Bugering off to Brugge...

Last Friday saw a leaving-do on the 13th floor of the European Parliament. This is however something you get used to pretty quick around here. What with the staff turnover being so high and the lack of career progression beyond the level of Assistant, the office leaving-do is a common occurance. However what is not a common occurance is the consumption of 5 bottles of wine by two Assistants and a Stagiare to mark the occassion...

Saturday morning arrives with the usual cacophony of church bells from down the road. However unlike usual once the bells stop the ringing in my head doesn't... vague recollections... of capturing a small EPP (tory) TeddyBear and emailing certain tory assistants that unless our demands were met it would meet its end... in a bar feeding popcorn to a girl who was sat on my knee...

Hmmm

After painfully opening my eyes I could see neither the Bear or the girl were in my room, think I'll put that one down as a score draw then. I also remembered that I had left my bag with my train tickets to Brugge in the office. 'Damn' I would of said had my tongue not been made of a dangerously unusable mixture of sandpaper and spam.

I would of said this because Staurday was 'Europe Day' and so there was an open day for the public at the Parliament. Walking over to the Parliament past the Commission it was quite surreal seeing the different events and sideshows that were on to entertain the visitors. A Bouncy Castle was something I never expected to see in the grounds of Berlaymont I can assure you! Still it was quite interesting to see how much the EU apparently wants to open up to citizens and get them on board. Pity they can't put a bouncy castle outside Whitehall, imagine the civil servants horror!

After successfully getting my tickets and catching my train I arrived in Brugge at about half 4 and went and met Andrew and Sharon in the Markt (main square in the city). For those who don't know Andrew and Sharon are two Aussies who have been living in Oulton for the past 12 months and have been touring Europe for the last month or so before going back to Brisbane. Their last stop before Heathrow was Brugge and so I said I'd meet up with them.

Brugge is always described as an example of a 'medieval city' and in many ways I guess it is, but I think this is somewhat overdone especially if your from the UK, places like Edinburgh and York are just as 'historic'. Effectively the main medieval bits are two squares and some bits which can only be seen from the canals. Other than that what it means by a 'historic city' is the streets are narrow and cobbled and everything is double the price! Having said that we did see some intereting things and some stunning architecture, mostly via my prefered method of touristing: wandering around barely paying attention and viewing the world from terrace bars!

That said, and with so much catching up to do it was unavoidable that we sampled the Belgian beers to excess Saturday night and only once failed to avoid a tourist-trap expensive bar, we also sampled some fine Belgian quisine. That's right! We found a gourmet Kebab Restaurant!!!

Bar a pissed up pair of Ruger-buggers invading the room at about five in the morning the hostel was fine and so I was in fine fettle when I made my way back out on Sunday. At this juncture I should point out that two things made me distinctly uncomfortable on my trip to Brugge. The first was the fact that Brugge is in Flanders, where of course they speak Dutch and despise French. However bad my french is this was the first time in my life really that I was without a single word of the local language, little things like 'Hello', 'Thanks', 'Excuse me', 'Sorry' and 'Please', that make you at least seem human and sound polite. Being restricted to hoping people speak English (which in Flanders is basically everyone anyway!) or looking like a simpleton was a bit disconcerting...

The other point was when we decided to go look round an old church. For some reason I always go looking round churches and cathedrals. When people who know I'm a 'devout atheist' ask why I always say 'got to know the enemy' but thinking about it the truth of it is that being devoid of faith and unable to attain it I'm always interested to see what faith does for people. I have visited the Cathedral in Brussels, which Paulina says is boring. A building that took 300 years to complete and saw the deaths of hundreds I find staggering, especially all in the name of faith! Anyway this chapel we visited is home to a very special relic, a vial of the blood of Christ (in all probability a vial of goat/dead beggar/dog blood or not even blood but what the hey!) and when we visited it just so happened to be the day of the year when it is 'venerated' or on show to raise money for the church! So as there is no que we decide to go over and see it, as I walk up to the altar where it is there is a sign saying 'Venerating the relic is an act confirming your devotion to the son of God, please give accordingly.' I know its a cheap way of guilt-tripping the faithful into giving bucketfuls of cash but it did make ME feel a little guilty, and faintly awkward, all the more when he woman taking the donations gave me a beautific smile and a blessing as I tossed a Euro in the box. In the end it was a fancy ornate tube with some very desicated material inside, it may of been blood (if so it had separated into white and red cells before drying out) it may of been anything. I still felt uneasy.

Having spent the best part of two days in each others pockets it was time to say goodbye. We all promised to keep in touch, maybe visit, I gave them a PSE goody bag and that was that, well except for the fact that a marathon cut the city in half for an hour, me on one side, the train station on the other... Brugger!