+Walked around Bruge one last time, went to the windmills at the city wall and then back through the main square + Went back to the cheap sunglass store we spotted yesterday that had the only pair of sunglasses that would fit over Amy’s glasses and, after much reassurance that Amy didn’t look ridiculous with giant sunglasses from Brian, especially since Europeans generally like big sunglasses, she bought them. She was still really self conscious when she wore them and kept giggling. That probably attracted more looks than the glasses did. + Then, practically spent the whole day trying to get out of Belgium. From Brugges to Brussels, no problem, just took the train, but form Brussels to Paris! Could not get to Paris directly because we had the option of paying 80 euro for a full ticket or wait until night time 10PM to get Eurail Pass tickets, so tried another way, take the local train back up to NorthEastern Belgium to Lille and take the TGV from there. It still only got us to Paris 2 hours earlier than the direct from Burssels train, but it was worth it. We still had to buy the full ticket to leave earlier, but it was a lot cheaper than the Brussels to Paris train. + Tried various methods through the phone to try to top up the cell phone, but no success (02 was asking for a UK credit card, Vodafone didn’t even have the option), just bought a Belgian phone card instead, 2 euro per minute to call France! + To make things worse, they had a lingerie fashion show in the middle of the train station, which, of course, attracted large numbers of males to clog up the passageway. Had to cut through the ticket office to get to the other side + To make things even worse, there was never one place to get all the information we needed. Offices kept sending us across the train station (through the lingerie fashion show) to another office, which would send us back to the other side to yet another office. This wasn’t very fun + Finally got to Lille to wait for the TGV from Lille to Paris + Amy goes out to venture for food, finds a Quick (Belgian fast food chain that sells chicken wings!) and sees a picture of a giant hamburger and thinks that it would be nice to get one for Brian, who was waiting in the station with the luggage + Amy comes back to the waiting room in the train station with a big bag full of food, tells Brian excitedly, “I got you a BIGGG hamburger!” Brian opens the box, it is tiny. Brian bites into it. It isn’t fully cooked. Amy feels bad and gives him half her cheeseburger, which was about the same size. It looked a lot better and bigger in the picture, Really! + Met up with Severine and Patrick at Paris Gare du Nord + They showed us to their nice apartment in Courbevoie in La Garenne Coloumb + Took showers in peace and slept on their fold out furniture! Thanks Severine and Patrick!

Tip: Reserve for French high speed trains. Always. Especially on a Friday.

Walking around Bruges + Asked hotel guy the night before about how to look for Brian’s name and he suggested the etymological book in the library + Amy drags Brian into the library and asks the librarian for help. Spent a while looking through etymological book of names in library. Didn’t find anything conclusive, but took pictures of some possible roots of the name. Tried to ask librarian to translate the Flemish description, but she didn’t give us too much information + Walked through market square + Then went to the Chocolate Story, a Chocolate museum! (they have a fry museum too, but we found out about that one too late). Brian learned a lot about chocolate that would have been very useful for his chocolate mold. Why don’t they just have this information on line??? + Then Lace Museum and Private church. Lace is insane… We have a lot of respect for any lace that is hand made. There was a demonstration room that we followed signs to find, but when we pushed open a door, we just see a bunch of elderly ladies sitting around chatting and holding spools on a pillow, we get nervous and walk all the way out to ask the ticket person if that was the right room, and she confirms and we walk back, feeling very awkward as we go into the room and they carry on as if we didn’t exist. We oggle at their crazy lace making skillz (yo). It takes probably six hours to make an inch by inch square. Maybe. + then walked to Chocolate line, famous for chocolate with crazy flavors (wasabi, chili, etc), got a chocolate assortment box, tasted, and were disappointed. They probably put the most boring chocolates in a box just for tourists We would have bought individual chocolates, but the lady didn’t seem to want to help us translate the Flemish signs + Walked through church of our lady, sat (it was nice) + We came out and it had started raining + Ran over to a carnival vendor (it was really just one ferris wheel) and got Belgian waffles. We had to get some before we left Belgium! Ate under the vendor awning to avoid the rain + walked back to hotel, napped + Dinner at Tom’s diner. Yum! (note to Brian’s friends from Rice: this is not the same place where you can get free frozen yogurt.)

Took the train to Leiden. We ran around the train station asking every information person how to see tulip fields. There was a tulip garden that a lot of old people were going to, but we didn’t want to see gardens. We wanted to see vast fields of tulips! Finally we found the tourist information booth down the road. The girl there was able to give good advice. We caught a bus to Keukenhof. People were going crazy on the bus anytime they saw a patch of flowers. + We had information on a bike rental place so we decided that would be fun. But what is more fun than riding bikes through tulips? Why riding a tandem bike through tulip fields of course! Brian rode in front and Amy in back. We nearly fell off the first time, and we made a wiggly exit out of the parking lot, but we were pros by the end. + Took the wrong turns a couple times while following the biking tour map, but our wrong turns turned out to be some of the best tulip field viewing roads. + Amy liked watching the old people lining up for the tulip park. She said could imagine Brian doing that when he’s old (Because he really likes to take pictures of flowers. Side story: While waiting for boat tour in Amsterdam, Amy goes to the restroom, comes out and Brian says “Guess what I just took a picture of!” Amy, seeing how Brian was sitting at a bench with flowers behind him, says “The flowers?” and was correct.) + The people on the bus back to town were not going as crazy with tulips. + 3 hour train to Bruges (they call themselves Brugge). Comprehensive tourist information from B&B guy, looking for food, eating in the market square, nice UK couple.

Day of Compliments!
1. On the bus back from the tulip place, there were some Malaysian tourists. Amy allows one of them to hop in front of her to the aisle as we were exiting the bus. The second Malaysian person let us go in front in return. As we exit the bus, the second Malaysian tourists asks Amy where she’s from “America! You?” “Malaysia. We’re visiting from Germany” “Ohh.” “Good looking.” “I’m sorry?” Malaysian tourists points at Amy and then at Brian and repeats: “Good looking.” Amy is a little flabbergasted, but says “Thanks!” We part ways and Amy wishes them good travels.

2. As we were sitting in the cafe waiting for dinner in the main square of Medieval Brugge, Amy, as her usual dorky self, starts reading out loud the history of Brugge from her book. She hears some chuckling from her right, but she thought the couple sitting at the table weren’t English speakers because she couldn’t understand what they were saying, so she carries on. Later, when the JUMBO Spaghetti Bolognaise comes to the table (we ordered large because we were hungry and we were going to share), Amy is dwarfed by the size of the dish and the couple on the right make their first verbal conversation “Ahahahaha, You need to finish all of that!” This was the first sign that they spoke English. It turns out that they had a northern UK accent! We learned to understand them as the night went on. Then, as we carried out our maneuver to switch plates after we had finished half, they commented on how good of an idea that was and we laughed. Then, we made small talk about the beauty of Brugge, how we’re doing this 2 month long travel, they gave us some tips on Paris (Don’t eat by the Eiffel tower, super expensive), and they told us that Flemish stew was very good. We carried on until they had to leave, and as they passed by us, the lady said “Enjoy your trip! You both are wonderful people!” WONDERFUL!

Story: Surreal Brugge Train
After entering Belgium we experience three strange surreal events.
Brian needed to go to the restroom on the train so he followed the directions until he came to a big metal door. It didn’t seem to be a toilet door but he decided to check inside anyways. Suddenly someone called out to him in Flemish (or Belch as we first thought there language was called) Brian turned around to find a large guy in the back of the car just repeating the same phrase over and over. Brian asked if he or anyone in the car knew English, but everyone just stared at him. The way they were all just looking at him with the same serious face was intimidating and creepy. He got scared and decided he could hold it.

Later when we entered Antwerp to transfer trains, the trainstation looked like a creepy stage set. The weather was getting rainy outside and it created this foggy like atmosphere inside the station. To add to the effect the train station was HUGE and EMPTY.

When we got to Brugge, The train station looked like a giant construction zone, it was as if we were plopped down onto an unfinished world…. @_@