This morning after an early start, we saw the last part of The Netherlands, before making our way over the border to another new country - Belgium. Yay! The home of beer (surprise, surprise), waffles, chocolate, DIAMONDS and the Muscles from Brussels himself JCVD.
It has been hard to stop putting on weight with all of these tempting and tasty delights constantly surrounding us. As we said before, this is totally why we travelled to Europe - for the vast array of cuisine. It's definitely been a gastronomic adventure and we think we'll look into some cooking courses upon our return.
We had a short walking tour with our group before some free time for lunch. Bruges is a gorgeous city and we love the overall vibe of the place of what we have seen so far. It was a bit of a sad farewell to our new friends, but after a massive group hug we headed off on our merry way back into town to find our accommodation.
We spotted a laundromat virtually straight away and thought best to make the most of our opportunity to wash our clothes. This really was a smart move, as we won't have to worry for the rest of the trip, which is a load off our mind! Boom boom!
We were initially confident about finding our hostel after this and walked for a bit with our heavy bags. After walking around lost for a while, we headed to one of the squares and looked at the big map. We found our street and headed off again. It was a bit of a walk and it seemed an annoying distance to the Old Town. OMG it was the wrong street! A local pointed our mistake in that we needed the short version (like little Collins Street, not Collins Street), which was almost next to where we had read the map. We were both struggling along at this point, but managed to make our destination! Once checked in, a five hour sleep was required.
Eventually we got up for dinner and headed just around the corner to have two local delicacies - mussels and fries and also a Flemish stew. The mussels came out in a massive cook pot and they had been steamed with onion, celery, white wine and garlic. There were way too many and about 20 were left in the pot. It was enormous! We were highly impressed with both of our meals and went back happy campers.
Outside of the hostel, we chatted with some people from the USA, who had only arrived in Europe today. This trip has really shown us how easy it is to talk about travels with randoms. Everyone is travelling and subsequently, everyone is happy and up for a chat!
Our hostel....OMG it is a rickety arrangement! This is by far the worst place we have ever stayed together, but it is really all just part of the experience. This is only the second hostel we have stayed in and it is this type of hostel that gives them a bad name overall. The other hostel in Barcelona was awesome.
Here, the bathroom door in our room doesn't shut unless the other person pushes a chair up against it. You can hear the people next door having a cheeky wee and there are a couple of holes in the sheets, and a few springs jabbing at you. The shower is quite mouldy....Lyn (Tanya's mum) you would be freaking out right now. There is a handwritten note on the bathroom that says "use cold tap for hot water!" This place is a winner. Hahahaha! All good though, as it is so well situated and half the price of our daily budget. 'You get what you pay for' is certainly true in this case!
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