Brugge, Belgium - Venice of the North

Sorry for the lapse in travel posts from my trip to Belgium and Germany! I can't seem to keep Deb in line - she's always too busy to spend time with me! Darned dissertation!!!!!!!!!
And - can you believe this: she didn't manage to get any photos of me into this post???? That is ridiculous, and calls for a coup! I'll just take over this blog!!!! (Oh, wait - I just realized, I can't; I don't have fingers. Oh well...... I'll just push her to get going on the next post so you all can see me, Gumballhead, again soon!).

Anyhow, back to our journey through Belgium:

After our wonderful visit to Westvleteren, we hopped back on the train and headed up to charming, picturesque Brugge, on the northern side of the country. It is very well preserved in its mostly medieval state. The town has a lot of scenic canals, beautiful churches, real antique windmills, and is very walkable and pleasant. It is often criticized as being "Disneyesque," and I must say I could agree with that. However, it's well worth the trip to see it, and there are lots of fun things for tourists to do and see - canal boat tours, horse-drawn carriage tours, shopping, dining, a chocolate museum, a brewery tour, and a few really wonderful places to try a good selection of Belgian beers. The city center is mostly pedestrianized (is that a word, Gumballhead? I don't know, and I don't care. As I've said before, it's my blog and I'll make up words if I want to!). We spent a couple of days there, anyways, and had a wonderful time.

Our hotel (Ensor) was wonderfully located, within a short walk of the train station (though we discovered that pulling wheeled luggage across cobblestone streets leaves something to be desired - you are likely to break a wheel off or injure your wrist! If you go there, take the short bus ride). It was close to a central shopping and dining area (t'Zand) and sits on a quiet, pretty canal. Here's a view from our window:One of the owners was working at the desk, and he was very friendly and helpful, producing maps and writing down addresses of places we wanted to see.


Unfortunately, that is where the charm of this place ended. It was sadly in need of renovation - to the point that we felt our room was actually full of dangers. For example, a slippery shower that was elevated above the bathroom floor, with no grab bars, a glass door, and a showerhead that kept falling off. A bad fall just waiting to happen. Not to mention the twin beds pushed up against the windows, which have no screens. Because there is no air conditioning, we pretty much had to open them, and I could easily imagine a child falling from our third-story window. Ugh!!! Thankfully, we didn't have children with us for this leg of our journey. The old linoleum floor also had big gaps in it. Ah, what we do to have the travel experience!!!!


In short, wouldn't recommend the place unless they do some serious renovation. It looked like there were other places to stay closer to the city center, and even though you couldn't drive to them, you could catch a bus for the short ride very easily from the train station or the large nearby public parking garages, where most everyone must leave their cars. This city reminded me a lot of Venice. Of course, we cats don't take much to water, in general, but Deb and Jeff really liked it. Below is a picture and a detail of the hotel we WISH we'd stayed in:The first night, after checking in at the hotel, we headed to a "must-see" destination: t'Brugge Beerjte. This is a favorite local beer bar that has an amazing selection and very knowledgeable bartenders. We read about it in Tim Webb's book, The Good Beer Guide to Belgium. In fact, there's a photo of the owner, Daisy, in the book, and we had the good fortune to sit at the bar and chat with her all evening. She was warm and friendly, and we ended up staying until well past the posted closing time (it was weird, sneaking back into our hotel late at night, trying not to wak the innkeeper, honestly!!!!). Daisy was well aware of her notoriety among American and British beer tourists, and didn't seem to mind the attention. But can you believe we didn't get a photo with her???? Duh oh!!! Travel guru Rick Steves wrote an article about Brugge not too long ago, and featured this particular bar. In fact, one of us probably sat on the same bar stool he sat on only a few weeks before we were there. Here's a couple of shots of the bar:Did ya notice all the different shapes of beer glasses? Yup - every beer style has its own glass. Many breweries even have their own glasses, with the brewery's name silk screened on them.

While there, we were introduced to what may have been the favorite beer of the entire trip (even when compared to Westvleteren 12 and Cantillon's gueuze!!!!). That was Rodenbach's Vin de Cereal - a wonderful barrel-aged wheat wine. It's an amazing sour, comes wrapped in paper, and sold in Brugge (we found it in a couple of locations) for 7 euros for a single-serving (about 11oz, I'd guess) - which was about 11 US dollars at the time. Therefore, we didn't drink much of it! We were told it will not be exported to the U.S., though we recently have heard rumors to the contrary. We'll have to see what happens on that. My advice, though, is if you see it in a store this winter, jump on it!!!!! :)

Our second day, we visited several places. For now, I'll just post a few pics of what we saw as we walked the city and then took one of those fun, but touristy canal boat rides. The scenery is great from both perspectives (from boat or on foot!).

I'll finish today's posting up with a teaser for my next post! Here's a view from the roof of the De Halve Maan brewery in Brugge:What was Gumballhead doing on the roof of the brewery? Tune in to find out! I promise to have more pictures of myself up here soon!

~ GBH

Just How Rainy WAS It???

If you live in the Chicagoland area (or watch the news), you may remember, painfully, the horrific rains we had here when the remnants of Hurricane Ike worked their way north this September. We had a record 11" of rain in three days in our town, and many people in Northwest Indiana lost their homes due to floods. It was a sobering, difficult time for everyone in the region.

It was that weekend - day two of the rains, that the Chicago Beer Society held its annual cookout in a park on the north side of the city (yep - there really IS such a thing as a beer society, and though I, a fuzzy yellow cat, cannot join, Jeff and Deb are actually card-carrying members).

Well - you would have thought that a big rain such as this would have caused the picnic to be canceled. NOT SO!!!!!!This annual event includes a rib cook-off, a chili cook-off, a salsa cook-off, and a dessert cook-off. Competition brings out the "strange" in people, I guess, and also the fact that people have already bought and prepared the food, and maybe also a little hope that the rain would subside at least sometime during the day.

So, we coped, each in our own different ways. Deb and Jeff wore rain ponchos. I'm not sure whether most people thought they were total dorks, or if they were envious, lol. Below, left to right, are Thomas (we'll miss you and Jen!), Jeff (modeling the beautiful rain poncho, purchased at an amusement park), Chris, and Pudgy. Below: Jonathan, Thomas, and Jeff. (I love taking pictures of guys who don't want to be photographed. You can SO see it on their expressions!!!!)Many people brought canopies, and lined them up around the perimeter of the picnic shelter. One guy just decided that getting soaked was a given, so he went and did a couple of belly slides in the flooded field. I unfortunately didn't get a shot of it, but here's what the field looked like:
And here's what he looked like after he did it:

Many set up grills under the canopies, and proceeded to cook.

Others managed to set up inside the shelter and cook in there. Here's Thomas - who had the most unusual chili, I think. He served it with sunflower seeds and an amazing cornbread that he baked in a skillet. Loved that!!!


Food and drinks were set up inside the shelter, Randy Moser brought his homemade, battery operated (amazing) sound system, and it all worked out.

The shadow box full of interesting items (below) is actually the trophy that gets passed along each year to the winner of one of the cook-offs (though I can't remember which one - perhaps someone will enlighten me by adding a comment!!! Based on the items in it, my guess is chili). My understanding of it is that it's a tradition that the winner takes it home, adds something to it, and then hands it off to the winner (if it be a different person) the following year. Too funny!!!

Here's just a sampling of some of the foods that people brought (not for the competitions):


The worst part of the rainy picnic was trying to figure out how to get there from your car while keeping the food dry. Or - maybe it was trying to figure out how to wade through the ankle-deep water to use the restrooms - see below!!!!. This is where plastic shoes come in handy.

What made the day fun were the hearty souls who braved the monsoons and managed to figure out a way to still cook their ribs, bring in their baked goods, homemade chili (look at the steam rising off this chili - mmmmmm - it was good!!!!), and homemade salsa: Here's a couple of pictures of a temporary break in the rain. It got everyone outside:

There was an amazing array of goodies - and of course, beer. And even some homebrews that weren't really beer - like this root beer!

For the dessert competition, Deb made a Black Forest cake, using cherries soaked in Kasteel Rouge beer (that's the brewery we visited in Ingelmunster, Belgium, this summer - the one in the castle!). It came out pretty nice, but the cherries needed a stickier syrup. Still tasted yummy!Here's me, striking a pose with the cake. We'll try that one again soon!

The winning dessert was bacon chocolate chip cookies. They were pretty good. There's been a weird thing going around among the Chicago area beer geeks this year about bacon and chocolate. So it seemed natural that a dessert pairing these two flavors would be a crowd pleaser. If you don't know what I'm talkin' about, try a Mo's Bacon Bar from Vosges (www.vosgeschocolate.com). Yummy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The guacamole was also outstanding. All that was left when I went back for more was these avocado pits!!! Whoever made that, I'd love the recipe!!!

This one I didn't try, but it sounds like something a cat would adore. I admit it didn't look too appetizing, but smelled really, really good:

When all was said and done, it was a good day. The empty cornbread skillet just about says it all.
My apologies to those of you who have been waiting for more photos of Europe. I just wanted to get these pics out there, for those who went to the picnic and want to see the pictures, and for those who wanted to go to the picnic but were unable (many people couldn't even get to it, because some of the expressways were closed!!!).

Next time, I'll show ya a couple of fine establishments that you'll want to visit if you ever go to picturesque Brugge, Belgium, and a crappy hotel to avoid (unless they remodel sometime soon)!!!!!

~ GBH