Welcome to Brugge

Well I nearly died of stress but have arrived in Brugge at last. Everything I feared about the trip from Amsterdam to Brugge came to pass (except for pick -pocketing). Dozens of tiny things coupled with the myriad of unknowns made for the most challenging day of the trip (or of my life?) thus far. For example, I tried to the board the tram, but me and my bulky baggage couldn't fit through the door. I was sent to another door, which refused to open. Dozens of eyes behind the darkened windows watched - with curiosity and amusement, as the American lady, sweating profusely with all her bags, waved her tram ticket in front of the door in hopes that it would open. The stranger's eyes watched as she moved yet to another door and stood knocking in panic while it also refused to open. Lugging her baggage yet to a third door, this time yelling, "Please help," a green light flashed, and the door finally opened. The nightmare was not over: I could hardly squeeze by with my bags without knocking elbows and ankles and there was no space for my bags but the center aisle. (You can imagine the rest). It was all kind of humiliating. And

there's more: as I tried to exit the tram, last of course, the doors closed on me, clamping my tired shoulders like a pair of tongs. A fellow English tourist came to my rescue and pried the doors back open so I could pull myself and my belongings out. And that, my friends, was only the beginning of my travel shenanigans.

At the train station, there was endless waiting and confusion, before finally purchasing the only ticket left -- which involved three different trains. They announced my train as I was on my way to the platform, so I went RUN
NING up at least forty stairs WITH my luggage, by somemiracle, lifted in the air: I did not know I possessed such strength. I made it onto the train, with the help of generous European men who hoisted my luggage up, and with very little air

left in my lungs. I sat down and blew my nose like a trumpet for the eleventh time that morning (did I mention I am still quite sick?) I began to breath my sigh of relief and wipe the sweat from my neck and forehead. Casually, I then inquired of the passengers who'd helped me, "This train is headed to Brugge, right?" "Brugge?" The man's eyebrows jumped up to his forehead, "Nay, Nay!" The tears gathered into tiny puddles in the corners of my eyes, as the news that I was on the wrong train sunk in. The men conversed among themselves in Dutch while I cried, and as it turns out, they had mercifully concocted a plan to reroute me - thanks be to God.

Add to all of that things like dropping my poster box down the escalator at the next train station, trying to make a run to the bathroom for the first time in hours before catching the THIRD train, only to arrive and realize I would have to pay with coins I did not possess, and being kicked off a first class train (where'd I obliviously set up shop and was innocently massaging my throbbing neck muscles with peppermint oil), and you probably now have the picture. But there's one final punch: after all that, I arrived in Brugge, caught my taxi, and as we are flying down the narrow, cobbled streets, my taxi driver began to complain about Brugge - taxes, government, etc. He concluded his speech, just as we pulled up to Hotel Ter Duinen, with this remark: "Belgium is the most shit country in all of the entire world." And there it was: my welcome to Brugge.

View from my room
(but you have to imagine the sound of church bells ringing "Ode to Joy" too)

****I hope the pictures will speak for themselves, that the difficult journey may well have been worth it:  Brugge is a fairy tale. More on that later. :)