Boat tour and brewery tour

It's easy to stay up with the group around here because they never

get far away in this town.  We go to the market square while they climb the tower and periodically head back to the hotel where there is a laundromat that I’m doing laundry at.  Oscar just wants to watch the buses come around the square over and over and doesn’t care about anything else to the point that I’m a little annoyed.  We are able to meet them at the church of the Holy Blood and then for lunch, we don’t go in any churches, because Oscar has made it very clear that he’s not

 doing churches or art museums on this trip, but after lunch we’re able to meet the group for a canal cruise.  The dog that used to sit in the window that John and I saw last time we were here has died and there have been modern art installations that have been added to the canals, but nothing much else has changed.  As the captain of the boat said, Bruges became rich on it’s wool and textiles, then became poor, and because they were poor, could not knock down building and build new ones, which has

resulted in them becoming rich again because they’re historic.  The students are much more relaxed here.  It’s like walking around Big Rapids compared to Paris, just with cobblestones and way more good beer.  Oscar and I kill a

couple of hours while they see the Michelangelo statue in another church and then we all meet up again for a  brewery tour.  Oscar’s free and he’s actually interested in the machinery, but no one prepared us for the steep and slippery climbs up and down stairwells that were included.  De Halve Moon

brewery should maybe prepare people for that, because we weren’t prepared and I was thinking how most of the people I know that have the money for travel wouldn’t have been able to do it either.  John carried Oscar down some of it and then he started doing it on his own.  But it was still sketchy for most of us and the beer at the end of the tour was very welcome after that.  The tour guide tells Oscar that she is going to give him some chocolate and a cake for being the best kid that she has ever had on a tour.  We have our beers and luckily the place closes at 6pm, because John and some of the kids were planning on sampling every beer that

they had.  But the menu had me excited until they told me about the closing, so we were sent to a restaurant around the corner, Vivaldi for some Waterzooi which I was looking forward to while we were here.   It wasn’t the greatest waterzooi because the last time I had it, it seemed like a dish that I couldn’t make at home, this seemed like I could.  So, maybe I’ll give it a try.