In Bruges

Bruges

A great 24 hours here. Trains (Paris-Bruges with 2 connections) were a colossalfuck again but forget that I got there 7 hours later than anticipated (full trains - more like the French railways only allow a limited number of EuRail + a train ahead of us breaking down). Also it has been very hot in the past few days, so everyone was a sweaty messy. Also, when we got into the station there were all these emergency workers with a hydration station, some stretchers and people running about, couldn't really figure what all the hullabaloo was all about.

When I got into Bruges jumped on the bus and took it to Marketsquare, did some roaming but got into Snuffek hostel without much ado and decided to just go find some food and grab some Belgian, preferably Trappist beer.

Walking around I found a restaurant after a while. This 50s style burger place. I don't know what the sauce was or what exactly the patties were but it was delicious. One of the best burgers I have ever had. Went around to find a liquor/grocery store to find some beer, so I picked up some Westmalle 9%, it was a solid find. Drank some before taking a much needed shower and when I came back down I sat down with the cute Canadian girls who were talking with the Australian guy. Already felt a bit tipsy because of lack of sleep and not much to eat that day. They were a very friendly group and in no time we were talking about just about everything and sharing plenty of laughs. Learned even more about Canadian culture, since they were from New Brunswick and on the trip I had learned plenty from people from Ontario, Toronto, Vancouver and of course, Montreal.

Three of the girls and the Aussie guy had the 5 drink combo for 10 euro: Duvel, westmaue doppel, ... So, everyone was drunk. Keep in mind Belgian beers are strong 6-10% usually. Some even stronger, 12% ones. The four girl kept having cherry and raspberry beers that were actually really good. I will go on unnaming them because I may or may not have fallen in love with the beautiful blonde and may one day convince her to move to Cali ;-)

I just got the happy hour beer (Maes) a few times which was really sweet and tasted like honey and Palms. The girls didn't like some of the stronger liquid bread so I drank for them, of course being the gentleman I am. We were having lots of fun and good convo so before we knew it, it was really late. We were all in the large dorm Rm 21 together, We got back into the room at 3am... causing as little noise as we could... yeah right. I had gotten in pretty late... So my bed had a  folded sheetset, so I just unfolded them once and lay on top. Simply trying to cover the mattress in some fashion. No way was I going to make my bed drunk and tired as I was.

Abandoning my original plan to get into Amsterdam early and have a silly day in and out of coffeeshops and the Red Light District before I went to Noordwijk and the beach hostel, I decided to tag along with them biking around town the next day and whatever else until the late afternoon when I would head out. They were really great company, so it was definitely the right decision.

Anyways, the next day we all woke up early with hangovers except the girl who had the 4 fruit beers. I had to check out but we had all also reserved bikes for the day which we had to pick up by 10 am. Together we discovered that the cure to a Belgian beer hangover is biking around town, Belgian fries, and Belgian chocolate. Really worked wonders. We went to both the fry museum and chocolate museum, so we learned all about what went into both. Bruges definitely had its charm.

Fairly warm afternoon when I left... Onto Noordwijk about 30 km outside Amsterdam on the beach.