Bruges

We had an amazing day off. Richard, Jesse and I spent the day walking around, the morning in Oostende and the afternoon in Bruges. In Oostende we walked around killing time until a nautical store opened, there were lot of stalls set up all around the boats, folding ceramic knives, leather scraps, stripy shirts, candy and other nautical nick knacks. We ended up going to a bakery and getting some giant meringues there and then to a square where lots of booths were set up, mostly clothing but there were two big rotisserie meat trucks. We got lunch from there and got some fruit at a grocery store and it made an amazing lunch. I had a big hunk of ham, Jesse a sausage and a meat dumpling and Richard had some chicken and roasted potato nuggets. On the way back to the boat we passed three seafood stalls that looked amazing, things to eat and dried fish hanging out. There was also a gelato place that I’m sure we will return to.

Off to Bruges we went, we took the train, only took 15 minutes. Walked around and finally found the main city with lots of pointy spires. We just walked around aimlessly looking at things, old churches and buildings, little shops, canals, lots of general cuteness. The only church that was actually open was called Our Lady and had a statue made my Michelangelo, it was of Mary and baby Jesus, it looked very similar to his pieta in St. Paul’s. We looked at a lot of chocolate shops and finally chose one to buy a few from, we got a hedgehog filled with hazelnut, lemongrass, Havana that tasted a bit smoky and red wine vinegar that was a favorite. Jesse and Richard also found a beer shop that had a wall of all the 780 beers made in Belgium.