Ahhhhh Brugge

It seems to be that I love each European city a bit more than the last. I spent three days in the small north Belgian town of Brugge, and it should have been three weeks. It’s very small and laughably charming. Walking around felt a bit like being in a storybook, one tailored to my personal interests (big surprise—they mainly involve eating!). There is a chocolate shop on nearly every corner, wafflehauses nearly everywhere, and enough windy streets ending in pretty courtyards or city canals to keep a normally direction-oriented person pleasantly lost for most of every day. I spent a couple days just wandering around the town, delighted to find old churches to poke around in and random windmills on the edge of the city, and took a really funny and informative walking tour from a guy at my hostel. One night there was a really long parade that celebrates the marriage of two royals way back in 1600something, an event that happens once every five years (I was going to see the Simpsons movie that night, but thought I should perhaps have the twice-a-decade cultural experience instead). Another night my hostel put on an all you can eat barbeque, which is just about the best news a poor meat-eating backpacker can hear. We all stuffed ourselves on the pasta, veggies, and kebabs that came out first, and then they started cooking the cutlets. So we all tried those out too, complaining that we were already full, and then we learned they still had sausages and ribs to bring out! I probably ended up eating more meat on that night than I have for the entirety of my trip so far, but it was delish. Of course we all went out for waffles afterwards, though!

Another nice thing to do in Brugge (besides eating your weight in meat and sweets) is to take a bicycle around the canals and explore the surrounding area a bit. I biked into the nearby village of Damme, which is teeny tiny and totally charming. The road there is along a canal, and there are fields and windmills along the way. I had lunch in a little courtyard café and walked around inside one of the churches.

Now I am in Berlin and am having a great time, but I think I’ll post some pictures and stories about this city once I leave (I have a couple days to go here). Hope you all are well!!