Bruges

Bruges is a small picturesque town in Belgium, close to the North Sea. Sometimes known as the Venice of the North, thanks to an abundance of canals, it was also recently the setting of Colin Farrell's movie "In Bruges." In case that wasn't obvious. It was also the site of our recent one-day excursion.

Bruges had been hyped to me for a while, even before I got to Belgium, so I went in with pretty high hopes. I'm not sure they were quite met; we didn't really spend too long in the town itself and while our tour was good, I don't feel like I saw a lot of what it had to offer. It was very Ghent-ian, if I may. The weather also didn't help; it was supposed to be fifty, but was instead close to freezing, with intermittent rain storms.

But here's the big deal of the day: the 12 mile bike ride through the Flemish countryside. I was pretty nervous about this; sure, the area is pretty, and flat, but can I ride a bike?? See, I didn't get a bike until I was 9 or 10, and didn't spend much time learning to ride it. There was an embarrassing period involving training meals, and then I only had maybe a summer on it as a normal bike before I outgrew it. So I never really comfortably rode a bike. During my driver's license ordeal, my dad would frequently tell me driving was like riding a bike--you never forgot how to do it. And then he would remember that this was a meaningless metaphor for me.

But the important thing here is not childhood regrets, but rather that I successfully did this entire bike ride without falling! There were some touchy moments: in the populated town square on the wet cobblestone; down the street as a bus silently crept up on me; on the rocky path when I jumped off in time to avoid a fall, mostly out of fear of ending up in the canal. But all in all, things went very well. This was a four hour ride, with over 30 of us in our group, and people were so supportive and kept cheering me on! We did stop for a break and had a beer, which is perhaps a strange choice while out biking. Let me tell you, though, that by the end of this, we all desperately wanted to get back to Bruges for our multi-course program-paid dinner. We were all horrifically sore afterwards, and the bathroom being on the second floor didn't help things!

After dinner, most of the group hoped on the train home, but a dozen of us, our tour guides, and our program directors stayed in town to grab a local beer. It was a pretty low key thing, and we couldn't stay long since the last train left at like 10:30 back to Brussels, but it was a nice night out. I'd like to go back to Bruges to spend some more time exploring, but I don't think that's going to happen this trip. I'd also love to see the countryside when it was actually nice out (though the weather did eventually clear up for us!); however, it'd be nice to see trees blooming again finally!

This weekend: two night program trip to Alsace and the black forest region of Germany. Finally, I can see Alsace for myself and understand why it has been such a hot spot in European territory disputes! I'll come back with a full report.