"Thank you" in Flemish is "Dank u wel"

The next day we trained it out to Brugge, Belgium which is also known as "Little Venice" due to it's canals and "Little Amsterdam" due to it's architecture. The day started out, much like Lille, cold and windy with a little rain. However, it quickly turned into a clear, sunny day which was perfect for sightseeing. Brugge (or Bruges, as the French call it and, as we found out, the way it must be spelled for TGV to find a ticket to it) contains everything from modern shopping to old churches, includes a monastery and the oldest family-run brewery in Belgium, large public parks and cramped city streets, and enough food and chocolate to kill a grown man.

The photo gallery of Brugge can be viewed by clicking here.

If you ever make it to Brugge, I highly recommend the "Brugge By Boat" canal tour. Not only will you hear the driver give the tour in multiple languages (on our tour it was Flemish, Dutch, English, French, and German) but you'll also learn interesting facts about Brugge, such as:

• many buildings in Brugge were painted red in the past, as the owners used cow's blood in the paint mixture
• the canals in Brugge are two metres/6.5 feet deep throughout. Only the tour boats are permitted to use them
• there are 22 churches in Brugge, both Catholic and Protestant

...and it was only 5,40€ per person!

Cal and I then embarked on a walk of Brugge, aiming to find many of the sights we'd glimpsed by boat. We fueled ourselves with some Belgian chocolate (which was worth the indigestion it gave me), walked through the courtyard of a monastery, and wandered some city streets.

Cal, who had been to Brugge before, knew of what he called the "crazy church". Of course, I had to check that out. We hike away from the more touristy area where we'd been and arrive at the "crazy church". From the outside, it looks no different than any Gothic cathedral in the city, barring some scaffolding out front. Inside, however, was a different story.

Upon entering, the first thing I noticed was that it was far too dark. This is because the windows have all been boarded up to limit the light, as the central attraction of the church was a pool of water that was in the center of where the pews should have been. The pool of water was lighted from multiple sides and filled with various type of trash. Behind the pool, in front of what should have been the alter, was a large projection screen on which a short film was being shown. It was all in French with French subtitles, but from what I could decipher it was three men looking for something in a field dotted with rusted-out army tanks. It was all very dramatic.

In the back room, off to the side, Cal said he remembered there being a cool painting (sidebar: the pool of trashy water and French film had not been there the first time Cal went, so clearly the exhibits rotated). The painting Cal remember was gone, having been replaced with a portrait painting and about 8 pieces of string running down the center of the room, floor to ceiling, with what appeared to be goose feathers tied to them in equal intervals. The portrait, upon second look, was more interesting. It was the outline of someone's head and shoulders, divided into four quadrants. In each quadrant was one phrase, seemingly type with a typewriter, repeatedly: "I am", "Ich bin", "Ik ben", or "Je suis". There were also some other various abstract lines running through it in various places. In my opinion, it was the one redeeming thing in the place.

Leaving the "crazy church", we walked through Public Displays of Affection Park (not it's real name). I had noticed before that the Europeans are very expressive of their love for one another. This park contained two teenagers making out in the grass, another couple spooning, and a guy sitting on a bench with his girlfriend facing him in a straddle position. I can't help but wonder if we were more restrictive of violence in the media rather than sexuality, as is Europe, if America wouldn't have more couples making out in parks and less people killing each other in them.

We headed back to the Markt at that point, and eventually made our way back to the square where we had lunch at the start of the day. We plopped down in a cafe for Belgium waffles (lovely!) before making our way back to the train station...and past more straddling couples. We took the train back to Lille with dinner in mind, stopping by a large building in the center of Lille on the way to the restaurant. Inside were multiple used book dealers, people selling old advert posters, music, and chess players scattered throughout. As we arrived it seemed that everyone was closing up for the evening, though there were still a considerable number of people browsing around.

The whole time we were there was music playing through a speaker, and we didn't think much of it. After 10 minutes or so, we noticed there were couples dancing in the open square. Some better than others, tangoing and waltzing, moving to the music in the evening light. The other patrons of the square continued their browsing or sat down to watch, a spontaneous dance recital cut off from the rest of the bustling city.

After we watched the dancing for a bit and finished up browsing, our empty stomachs got the better of us. We headed on to L'Omnia, a restaurant/lounge off the main square of Lille. L'Omnia has an interesting history: originally a cabaret when it opened in the 1850, it quickly became a brothel for a number of years. In the 1980s it opened as a cinema specializing in pornographic films, and was apparently the last porn cinema in the north of France to close. Now, the building houses a posh restaurant and bar that capitalized on it's shady past: the restaurant and bar have a "house of ill repute" feel to it with big chandeliers, private booths, oversized chairs, and dim lighting. Despite its sordid history, it's got a great atmosphere and the food it actually quite good. I wouldn't order the crabs, though, considering.

The next day I said goodbye to my brother and got back on the train to Charles de Galle to catch my light to Tel Aviv. After a minor fiasco regarding my baggage allowance, mainly due to my inability to speak French well, I boarded a Royal Jordanian flight to Amman. I'll give you that whole story next entry, yeah?