Damn.. i just blogged my last entry again.. what a waste of time!!

I slept in my clothes in Gent after forgetting to get bedsheets.. EEEW! It was a hot night and I woke feeling dodgy at 5.45AM. Wandered the streets, checked out a bric-a-brac market and returned for one of the better hostel brekkies I’ve had. Chatted to some US cyclo tourists – Gent seems to attract lots of bike tourists.

Paid 5 euro for a groovy boat trip down the rivers/canals. I like these trips. Being on the water is nice, not walking is nice, the views are nice, the commentary is kinda interesting.

Paid 3 euro to climb up the Belfry – some exhibits and a nice view. The tune it plays (as well as the nearby church’s tunes) are pretty funky.

Mmm.. “one Appelflap, please”. “0.82 euro”. I love bakery food!

Dinner last night was Turkish.

Lunch was at “De Foyer”.

I’m doing other stuff so I’ll update this later..

Right, after a brief ‘interruption’ 😉 I’ll continue..

Yes, lunch was “Dag Schotel”. Sounds gross right? It just means “Dish of the day” 🙂

This was a salad, followed by Steak and chips and a pastry for dessert. Pretty good for about 14 euro plus beers (“Brugs” white beer, made where I’m typing this, Brugges). The most interesting aspects of this lunch were the fact I was sitting outside with a great view of the church and square below and the salad contain snails..

SNAILS!

I saw lettuce and stuff and though cool.. then I saw these little grey things I thought were funky mushrooms.. then I looked closer.. holy shit! SNAILS!

Well, I finally get to try them (it wasn’t even intentional, say, for a dare :P). They were quite nice, with a little bit of mustard. Chewy, like a piece of meat but not real tough like a steak or something. It was a bit of a psych out before the first one, but I wasn’t going to leave them on the plate!! All in all not too bad a lunch.

Net cafe for 2.5 hours for 1euro/hour was pretty good.

Trams here are the same system as Antwerp so basically 1euro per trip (I think the ticket lasts for an hour).

When I’d arrived in Belgium, I’d contacted Jeff Jones from www.cyclingnews.com because I knew he was working in Belgium from his “Belgium Commuter” pro-bike review 🙂

Just before my phone ran out of credit (cough)Tam(cough) we sorted out an interruption to his Tour de Suisse reporting. It’s always good to talk to fellow Aussies despite what Dan might tell you 😛 and to talk to a cyclingnews reporter in Belgium was pretty cool for this hippy! Thanks Jeff, you rock! Now get typing! 😉

Did more wandering and found cheap looking place for dinner. “Grill Shoarma, Bij St Jacobs” – I don’t know if that’s the name of the place or what, but it’ll do..

I bought “Kip Shoarma Maison”, knowing only that it contained chicken and the “maison” ones were “with cheese”. I didn’t know what the food actually was.

It turned out to be a kind of pita pocket filled with meat and veg – like a souvlaki perhaps? It had four little sauce tubs you could spoon from as your desired. It was quite nice and cost 6euro. The 33cl Hoegaarden was 2euro which went down real well given the hot, sticky conditions that night.

Anyway, the dude serving was young and seemed pretty cool with his dreads and he was nice when serving. I was eavesdropping on his Dutch conversation with a young couple and in between the music heard two words, well one hyphenated word, that I recognised..

PSY-TRANCE

This was all the ammo I needed, so I moved up to the bar and started chatting with dread-dude about Psy (it’s a stlye of techno music for all you normal people reading this..).

Turns out he’s a dj. Not a Psy dj, he plays reggae, but his mates play psy-trance and they were running a party just around the corner at “Kosmic”. It was free entry! But it started at 2am. Hmm.. how do you kill time in Belgium? Well, you stay right where you are and sink a heap more beer, chatting to dreadguy! 🙂

I walked by Kosmic after 2am to check it out and there were heaps of people outside (and inside) so I went back to the hostel and changed clothes. I cant dance at the best of times but in thongs?! 😛

I stayed at Kosmic until 6AM noting some of the following things:

– Belgians, or at least those that like psy, smoke a SHIT LOAD of dope! The air was thick with it! Not that I’d know what it smells like or anything.. Hi Mum.. 😉

– Ventilation in clubs here is shoddy or non-existant! Fark it was hot and fark it was smokey

– Dancers here sometimes confused the floor for a mosh pit! Maybe there’s just more room to flail in Melbourne clubs?

– The crowd outside was half raver, half dodgy looking fsckers and there was broken glass everywhere! Heaps dodgier than Aussie parties.

Anyway, it was actually a pretty frickin good party! I went to bed for a couple of hours and then got up for breakfast, looking like death.

I found that there was no room available for tonight so I decided that I would skip the two bars I wanted to visit (one had bike theme or something, the other had 250 beers on offer) and head to Brugges early. I didn’t really mind, because beer was the last thing I wanted that morning!

GENT -> BRUGGES STATS: 46k, 2h 20m, 20kph

I only got a teeny bit lost but that was because the signs are fucked. I kinda thought they might be dodgy because they took me away from the river and the hostel guy told me to stick to the river.. so I wasn’t really lost.. just wanted to check who was right, signs or hostel guy. The whole ride was on bike path next to the river except for small joiner sections and some off-road bits. Pretty tame. Because I left early for once I could afford to take my time. Yay for leaving early!

Spun around Brugges for a while, maybe another 10-15k and then stopped at bakery for food. Decided to have a pancake at the “pannenkoeken” shop next door. Got some sweet cider for 2euro which was really nice. The pancake was “ijspannenkoeken” which was a thin pancake wrapped around ice-cream with chocolate sauce poured over it and almond slices on top. Also got a “Moka” milkshake, coz I’m a pig! VERY hot day so I needed the cold stuff – that’s my excuse anyway!

Yeah, so, as Tam mentioned I was in the shower when she called. I was expecting the call but it’s a good idea to take all the beeping things out of your bag if you plan to stash it under the bed!

Some foreign girls walked in and I was a bit concerned that I was in the female showers but I am pretty good checking this kind of thing so it’s usually the other people that have it wrong. In any case I think it was a unisex shower block. The girls didn’t hang around long when they heard a dude talking (to himself perhaps?) in the shower cubicle. 🙂 Still spewing at the 60p/min to RECEIVE calls.. what a scam!

Walked into town. Brugges is like the Venice of Belgium. It was PACKED with tourists. You know, swarms of US retirees loaded up with cameras and video cameras filming everything that moves..

Last night was making me grumpy (okay, grumpier than usual! :P).

Into a restaurant and I was directed to a table. A few minutes later some guy tells me to move!

I’m thinking, “What the fsck?! Kiss my arse buddy!” and he tells me again.. then I noticed the bunch behind me and I figure this arse-clown is actually staff and he needs the room for this bunch. I move and one of the customers thanks me, but not the arsehole staff dude..

Ask for a menu again and wait.. and wait.. and wait.. and notice that the bunch that needed my table left and went elsewhere.. and waited and then thought to myself “fuck this!” and walked out.

Went to takeaway stall in the main square and had shitty food there (“Bicky” burger and chips and mayo). Bad mood big time now and I just wanna get home coz I know the hostel has a bar.. so what happens? I get fucking lost walking home! I’m about ready to give up and lay in front of a truck when I make it to the bar! Saved!!

The bartender is real cool and I start trying all the heavy hitters, Westmalle Tripel 9.5%, the local Brugs Tripel 8.5%, then a constant stream of Leffe Blondes 6% maybe? The dude tells me to try Leffe Tripel – his favourite beer, but they don’t have it here. I vow to hunt it down..

I ended up quite drunk and joined a table of pommie school teachers who were ‘winding down’ after a day of battlefield and graveyard visiting with a bunch of their students – can understand why THEY were drinking 🙂

Went to bed pretty fucked. At least at this place I don’t have to climb into top bunk like Gent! Nearly tipped that bed over!!