last night and morning in Bruges

Our indecently early dinner worked out well for us because they had a lot of reservations for the real time to eat and we kept watching people get turned away from tables, but they let us sit.  This happened several times in the days that we have been here where we get to sit and eat and others get turned away who are

also obviously tourists.  Do John and I just look like we’ll be easy to serve and get the hell out, like we’ll spend a lot of money,  like we’ll get along with the locals?  I’m not sure, but we watched 5 other groups get told there was no room, one get seated, and one foursome get up and leave because the service wasn’t fast 

enough for them.  We are fine with sitting and ruminating over the menu that we can’t read and drinking beer, talking with locals.  On this night we had two 80 year old regulars sitting by us that wanted John to taste their beer because it was the best they had, kept telling us about movies 

  they liked, places they liked to visit, and discussed Flanders’ Field with them as it is the anniversary of WWI starting this weekend.  I got kisses when they left and John got to try beer he hadn’t bought, so that was fun and they sat and talked to us for an hour.  John got a ton of 

 mussels and I got the Flemish stew again….but neither one of us could put a dent in the crème brulee because there was Belgian chocolate back in the room calling our name.  Yes, we are in the room and in bed by 9pm this night because of total exhaustion.  You don’t think 

that you are doing much during the day, but by evening, I’m done in.  John fell asleep while I was in the shower, but he talks a good game about wanting to go back out for more beers later in the bars…

 Back to things that we have been seeing:  our last night in Bruges was spent getting up repeatedly, turning on the light, and killing the mosquitoes that were dive bombing us.  Can’t figure out where they are coming from, but the hotel 

people said that they are a Bruges thing…with the canals, that makes sense, but we haven’t had this problem anywhere else with canals…We checked out of the hotel, walked north of the canal to see that side of town with baby swans and then took a leisurely stroll through all the parts we hadn’t seen, like down to the Ghent gate

 that used to surround the old town, back toward the Market to hear the bells from the belfry give a Saturday morning concert, walk through the flea market, down to Minnewater and the old Beguinage there where women could live on 

 their own in a little sisterly town, but not a convent.  The men that we met at the bar said that Rose Kennedy was there for a while back in the day.  It looked peaceful and, honestly, like a convent.

 Wandered to the train station and got on a train in 10 minutes flat for Ghent.  Get the tram out of the train station and head toward a vague direction that we think our hotel is in, after 

 turning in circles at the tram stop, finally find the right way and get to our hotel in a couple of blocks.  This time we’re in a renovated monastery which was interesting with the worst twin beds in the world.  I sat on the bed that I determined would be John’s and it was like sitting on 

the ground, when he got in it that night, he actually tried to catch himself because it gave way so much.  But, this is 3 star accommodations in Europe.  We were just glad to not have any mosquitoes in the room that we could tell.