Bruge, Brugges and more Brugge!

No matter what country you are from or how you spell it, we had a fun weekend in this charming Belgium city! Not only was it a new European city for us to visit, but we were able to explore it with four of our great Chicago friends. Above is a picture of the city center called the Market. The single building is Brugges Post Office and the buildings behind Makayla are restaurants and pubs.

A trip to Brugges is best chronicled by the food eaten and beverages drunk! Belgium is known for it's beer, waffles, chocolate, and fries. We made sure to sample all of them in the 2 days we were there!

We made several stops at The Chocolate Line, one of Brugge's most well known chocolate shops. We just kept finding new reasons to go back for more, such as needing to take a photograph to remember it by..oh and maybe we'll get just a few more of those salted caramel pralines while we're here...






You can buy baking chocolate by the gram, or kilo! It's sorted by the country of origin of the bean, and the corresponding cocoa content. Yes, I admit it, we crossed the border with over a kilo of the good stuff in our trunk!





Friday night we ate at a fabulous restaurant known for it's traditional Flemish dishes, called Da Vlaamsche Pot. Rich had the Flemish beef stew, and Makayla had chicken baked in a pastry with cream sauce. Yum! Our inn keeper told us she has never known anyone who could finish their meal. Well, she can't make that statement any longer! Rich started with the house made pate, devoured the entire stew with fries, and even had room for a traditional custard with chocolate sauce to finish it off. Mmmm....I'm getting hungry just writing about it!




But of course, it isn't just the food that makes the meal, it's the company you share it with as well. We timed our trip to Brugge to meet up with our friends Mel, Eric, Bria & Jon at the start of their 3 week vacation. We ate chocolate, climbed a clock tower, and sampled many, many beers. Did I say many? Yes, we had a few..

This picture was taken early in the evening, after we enjoyed a great meal of tapas at Cookies, hidden down an alley less than 3 feet wide at the street. We walked 10 feet down the alley from Cookies to Staminee De Garre, home of many good beers, and one very dangerous beer, known only as De Garre, and available only at the pub. This was also the point where the night takes on two different versions depending on if you talk to Rich or Makayla. See below.

Rich's version: Rich was pleasantly surprised at how well he was able to handle the dangerous beer and figured it had to be due to the tolerance he'd built up over the last two months in Germany. In fact, he tried to persuade everyone to stay for a 3rd beer before heading to a different pub. Mind you, the pub has a 3 serving limit on this particular beer, and there's good reason for it. Luckily, he was unsuccessful with his attempt, but was still able to enjoy another couple beers at the next pub. He, along with the rest of our gang, also discovered and nearly perfected a challenging game of balance and coordination before calling it a night which ended in quick goodbye hugs.

Makayla's version (aka...the sober version): Makayla had a great time talking and laughing with everyone....until approximately 11pm. After standing behind Rich and shaking her head "no" when he tried to convince everyone to stay for one more De Garre beer, the group decided to stop at one more pub before calling it a night. Her attempt in trying to persuade everyone to eat some fries on the way to the pub was, unfortunately, rejected by all. The night ended at the bars with a very loud game of "flip coaster" which began with Rich asking all of the tables in the pub if we could borrow their coasters (this was after the Manager told him "no"). After collecting approximately 20 coasters, our group took turns seeing who could flip the most coasters off the table and catch them in the same hand. Makayla will admit it was a pretty funny scene, but is fairly sure that the rest of the bar had a different opinion. The Americans definitely made a name for themselves!

The night ended with Eric yelling "hugs and cuddles all around" and then making plans to see us soon when we visit Chicago.....this was shortly after we made plans to meet the next morning before driving back to Germany. Needless to say it was a great night, in spite of the fact that Makayla was the only one walking home in a straight line.