IN BRUGES

In Bruges - Not just a good movie, but a state of mind.

 

Wednesday in Bruges. The sun is shining, the birds are chirping, and the tourists descend upon the square with a fervor. 

None of that is true. Winter sun in Bruges is more like a 20 watt halogen bulb than a bright orange spot light. The birds are hibernating unless someone is tossing bread at them and the tourist trade is slow this time of year. How slow?  Slow enough that the day off in Bruges for a lot of cafes and such is what else? Wednesday. 

Okay, no worries. That's fine. There are plenty of other places open to accept my Euros. So mom didn't get to try every single waffle place that day. Not to worry, tomorrow will come soon enough. For now, trading hours are limited to 5, so we have to get going.

As you walk through the smalls streets of Bruges, you'll see wonderful weird things. S and M stores, The Dali store and chocolate shops. Lots of chocolate shops. I won't bore you with the usual tourist retoric, so I'll just show you a couple of photos.

 This sculpture was in the window of a chocolate shop. It literally shows one guy's clothes burned off by his butt because his buddy set one of his farts on fire. Yeah. Your guess is as good as mine.

This is a random waffle shop. Looks good, right? 

Random cold dog hanging out with the merchants in the fish market. With mom's sensitive nose, (and revulsion when it comes to fish), we didn't spend too much time walking through it.


Now, I am no stranger to Belgian Chocolate, and after eating all the horrible things I had, I just wasn't in the mood to eat any. Here's a nice pic, though.

Weirdly, Ediebaby wasn't really interested in the chocolates either. She was on a mission. She wanted Belgian Tapestry, and she wasn't leaving until she got some!

What is that? You may well be asking. Not to worry, I will elucidate. 

Evidently, it's a thing. Not just a thing, but a THING. People love it. If you do a Google search for Belgian Tapestry, you'll see small pieces in picture frames for exorbitant amounts of money. We weren't in the market for something to put on the wall, we were in the market for something a little more utilitarian.

We walked back and forth between stores. This store, that store, hither and yon and back again, searching for the perfect thing. I'm not a big print person, so this didn't excite me in the least. Momster, however was all over it.

After narrowing down the field quite a bit, it was down to two or three things. I was rooting for the animal print, but in the end, mom got something like this:

 This isn't the actual object, but it's the same kind of print. She calls them 'Her Ladies', and she likes it very much. Let's just say, it wasn't cheap. You can get counterfeit versions of this stuff too, but we weren't going to do that.

After finding the best one the entire city had to offer, we went back to the hotel to drop it off. By this time, the stores were closing up and belly bells were starting to ring.

We decided to go a little further afield for the evening's meal ending up at 

OLD BRUGES
 

 

Here, I was able to get something a little less heavy. I had a chicken dish with some veggies, mom got something similar.

It was tasty. Not too heavy and just the right amount of food. 

Also, because I'm an obvious masochist, I decided to give beer one more try. I asked for the best local variety. Want to guess what I was given? Something with Zect in the name. Go figure. Was it nasty? Oh you bet ya! But not as thick and nasty as the alcoholic tar I had consumed the previous night.

 After eating this, my body was hurting even more. I didn't realize that was a possiblity, but it was. Momster, however doesn't suffer from this kind of malaise. She decided to go for dessert.

Apple pie done the Belgian way. Kinda Dutch, kinda French, all tasty.

Following dinner, we hobbled ourselves back to the hotel. Yes, it was cold. Maybe I hadn't mentioned that.