Where in the world is Brandon OBrien

Friday, September 13, 2013 @ 6:29 PM in 2013 Europe

Day 79

The ticket I bought for Bruges yesterday didn't have a specific time and the trains run about every 30 minutes, so I wasn't in any kind of rush this morning to get ready. One issue that had been plaguing me during my stay in Brussels was my key card for my room at the hostel kept getting deactivated. I was on the 4th floor so every time it happened I'd have to walk all the way back down to the lobby and then back up to get it fixed.

I was planning on getting the 12:21 train so I left the hostel around 10:30 and hung out in the Grote Markt and had lunch there. The skies started clouding up and it felt like rain was coming any second so I went to the train station a little early.

I looked at the schedule and rather than wait around for an hour and a half I decided to get on the 12:00 train. It ended up being delayed by about 10 minutes but once I got on the ride was fine. It rained a bit but the countryside was nice.

When I got to Bruges, it wasn't really raining hard but it was just enough that I needed to put on my rain coat. When I left the train station I headed toward the Grote Markt in Bruges. The town is beautiful! Even in the gloomy weather the town has a certain kind of charm to it. I took some photos and then went to seek out the hostel so I didn't have to lug my big bag around with me.

After checking in I went to a big supermarket to get some stuff for dinner. I ended up getting a green pepper, an onion and some oranges. I didn't realize you needed to weigh, bag and print prices for all the produce you buy. When I walked up to the cash register they had to call an employee to run back and scan everything for me. It was pretty embarrassing since I don't speak any Dutch. It's close enough to German that I can understand some stuff but there's no way I can try to put together a worthwhile sentence.

Anyway, after that got figured out I came back to answer some emails and do a little bit of work that I wasn't able to do on the last hostel's extremely slow internet. After that I set out to find some frites to eat as a snack. I had some that were pretty good, although the ones in Brussels were better. These frites were a little thinner cut. They were still super crispy and delicious, but I liked the super crispy thick cut frites that I had in Brussels.

Back at the hostel I made some vegetable curry for dinner and now I'm working on this blog post. Every night between 9-10 the hostel has a happy hour where their already cheap beers are discounted even more. I'll probably hang out here at the hostel tonight and have a beer or two tonight.

The weather tomorrow is supposed to be nicer so I'll try to do all of my exploring of the city then. There's a 7km walk around the old city walls that I want to try too. There are 4 old windmills set up along the old canals that are supposed to be nice photo spots as well.

Teaser photos: