Ye-Brugge-Alayim

It's been a pretty ridiculous week to say the least. Since last Friday, I haven't had much free time, but that's not to say I haven't been enjoying myself. On Sunday morning, I and a few friends hopped on a train to Brugge, Belgium for a early-week trip before Sorbonne classes start. I'm going to be a bit brief because I actually have class tomorrow, so here we go.

Brugge is a city of about 20,000 and is very small in actual size. It's less than 140 square kilometers, making it a great little town to walk around and see on foot. It was great to be able to see the city without riding the metro everywhere, and it also gave us some exercise after eating a disgusting amount of disgustingly expensive food.
Apparently, it's known as "The Little Venice of the North," probably because of the small canals that run through the city. But after looking at some photos of Venice, the two cities have pretty much nothing else in common. Brugge is a very well preserved Medieval city, and while the canals are definitely an aspect of the town, you can easily get around without stepping into a boat. That said, we went on a canal tour just for kicks, and it was totally worth it. We got some a amazing views of the architecture and got a bit of the city's history from our Flemish tour guide.
That Sunday night happened to be the Super Bowl, and while we found multiple pubs broadcasting the game (we had to make a throwing motion to see if they understood what we were talking about), we weren't about to stay awake until 4:30 a.m. to catch the whole thing. So we did what only terrible Americans do, and we missed the Super Bowl. I think it's the first time I can remember missing the game. Even on a flight home from Hawaii we were able to listen to it on the radio. Shame on me.

But life goes on. The next day, it was snowing in Brugge, and we trooped out of our hostel at about 10:30 a.m. to start touring. We went to the big bell tower in the marketplace, the chocolate museum, had Belgian waffles, and while Rachel and Vanessa went to the diamond museum, Jon and I skipped ahead to the "De Halve Maan" Brewery. There, they brew the most popular beer in Brugge, Bruges Zot. Really delicious. We had plenty of them during our stay, and unlike Paris where a beer runs between four and seven euros, we were able to get brews at our hostel between one and $2.60. Not too shabby.
The brewery was very different from the Guiness storehouse in Dublin. They showed us all around the fermentation chambers, which smelled great. We also got to go on the roof and saw a great view of the city, much better than the bell tower view that we saw earlier in the day.
That's pretty much it. Doesn't sound like much, but it was an awesome trip. We had a fun time roaming around the city, but once again it was so nice to be back in our apartment in Paris. Considering I have class tomorrow, I'm glad I was able to get back and relax for a few days before a French lady yells at me for not understanding what she's saying. It won't be anything new.

I don't know when I'm traveling next, but this is what I do know: Emily Eckhous and friends are coming in late March, and Zac and Annie Miller are coming in April. Somehow, we'll work an Amsterdam trip in there, and during our spring break, we're going all over the place. For now, I have a cover letter to work on for the NPR internship, and I really need to learn how to form a sentence in this strange language. I'll try to post more pictures tomorrow, and I'll make sure to write about my first few French classes.