Bruges

Packed up with warm egg sandwiches wrapped in tin foil and plenty of Belgian chocolates we hit an early train through Gent and arrived in the afternoon. Derek made a comment when the train rolled in with drops of rain on it. He said it looked like it was a giant sweating animal, and I though that was a good image of a train huffing and blowing steam into a station, panting. Derek was on pins and needles that morning due to an overdraft after a $200 charge that emptied his account. Thinking it was Locanda Daniel (Florence hostel) taking action (we accidentally took the key to the room, and had been lazy in returning it) Derek wrote a very frustrated e-mail, which turned out to be an embarrassing goof, because Derek had really just taken out that much money, but realized it after he hit send. Following an apology e-mail, and a marathon search for a post office in Amsterdam, we did get the key mailed back.

We found that our hostel in Bruges offered a bike rental service and took full advantage, riding through the cobblestone streets on two fat tired cruisers. Bruges is referred to, as the northern Venice, but looking back it seemed closer in structure and atmosphere to Amsterdam, but with a giant town square covering several blocks. Bruges turned out to be smaller than we expected, the bike riding might have shrunk the city some, and over a box of granola we began to talk about heading for Amsterdam that night.

We had luck canceling our hostel reservations. Two guys were looking for a room right as we were trying to get out of ours, but finding a room in Amsterdam for that night proved impossible. We looked for an intermediate and settled on Rotterdam, a half-hour from Amsterdam. With that we said goodbye to Bruges and jumped on a train. I felt comfortable traveling, and was able to write a little. After three weeks on the road a lonely compartment feels more and more like home.