Yesterday we arrived in Bruges in Belgium. The first half of the day was mostly biking, with only one stop to look in a museum in a very old hospital. Well the building was originally a hospital, then it was a church, and finally a convent before it became a museum. Inside were exhibits made by 7 random citizens ranging from 8 years old to 80. My favorite was a table, covered in origami paper, with 3 levels of difficulty, from a little paper cup to a massive paper dragon. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to finish the dragon before we had to leave. After that it was only a short bike to Bruges. When we arrived we unpacked everything, and I immediately took a 2 hour nap. When I was woken up we had dinner. It was simple but tasty, just spaghetti with tomato sauce. After that we went on a tour of Bruges, showing us through the different areas of the city. The historic part of the city is divided into different quarters, where traders from different nations would live. We passed through the Italian quarters, the Spanish quarters, German, Scottish, etc. the tour guide told us all kinds of tall tales about the origins of common sayings. He said the usage of the middle finger originated when invading armies would cut off the middle finger of longbow men to stop them from being able to shoot arrows, so longbow men who still had their middle finger would stick it up to their enemies to show they could still fight. At the end of the tour the guide gave us buy one get one free tickets for beer from a nearby bar. We ended up sharing a few between the six of us (the legal drinking age here is 16), but it was so gross I barely had a sip.
-Trekker Henry