Bruges is Bad@$$

I had a really great picture of myself in front of this mill but then deleted it by accident.

To quote the movie In Bruges “If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn’t, so it doesn’t”

If you cannot tell from my subject line I completely disagree. Immediately upon arriving in Bruges I really liked it. I don’t know why, I cannot explain it but I did. I went to my hostel to check in and the guy working the counter was really friendly and funny. He gave me the “Bruges Free Map for Young Travelers”, which is itself hilarious. There are two sides to the map a daytime side and a nighttime side. There is a section entitled “Act like a Local” that has things like “Use your bicycle to run over tourists”, “West-Flemish, the dialect of Bruges, is the most powerful dialect around.”, “Always complain that Bruges is dead. There is no graffiti, no skating, no good shopping area, and there is no decent music club in the city centre…If somebody else complains about the same thing shout ‘shut up’ and say it’s not true” and “Just because there are statues everywhere doesn’t mean you have to take a picture of every single one”. Those are some of my favorites but you get the idea, it’s very lighthearted and fun, which is the vibe of the city and why I like Bruges so much.

After checking in I dropped my stuff off in my room and went down to the bar where the desk clerk is also the bartender. The beer in Belgium is delicious and has lots of alcohol 9.2% and 11.3% were the beers I was drinking. For comparison Bud Light has 4.2%. I also learned that if something says “Made in Belgium” it actually is only if the first two digits of the UPC code are “54” otherwise it’s actually made elsewhere.

I met up with some people from the hostel and we all decided to go out. A local walked by and we talked to him about where to go, he told us he was going to a bar and we could join him. When we got there it was more of a family restaurant and not really a bar so we all headed elsewhere. In most of Europe that I have been to so far businesses charge for using the bathroom usually around €.5 per use. At the bar that we found and spent the evening at they had a deal where you could use the bathroom once for €.4 or you could buy an unlimited pass for the evening for €3.

At Oktoberfest I first heard the song “Dance with Somebody” by Mando Diao and then I heard it again at my hostel in Amsterdam and I really like it. Here is the YouTube link if you want to check it out. If you don’t like it wait until the chorus starts before you turn it off because that is the best part.



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10_11_09 Bruges small