Kyle & Chuck Go To Europe

Here we’re starting off in Berlin. We woke up around 7am and quietly-as-we-could got ready to leave. We showered last night, so that saved us quite a bit of time. With our packs stuffed with the food we bought last night we headed down to check out. Checkout consisted of just putting your cards in a box. Things like that always make me worry that they’re going to charge me for another night some how.

We then made our way on the S-bahn back to Hauptbahnhof for the day train to Bruges. The Hbf in Berlin is absolutely huge! There are at least 5 floors, each, I think, with trains running on them. It’s a pretty open structure which makes it even more impressive. It’s an 8 hour journey and we had originally planned to make it an overnight train, but it turns out that, from 2008 to 2009, CityNightLine decided to cancel all the night trains. This means we have to spend a good chuck of today traveling on a train instead of doing other, more touristy things. It’s actually a bit welcome though because I am thoroughly exhausted. All these weeks and weeks of traveling, broken sleep, and constant walking have really worn me out. Taking the day off and getting to rest, even if on a train in a stiff seat, seems pretty nice right now.

And we’re on the train right now. I’ve just written the posts for Day 21 and 22 and am starting Day 23’s. I don’t think much more will happen today. We don’t get in to Bruges until 5pm or so, which will likely be after most things close. We should be able to get a good amount of stuff in tomorrow though!

One of the pitfalls of public transportation, or really anything public is the other people. On the S-bahn today I had this older guy who absolutely reeked of body odor. It was horrendous: every break I took was pungent and stale. He finally got off and I could breath free again. And then when we got on the train some little kid was bawling his face off a few seats up. Kids and traveling very rarely mix well. Where’s the Cone of Silence when you need it? Those of you who get that reference, please post in a comment!

Alright, I am going for now. I want to do some more reading in Hyperion. I finished the Priest’s and Soldier’s tales and am half-way through the Poet’s! Interesting book so far. And just a note, my  laptop battery is at 50%% which is pretty impressive because it’s been on for 2.5-3 hours now on top of last night and I even copied pictures from my camera card to the hard drive and then to another backup card. This thing is great! Can’t wait to have some wifi later to post this stuff.

Rest of the day:

Our trip to Bruges consisted of three segments. The first was from Berlin to Cologne. On this ride I actually saw quite a few wind power generators. They are quite impressive and you know that the turning propellers are making clean energy! I also saw a cooling tower for a nuclear reactor, but I couldn’t tell you where we were at the time. The cooling towers look so awesome!

We had to transfer at Cologne to another train to Brussels Once we got to Brussels we got on a train for Bruges, but we must have hit at rush hour. The car was completely packed. We had to stand arm to arm in the area where you get on the the car. There wasn’t even room to get into where the seats were. One of the stops in between was Gent and there the car basically emptied. It seems there was a group of boy scouts on the car who took up all that room. From Gent on to Bruges we had seats.

We got to Bruges and took a bus to our hostel: St. Christopher’s Inn – Bauhaus. We quickly checked in and set our stuff in the room. We then looked at the map and decided to head out to do some sight seeing. We got to the Markt square pretty quick. We took some pictures but the lighting was not very good as a result of the stormy clouds. Did you know French Fries started here in Belgium? Neither did we, but we did decide to get some from a vendor in the square. Lo and behold as soon as we get the fries, it starts raining. I finished mine off quick because I got them first and then Chuck and I walked back with his. So it decided to rain just as we got out… eeriely like Vienna. Conspiracy? I think so.

We just hung out in our hostel room for a while and then met our roommates. They were a few girls from Hungary also traveling around Europe. And that’s how we spent the night: talking to them about Hungary and of course how we miss peanut butter! They had a good time making fun of us for that. And all I could do was want peanut butter. We went to bed late and slept with our ear plugs again! Wonderful silence!