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Published: August 20th 2008
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the museum in bruges day two we got started around 10am after a late night of searching left us weary from the night before
this time we were headed into Bruges.
this is a really cute town and if your going to head anywhere in belgium i suggest you head there.
it reminded me a lot of Lourdes, where a lot of the town is based on tourism, but then again, i've yet to be anywhere in europe, where tourism isnt a large part of the experience and infrastructure.
whatever so imagine the old cobble stone streets and large gaudi buildings complete with gothic influences and you have the city center. however, what they also have is horse drawn carriage rides....mmhmm complete with barbie horses!
i of course had to explain my excitement of this as sinas claim was that he does not know the barbie horse as he has no sisters....for those of you out there in the same situation....a barbie horse is a blonde colored horses with white tail and mane.
anwyho i quickly remembered i was allergic to horses and after searching my purse for my allergy pills (god im a dork) i found i had none, so i was not allowed
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one of the many bridges on our boat tour to ride the horse drawn carriage. i was totally bummed about it as this seemed like an integral part of the bruges experience until sina insisted he had a better excursion for us.
and he soooo did. we got on a little boat, manned by thee most stereotypical guide, and toured the town on a special canal.
well its not special, its just there, but these boats are the only ones allowed on it because the bridges throughout the town are too low for anything personal or commercial.
ps there are like over 40 bridges on the canal, some dating back to being built in the 15th century.
pretty cool if your into architecture...
so back to the tour guide, he was round and plump and wore the traditional sailing loafers, navy shorts, and white polo, yet...he had the best mustache of life!!!
it was grey and on the ends curled into a proper loop!!!
i loved him instantly, and sat as close as was unannoyingly possible.
what was great too, was that everytime he talked about something he first said it in dutch/flemish, then french, then english. cuuute haha it was funny cause sina would laugh at the dutch
version then like two minute later i would get the joke in english.
yay for language barriers
hah ok so the tour was about a half hour long and it passed the city hall and town center where there is the tallest building in bruges, a cathedral of course, now turned into a museum, but anyways the joke was of course that you could climb to the top to take pictures, or, as so politely put, you could pay 5 euro to get tired.
what made it funny though was the way it was said, it sounded a little like this...
uuuuuuu cooooonnne ppppaayyyyy--eeee 5 uuuu-row toooo geeet tire.
i found it amusing anyway.
so after that we passed through the residential area of the canal where he showed us a recent house that was up for sale for a cool 1.5 mill euros on the canal, equipped with a door joined to the canal for late night rendez-vous in a canoe and or gondola.
which of course we both looked at each other and knew that the other had just made the down payment.
then the cuttttest thing happened, the guy pointed to a window in a house and
there was a huge golden lab laying there with the window wide open, half asleep, watching all the boats go by. the guy said he sits there all day and is the most photographed dog in bruges.
and i believe him.
we then went all along and saw some pelicans and swans and the old fish market and what have you
which reminds me,
when you first enter Bruges, you have to drive across one of those bridges that moves sideways to let boats though, which is kind of neat, but right beside it in the park along side the river, is this statue that is a man holding a pelicans mouth open with one hand and holding a fish over it with the other.
we both couldnt figure out if he was force feeding the pelican or taking the fish away from it...
lost in translation, yet again.
anywho after the boat cruise we viewed what sina claimed to be the royal palace but was in fact city hall, which was full of wonderfull magical paintings and the like.
then we met up with a girl from spain who was in school with us last month, erena, and went
to St. Anne's church, which we were told is the most beautiful church inside, in belgium. and i agree. it had a massive life size painting on the back wall of the 12 apostles and similar ones hanging alongside the pews and everything was made of marble....EVERYTHING. except the chandaliers, they were gold of course.
and this church was kind of different, because its the only one i've seen that is still partitioned.
kind of cool in a historical way..
not in a racist/elitist way.
anywho after sitting in the church for like an hour taking solace from the sudden outburst of rain showers, we headed back to the city center to see the cathedrals museum because inside was a statue of the lady madonna made by michaelangelo
pretty cute! i have some pics somewhere,
we also looked around at the other things in there like the old wooden carved out podiums that they use to preach off of as the word of god was better heard from above or something of a sorts.
i dunno, i loose interest after too much information.
then next door was the permenant Dali museum, which was of course a must.
now, picture yourself
entering an entryway of marble floors and floor to ceiling etched mirror.
complete with a front desk made of mirrors!!!
good thing i looked half cute that day or it could have been damaging to my ego.
anywho when you walk in the royal blue carpeting is impressive in the studio like space, but personally, i enjoyed the leopard print wall paper and modeled peacocks adorning the floating walls.
although the red velvet chez lounges strewn throughout weren't half bad either.
this museum had a lot more of his series of works which was nice to see in its entirety
including the illustrations of the bible, the complete alice in wonderland series, and my very newest favorite painting of life
the elephants that represent humankinds endless search of neverending greatness combined with its battle with gravity.
pure genious, seriously, but a little dirty too i soon found out.
something im sure you would never see at the AGNS
was dalis serious of perversion.
the man enjoyed a period of drawing nothing but filth.
i know that sounds a little conservative, but these honestly looked like drawing a young boy would make secretly in a note book, not ones that a
celebrated artist would hawk as art. they were like out of his notebooks and things, but i just didnt really enjoy the beauty in that section.
after that i felt it was best to grab a few necessities of the region, that being more waffles and beer and of course some chocolates. which we both agreed were quite possibly the best milk chocolates we have ever tasted.
then sadly, as we werent paying attention to the time, my time as an illegal immigrant was almost over
so we literally ran back to the car. well no thats not true. sina walked swiftly, as i ran to keep up, what with being a midget and all, my legs dont cover as much surface area as others...
we made it through the border safely and had to swiftly surpass the sights of the highway but not without one last word from sally....please respect the speed limit...
much love
k
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