Brugge Trip

Today Brandon McKeever, Zach Hockett, and I decided to go to Brugge, a big city about 40k from Izegem. It is the town where “de Ronde” starts. We left the house around 9:20 to catch a ten o’clock train. We arrived to Brugge about 10:30 and had no clue where to go. We just followed a town that said “centrum” or downtown. When we got to the downtown area we just walked down lots of alleys and got a lot of pictures of the cool architecture. We also went in a bunch of the small shops. There was a chocolate store that had some very interestingly shaped chocolate figures. We eventually found the downtown, the place where “de Ronde” starts. I got some pics of that area. Then we went down an alley and had a Belgian waffle. I got one with whipped cream and ice cream. The weird thing was the waffle was cold, so I don’t think it was an authentic Belgian waffle. The “real” waffles are cooked fresh and are served warm. Then we went down a bunch of other alleys that ended up leading us to the downtown. There was this huge clock tower in the downtown and we decided to walk up it. All 366 stairs. There weren’t your normal stairs either. They wound their way up very tightly up to the top. They were also very narrow. And the closer we go to the top, the more narrow and steep the steps became. We could literally use the steps above us as a handrail. When we got up to the top of the bell tower it was about five minutes to one. We decided to wait until one to hear the bells go off. This tower was very interesting because it wasn’t just one bell. It was many bells of different sizes and many strings to pull the bells to make a noise. Then one o’clock came around and I was treated to a one or two minute musical with the bells. It was pretty sweet, and very painful to my sensitive ears. After “the show” we decided to trek back down the stairs and eat lunch. We decided to go to an Italian place. I had tortellini with some meat sauce. It was a lot better than the pasta I have here most days. After we ate, we did some more walking around shops for about an hour or two, and Zach and I headed back to Izegem. Brandon stayed in Brugge a while longer to find a gift for his girlfriend. That was about it for a day with a bunch of walking. I am happy I went to see Brugge because I would have regretted going all the way to Europe and not seeing one big city. I will post some pics tomorrow.