vacation has a funny way of doing things to your emotional state of mind. its the day of your trip and youre SUPER excited. WOOO im going on a week vacation in europe! how awesome! yeah except you forget that in order to be on vacation, you have to get there first...
thursday: i was done with classes (ok, yeah i was skipping one..) and i had actually figured out how to pack all my clothes and other belongings into my messenger bag so that i didnt have to pay an extra luggage fine. everything was perfect. and then i got to the train station and it wasnt all so perfect anymore. kate was already ahead of me..she had gotten an earlier train to brussels..so i was on my own for now. my train: cancelled. ok cool, so i waited two hours. next train: too full. ok wtf? i had a ticket from the LAST train and they were letting people on who were buying tickets ON the train. awesome..waited another two hours and probably pushed over a couple of older people out of the way as i ran to the tracks and shoved my ticket into a conductors hand. and thats, my friends, the way to get on a train from paris. obviously.
after finally meeting up with poor kate who had been waiting in brussels for me for about 6 hours without communication for the first 2 of those hours, we made our way for the last leg of our journey to brugge. ok course, by then, it was dark and the excitement of getting to see brugge from the windows of our train was drained from me. we got in at about 10 and took a bus to the nearest stop to our hostel: snuffle backpacker hostel!
although it was dark, walking the few minutes from our stop to the hostel was amazing. the streets were all cobblestone and the buildings were mostly brick. in the street lights the streets looked quite romantic and i fell in love with brugge right then and there. its is def top 3 of cutest towns in europe.
finally, we got to the hostel. there was a bar on the bottom floor with the reception desk which was basically part of the bar. a few young people were sitting around and drinking and the atmosphere was pretty chill. the woman at the desk/the bartender was super nice and kate and i put our stuff in our room (which was clean!) before heading back downstairs for a few drinks to end our hectic day of travel.
the beer was cheap which was an awesome relief from paris. and it tasted AMAZING. now, im not one to boast about the taste of beer. id pretty much take a soda over it any day. but beer from belgium is sooooo tasty. we were later explained to that they filter it differently and it doesnt give you hangovers..how nice.
the second we sit down, a guy comes over to our table, squats down to our height and says in a british accent: "hello girls...do you like it when i say the word bottle?" i just stared cause i had never been appraoched in this fashion and i was really getting a kick out of it. his name was harry..and obivoulsy he was from england. we spent the next 45 minutes talking to him and telling him that yes, we did like it when he said bottle..but that we didnt like how cocky british guys were towards american girls. psh. although we were only in the bar for around 2 hours before heading to bed it was a pretty good night. i met someone from brugge and i proceeded to tell him that flemish was a disgusting language. (and now i wonder why they dont like americans). we also got free packs of gum from some guys who were advertising it. they came into the bar, blindfolded us and asked us to tell them what we taste ;) when i guessed watermelon i got a free pack of fruity gum and MINT wooo.
we woke up around 930, checked out, and got the free breakfast from the hostel. thats where we met a couple other americans who were going to explore brugge for the day too. we decided to stick with them and although they broke off into seperate groups, kate and i stuck around with two guys: alex and.....alex!
our day was pretty awesome. if i thought the town was pretty at night it was SOOOO beautiful in the day. a canal surrounded the city and it had many old stone building. balconies hung over our heads and fountains were in the middle of every square.
first we went to the chocolate museum. (obviously..hello i was in belgium). it was very interesting and we even got a free tasting afterwards. YES! then we went to a beer brewery. it was the local brugge beer called "brugge zot" which we had tasted last night. the tour was SICK. our guide was so funny and she explained everything really well and in detail. the brewery itself was old so it was nice to see older brewing versus modern. finally we got food..aka a beef stew with fries. mmm :)
after exploring the streets and souvenir shops for a little longer, kate and i picked up our bags and had to say goodbye to our new friends. that was def sad..we made friends that we spent literally the whole day with and then its like "ok..peace out" so weird. hey, we're friends on facebook! haha
so thats belgium..the cutest little european city that i recommend highly for everyone to visit. one day is basically enough but its worth it. and snuffle was awesome! so stay there! and then we were off to amsterdam...to celebrate my 21st birthday :)
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