‘If I grew up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.’

I just got back to the hotel after a weekend in Belgium.  The title of this post is from the movie ‘In Bruges’.  Does it accurately reflect my feelings of that town?  Read on to find out…

One of the fantastic things about Europe is the fact you can get to so many places for cheap.  My flight to Brussels ran about $110 CAD, and it was only that ‘expensive’ because I booked relatively late – only two weeks before I went.  If I had booked for next weekend (the first weekend of February), it would have been about $30 CAD.

The airline offering this low fare was Ryanair, and after boarding the plane at Milano Bergamo and deplaning an hour and a half later at Brussels Charleroi, I finally came up with a way to describe the airline – Ryanair is to airlines as informercials are to TV.  They’re cheesy, you’re not sure if it’s a hundred percent legit, and they’re really trying to sell you something.

The first thing to know about Ryanair is that there is no assigned seating.  You line up at the boarding gate, go to the plane, and take any available seat.  You’re also only allowed to take one carry on bag.  As we boarded, classical music played over the plane’s speakers.  I don’t know if it was supposed to keep people calm or add a touch of class to a discount airline, but all it succeeded in doing was make me scratch my head.

During the flight, there was the option to buy something to drink or eat.  There was also the option to buy phone cards or lottery tickets.  Yeah.

It wasn’t a full flight, so I had the entire row myself, making the hour and a half ride quite tolerable.  And for all the things I found strange about Ryanair, up to and including the feeling that the flight attendants were the farm team for a real airline, it was cheap, efficient and got you where you were going.

And why was I going to Brussels?  Bianca, a friend I made while working in Sweden is from Belgium and offered to show me around.  I don’t know about you, but Belgium isn’t one of those countries I would go to unless I had a reason (I told this to my friend and she wasn’t happy, especially when I said the same thing about Sweden, where she lived for several years.  I pretty much insulted all the countries she’s lived in.  That’s how I do).  But with the offer made, there was no way I could turn the chance to catch up with a friend and see a country not many people journey to.

I did a little bit of site seeing: I saw the King’s Palace and learned Belgium had a King.  I also learned that he’s a little stressed right now because Belgium doesn’t have a ruling government party.  That’s right, no laws are being made, no budgets are being passed.  So if you want to take over a European nation…

Brussels was a lot like most European cities: lots of beautiful old buildings and narrow and bustling streets.  One of the famous landmarks is a statue of a peeing boy.  I don’t know the significance and neither did Bianca.  Some Wikipedia research will need to be done.  There are also waffle shops.

Hell, yeah.

After getting a Verhaeghe beer from a cool bar named Delerium, which was super busy for six o’clock , we met up with Bianca’s sister and one of her friends who was visiting from Moscow with another Russian in tow for dinner.  After eating, we hopped to a couple of different places for drinks, including one lounge called ‘The Flat’, which was laid out like an apartment, complete with bathtub.

Sunday morning, Bianca and I headed off to Bruges.  It’s a picturesque little town, which is the only way I can really describe it.  It’s a great place for a day trip, but I don’t know if there’s anything that is necessarily a must see.  We did have lunch at a great restaurant and then visited the chocolate museum.  Maybe that’s one of the must sees.

One thing I noticed around Brussels is there’s a chocolate shop called Leonidas.  When I first saw it, I thought, ‘Isn’t that the name of the King of the Spartans, a la 300?’  I thought it was a funny name for a Belgian chocolate shop, but in the chocolate museum, I learned that Leonidas was started by a man of Greek descent, and everything made sense.

The more you know.

Oh yeah, airport waffle.

 

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