We took a lazy morning for ourselves on Saturday, getting up around 9, going out at 10. For those of you giggling at the idea of 10 am being a lazy morning for yours truly... Shush.
We started by walking around, snapping photos and playing tourist - we went to the Market square and the Burg, another open area nearby. We used one of our hostel maps to find the oldest bar in Bruges, dating back to the 16th century, but they were closed for holiday until february. (Frowny Face) still, we found a decent place for lunch, Only 1 euro for a bowl of soup and about 6 for a HUGE bowl of spaghetti bolognese. I wasn't hungry, so the soup and a coke was all i needed.
Side note - There's NO way to get a free drink in europe. Seriously, they don't do the American free glass of water thing. It's pretty frustrating for a poor college kid.
Anyways, from here Cait, Kristen and I decided to try to rent some bikes to see more of the city. Thaaaaat didn't work out. We ended up walking for half an hour to a place that was closed. From there we blew off the idea of bikes and walked through a nice little park area. We ended up in a residential area and suddenly thought
"Hm! Waffles would be awesome right now!"
So we whipped out our trusty map and followed it to De Straat, where there were supposed to be many waffle stands. They claimed the smell wafted into the open air a block away. So away we went. On our journey, we stopped at a little bakery, got some pastries. I know, pastries on the way to waffles? we laughed too. We moved onward to find a cool looking cathedral being renovated. We went inside, and got weirded out by some room in the back that looked like it came from the Da Vinci Code. They had several strings hanging from ceiling to floor with white feathers attached to them, and some sort of diagram of a face and numbers and regions of the face in the front of the room - overall, very strange. From here we left, stopped again at a little fruit stand where we found some AWESOME apples - Pink Lady and Kanzi, I believe. When we finally got to our destination, we found that we had been deceived. there were NO stands to be found.
We did, however, find a place called "Sweet Bruges." For the record, never ever ever ever go to a restaurant with the name of the city you're in and expect something authentic. The place was full of tourists, we were ushered to a table and given menus. The waffles were twice as expensive and when we finally got them, they were nowhere near as good as the first waffles we had purchased.
The metaphor that best fits is that the first waffles we had were like true love - it was authentic and left me with a warm feeling inside. Meanwhile, these waffles were like watching a chick flick - the "Love" was crunchy, overdone, and halfway through, I only kept going out of an obligation to the money I had spent.
After our Lame-ffles, we met back up for dinner at 6 with Jenna and Genny. We ended up at a sorta-italian place, the food wasn't too bad. After all this we decided to go back to the hostel for a little, because we heard the nightlife didn't really get going until about 11.
At around 10, we headed out to some of the bar/clubs near Market Square. We ended up having a great time at one called Cathedraak, which had 2 levels, semi-gothic decorations and was clearly sponsored by Bacardi. Our numbers grew as we found more emerson people, but dwindled again later. Eventually around 2 we headed back to the hostel and went to sleep.
We woke up on sunday, got some breakfast at a very nice (but overpriced), authentic place. I got some crepes, but the waffles were really, really good. Not as good as brussels, but very good nonetheless. Afterward we hopped on our trains/busses and made our way home by 4.
Overall, it was a great weekend and we're all looking forward to more adventures. Next week I'll be headed to Geneva, Switzerland!
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