don't hit me! i brugge easy!

today is gerard's day off. the bus can't move at all today. so, we go on a walking tour of the town of brugge (pronounced like brooj). our morning starts at 9:00 - well, the group's starts at 8:00 for breakfast, but i hit that breakfast bar around 8:45 or so, but we meet out front at 9:00. norbert has a local lady take us around brugge, where we learn about the town's importance in the 16th century, as a merchant town, and there were about twice as many inhabitants then as there are now (about 24,000 today).

we saw the apothecary, the madonna and child statue carved by michelango (which was supposed to be for a family in venice, i believe, but they didn't want it so a family in brugge bought it; it's only been removed twice, by that jerk napoleon and that other jerk hitler; both times it was returned), and the hospital in the town. the hospital museum was not stellar, but cool to see how things were done back in the day.

after that, our guide split, and we had some free time. now...when you're in rome, you do as the romans do. when you're in amsterdam, as i illustrated in my last blog, you do as the amsterdam-ian-ites do. so, now that you're in belgium, guess what you do, kids? go hunting for chocolate. damn straight.

we found a shop with some cock-olate (that would be chocolate in naughty formations), so, of course, kelli wanted to go there. we tried some (not in the perverted forms), and found it to be not great. we shopped around some more, checked out the lace shops and stuff, but then just met up with the group to walk back for lunch. nothing too exciting, really.

lunch was pretty tasty, back at our hotel. we started with an asparagus soup then had chicken with a buttery sauce (hard to explain, but it was good), croquettes, and a small salad, and a delicious strawberry tart. then we were set loose to do as we pleased until the group met back up for the next concert, in a town hall building across the city.

i took a nap. the group headed out, and i went shopping for chocolate (not that other stuff that we already found), i was really afraid of getting lynched by my friends and family if i didn't bring some back. the walk was nice, and i saw much of the little town. i'm not going to say whether or not i found what i was looking for, but i was back at the hotel within an hour or two.

what else do belgians do? well, they brew beer. now, i wasn't going to brew any beer, but wanted to help them drink it. i've also been thinking about some things at work (i know, i know, i'm on vacation) that i wanted to hash out, so, might as well combine the two things. makes things go easy, don't-cha-know?

i go to the pub two doors down, and am greeted by two guys sitting at one of the bar tables. one's a little short dude, average and pretty unmemorable. the other guy is a page out of the trailor trash book - black socks, shoes, gaudy and terrible swim trunks, tucked in gray shirt. then he has the pervy 'stache and is unshaved for the last couple of days (and i don't feel bad for writing about him 'cause i saw him eyeing me up and down and making some cracks about something that i don't know what it was with his twerpy little friend; maybe they were talking about solving the worldwide poverty problem...i still don't feel bad). the other patrons all seem to know these guys - and everyone else in there. so, i feel good about this choice.

i grab a menu and look at my drink options. the only beer i recognize on the menu is jupiler, and only because i've seen the signs around town. so, i get that. i belly up to the bar, and the bartender is standing behind the bar, pouring drinks, of course. she's tall and skinny.

by tall, i mean that she's taller than me. maybe 6'8", 6'9" tall. and by skinny, well, she would obviously be skinner than me, maybe 160 pounds. she's surly, but she serves me my beer. spain and russia come on the television screens a little while later, the audio switching from terrible '80s music (that everyone was singing to, unfortunately) to the game. i drink a few beers, write out some stuff for work (which i hope to implement soon!), drop my last 20 euro to cover that which i drank, and walked out trying to find the group that should have returned a half-hour to an hour earlier.

and they had. i ran into one of them who told me that the group was across the square at a restarant. i waited for them to come back before going to eat, and now i realized that i waited too long to eat! i went in the restaurant, and they just stopped serving. the waiter directed me to another place, but it was closed as the owners were on holiday. so, i find another place. steve and sue are looking for another drink, so they come with me. luckily, the place took credit. unluckily, it was expensive as hell.

we caught up, steve telling me their life stories and such, i had some chicken, green beans, and salad, and then we headed to the hotel to crash.

while we were doing this, the rest of the group had found ice cream, which was placed on a, you guessed it, belgian waffle. they said it was the best ice cream they had ever eaten. i'm partially jealous and partially glad. well, 'cause i won't know if it was better than the gelato i had on lido or not. ignorance is bliss!