So this weekend I went to Bruges (in Belgium) with Nicki, Ben, Annemaire, Kendra, Christine, Katie… I think that’s pretty much it. We left inredibly early in the morning on Saturday. I got up at something like 4:45 to make a 6:30 train. I’m still not sure how I managed to do it. We got on a Belgian train in Luxembourg, and as soon as we got across the Belgian border, it filled up with kids, making it impossible to sleep.
One of the first things we did when we got to Bruges was have lunch. We were looking around for a restaurant when I noticed a street vendor who had Bratwurst and waffles. It was a pretty awesome lunch for 3.50 euros. Belgian waffles are incredibly good. Those first ones we had were pretty crummy by Bruges standards (they were reheated instead of made fresh), but they were still really good. I guess what we had were Flemmish waffles, because there are apparently a bunch of different kinds of waffles in Belgium, but anyway, they’re made with a much more bread-like dough than American waffles. Instead of pouring batter into the iron, they would press a wad of dough into the iron. They wouldn’t quite cook it all the way through, so the center would still be just a little gooey. I’m not sure how they get the timing down so well, because all the waffles I had in Belgium had exactly that consistency.
After lunch, we went to the hostel to check in and drop off our bags and then met up with Katie, who had come earlier. Then we went out exploring. We went up the bell-tower in the main square, which had such a bad spiral staircase that they had a rope up the middle to hold onto. The staircase kept on switching between clockwise and counterclockwise as if to keep you from getting into a good rhythm. It also had hundreds of steps. Once we got to the top, it was definitely worth it, because it had an amazing view of Bruges. We also checked out the Church of Our Lady, which was your typical cathedral. Apparently its distinction is that it’s the tallest cathedral made entirely of brick. Bruges is apparently really known for its chocolate and lace (news to me), because there lots of both shops around the city. One chocolate shop had this chocolate fountain set up in front of their shop that looked incredibly mouth-watering. The Belgians definitely know how to eat, because in addition to the amazing waffles, the loads of chocolate, and all the other great food, they had some of the best ice cream I’ve had outside of Italy.
Being in Belgium, we naturally did a lot of beer drinking. On Saturday, we visited a brewery that had a cool tour. They used to be a big brewery, but when health codes made them do things like actually enclosing everything the beer was processed in, they switched to being a micro-brewery and made the old brewery into a museum. After the your, we naturally got to sample their beer, which was pretty good. The funniest part was our waier, who was really friendly, but kind of weird. He spent a lot of time talking to us and trying to hide from his boss, who I don’t think was too happy about all the time he spent at our table. He spent ten minutes telling us how much he hated the French (which is apparently a common sentiment in that part of Belgium). Then he told us all the bars we should go to and suggested a bunch of beers to try. He told to where the bar to meet all the young people was. We were all interested until we found out he meant 16-18 years old.
After the brewery, we headed back to our hostel for dinner. Our hostel had a restaurant downstairs that was apparently pretty good, so we decided to eat there. Most of the people had a Flemmish stew, but I had some amazing spareribs. I haven’t eaten that much meat in quite a while. Ricky, a guy from GTL who we were sort of hanging out with, had met a guy who worked for Let’s Go, so we had dinner with him. It turns out Let’s Go only hires Harvard students, which was news to me. He was a pretty nice guy, so apparently going to Harvard doesn’t get to everyone’s head. After dinner, we headed out to check out some of the bars, but a bunch of us were just incredibly beat from the long train ride, so we ended up turning in early.
On Sunday, we started the day with some of the best waffles I’ve had in my life. They were made fresh right before our eyes, and they were… just amazing. I never knew waffles could be so good. We tried to find the vendor later, but she had disappeared.
After breakfast, we headed to a boat tour of Bruges. Like many other cities, Bruges claims to be the Venice of the north because of its canals. I’m not sure if it’s canals are quite up to that level, but they were pretty cool. I think the highlight of the tour was the “world’s smallest window”, which looked pretty small. After the tour, Ben and I tried to find the place we’d had waffles for breakfast while the girls shopped for souvenirs. We failed, but we ended up finding some pretty good waffles, just not up to the standards of that morning.
For lunch, we found a cafe, where we naturally sampled a whole bunch of Belgian beers. I had Grimbergen, a really good trappist beer recommended by the waiter at the brewery. A bunch of people got different kinds of fruit-flavored beers. I was already pretty sure that the Belgians made the best beer in the world, but that lunch sealed the deal for me. I’m told Grimbergen isn’t anywhere near the best beer the Belgians have, and it was already way better than any beer I’d had before (not that I’ve had that many. We didn’t even bother getting Stella or Leffe because they’re considered so common in Belgium (like Coors or Budweiser), but even those beers are so much better than the junk most Americans drink.
After lunch, we headed to the Basilica of the Precious Blood, which apparently has a piece of cloth with Jesus’s blood on it. You couldn’t actually touch the cloth, but you could touch the thing that held it, if you wanted to wait in line. The church itself was kind of interesting, because the bottom of it was a very typical Romanesque church, while the relic was housed in an upper church that was an incredibly gaudy version of a Romanesque church. Basically, it looked like someone who was trying to go Romanesque, but just couldn’t keep himself from using way too much paint and gold leaf.
After the church, it was pretty much time to head back to Metz, which we did. On the way back, the train was once again filled with kids. We changed trains in Brussels, where we naturally took the opportunity to get Belgian waffles one last time.