A quick trip to Brugges, Belgium

This past few days my new friend Georgina were in Brugges, Belgium. It was such a cute town! This was a very last minute trip, but we figured since we had from Saturday-Wednesday off school, we might as well make the most of it! And we sure did...

We decided to go to Brugges instead of Brussels because Georgina's father highly recommended it, and we heard there was much more to do here than Brussels. It was quite the hassle to get there, let me tell you! We first had to catch a Terravision bus by the train station to get the Pisa airport. The bus was about half an hour late, and we were on a time crunch so we were a little stressed. We ended up arriving just in time to the airport, but then we found out that the plane was an hour delayed. No big deal right? We thought this actually worked for our benefit, because the line for security was horrendous. Once we got through security, we found out our flight was now two hours late... half an hour later it was three hours late... and well, you get the idea. Long story short, we ended up waiting in the airport almost an extra 6 hours. The reason? Technical difficulties... scary! Some Italian guy said a flight collided in London. This definitely did not make me feel good at all... I was hoping I heard him wrong. Anyways, we were a little ticked and frustrated but we made the most of the situation. We walked around the airport as much as we could (its tiny) and Ryanair provided us with a free meal by the security gate. That was nice, but we had to go back through security again... its such a hassle.

Anyways... once we finally arrived in Brussels, we had to figure out how exactly to get to Brugges. We ended up having to take an hour bus to the Brussels train station, and then we had to take a train into Brugges. We didn't end up getting to Brugges until like 11:30 and the nice man from the bed and breakfast we were staying at was there to pick us up. The bed and breakfast was super cute! We were very comfortable with our room, and Andre and his wife were very nice and accommodating.

Of course we got tons of chocolate while we were in Belgium. That night we decided to just take it easy that night and the next morning we had breakfast around nine and then we asked Andre how to get to town where all the shopping and sites were. After much confusion figuring out the bus, we finally headed towards town and were immediately impressed by how cute the little town was! We had a great time shopping (H&M is always a hit :) ) and looking around and taking pictures. We were both craving Chinese food, so we found this yummy place and split fried noodles with chicken, spring rolls, and hot and sour soup (my fav!). We were pretty cold and tired at that point, so we took a break and went back to our room and watched Sex and the City and just relaxed. A few hours later, we got all cute and ready and went out to the town on the bus again and found a place to eat for dinner. The dinner was alright- but extremely overpriced. A dinner split between just us two ended up being like 52 euro! How ridiculous... that's like 70 American dollars. We split spaghetti bolognese, grilled chicken (which was pretty hard), and calamari. The calamari was actually shaped in onion ring form. I have never eaten it like that! I love fried calamari... most people think this is strange because I HATE seafood but I guess I don't really taste the "sea" in the calamari. I know, I know, I am a strange person... haha


After dinner we didn't really have the strength (or money) to go out and drink at any bars. Not to mention it was literally FREEZING! Our feet felt like they were going to fall off. We weren't sure if we missed the last bus or not, so we decided to take a short taxi ride back to Andre's.

The next morning started off pretty much the same... Breakfast around 9:00 and then we went into the town again. We were originally looking for the Guilded Houses and the famous Brewery (with over 400 beers) but we were unsuccessful in finding both of those. We ended up having a great day though! We did a little more shopping, and stopped at a tea house and had a cappuccino (Georgina had tea) and we split a typical Belgium Waffle. It was delicious! The rest of the day we just wandered and purposefully got lost. We took the bus back and relaxed for a couple hours and had a low key dinner at a local bistro within walking distance of the b & b. We had Bitterballin (my mom told me I HAD to try this at some point, toasted ham and cheese mini sandwiches, and a dish of macaroni and cheese with bacon. We also split some red wine. That night, we finished the rest of Season 5 of Sex and the City (courtesy of Chris! :) ) and got to bed relatively early because we had to be up at 5:45 AM the next morning.

The next morning, we got up super early, finished packing, ate a roll and were out the door by 6:15. Andre was kind enough to take us to the train station again and we arrived just in time to catch the 6:30 train, and it took about an hour. From there, we had the difficult task of trying to find the bus that would take us back to the Charleroi airport in Brussels. With much asking, we ended up finding the bus and it took off less than 10 minutes later. We are lucky everything worked out! :) We arrived at the airport in plenty of time and walked around the shops before we departed. Thank goodness it wasn't delayed this time! The flight took about two hours and from there we waited at the Terravision bus stop for our journey back to Florence from Pisa. This took forever because they waited until the entire bus was filled so we didn't end up leaving until like an hour and a half after we landed. Oh well! Everything else rain very smoothly that day.

Overall it was a fun, but brief trip! I am looking forward to the next two weekends in Florence. My friend Kristin from HS just arrived from Seattle and she is staying with me for the weekend. We are planning on going on lots of day trips this weekend to a bunch of places in Italy. We are thinking Assisi on Friday, Ravenna on Saturday, and Perugia (chocolate anyone?!) on Sunday. It will be a fun filled weekend for sure.

Today was the first day of classes- it feels weird to be back in school but I don't think the semester will be too bad. I am only taking 15 credits so I won't be super busy with school work.

Well I am off to unpack the lovely suitcase my mother packed for me!

Arrivederci!