Mom and I were to leave the 12th of May and Kole was to fly into Frankfurt the 16th. Unfortunately mom was put in the hospital 3 days before our designated date of departure so we had to rearrange a bit of our schedule. Which ended up fine as I still flew out the 12th and so I had a chance to do a temple session while I waited one day for mom to fly in. It was wonderful I got to stay on the temple grounds in their dorms. It cost me 8 Euros to stay and 8 Euros to rent my clothes. I stayed in a room with 2 other women from Germany. They were so nice. One spoke English well while the other spoke very broken English but her English was far better than my German. I wish I had gotten their names as they were so kind and helpful but I was pooped and fell right to sleep at 8 before they finished their last session.
Attending the temple there was a bit of challenge. As I was watching the video I knew what they were saying in English and had the headset on but could really hear the German so I kept going in and out of English and German, English and German...and I had just flown 10 hours nonstop and technically it was still quite early Seattle time so I had a really hard time concentrating. All I wanted to do was sleep. When I turned in my rental clothes the patron asked if I wanted to do another session and was quite shocked when I declined claiming pure exhaustion. I did sleep well and woke up promptly at 5:30 a.m. the next morning. My roommates were so concerned about me making the train to return to the airport to pick up mom I think they gave me quite a tongue lashing although I cannot be sure as it was all in German. I did make it and so mom and I started our adventure.
Mom and I took the train to Koln for our first night. The city is darling. We had already been there on one of our previous trips and probably wouldn't have gone again except it was the perfect half way point enroute to Brugges Belgium. We had a difficult time finding a place to stay as it was some "artists" convention but we eventually found a place at Santo. The receptionist said they were located 6 minutes from the train station and probably were except that mom and I decided (unbeknownst to us) to take the scenic route. There is something to be said about scenic routes--they're grand when you're not lugging around a 50 lb piece of luggage. Mom's was especially heavy. The sad thing was she didn't really even bring that much but the luggage piece itself weighed near 40 lbs itself. That thing was the green beast! Oh people were gallant there, always willing to lend a helping hand. But their good samaritan smiles disappeared once they picked up the green beast.
So not only had mom just gotten out of the hospital, flown 10 hours, then had a train ride for 2 hours, she now had to walk on beautiful, medieval cobblestone streets that were taxing in of themselves, but now pulling this piece of luggage. Poor mom we hated her luggage so much that by the end of our trip we were so tempted to just leave it in Germany and buy new luggage no matter the cost! Ugh!
Santo was a pretty contemporary hotel. But charming in it's own right. The receptionist told us to go to the supermarket and buy some food for travel as the dining car on the trains can get pricey. She was right of course and mom's diabetic diet didn't really allow for too many food adventures so we took her advice and went to the store. We were a tiny bit hungry so we bought quite a bit. They're quite "green" over there and so being the ignorant tourist didn't realize they wouldn't have bags to put our food in once we checked out. So mom and I are juggling all this food. We did buy some yummy peanut butter, also some yogurt which we carried around with us for a day and then left it in our refrigerator in Brugges---bummer. We also bought some apples and some canned fish--which we carried with us for 10 days--never once eating. As if our bags weren't heavy enough. We then went and got dinner at Oyster. A YUMMY feast for us. Mom and I shared and for our first course we had Asparagus soup with watercress and mushrooms. So good. Our second course was a Caesar salad that was by far the best Caesar I have ever had. It had seared tuna, a mustard vinaigrette, tomatoes, olives croutons and it was topped with a poached egg yolk--yum! We then moved on to our third course which was this rock fish with roasted veggies. We ended with dessert but can't recall what it was so maybe it wasn't so memorable.
Mom and I got up early the next day to take the train to Brugge. I love trains. I can't tell you how much I enjoy riding trains, especially in Europe. They are timely they are clean and they have the most beautiful travel routes. We stayed in this B & B right on the canal. It was gorgeous. The owners name was Caroline and she was lovely. The rooms were very charming and we had a lovely view over the canal. The breakfast was so so. It was good but not exceptional although she did serve the most delicious cottage cheese. It wasn't your typical cottage cheese it was between a yogurt and a ricotta it seemed.
We loved Brugge with the winding canals and cobblestone streets. We went on a canal ride where the driver spoke very weird. There is no better way to say it. I can't explain it really. It was just weird. It rained on us the entire day and so we would go in and out of shops quite frequently. We didn't buy much but tried to keep dry. Mom found the most beautiful tapestry of a nativity scene--$700 U.S. dollars couldn't quite rationalize enough to get it...but can't say we didn't try. When we went to the cathedrals it was heavenly. We got to hear the monks practicing. it was so beautiful. We ate well again that evening with some warm asparagus soup.
Here's mom in front of our B&B--the one with the Ivy.
Here's the train station in Brugge. I love them. But I also thought the picture looked amazingly like Sarah.
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