Day Fifty-Seven

Bruges, Belgium

Today was ridiculous.

Today was the day that we were to leave the UK for Belgium. We left Edinburgh by bus around 8:30 with the understanding that it wasn't very far to Glasgow and from there not very far to the airport. It ended up being an hour each way and we got to the airport with only an hour to spare.

Long story short, we ended up having to pay an extra 50+ Pounds and we missed the luggage checking deadline, so we had to carry on our huge backpacks. In order to do this they had to be under 10kg. Mine was 13+ and Jill's was not far off, so we had to shed a few pounds before they would let us on, all the while worrying that we would run out of time and miss our flight completely. So there we were, luggage strewn about all over the Prestwick Airport floor, swearing, panicking, and ripping our hair out. I ended up losing a pair of shorts, my pjs, a plug converter, and all of my toiletries. I also put on most of the clothes in my bag in order to lighten the load even more.

Luckily, our flight was delayed and we managed to get our packs under 10kg in time to make the flight. Once we were sure that we would make the flight we switched from worrying about our flight to being excited for where the plane was going to take us.
We were going to be in another new country, but this time we wouldn't know anyone, and it wouldn't be an English speaking country.

Our day really started to brighten up when we landed in Brussels. We were able to get our Eurail pass validated and start traveling on trains instead of shitty buses and planes. We also decided upon arriving that we were going to go to Bruges for two nights, then go to Brussels for two nights, and then go to Antwerp for an afternoon before going to the Netherlands.

When we got on our train to Bruges we had to stand in the back compartment of a car because there were no seats left for us. This was ok though because we ended up having a conversation with an American woman named Kari who thought we were starving students traveling around with no money. This was only partly true, but it didn't stop her from giving us each a fistfull of change and a bunch of maps of Paris. She was really nice, even if she did ask if we had facebook in Canada, and if we had a hard time adjusting to the 'warm' weather. She also paid for the cab that she asked if wanted to split with her. She rules, we are hopefully going to see her sometime while we are here.

After saying goodbye to Kari we wandered over to a hostel that was recommended by our guidebookthing. Turns out it is an amazing, simple, hostel that is only charging us 15 Euro a night for what appears to be our own room. Couldn't have asked for a better place. No puking foreign girls either. Boo ya.

This city is great so far. After walking around the quiet streets, eating Pizza Hut, and checking out the sights at night we have decided to stay two extra nights here. We love it too much to leave.

Tomorrow is Jillian's birthday. It should be a blast; we are renting bikes!

-Pat