Koln-Brugge-Paris

The next morning Cosine and I boycotted the Juice Nazi and ate breakfast at the train station instead.  I got a cream cheese danish and a Lift, a Coca-Cola produced soft drink I wasn't aware was available in Europe.  It's basically carbonated apple juice.  I'd had it before in Mexico and got hooked, so when I returned after that trip I wrote to Coca-Cola and asked them what the deal was with Lift not being sold in the United States, since it's so good, way better than that stupid guarana drink they were trying to sell a few years ago.  I got a curt and useless message back saying: "Lift is not marketed in the United States."  Thanks, e-mail answering dude.
 
 

Koln train station.

Actually, I really have to wonder about this one (sorry about the digression): Lift is ubiquitous in Mexico.  Now, according to the CIA World Factbook, Mexico has about 100,000,000 people.  According to the 2000 US Census, the United States has a Latino population of about 33,000,000, greater than 10% of the population, and nearly one-third the population of Mexico.  I don't have the energy to figure out what proportion of this population are first generation nor the resources to do a survey to determine whether, upon moving here, their tastes suddenly gravitated toward Sprite or, say, Nugrape.  Presumably Coca-Cola hires legions of MBAs who have determined that with millions of Latinos already familiar with the
product or whom one might approach with a similar marketing strategy to the one used in Mexico, at least one crazy white boy who likes it, and others from a variety of demographics who could be swayed by clever marketing, good taste, and the fact that I'll bet this stuff would be kickass with rum, that Coca-Cola would do better to (I'm not making this up) make Coke available in Greenland, with a total market of 60,000 plus whatever tourists happen to wander through.  I mean, really: you can get Fresca, you can get Tab (TAB!--who drinks Tab any more?), but you can't get Lift.  What kind of country is this?

I went on a similar rant there in the train station.

"You know, you could just mix apple juice with soda water," Cosine advised sagely.  "People do that here all the time."

"But I'm a lazy American, and that takes work.  I want to buy it in a bottle."

Cosine was unsympathetic.

The train arrived 10 minutes late.  While standing on the platform, I observed that a theatre nearby was hosting a traveling production of Saturday Night Fever.  When the train finally did arrive, we were only a little outside Koln before the train stopped.  After nearly an hour, the train started moving again.

Interesting thing about taking a train in Belgium.  Many trains both broadcast announcements and display them on a scrolling message board at each end of the car.  When the conductor made announcements on this train, he made them in French, German, and Flemish.  But depending on what town we were approaching, the message board would display the announcements solely in Flemish or French, depending on the language the residents of the town spoke.  For those unfamiliar with Belgium, it's divided into two parts, Flanders and Wallonia.  The Flemings speak Flemish, the Walloons speak French, and according to Lonely Planet, anyway, there can be friction between the two.  I assume the language of the message board was meant to appease Flemish/Walloon sensibilities, but what kind of compromise is this?  It's as if you're on a flight from Beijing to Moscow and the crew of the plane suddenly start speaking Mongolian when you're in Mongolian airspace.

We got to Brugge (Bruges in French), a Flemish-speaking town, incidentally.  Our challenge here was to find a place to put our luggage.  There were generous sized luggage lockers, but we had not Belgian francs to fund them.  We searched the station in vain for an ATM.  Lonely Planet said we could change money at the ticket counter, but the man there refused.

"Do you know where there's an ATM?" I asked.

"In town," he said, gesturing vaguely.

"Ok," I said to Cosine, "you stay here with the bags, I'll be back soon."

And so it was that my first encounter with the lovely medieval city of Brugge was running through its narrow cobblestoned streets, dodging tourists, seeking an ATM or an exchange bureau, whichever I could find first.  I couldn't wait for the Euro.  An ATM appeared first.  I got 2000 francs, which would turn out to be too much, then ran back toward the train station, naturally getting lost in the winding streets on the way.

Cosine was still waiting with the bags.  Now our challenge was to get coins.  There was a little convenience store, so Cosine and I each bought a roll of Mentos to get the requisite number of coins, stuffed our bags in the locker, and then went off to explore.
 
 

Brugge.

I will admit to having a certain amount of ambivalence about Brugge, due mainly to an ex-boyfriend who was obsessed with it.  He thought we should go on a trip here together sometime, and he described its romantic possibilities, though he had never been there.  He was right, though: it's a place out of time.  Even overrun with tourists, it seemed sleepy, and the streets, medieval buildings, and remarkable system of canals were all stunning.

Brugge is fairly compact, and neither Cosine nor I were particularly committed to seeing any specific sights.  Wandering around seemed more the thing to do here.  After a while we came across a small market where we each ordered a bratwurst before eventually ending up in St. Salvatorkatedraal, whose walls were covered in oil paintings.  We spent maybe 20 minutes here before going out again, this time in the direction of the Belfort, which is apparently the thing to climb in Brugge.  A tall, square tower, it was designed as a watchtower to look out for approaching enemies.  We paid our admission and started climbing.  This tower had more windows than the cathedral in Koln, so we were able to see how high we were getting, and from the top, the view over the roofs of the city was great.  On the way down, we stopped to take a look at the workings of the clock.  The clock face is on all four sides of the building, and gears and levers twist throughout the clock-room to keep the faces in sync.
 

The clock.

Down on the square in front of the Belfort, the Christmas market was still going.  Cosine and I were both surprised to see one booth offering Indonesian snacks--lumpieh (sort of an Indonesian spring roll), and chicken satay.  In Belgium, of all places.  I bought an order of each for us, but as we should have expected, we discovered, while huddled with hundreds of other tourists in the gate to the Belfort when a sudden rainstorm hit, that the quality was a little lacking.

After the rain let up, we just walked aimlessly.  We had plenty of time before we had to get the train back to Brussells.  Cosine said he wouldn't mind living someplace like this.

"Even with all the tourists?"

"I could be one of the natives and laugh at all the tourists."
 

Me and some guy in an overcoat.

As darkness fell, we made our way back to the train station and headed back to Brussels.  There was nowhere to sit, but the train ride was just an hour.  At Brussels-Midi, Cosine and I stopped in a bar for a beer where the bartender wouldn't even look our way, so we went and had coffee instead.  I waited while Cosine got his ticket for Strasbourg, where he was going the next day.  I stopped in the restroom, where little old ladies stood just out of view of the urinals and requested 10 francs for "maintenance."

The time for my train to Paris was approaching, so Cosine headed off in search of a hostel for the night, while I headed up to the platform.  Two hours later, I was back at the hostel where I'd spent my first night in Paris, and would now spend my tired last.

I hung out at the bar for a little while, decompressing from the day.  I talked to a group of four students from Spain for a while.  They asked if I had any marijuana.  I didn't.  They bought me a beer.

Next--December 30: Going home