Brugge

Good morning,

Since it is still fresh in my head, I'm going to jump ahead to yesterday's adventures in Brugge.
After the hostel breaksfast, tiny relativly week (American-like) koffee. Amy and I headed out to do laundry! 1 stupe cost 2.50 euro. Of course it took awhile to figure what a stupe was and how we could get one but dealing with the language barrier has become well - not second nature - but doable.

After the laundery we lathered up with sun scree. (have I mentioned the weather?). Until today every day has started cloudy, sometimes with rain, and gotten windy, gotten sunny, gotten windier and goten cloudy again by sunset (22
;00) Today was completely sunny and needless to say we don't need anymore tan (i.e. sunburn)

Bruge is beautiful. To orient ourselves we taook a boat tour through the canals. Then Amy and I split up to do some shopping and wandering on our own. I headed for the bookstalen to locate the next fietsrout fart. This has become an impiortant part of the nisiting town routine. The detailed fieltmmpas only get us between 40 and 60 km. So far we've ridder through 5,. In addition, they're not all the same format so it takes a while t o tranltate and locate the correct next one. I found a reallly good one the Brussels area but not one of the area between here and Ghent - which is our next stop. I'm pretty sure that I can turst Jerry's directions however (you remember Jerry, I mentioned Jerry yesterday) and then in Ghent I'll try again for another fietroute map between there and Brussels.

After the bookstalen I wandered around the markts having koffee, paying to use the toilet, sampling chocolates, trying a Belgian waffle with cream, and touring the churches and convents.

PS Pinkerstag may be Pentecost but needless to say the Belgians, Dutch and French all celebrate it not by going to church but by bike riding, joggin, walking or going to Brugge. The place was busy. And that reminds me of an important cutlureal shift that occured here. In Holland they spoke Dutch and if you asked, and were in a major city, English. Here they speak Dtuch, Flemish, French and English. There are signs we can read!!!! It's nice to understand 1/4 of what is going on without having to plead ignorance first. The multi-lingual situation is also helping me brush up on my French - hopefully when I need it, I'll be passable.

Then Amy and I went back to the hostel, got ready fot settle in and enjoy a bottle fo Brugges own "brugse zot" a light beer, brewed here in Bruge. The brewery is in a cute building and has been working since 1856. This beer was brewed this year and won some awards. The label is in 4 languages - and the beer is really good.

A votre sauna, to your health!

PS The beer stein situation is looking up. There are some here - even one that was passable but we're holding out for something less touristie

PPS I miss the Dutch pastries! Really badly.