Europe Part 4: Chocolate, waffles, and lace.

Having seen the highlight tour of Antwerp, we decided to take a day trip out to Brugge on the second day. Dad Nagles took us to the train station and after putting our newfound train-schedule reading powers to the test we managed to get ourselves to Brugge with very little worry. Our first stop was along a park area, Minnewater Park, complete with old bridges and canals. Very pretty, we took a lot of pictures with the local greenery.


Early spring means Tulip season.

The next impressive sight was waterfowl. The ducks and swans had sort of taken over a bank along one of the canals and we watched them eat and prance around for a while. There were even some baby ducks which, as you might guess, were *so cute*.

At that point we decided to try our first proper Belgian Waffle. (Southern style, not northern). The primary differences between ours and theirs is that theirs isn’t just for breakfast, theirs has crystalized sugar bits in, and theirs is really, really good. Jess really liked it, and we managed to get about 20 feet down the road before Jess decided we needed to get another one.


The 'other' Madonna and Child.

The big church in Brugge is big and old, like most churches, and it’s most famous claim is a Madonna and Child sculpture by Michaelangelo. We saw the sculpture, but actually felt a little bad for *another* Madonna and Child that was really really pretty, but it wasn’t *the* sculpture. Everyone is coming by to see the other statue and no one cares about this really nice one over here. So we took a picture with the ‘other’ one. It was quite pretty.


Seriously weird chocolate. A lot of fun.

The Chocolate line. Called out specifically by our guidebook as one of the stranger chocolate shops, we were intrigued. So we spent probably an hour going into the store, buying really weird chocolates, and writing down our thoughts. Behold some highlights:
-Peanut and Coriander, quite good
-Havana Cigar, technically illegal in the states
-Fried Onions, We really liked this one
-Tomato, olive and basil, tasted like Tomato, olive, basil, and chocolate
-Wasabi, not good
-Saffron Curry, good with white chocolate

We really liked the strangeness and variety. We topped off our chocolate ‘lunch’ with some Belgian fries. Then we completed our walk to the market square (no actual market on that day) where we climbed the bell tower. By hand, even. Or by foot, I guess. Tiny little spiral staircase the whole way. The view from the top was worth it. I like seeing old cities from above.


Us by the statue in market square.

Brugge is full of lace shops. We picked up some for Jessie’s family for souvenirs, and we kept taking Jessie’s picture in front of increasingly large lace shops. We even saw a lace map of the city that was a couple of meters tall at least. Terribly impressive. Then on the way back we saw an old lady doing lace by hand! Her fingers were incredibly deft, and I took a video just so I could remember how cool it was to watch. Triple neato.


Yes, that is Jessie and a lace MAP OF BRUGGE.

We hung out by the ducks and swans for a while, writing in our journals, and then on the way back we saw that there was a carnival set up near the train station. Well we had a little extra time, so we got a ride on the ‘mouse trap.’ Just like a regular roller coaster, except our car spun around while it ran. Pretty cool, though not monumentally exciting.

We caught the train back to Antwerp and then An’s family, being fantastically nice to us *again*, took us out to dinner with the whole family, all three sisters and their husbands/boyfriends. It was fun to watch the conversation flip back and forth between english and dutch. We ate tons and tons of delicious food and drank wine and had a terrific time. We’re hoping An’s famliy can come visit us in Austin sometime so we can return the favor.

So, at the end of a very long day we came back to House Nagles and crashed. Lots of sightseeing for just one day.

-N