Euro Trip Learnin' Curve Day 1

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-Hello All-

Well, the weeks have gone by and we have ventured into Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany.

Let's start with the beginning of our travels when we finally got all the f*&$@ crap out of our apartment and finallllllllly got out of Eugene and were on our way to Portland. Because Alison was correct about economically purchasing a rent-a-car from one city to another (in other words...it can't be done) that we didn't plan for, we humbly and graciously begged on our knees for one of our friends to drive down from Portland and pick us up.

Colleen you are an awesome person, we can't thank you enough.

Anyways, on our way up to Portland on I-5 we suddenly experienced "car troubles" and had to pull into a Rest Stop. Yeah...it was the alternator and we were stuck there in the middle of no where somewhere between Albany and P-town. Luckily, our beloved friend has a kick ass Dad, who bought us a NEW alternator and drove out to whereever we were and installed it in the dark (ok ok, I'm kind of exaggerating, he had a light to work with). So two hours and some time later we got to her pad and had a chance to relax with the leftover beer I got from the Rogue Brewery...Sean you know what I'm takin about...Hail to the Growler. After spendin some time in P-town getting the last little tidbits in order we were on our flight to Europe, ready and rarrin' to go at 4:00AM...yeah it's a tad early. After no sleep, countless no name movies, a few bloody mary's and 14 hours later we arrived in Brussels, Belgium only to depart just as quickly as we got there, to Brugge, Belgium. The reason for this hop, skip and a jump affair was that Brussels was completely booked and needless to say, so was Brugges, except for one hostel. Just to back track a little bit, we arrived in Brussels at 7:00AM on Sept. 18th (one day later) and finally arrived in Brugge at around 10:45 to a completely different world. Let just say I took three years of French in highschool and Dutch is nothing like French, and it took us a good part of an hour identifing which direction to go to get to Brugge.

AHHHHHHHHHH, enough about getting to Europe, I'm sure a lot of you have similar stories to ours, I just needed to vent a little about our experineces. NOW, to the juicy stuff...Our first stop in Brugge was the distant, but cutely labeled hostel - The Snuffel Backpacker Hostel - although we had very little choices in which hostel we could stay, we chose this hostel over the other because it described in its hostel description that it had a bar on the ground floor. When we arrived in Brugge, saw a map and got our bearings straight, it seemed straight forward which direction we needed to go. We had a city map, we identified the "general location" of the hostel, we relieved ourselves after paying €0.50 and we were on our way.

On our way to getting lost...yeah, Brugge is not set up like American cities (Jeffersonian Grid Style), it's more like an onion with a center core and streets radiating out from it in various layers intertwined with asymmetrical plazas that encompass statues and/or medieval cathedrals. The Train Station, where we began our first adventure through Europe was at the outside of the onion...you know that part of the onion, the part that after awhile begins to shrivel up and get moldy the longer it's exposed. Well to put it lightly the area around the train station was like that, minus the mold. It seemed, at the time, like the area was waiting to be developed...demolished streets, construction equipment and various cranes, and yet no workers... No sign of life except for the people walking in line to the other side of the street, where a park encompassed our view. As we walked passed the park and got on to uneven, cobbled streets with our sleep deprived heads carrying 25-27 pound bags (not to bad, if you're not cracked out), we began to identify various church spires, which in turn led to plazas, which over the course of the walk got us completly lost. Did you know that the street names change at each intersection and that the names are sometimes located on the corner of a buildings (keyword is sometimes)? It took us the good portion of a half-an-hour to find the Snuffel, but once we were there it was a relief. We checked in and were directed that our room was on the top floor. We went through the communal bar space, through a door and up a very narrow and steep spiral stair that was being supported by suspended cables that were no larger than a 1/8" thick. It was a tentative stair whose stability was questionable with a bag on our back, however after a small rest and a big stretch we ventured through the streets of Brugge back to the Markt (the core of the city).

Now, due to the fact that we arrived in Brugge on Thursday and we barely got the reservation into the Snuffel. It wasn't hard to believe that the Snuffel was completely booked over the weekend, so our goal for the day was to find a second hostel to stay at while we were out on the town. As soon as we got to the Markt that goal went out the door, because before our eyes was a bustle of activity including, shops, restaurants, horse drawn carriages, a diverse surrounding of architecture and lively groups of people. Above all though was the massive cathedral that stood right before us that towered over the rest of the buildings blanketing the market square with its shadow. It was so overwhelming of a structure compared to all that we had seen before that I had to climb to the top. After 366 steps up a narrow spiral stair I saw the city in its entirety and it was beautiful. Beyond the Markt I began to identify all the other places I wanted to see (see our Brugge trip photos on Flickr...as soon as we get all of them uploaded. Uploading to Flickr takes FooooooorEvvvvveeeer...not kidding) After soakin up some rays and just enjoying the liviliness of the square we went home and took a nap...a nice 4 hour nap.

When we awoke, it was time to find Hostel number two, which we found after an hour of searching at the Lybeer Hostel. Good to Note, every hostel has a bar so FYI the next time you're in Europe and you want a bar under your feet, no need to worry, Belgium's got you covered...well at least Brugge. After reserving night number two we grabbed a bite to eat at the €3.00 Bar/Restaurant and enjoyed our first meal in a new land. Shorly after, we walked back to the Snuffel to drink a few of Belgium's finest and we called it a night.

I went into so much description about the first day, because to Patience and I it seemed like eternity. Believe me when I say the descriptions will be shorter and will identify the highlights to our trip so far. To save time and energy, this blog will describe our Euro Trip experiences where as the Flickr site will show you that experience visually. We are currently in Amsterdam sitting at the Biblioteek, enjoying FREE Internet, so stay tuned because the blogs might come quicker than you expect seeing as we have such a great opportunity due to the rain that has taken over The Netherlands. Also to point out, Flickr is taking forever to upload photos and the usb port/camera connection has been an issue, so we have spent nearly enough time getting that up to date, but believe me when I say that we are workin on it (you know... between the beautiful sites, amazing architecture and medieval cities) They will eventually get posted.


........Stay Tuned

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