Today i woke up bright and early at 6:30 am, caught the metro and then a train and was in Brugge at 9:00am. I spent the first half of my day wandering the lovely streets and canals of Brugges, Belgium. I wandered into the church that holds the only work of Michelangelo transported from Italy, A small statue of the mother mary and baby jesus. Then i found my chocolate store and bought what probably could be a lifetime supply of chocolate. From there i took a canal tour, it was 6.70 euro for 30 minutes, but totally worth it. the best thing about going to Brugge is that i've already been there and could relax, relive my previous experiences and gain some new ones. I visited the main squares, shopping streets, monestary and the new Dali museum! The museum was fantastic, its a side of Dali i've never seen before. it reminded me greatly of the animated scenes in Pink Floyd's "the wall", ultra sexualized in a very surreal kind of way. I think, as of now, Dali is the one artist that i would pay to have an original work from. As long as it was a more unknown work, you know, one that doesn't have melting clocks. But anyways, it was simply wonderful and i'm privilaged to have seen the collection as it only opened for the public in 2008.

After the canal trip i practically ran back to the station so that i could be back in Brussels in time to go to the museum in the Grand Place. Like most museums, it closes at 5pm so i caught the 2:00 train back and made it there by 4:15. luckily, it was fairly small and only cost 2 euro. The most interesting thing in the museum was the collection of Manniquin Piss outfits they had. after the museum i went and saw the actual manniquin piss statue, which i surprisingly hadn't seen the first time i came here. From there i noticed that my map pointed out all the locations of the comic book murials around the city. I grabbed lunch at the sandwich shop Joanne and i went to two years ago (realized today that its actually kind of disgusting), and then went on a comic book murial tour. it was great, i saw around 10 pieces, got a good view of the city, visited a couple record stores and was at the bar by 7:00. I had a great ruby red, dark belgium beer (dont ask me what it was), and then at 8:00 went across the way and had my first shot of absinthe. the bartender lit the sugar cube and everything, it was good, but kind of strange since i did it by myself, oh well, so much for friends. Oh yeah, in this same ally is the female counterpart to the manniquin piss, a statue of a girl squatting and peeing. it is very funny. The bar is called Delerium, after my favorite beer, which, i forgot to mention, i had on tap last night. it was so good. anyways, i'm off to pack and get ready for my flight to Dublin tomorrow. hooray for getting up at 3:45am! Ciao