Today we fell in love... with a city. Bruges in so amazing! We walked around all day and never got tired of seeing the cute cobblestone streets, old buildings, and canals everywhere. There are people on bikes everywhere, and horse-drawn carriages. This morning we showered (in our room, which was a little odd) then set off to find breakfast. This country if famous for 5 things, waffles, fries, chocolate, and beer and we hit them all today. For breakfast, we had traditional Belgian waffles, with only powdered sugar on them. We next went through the chocolate museum, which was a little boring except the demonstration and tasting at the end! We walked through Markt and Burg squares, which are very picturesque. There is a cathedral here that is said to hold a vial with the blood of Christ. We ate some famous Belgian frites (fries) with their traditional meat sauce on top, which tasted like stew (it would be Tracys worst nightmare). We walked through the Church of Our Lady, an amazing cathedral that has Michelangelo's Madonna and Child statue. While walking around we found a candy shop where they were pulling their own candy. It was amazing! They started with a very heavy large block of candy, about the size of 2 loaves of bread, and ended with thousands of little tiny candies with very small, detailed pictures on them. We next toured a Belgian brewery, which included walking to the roof and getting a view of the city, and we found our new favorite beer, Brugse Zot. We met there a nurse from Sacramento who was traveling alone for a month and must have been lonely, because we became her new best friends. But we talked with her for a long time, and she was telling me all the great things about Sacramento. After, we took a canal tour on a little boat, which was super romantic (but it was Nina, me, and some other Asian and Middle-eastern tourists). We saw buildings and bridges that dated back to the 1600s. Next we walked through a still-functioning abbey, which was white buildings around a field full of daffodils. We found an internet cafe where we were able to upload some pictures (check them out!) and plan the next day. After searching and searching for a reasonably priced restaurant, we ended up eating dinner at the Charlie Rockets youth hostel, which is designed to look American. We ate amazing tomato and gorgonzola cheese pizza which actually came from the italian restaurant next door. We walked back to our hostel and had a beer in the bar downstairs. Tonight we are sharing a room with a guy from Canada who was traveling to Paris to play music. Overall an amazing day and Im sure we gained a few pounds to remember it by!

Tiff