Chocolate Town

In line for the breakfast in the castle this morning, one of the kids said, “I hope it’s scrambled eggs”. Ha ha. Lunch meat, cheese, bread, muselei and unsweetened yogurt. No scrambled eggs in Europe. And no Froot Loops. We left the castle behind, but didn’t leave anyone or anything else behind, which is pretty good after the first night. We headed out on the highway, past all sorts of Dutch engineering marvels that generate power from the wind and keep the Netherlands, a large proportion of which is lower than sea level, from “sinking”.
Our morning stop was Saint Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent, a first for the LFMSS Europe tour. We went specifically to see Hubert and Jan Van Eyck’s Adoration of the Mystic Lamb – a huge multi paneled Flemish painting which was at one time the most expensive painting ever sold. I think everyone was suitably impressed by the first cathedral on the trip, as it took a long time to get everyone out. They don’t realize how many beautiful art-filled cathedrals they will be seeing over the next few weeks.
I scheduled a lot of time in Bruges this year, as it is a perennial favourite with the school groups. We hit the usual spots: Church of Our Lady, featuring a Michelangelo Madonna; the Belfry, featuring 366 steep, winding steps; and Dumon’s, featuring the reason people come to Belgium, chocolate. There are actually chocolate stores about every 200 yards in Bruges it seems, and chocolate is made into EVERY shape you can imagine. The adults and students broke up into groups to shop and explore this medieval city in the late afternoon, and it seemed that most of them were carrying a chocolate bag from Dumon’s on the walk out of the city after dinner. We are trying a new youth hostel that’s a couple minutes outside of Bruges this year, after exhausting all the options in the city over the last several years – Bauhaus – too much pounding techno music from the bar until 4 AM, Snuffel Inn – co-ed showers and a spiral staircase made with bamboo and tie wire (as I recall), and Charlie Rockets – Dutch punk rock bands blasting in the bar where you pick up the keys, singing all the words in Dutch except the very obvious English swear words, and a single toaster to make everyone’s “breakfast” in the morning. Our new choice is the hostel Europa, and it is bright, large, and clean, and lacks blasting music and cigarette smoke. I almost don’t feel like I’m in Bruges. The boys seemed interested in the large group of slightly older French girls who are apparently on a school trip with just one teacher, and one of them even tried out some French on them, but felt bad when they laughed at him. It’s probably not a good idea to say “I love you” to a group of complete strangers if you don’t want them to laugh. Maybe he thought he was saying something else.
It’s 10:00 PM, everyone’s in bed, and I’m heading there too.
Craig