so instead we opted for a taxi. We managed to get there to which we tipped a whopping 0 Euro which prompted a "Oooo Merci!" (imagine a super sarcastic French-speaking person waving his arms in over-exaggerated French sarcasm) to which I replied in the most polite intentionally oblivious way possible: "Merci!" After we got our key we then treked to our hotel, taking a moment to gawk at the lone tourist destination: "La Grand Place" before crashing.
I have to say that I really liked what I saw of the night life. It had an interesting buzz about it late at night. I was a bit on edge considering the fact that I had many of my most expensive possessions on my person, however it seemed like a pretty cool town to live in. Regardless, we quickly called it a night.
04/02:
After our hectic travel day, we awoke less than ready to take on the world. However, since we were limited on time in Belgium we decided to peel ourselves out of bed and head out to get a start to our day. Our hostel was situated near the primary landmark in Brussels, La Grand Place. We could even see the tops of the towers of Hotel de Ville from our Ghetto-fab hostel window (for clarification sake, the hostel is what was Ghetto-fab, the window was ... well just a window).
On our way out for breakfast we stopped by to see La Grand Place. The buildings here are old Guild Halls. Don't get too excited, they aren't as old as they look. They were rebuilt after the bombardment from Louis XIV, so they're only from the 17th century. Yawn.
But seriously, it was absolutely breathtaking. The rest of the city was nothing to write home about but the square was easily worth a half hour of slack-jawed gawking.
When I say the rest of the city wasn't much to write home about, I mean it. Here is a fair example of Brussels architecture. Notice the 3 very different styles that all went with a very clear and unifying theme of "Ugly". (P.S. I am well aware of the fact that I described the architecture as "not much to write home about" mere sentences before I posted a photo of said city)
We then proceeded to have an authentic meal of "Le Egg McMuffins" at our local LeDonalds and then found our way to the train station before hopping on a train bound for Bruges. The city of Bruges is found in West Flanders, and so why it is better known as Bruges and not by it's Flemish name of Brugge is absolutely beyond me. More proof that French speaking people over overly-obnoxious about speaking other languages, even national languages within their own country.The city is actually a bit of a farce as the architecture represents medieval styles however many of the buildings date from the 19th or 20th centuries. However, that certainly did not make it any less worth seeing. We arrived a bit on the outskirts of town along with a mob of other tourists, and after a short bus ride into town we found ourselves in a picturesque setting.
The architectural style below in the main square ("Markt") showed a strong resemblance to some parts of Stockholm. This is no coincidence as both cities share the Hanseatic connection.
Were it a tad bit warmer it would have been a great place to grab a beer outside.Rising 83 meters above the Markt is the Belfort, which is a pretty damn awe-inspiring monument that even Sauron the Great would envy.
We then spent the next few hours wandering through the city. Exploring the nooks and especially the crannies. We stopped at one point for a coffee at a little cafe. Despite the fact that the city was theoretically Flemish/Dutch speaking it appeared as if all the cafe's and shop owners spoke French as their first language. So Kitri and I had plenty of opportunity to practice which was nice.
Bruges/Brugge is one of many cities that declare themselves as the "Venice of the North". Thankfully, Stockholm no longer calls themselves by that name since the wildly successful competition found on my blog. But here you can see one of the canals that snakes through the city.
Kitri (sporting her new hair-cut) with Brugge behind her.
Purty city:
An example of some gilding on the guild halls.
After having had our fill of walking around we went for a tour by boat.
Here's Kitri and me waiting for the boat.
The tour provided a unique sensory overload. Our eyes enjoyed the spectacle unfolding around us, and our ears were horrified by the sounds emanating from the children sitting immediately behind us. Seriously parents ... if you're kids are screaming every time you go under a bridge it's time to either tell them to shut up, or throw them over board. But I digress ...
After the tour we decided to venture to the top of the ginormous Belfort, which was cool, however the clouds were rolling in so none of my photos are particularly inspiring. We then decided to consult Lonely Planet to see what would be a good authentic food to try while we were here:
Huzzah! Freedom Fries it is! Smothered in mayonnaise. It also recommended mussels, but meh, why spend 20 euro on a plate of seafood when you can have 1200 calories in a 5 minute snack for 3 euro?
After having completed our Bruges/Brugge check list ...[X] Climb 83 m Belfort
[X] Boat trip
[X] French fries
... we hopped on a train back to Brussels.
Ideally I would have liked to have gone to a pub but we were both feeling a bit wiped out so we decided to go to the local grocery store and pick up a few beers to sample. I picked out a random selection of Belgian brews with bizarre names. We then hit an all too familiar snag ... no grocery store in Europe sells ice. We scoured the entire store looking but came up empty. We seriously contemplated buying several bags of frozen veggies however I ultimately decided putting the beers out on the windowsill would suffice.
On the way back I snapped the following of La Grand Place:
After our final sight-seeing session of the evening we sat down in the room and found the lone channel that aired things in English and watched the movie Gladiator while getting pretty damn sloshed on wine and Belgian brews. Twas good times.04/02:
The next day would be a quick one because we were planning on traveling to Edinburgh. However, Kitri and I both found in our travel planning that we were fans of the Belgian painter Magritte.
This is one of my favorites of his entitled: "Le château des Pyrénées". You might recall seeing it in my apartment back in Seattle:
Here's a random, kinda pretty part of Brussels taken on the way to the museum.
Kitri and I passed through there again later stopping at a little stand that was selling waffles with chocolate (gauffre au chocolat). Super tasty.At any rate, we went to the museum which was 3 or 4 stories of his work through the ages. I learned a lot and saw a lot of his awesome work. Some of his most famous pieces weren't to be found as they are all owned in more well known museums in London, Paris, etc. However the collection was excellent. Here I am with a portrait of the late artist.
After having achieved Magritte overload we headed out to the airport where we enjoyed a drink before hopping on our plane bound for Edinburgh.
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