in bruges.

HI ALL!
we are in Bruges, Belgium! andd let me tell you, it is absolutely beautiful.
now, though, to backtrack! holla.
soo we left Paris and got to Arras, all was good. we walked and found the tourism centre, all was good. we asked about getting to Vimy Ridge and everything, she said a taxi was easiest, so we were all, dope. and then asked about cheap accommodation. she told us that they had a youth hostel type thing there (!) so she labelled it on a map, and we went there.
well...let me telll you. it was a catholic church/school/accomodations... but it was cheap. it was extremely out of our way, and the night that we did stay there was so scary. i swear it used to be an insane asylum or something. because it was very institutional feeling and SCARY. and it was cold...and scary :( and me and jake couldnt get to sleep because it was just so bizarre. but eventually we did and had a bad sleep.

anyways, after we checked in there (before the bad sleep) we went back to the tourism office and she called us a taxi. the taxi took us out there, and we got one of the canadians working at the memorial to help us figure out when she could pick us up. we got there at 3:30 and it closed at five, which was too bad, but still good enough timing. we got to see the memorial first off, then there was a free tour given of the trenches and tunnels. the tour was really cool, i learned a lot, even jake learned some (once again, who knew he didnt know it all?). The tunnel system used was for transporting goods from the base place 10 km back to the actual soldiers in the front line, and it was cool....we learned a lot, actually, but i probably shouldnt blog it all.

all of the workers up at the memorial site are canadian students who sign up for a four month period. its cool that way, because it is a government job, but gets them out of the country. you DO have to speak french, which is a shame, because spencer, i swear, you would probably really enjoy that job. jake and i both agreed that we could picture you doing it.
uhm...then the taxi picked us up and we went back to scary townsville.
we decided that we didnt want to spend two nights there, seeing as it was not interesting in arras, so we are now in Bruges, which is unexpected but fun.
we went on a night time walking tour, and bruges is actually such a beautiful city. we would stay here longer, but there are no rooms available at the hostel we are staying at :(.
so tomorrow we are off to live with Jakes relatives in holland for a while, which i am very excited about. then off to Amsterdam, then home.
miss you lots!

--t