OUT OF BRUGES

What could happen when you only have a couple of hours left in your dream destination. I was quite sure there would be nothing of interest to write about...however some may think that I really don't need anything of interest to write about, I just write...however...

I went down to breakfast at the hotel and the waitress came up to me and said, "You have been to Bruges many times, haven't you?" I looked at her blankly and said I had never been at that hotel before and she said, "No but I used to work..." And I was able to fill in that last word before she did..."at Lily's" and yes, that was right! Imagine, there I am at a hotel a fair distance away from there and a person recognizes me at a hotel breakfast. Trite but true, small world! So that is the story of the day, imagine my surprise at being recognized around Belgium!

The train ride was nice, a lovely young lady helped me with the platform information and helped me with my baggage. The interesting thing is that people here seem to love the opportunity to talk to native English speaking people to practice their English. Ilsa was sweet, she is studying to be a religion teacher for high school level students. She was telling me about an incident where a student told her he was gay in class. I was impressed with how she handled it and that led to a quite interesting discussion about the life of gay people in Europe and especially in her Catholic school. She craves travel but is with a man who does not like to leave home and she had many questions about travel. She is going to Ecuador with her 70 year old grandmother in a couple of weeks and her dream is to roll the dice and go to that platform and then roll them again to see what stop to get off at. Yes, we did exchange emails and I do think I will hear from her, interested in her roll of the dice trip to come.

I got off the train at Central station rather than change trains and platforms. I wandered and was asking a quite unhelpful man some questions and finally left there and then a girl came up an asked if she could help me. She helped me decide what to do. I was quite close to the famous Grand Place and she thought I should put my luggage in the locker and go see it. So we figured out how to work the lockers with a lot of laughing, even though she read French and Flemish she couldn't figure it out either. Finally we did and she thanked me for letting her help be because she was excited to get to use her English. She said she looks for every opportunity to talk to English speaking people to practice. She has taught herself and she did a great job. Meeting her was delightful and now I'm an expert at the lockers at the Central Bruxxels Train Station!

I wandered out with only my small camera, just couldn't unpack to get to the large one. Oh my goodness, the Grand Place was magnificent!! What a sight. I did miss seeing the statue of the little boy peeing that saved the city, or something like that. But the square was gorgeous. One of the foods I'd been told to try was mashed potatoes and veggies and meat. It wasn't served in Bruges but the pub owner had given me the name of a restaurnat in the Grand Place that served it. I saw the place and went in and had a very interesting lunch, it was delicious!

I passed a store of men's ties and thought it would make a great card so I went in to ask if I could take pictures. The salesgirl was sitting on a chair doubled up in pain and said I could but she couldn't help me because she was in so much pain from her period that she couldn't move. What information to share with a stranger. I told her about reiki and she said she would try it and from the minute I touched her back she said she could feel the heat going through to her abdomen and in about 5 minutes a customer walked in and she was up waiting on him and seemed fine and thanked and thanked me. How interesting that she was so open to that from a stranger and it helped so much.

After all these adventures I went out to see how much a taxi to the airport would cost. 40 euros seemed cheap for the convenience so the driver went back into the terminal with me and got my luggage and took it to the taxi. I asked about NATO so he took me by there. It was really cool to see the whole compound, from the outsdie of course. I saw other important buildings, the EU parliament, and smbsassador's homes.

And now I am at the Sheraton where I will spend a quiet afternoon reading before my big trip home tomorrow. I am going to do it all in a day which I havne't done for a long time. So soon, I will be home and this short little jaunt across the ocean will be over.

Thanks for enjoying it with me!