Today is moving day. Our first big move without the aid of personal transport, and the baggage flexibility that it provides. I had been worried about the 15kg that I have lost whilst in Europe, but as it turns out I didn’t have a thing to worry about. Those 15kg have somehow transferred themselves into my pack. Or so it seems. Somehow, with no extra items, and no extra room, our packs have attained a life of their own, and grown out of proportion to ourselves. How does that happen?
We had an early start catching the bus from our hotel at 5:43 am. We woke up the night receptionist as we struggled with the door, but he didn’t offer to help in any way, but this seemed to fit in with the pattern of behaviour that we have come to expect at this hotel. The reception staff seem to have the attitude of doing the bare minimum, hoping that the less they respond, the less you will ask and the less they will have to do. We watched one poor guy come in here one night at 11:30pm, obviously stuck for a bed, and the receptionist quoted him the top end price (that includes a shower and toilet inside the room) without offering any alternative, or informing him about the hostel a few doors down the road. At the same time there was a board full of keys behind him indicating empty rooms. Certainly not the kiwi way of doing business. They seem to adopt the policy of “He didn’t ask”.
Once at the bus stop we were greeted by a bus driver who had obviously got out of the wrong side of bed. I asked him in the best (and practiced French), how many stops to the RER station. And his response was a very blank look and a blunt, and I quote “I don’t speak English”. Huh? The French are going to throw their worst at us this morning aren’t they.
Anyway we finally found our way to the train station, and the train bound for Brussels. At about 180kph, and one and a quarter hours later we were hoping off the train in Brussels, and the sun still hadn’t fully risen. Our next connection to Bruges took about one and a half hours and it seemed very slow by comparison. The weather when we arrived was much as we had been told to expect … wretched. It was grey, wet and cold. Which is what you can expect most of the time in Belgium evidently. Probably why the countryside is so green.
Some background that we have discovered about Belgium, is that everyone wants her, well at least everyone has had a good go at claiming her. As we look out the window today, we wonder … why? They have been over run by the Romans, the Spanish, Austrians, the French (until Napoleon got his just desserts in 1815 at Waterloo, just out of Brussels). In 1830 they became independent but that didn’t stop the Germans from taking them over … twice. In WWII it took the Germans just three weeks to do the job. It is now the capital of the EU and NATO, and has managed to keep a low profile, until the end of the 20th Century when it became best known for poisoned chickens and pedophiles. More recently it has been pushing the moral freedom bandwagon, and became the second country after the Netherlands to legalise gay marriages and euthanasia. In 2003 they openly opposed the war in Iraq, and tried to prosecute George W Bush for war crimes, but failed. So at least their heart is in the right place.
But despite all of this, the first thing that we noticed when we got off the train, was that everyone speaks funny. And this is in a country where even the locals can’t decide. Half the country officially speaks Flemish, the other half officially speaks French, there’s a little outpost that speaks German, some speak Spanish, and it seems that everyone speaks English. So now we are really confused. How do you greet someone? After asking around we discovered that the default is English, but they speak between themselves in which ever they choose. We were told that they have been over run by so many people that they can speak most languages (although Italian wasn’t mentioned). So now we have got that sorted … but then, we’re not entirely convinced!
We checked into our hostel for tonight. We are only staying here the one night as we have heard that it can be a little noisy. We have a B&B sorted for the next few nights. We went for a walk around town and discovered a small city, with streets lined with little red brick houses, canals, locks, some windmills, and every third shop is a chocolate shop. On the embankment, that was once the location of the city wall, there are four windmills standing in a row. In 1850 there were 29 mills surrounding this city on the walls, but by 1872 they had started to come down. 14 of them were demolished to make way for a walkway and many others suffered a similar fate. Finally in 1914 the last of them were bought by the council for restoration, after a public outcry. Then in 1964, after 50 years of standstill these four windmills were grinding corn again. They had realized their value in terms of tourism.
We had an interesting conversation with the butcher tonight, covering everything from the price of meat, NZ lamb, politics, taxes (60% PAYE), French hygiene (or lack of it), and the black market. We convinced him that he should come to NZ.
We ended the day in the Hostel restaurant, downstairs from the Hostel, and enjoyed the three fee beer samples that came with the meal. We have to agree that the fruit beers that they have around here are an acquired taste, and not one that we really wish to acquire. The Dark, and the Blonde were much more to our liking, rather than the Cherry that was on offer.
With regard to our room for the night, well to say that we had two small beds, is rather generous, they were more like hammocks. The status of the shower was questionable, and the toilet down the hall was so tiny that you banged you head on the closed door as you sat down, and kept it tightly closed with your knees throughout the entire performance. Although, the performance really started when you tried to open the door to leave, wedging yourself tightly against the wall, and relying entirely on instinct, not to step into the bowl whilst extracting yourself through to the brief glimmer of hope … the outside.
To say this place was noisy was an understatement. The restaurant and bar downstairs with music blaring and people yelling and screaming, were one thing, but the dispersion of loud, drunken, groups onto the street, and up through the halls and corridors of the hostel right through to morning, were quite another. To make matters worse the walls of this place were so thin that you could hear the people in the next room breathing (or perhaps they were panting). We had one party group trying vigorously to get into our room in the early hours of the morning, only for them to discover that they not only had the wrong room, and the wrong floor, but also the wrong building. Much to the amusement of everyone else on the floor. Not much sleep tonight.
We had an early start catching the bus from our hotel at 5:43 am. We woke up the night receptionist as we struggled with the door, but he didn’t offer to help in any way, but this seemed to fit in with the pattern of behaviour that we have come to expect at this hotel. The reception staff seem to have the attitude of doing the bare minimum, hoping that the less they respond, the less you will ask and the less they will have to do. We watched one poor guy come in here one night at 11:30pm, obviously stuck for a bed, and the receptionist quoted him the top end price (that includes a shower and toilet inside the room) without offering any alternative, or informing him about the hostel a few doors down the road. At the same time there was a board full of keys behind him indicating empty rooms. Certainly not the kiwi way of doing business. They seem to adopt the policy of “He didn’t ask”.
Once at the bus stop we were greeted by a bus driver who had obviously got out of the wrong side of bed. I asked him in the best (and practiced French), how many stops to the RER station. And his response was a very blank look and a blunt, and I quote “I don’t speak English”. Huh? The French are going to throw their worst at us this morning aren’t they.
Anyway we finally found our way to the train station, and the train bound for Brussels. At about 180kph, and one and a quarter hours later we were hoping off the train in Brussels, and the sun still hadn’t fully risen. Our next connection to Bruges took about one and a half hours and it seemed very slow by comparison. The weather when we arrived was much as we had been told to expect … wretched. It was grey, wet and cold. Which is what you can expect most of the time in Belgium evidently. Probably why the countryside is so green.
Some background that we have discovered about Belgium, is that everyone wants her, well at least everyone has had a good go at claiming her. As we look out the window today, we wonder … why? They have been over run by the Romans, the Spanish, Austrians, the French (until Napoleon got his just desserts in 1815 at Waterloo, just out of Brussels). In 1830 they became independent but that didn’t stop the Germans from taking them over … twice. In WWII it took the Germans just three weeks to do the job. It is now the capital of the EU and NATO, and has managed to keep a low profile, until the end of the 20th Century when it became best known for poisoned chickens and pedophiles. More recently it has been pushing the moral freedom bandwagon, and became the second country after the Netherlands to legalise gay marriages and euthanasia. In 2003 they openly opposed the war in Iraq, and tried to prosecute George W Bush for war crimes, but failed. So at least their heart is in the right place.
But despite all of this, the first thing that we noticed when we got off the train, was that everyone speaks funny. And this is in a country where even the locals can’t decide. Half the country officially speaks Flemish, the other half officially speaks French, there’s a little outpost that speaks German, some speak Spanish, and it seems that everyone speaks English. So now we are really confused. How do you greet someone? After asking around we discovered that the default is English, but they speak between themselves in which ever they choose. We were told that they have been over run by so many people that they can speak most languages (although Italian wasn’t mentioned). So now we have got that sorted … but then, we’re not entirely convinced!
We checked into our hostel for tonight. We are only staying here the one night as we have heard that it can be a little noisy. We have a B&B sorted for the next few nights. We went for a walk around town and discovered a small city, with streets lined with little red brick houses, canals, locks, some windmills, and every third shop is a chocolate shop. On the embankment, that was once the location of the city wall, there are four windmills standing in a row. In 1850 there were 29 mills surrounding this city on the walls, but by 1872 they had started to come down. 14 of them were demolished to make way for a walkway and many others suffered a similar fate. Finally in 1914 the last of them were bought by the council for restoration, after a public outcry. Then in 1964, after 50 years of standstill these four windmills were grinding corn again. They had realized their value in terms of tourism.
We had an interesting conversation with the butcher tonight, covering everything from the price of meat, NZ lamb, politics, taxes (60% PAYE), French hygiene (or lack of it), and the black market. We convinced him that he should come to NZ.
We ended the day in the Hostel restaurant, downstairs from the Hostel, and enjoyed the three fee beer samples that came with the meal. We have to agree that the fruit beers that they have around here are an acquired taste, and not one that we really wish to acquire. The Dark, and the Blonde were much more to our liking, rather than the Cherry that was on offer.
With regard to our room for the night, well to say that we had two small beds, is rather generous, they were more like hammocks. The status of the shower was questionable, and the toilet down the hall was so tiny that you banged you head on the closed door as you sat down, and kept it tightly closed with your knees throughout the entire performance. Although, the performance really started when you tried to open the door to leave, wedging yourself tightly against the wall, and relying entirely on instinct, not to step into the bowl whilst extracting yourself through to the brief glimmer of hope … the outside.
To say this place was noisy was an understatement. The restaurant and bar downstairs with music blaring and people yelling and screaming, were one thing, but the dispersion of loud, drunken, groups onto the street, and up through the halls and corridors of the hostel right through to morning, were quite another. To make matters worse the walls of this place were so thin that you could hear the people in the next room breathing (or perhaps they were panting). We had one party group trying vigorously to get into our room in the early hours of the morning, only for them to discover that they not only had the wrong room, and the wrong floor, but also the wrong building. Much to the amusement of everyone else on the floor. Not much sleep tonight.
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