April 15, 2016
Amsterdam/Ghent/Bruges
Our day in Amsterdam started early. We got ready, checked out of our hostel, left our bags in storage, and stepped outside-- only to discover that it was raining and we only had Rachel's umbrella for protection. Immediately stepping back into the hostel building, we realized that we had our 24-hour bus/tram pass and looked up the way to the Van Gogh Museum.
We had brunch at Blushing, a restaurant close to the museum and made our way to the museum. However, the line was too long and we didn't particularly feel like waiting in the rain, so we decided to scrap that plan (after all, we would see some of Van Gogh's paintings in Paris!) and take the tram to the Bloemenmarkt, Amsterdam's flower market.
We spent some time there and eventually headed to the Royal Palace to begin our free walking tour of the city. It ended with us getting coffee and eating a stroopwafel, a small waffle that is injected with syrup (popular in Netherlands).
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After our small snack of coffee and a stroopwafel, we grabbed our bags and caught the Flixbus to Ghent, Belgium.
Ghent is a small university town in northwest Belgium. Our little time in Ghent was spent walking around the small town and visiting the few sites that we thought were most interesting. We didn't realize what time it was and when looking for a place to eat, we found out that most places were closed! So we had a quick but satisfying dinner at Subway and headed out to walk around the streets and canals once more.
We had taken a few steps towards our intended destination, when we heard thunder and felt giant drops of water. Immediately abandoning our original plan, we took shelter under an awning for about 15 minutes before we decided to brave the cold and rain and see what we wanted anwyay so that we would have time to get back to the train station.
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Now thoroughly tired, we caught our double-decker (HOW AMAZING?!) train to Bruges. The first thing we saw and heard as we got out of the train were fireworks! I anticipated a long, boring walk to our hostel, but as we got out of the station, I was so surprised to see a full-fledged fair going on, with rides, snacks, cotton candy, and prizes! I suppose the fireworks were a part of the fair, too. It was around 11:20 pm then, and I definitely didn't expect a giant crowd of people to be wandering around the city at the time. Then again, Bruges is a tourist trap...
We reached our hipster hostel (only second to Kex Hostel in Iceland), dumped our bags onto our pod beds, and grabbed a Bruges Use-It map to plan our next day and a half. We decided to go to a nightclub at 4am that night (our one chance to stay up late in Bruges). Since that's technically day 3 of our trip, more about that on that page!
WARNING: Terrible quality photos ahead.
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