French Fry Wars

Train Intro

Upon entering German territory we encountered what I would call, a German Goon Squad. This is where a group of drug, alcohol, and criminal authoritative figures enter your train compartment and do “random” searches and questionings of people. We all know that random usually means any of the following, dark skin, male, slightly sketchy looking or carrying strange amounts of luggage. This goon squad was no different than the ones back in states, but luckily I carry with me a pale, short, smiley, redheaded teacher from the United States, so I haven’t had any trouble with the goon squad, yet.

In Bruges

Ray: If I'd grown up on a farm and was retarded, Bruges might impress me, but I didn't, so it doesn't.

If you haven’t seen the movie, In Bruges, you really should, especially if you have been to Bruges. You’ll get all the jokes and it makes the movie a hundred times better. Bruges is this tiny town/city a few clicks away from Brussels Belgium. It’s home to many delights such as waffles of extraordinary taste, cheese that would make mice wet themselves and French fries touched by the hand of God. The town is known as Little Venice, but lately I’m finding that every town and city in Europe thinks it the Venice of or little Venice because every town is built on a river or a set of canals. The city is amazing. It’s filled with canals, cobble stone streets, churches and old buildings. It’s one of those places where you can turn a church into a disco or an old apartment building into a hostel, but you don’t tear shit down and rebuild, you use what’s already there and work around the problems. This policy has helped maintain the city in its original form. Simply put, you need a day to walk around, a day to do all the fun things and a day to do push ups and jog off all the beer and food.

We got to our hostel and hit the bar almost immediately. The Snuffles hostel was a sweet place to stay, except the staff was a collection of some of the stupidest people I have ever met and trust me it wasn’t the language barrier, they just didn’t bring any food to the picnic if you know what I mean. The hostel was set up like a children’s book. I had to check under my bunk bed for scary purple monsters that might eat my toes each night. You can also smoke inside the bars here and at lunchtime, all the Junior High Kids come in for lunch and chain smoke. For two days my throat was swollen and we stunk like the break room at a Walmart store. My only other complaint is that the internet didn’t work and the showers are push button that don’t stay on unless you hold the button in, which is almost impossible to do while trying to shower or maintain a warm water flow. I took better showers at my base camp when I was in Vietnam. Another complaint is entirely on my dumb ass. The staircase in the hostel is a winding staircase with broken boards and sounds like it’s going to break with every step. On my way up to the room and on the phone with Shelly, I dropped my key card from the top floor all the way down to the last floor and it landed in a loogie I spit on the way up the stairs. Karma.

I have never been all that impressed with Belgium beer and my feelings continued. Chimay, Grimbergen, Affligen, Palm, to name a few, are all very foo foo and light. It’s like I’m drinking a dessert beer and getting diabetes, rather than getting drunk. We bought a bottle of Jameson around the corner and spent most of our time sneaking up to the room to take shots. For a country that is known for it’s mass quantity of beer, they really should consider quality over quantity. It is cheap though and eventually, any quanity of beer does the trick of bringing travelers together and destroying sentence structure.

I Like Food

The main thing here in Bruges is the French Fry wars. In the downtown square you will find two French fry trailers. They look like green taco trucks, but you won’t find any burrito goodness here, just delicious French fries, a plethora of sauces and several different meats on a stick or in a bread. You’re supposed to try both and choose which one you like. I suggest the one on the left, not only because we tried it first and we fell in love, but also because no one seems to go to the one on the right. When in Bruges, do as the Brugens. Another food suggestion is passing down the streets that contain at least 10 chocolate shops. The quantity of chocolate shops makes the whole street smell like chocolate. Me and Tara rode our bikes up and down one street several times just for the pure nasal joy. It was like a Homer Simpson candy dream sequence. You can get high on drugs, high on life, high on Jesus, but nothing gets you high like a street of chocolaty dreams. On a sad note, the place the travel guides call, “the Pancake House,” is really a Crepe restaurant and your dreams of a giant pancake cover in strawberries and chocolate sauce die when you open the menu.

Speaking of Jesus….

We also saw the actual physical blood of Jesus Christ. There are several of these holy relics that contain the blood of Christ. They were taken from the blood of Jesus himself while he hung dead and dripping from the cross. I’ve often wondered if it would be possible to take this blood of Christ and clone Jesus, causing the holy war that anyone with the dreams and hopes of anarchy has being wishing for. We did get to go up and place our hands on the holy relic, for a small “donation,” of course. I don’t care if you’re hosting a punk rock show or peddling the blood of Christ, the word, “donation,” is a cheap way of saying, “pay me or else.” Anyways, I put my hand on the relic and told it that I was going to steal it one day. If I disappear in two years and the blood appears on EBay, you know what happened to me. More than likely, we clone that blood and it turns out to be a goat or a chicken.

Though Tara and I have walked most of Europe, you should think about renting bikes while in Bruges. They come with locks and lights and it’s a fun way to explore the city. It’s also a town dedicated to keeping bike riders safe by providing them with their own lanes, signs and mini traffic lights. You can also leave your bikes anywhere and people don’t steal them. It’s just something you don’t do here. It’s like peeing on a church, you don’t want that kind of voodoo karma following you around.

The highlight of Bruges (besides the French fries and chocolate street) was the ice sculpture show. It’s a giant tent filled with ice sculpture walls, mazes, and statues. There’s even an ice bar where you get shots in shot glasses made of ice and it has a giant ice slide/castle. It’s so cold in the tent, then when we left to go outside, where it was 3 degrees outside, it felt warm.

Trouble ahead…next stop Amsterdam

---

---