Bruges and Amsterdam

I haven't been able to post in a few days for several reasons. The computers at the hostel in Bruges were too crappy to upload any pictures but good enough that I still didn't want to go to an interney cafe. I've been in Amsterdam for two days now but have been quite ill and so didn't have the energy to do anything.

Bruges

I think Colin Farrell said it best in In Bruges: "If I had grown up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me. But I didn't, so it doesn't."

There were a few bars in Bruges that did not disappoint: 't Brugs Beertje Pub with a relaxed scene and 300 Belgian beers, and Cambrinus with 400. Other than that I regret having stayed for so long. Bruges would be a great place to visit for one day, or maybe two if you're there for the romance, but not for four!

Amazing pork rillettes in Ghent, famous for bread

I spent Thursday in the nearby city of Ghent, which was really where I should have been the whole time. It's a young university town with tons of culture, like a miniature Melbourne or SF (maybe  Bruges is more like Carmel). I was there on the first day of the festival of lights, which caught me by surprise. At 6 one of the many church towers started chiming and smoking and was lit up like it was on fire. The side of one of the other churches had a movie playing on the side of it, which although I couldn't understand looked really cool. At some point while I was there it dropped below freezing where it was stayed pretty much since.

One of 5 enormous churches in a row

Friday was more walking around Bruges, trying to find the little bits of culture that make it fun. I had "the best pancakes in Belgium" (pancakes = crepes), and sat in a 500 year old pub to read. Friday night was the biggest party I've seen yet, with some people from Siberia who tolerance for alcohol put mine to shame.

Amsterdam

A big step up from the shit Hostel in Bruges

Dutch is a hilarious language

Even though I've been here a couple days I don't really have much to report. There is a lot to take in here, with endless streets of bikes and coffee shops and, yes, prostitutes. I did go to the Van Gogh museum which was pretty impressive, although expensive ($20). I think today I'll see Anne Frank's house, but mostly will continue to lay low until I don't feel so crappy. I'm having dinner with Saskia - who taught me how to play Yaneev in Australia - but I hope she doesn't want to have a big night..

Can't take any pictures inside

Obligatory bikes and a canal picture

I was really happy to be staying in an amazing hotel for the last two nights while I've been sick, but today I'm switching to a hostel. Wednesday I leave for Copenhagen!

Arriving in Bruges

Out the window in the Chunnel!

I arrived yesterday afternoon hungry and more importantly, thirsty for some Belgian bier. Unfortunately, the city did not have my needs in its interest. This city runs entirely on tourism - old city is only one square mile and there isn't any business or financial area - yet it has a weird relationship with it. Four million tourists a year are hated by the locals for not knowing how to get out of the way of the many bikes, taking pictures of the Markt, and generally acting like tourists. Within a few hours of being here I had been yelled at, lied to, and spit on for being a one. Since it's the low season and mid-week, most of the small cafes were closed, so I walked around for hours looking for dinner and a good bar.

But: holy crap do I love the beer. I've been here only 24 hours but I've had more Belgians than I can even find in Boston. Importantly, I finally tried the 6th (of 6) Belgian Trappist breweries, Westvleteren.

I'll be back

A very picturesque city

I spent the night and morning with them,
but have no idea how to spell their names

Last night I met a couple Spanish physics students on holiday, and we went out for late night drinks and this morning walked around the city. We climbed the 366 steps of the bell tower, and decided not to pay the 6 euro for either the chocolate museum or the frites museum.

Since then I've been meandering, trying beers here and there and getting a feel for the city. There's a surprising Australian contingent in the city, so the big Australia Day party is happening over at the Bauhaus later.

I finished reading Fall of Giants this afternoon. At over 1000 pages in hardback, it's the longest book I've ever approached, and I read it in 10 days - mostly sitting in bars of coffee shops. I guess that gives you an idea of how much beer and coffee I've been drinking.

The British Bitter Ale Tradition

I have a few extra minutes before I need to be on the Eurostar to Belgium (yes, the chunnel), so I thought I'd put up my thoughts on what the Brits call ale. If you tried one of these in the States you'd probably think the keg had skunked or that the bottles had been sitting out in the sun for a few days. On the other hand, there is some good variety and, though it seems cliche, the ales go quite well with pub grub like fish and chips or meat pies.

In the 6 days I spent in London I visited no fewer than 9 pubs and tried at least a dozen different British Ales. The big three brewers are Fullers, Young's, and Greene King, and each has a variety of brews. "Bitter" is their most common offering, like Fullers London Pride or Greene's London Glory, and, although the name would suggest otherwise, is the most mild. After that you get Special Bitter and Extra Special Bitter (ESB), and IPA at the high end of hops. Don't be mislead - you will never get anything even close to what we call IPA in America. These beers are all served mildly cold, and are usually hand pumped. That means what carbonation there is is natural, but weak.

My two favourites were Fullers Organic Honeydew, with it's light sweetness, and St. Edmunds Golden, which has much brighter hop flavour than most of the others. The bottom line is that you have to give these beers a chance, preferably in their native environment, but if you were raised on American craft there just isn't much to get excited about. Tonight in Belgium I'm staying at a Hostel that has a bar, so I imagine there will be quite a bit more!

Sorry no pictures of beer; I already packed my camera.

Acting like a local

Details on the Houses of Parliament building

On Saturday I had a brief walk about the Houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, and Buckingham Palace. I am blown away by the architecture of these old buildings. I can't imagine someone today trying to build such an extravagant church or government building - let alone a castle - and getting public support.

I was too cheap to go inside any of them, but I'll be back in London for several days in a few weeks and may then. I still have to see the Churchill Museum and the National Gallery, among a few other things. Anything else you think I shouldn't miss?

Buckingham Palace - one of the Queen's many homes

After that I met up with Julia and Enda for the rest of the day. It was great to get to talk to some "locals" who could show me around the city a bit. They were wonderful to entertain me all day: we walked through Borough Market - full of cheeses and salty pork products - and had some mulled wine; we hit a couple pubs for some traditional British ales; we snuck into St. Paul's Cathedral for the beginning of the Saturday night mass, so I got to see it without spending any £; we walked Portobello Market after it was mostly closed and had beer in a secret garden (no snogging); and I got to go to a real restaurant for dinner - one of Julia's favo(u)rite Indian places. Thank you both so much for taking me out!

Awesome map of Borough Market

My wonderful hosts for the day

Urlacher In'erception? I hardly even know 'er!

Sunday I had lunch again with Enda then decided to see if I could find some Americans with whom to watch some championship (American) football. I showed up at an ex-pat bar a couple hours before the first game (which started here at 8pm) and got one of the last seats. The barbecue wasn't bad, either! It's more fun when you're rooting for one of the teams so I arbitrarily chose the bears. Most of the bar was for Chicago, too bad they got whooped.

Out of about 70 rooms in the museum I would say half
of them contained nothing but pots or the like

Today was my last day in London before leaving for Belgium in the morning. I went to the British Museum to see the Rosetta Stone, but to be honest that was the only thing I could get excited about. Endless rooms of pots, urns, plates, knives, figurines, pots, trinkets...pots... I'm starting to understand what I like in a museum: if it's art or culture then it better be famous, otherwise I like dinosaurs and science. Who knew?

Tourist: Natural History Museum, Tower of London, Tate Modern, Not St. Paul's

Natural History Museum

After just rereading Bill Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything, the British Natural History Museum was at the top of my museum list. I spent three and a half hours there, which I think is longer than I was able to spend in the Louvre or the NY Met...


The building is enormous. It has more than twice the number of specimens as the American Museum of Natural History in NY. Something like two thirds of the space isn't available to the public - where the majority of the specimens actually are - because the main purpose of the building is for research.

The dinosaur exhibit was first, and I think I spent an hour reading every single plaque in the area. Human biology and the Darwin Centre were both great, and after that it went a bit downhill. Insects, rocks, trees, mammals, whatever. My camera battery was nearly dead so I didn't take many pictures, and realized after that I took hardly any of the exhibits: they're all of the building itself.

I wish I knew how to format the page better so these would be side by side

Apparently it used to spin but too many people messed with it.

JR: "What are you studying?" Cute girl: "Geology" JR: "I LOVE rocks!"

It moves, and ROARS

Tower of London

This morning I tubed out to the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge. Considering the Natural History Museum and the Tate Modern are free, I think it's weird that the Tower costs £20. As I entered I joined a tour with a hilarious Yeoman which saved the experience - other than that hour it's mostly just armor and cannons and prison cells. I've found I'm quite interested in the line of kings and queens, and since this is where the Royal Jewels are held I thought I'd be able to learn a lot about it, but it was somehwat lacking in that history. I'll have to look somewhere else. I did get to see the changing of the guard for the crown jewels, so I have even less reason to see the other one (everyone tells me to skip it).

Elizabeth Regina II, in case it wasn't obvious

St. Paul's, as the 4 o'clock bells were ringing

"Sorry sir, we're closed"

"I thought 4:30?"

"Yes but we stop selling tickets at 4"

"Selling?"

"Yes, it's fourteen pounds fifty"

That's $23. Don't think I'll be going back there.

I tried to talk to a cute girl by asking her to take my picture after I crossed the river. Not only did she have no interest in talking, she took the picture without including the dome of St. Paul's, just off screen.

Tate Modern

I did a fairly quick tour through this museum. The most interesting exhibit was the expanse of hand painted porcelain sunflower seeds, raked flat. There must have been millions of them, each crafted by women in a single city in China.

Other than that they had some Warhols and Picassos, but not many.

Arriving in Europe: day 1 in London

If I were smart I would have set this all up before I left the Boston rather than waste money in Internet Cafes, but oh well. I originally had no plans to keep a blog of any kind, but after taking a few pictures today I realized that I wanted to send emails to a few people anyway, so maybe this will actually be easier. I'm not much for prose, and I can't promise I'll be able to keep it up, but it's worth a shot!

This is the entire room, minus the loo

First of all, business class on an international flight was pretty amazing. I don't know why I got so excited about all the perks - like fully reclining seat, champagne before takeoff, 5 "course" dinner - but it certainly was an exciting start to the trip. I woke up just at sunrise to see the west coast of Ireland; it's going to be a good month.

After checking into the ~75 sq ft villa that will be my home for the next six nights and having a shower I set off on a trek. An hour or so touring Hyde Park and Kensington Garden (the difference is not unlike Boston Common and the Public Garden - only locals even know), then a long walk along Piccadilly  to the circus and Trafalgar Square. As I was taking the 15th picture of a statue I decided most of the pictures are going to be a little boring since I'm not going to be in any of them. The photo of Byron seen here took no less than 45 minutes to get, as it's in the middle of a roundabout with no access, at least not legally or safely.

Sunset at Trafalgar Sq

A couple pints near Covent Garden before heading back to the hotel, then here. If I keep this up I'll have many posts about beer so I'll save that for later. Suffice it to say that the cool-ish, flat, mild IPA was not exactly like it is in the states.