Semana Santa at Maria Zambrano

Nazarenos in the parade

Today, in a celebration of Semana Santa, many of the kids in my school dressed up for a traditional parade through the school and the surrounding neighborhood. Walking into school, I saw teachers dressed up in black dresses, little girls in black lace and rosary beads, looking like grieving widows, and little boys in suits. The activities commenced at 9:15, as drums and music could be heard outside through the open windows.  At this point the kids were goners – standing up on their chairs to look at the musicians outside. The band then entered the school and marched through the hallways playing traditional Semana Santa music. The kids and I all ran to the door to have a look. I at least had an excuse to look – it was my first time ever seeing this happen!

Little weeping widows

procession

kids watching the parade

little ones holding the insense

 

After the band made their way towards the hallways, the classes were excused one by one to walk to the patio and sit, waiting for the procession. The first kids out were wearing the traditional Nazareno outfits. To sum up these outfits, they look just like the KKK. It has taken a lot this year to see these outfits everywhere and not get a sense of fear upon looking at them. Most Spaniards I talk to have no idea why these outfits would have such a bad connotation in America. The teacher sitting next to me, however, leaned over and said “this must remind you of the Ku Klux!” I was shocked that somebody had actually heard of this! So I responded yes, it is extremely weird and slightly frightening watching a procession of four year olds marching with crosses and white hoods. Next in line came the little girls dressed in black dresses, lace veils, rosaries, heels, red flowers and lipstick. They looked like miniature 60 year old women, and were of course adorable. Next, the sixth graders held tiny versions of the floats used during Semana Santa. In the real parades, 40 or 50 men stand underneath these enormous floats, carrying life size effigies to Mary or Jesus and about 100 burning candles. These versions were carried on small tables, and featured small figurines of the holy family.

waving to the audience

little women

guiding the parade

For many of the kids and teachers this parade was just business as usual. They had seen the pasos so many times that it no longer was exciting. Kids saw it as a great way to get out of class for an hour and talk to their friends. I, being the American, was snapping away photos on my cellphone and cursing myself for not bringing my camera. Looking around, my excitement was only matched by my little Chinese friend Hitao, who also had never seen the likes of a Semana Santa parade in school before. His look of excitement and awe mingled with a “what the hell is going on” look matched mine perfectly and made me laugh, knowing that at least one person shared my sentiments.

holding the torches

angry?

After this adorable parade, I went back to my next class, the fifth grade, where I was giving a presentation about American Easter. I talked about the Easter bunny, painting eggs, and showed some hilarious photos of me and Mark as kids dressed in our Easter best. The kids thought that the photos were hilarious, asked numerous questions about Mark, and could not believe that I used to be blond. The biggest deal for them, however, was that we didn’t celebrate Semana Santa, or holy week! One boy even asked “y donde está Jesús?!” (where is Jesus?). Instead of explaining about America's politically correctness and freedom of religion, I simply replied that for many people in America, Easter is not a religious holiday, but a day to get candy. This clearly went over their heads and they scoffed, pronoucing “que raro. Que raro seño!”

decorations in the school hallway

All the Girls Standing in the Line Waiting for Adele

This week Rachel and I were off to Amsterdam!  Our journey began Thursday evening, when we took the train down to Malaga before our extremely early flight the next morning.  When we arrived at the train station, we saw lines of over 100 taxis idling near the entrance.  Before we could think how convenient this would be for getting a taxi, we saw that all of the cars were empty, and their drivers were huddled in large groups nearby talking, smoking, drinking, and looking agitated.  We learned from a woman near us that there was a problem with the police, and no taxis were running from the station.  We then walked away down the road to catch one before it got to the station, and informed this driver of what was going on.  He radioed in to his company, and we found out via his walkie talkie that something had happened with a taxi and a gun outside the station. Yet another example of us having absolutely no idea what is ever going on.

Friday morning we woke up at what I deemed to be “Abu Simbel time” (see post about Egypt and waking up at 2:30am for sightseeing).  Basically, waking up at any time before 7 am is now “Abu Simbel time,” i.e. nobody in their right mind would ever want to wake up then. We took a plane to Eindhoven, the completely out of the way and across the country airport that Ryanair of course flies in to, and then a bus and train into Amsterdam. After getting settled, we wandered around looking for a lunch spot. We ended up at Wok to Walk, a make your own stir-fry place that was of course delicious.  After lunch we headed to Albert Cuypmarkt, a street market I had heard a lot about beforehand.  The merchandise was only okay, but you know how much I love a good street market.   

Afterwards, we headed to the Heineken Experience to learn more about beer.  Now, I have gone on brewery tours all over the world (well Boston and Belgium to be exact), but the Heineken was definitely my favorite.  It combined a bit of history on the company with a short intro on how beer is made, and ended in an amusement park.  There is a motion ride near the end that literally transports you into the brewing process, so that you become the beer.  It was pretty impressive.  Next, we got our first little tasting and learned how to properly drink a beer.  Finally, there were some interactive components where we got to make fools of ourselves singing along to Dutch music and take some souvenir photos.  At the end of the tour we each got 2 free beers, which Rachel and I hurriedly drank because we had places to go and people to see.  On our way out, a little more than slightly drunk from shotgunning 2 and a half beers each, we excitedly ran through the awesome looking gift shop, asking the clerk “CAN WE COME BACK HERE?!”  Well duh, its a gift shop; of course you can come back.

Let me explain a little about why we were in such a hurry.  A few weeks ago Rachel and I saw that our new music obsession Adele would be performing in Amsterdam while we were there. Tickets were already sold out and ridiculously expensive, so we resolved to try our luck buying scalped tickets.  We checked out the venue earlier in the day, and a funny security guard told us that we may have a shot at it if we arrive an hour before the show.  So, running through the streets of Amsterdam with a beer buzz, we were running for Adele.  We made signs in English saying “WE WANT 2 TICKETS PLEASE!” and decided to ask a mother and daughter in line for their help translating to Dutch.  You can imagine why I may have been paranoid that they were messing with us and wrote something other than the translation after Rachel accidentally drew on the girl's coat with her pen.  My suspicions became worse when people saw our signs and laughed.  A Dutch couple next to us, however, assured me that it was the real translation.  So people were just laughing at the two stupid Americans holding signs begging for tickets.  Kind of makes sense.  After waiting in the cold for 2 hours, we made countless new friends (including but not limited to: many Dutch people, a creep trying to sell tickets for 300 euros, Americans living in the Netherlands, and a Hare Krishna rapping "all the girls standing in the line waiting for Adele") but had failed to acquire the tickets we so badly wanted, and sadly called it a night.  One couple we met from the Midwest recommended a great Mexican restaurant, which we were excited about as nobody outside of the US and Mexico knows how to cook real Mexican food.  The food was good, but the atmosphere was great, and we made friends with the Mexican waiters, showing off our Spanish skills.  We ended up getting two free tequila shots at the end of the night, and made our way back to the hostel to fall asleep.

Saturday morning we woke up early (ish), ready to tackle the day in Amsterdam.  Our first stop after breakfast was the Anne Frank house, where she lived and hid with her family for over 2 years during the Nazi invasion.  The house is exactly as it was 60 years ago, only without furniture.  Set up on the walls are photos, videos of people who knew the family, and chilling excerpts from Anne's diary.  It was amazing to step through the tiny rooms, ducking our heads as we walked up the stairs and imagining how difficult it would have been to tread around not making any noise.  The thing that struck me the most, however, was the darkness.  Although I knew they had to black out the windows so that nobody could see them, it never occurred to me how dark and dank it actually would be inside.  To imagine living there for 2 years in fear of being discovered was difficult.

Walking back out into the light, we headed to Dam square to embark on my favorite New Europe tour.  This company provides free walking tours all throughout Europe, and has easily become one of my favorite things about visiting new cities.  Our tour guide Jo told us about the history of Amsterdam, the tolerance, the red light district, the marijuana laws, and finally the Dutch response to the holocaust.  Our first stop was a walk through the red light district, which I immediately realized is nothing like how I imagined it.  We weaved through a tiny little alley of cute little Dutch houses, which could have easily been an area of homes.  Through the windows, however, instead of dining room tables were prostitutes.  They stood behind the windows, many of them looking bored or talking on cell phones, waiting for customers.  It may have just been the time of day (morning) or the fact that we were clearly on a tour group and not looking for any service, but they did not seem too aggressive or interested.  Our guide told us that each street in the red light district caters to a different need: fetishes, transvestites, particularly pretty girls (called the elite street) and the street we chose to walk down: big momma alley.   She also told us about the olden times when the church would make money from confessions of sailors in Amsterdam.  Oftentimes the sailors would confess in advance for sins they were inevitably going to commit during their time in Amsterdam, and would be asked by the priests to pay double for their sins.  What a system. 

Next on the tour we learned about Amsterdam's strange drug laws.  Apparently it is illegal to grow or deal drugs, but it is legal to sell in the coffeeshops.  So, it is illegal for the coffeeshops to GET their drugs, but legal for them to SELL the drugs to customers.  Makes a lot of sense, huh?  Our guide pointed out the interesting fact that coffeeshops are also not allowed to advertise their sale of marijuana.  Nowhere in the city do you see marijuana leaves, or advertisements about selling joints.  Instead, places put up some psychedelic posters, blare Bob Marley, and call themselves the “Feel Good Coffeeshop”.  Very subtle.  So, if you were completely naive to the implications of Bob Marley, you could wander the city being completely unaware that weed is being legally sold behind closed doors.  This takes me to my next point: the unfair reputation that Amsterdam gets.  The reputation as a place for drugs and prostitution, either good or bad depending on what you want out of your vacation, is not really true.  The drugs are behind closed doors and you have to go looking for the prostitution, and could easily avoid it if you wanted.  What is left is an absolutely beautiful city of canals, a rich history, and some of the nicest people I have ever met travelling.  It could just be that I was coming from a place where the people are notoriously rude (especially to foreigners), but the people of Amsterdam astounded me with their friendliness.  Our guide told us there are three main rules that the Dutch live by.  You can pretty much do anything you want as long as: 1. you don’t hurt anyone, 2. you don’t hurt business, 3. you don’t do it in public.  This carefree lifestyle of tolerance certainly made all the difference.  The locals weren’t just tolerant of difference, they embraced it.  They were up for having a good chat with anyone, from any walk of life, regardless of race, origin, religion, sexual orientation, etc.  And their English was damn good.  Seriously, don't just go to Amsterdam because of the sex and drugs.

After our walking tour, two members of our group recommended a pancake restaurant that we simply had to try for lunch.  Rachel and I both opted for savory pancakes, which consisted of something somewhere between a pancake and a crepe topped with spinach, goat cheese, and pine nuts.  Needless to say it was delicious.  After lunch, we headed to the Van Gogh museum, where we saw one of his famous sunflower paintings (did you know there were 3?) and some other of his masterpieces.  Next we visited the famous “I Amsterdam” sign where tourists climb the letters to pose for awesome pictures (which we also did of course).  In the afternoon we wandered back over to the red light district and saw some more red lights before a quick dinner.

Saturday night we went on a New Europe pub crawl, which for 15 euros included free drinks, entrance to 5 different bars and clubs, and a free t-shirt.  We ended up meeting and hanging out with two nice British guys who of course gave me travel advice for my next travelling adventure: London.  Overall it was a really fun night and a great way to meet more people and see more of the great city.

Sunday we had to drag ourselves out of bed early to take the bus to Keukenhof, a tulip and flower garden in the countryside.  I would describe Keukenhof as Disney world on crack with a side of flowers.  The music, hordes of tourists, overpriced food, long lines and lackluster flowers really didn’t justify the steep entrance fee, so we were obviously disappointed.  The day was saved, however, when we left the lame park and rented bicycles to see the real countryside.  Surrounding Keukenhof were fields filled with flowers as far as the eye could see.  Brilliantly colored yellow, green, purple, pink and red flowers covered both sides of the street, providing for great photo ops and great riding.  The weather was perfect, the sun was shining, and I even got a little tan.  Who could ask for a better day?

We headed back into Amsterdam in the early evening to say goodbye to the wonderful city.  We had one last dinner, collected our bags, and were back on the bus to the airport, where we were staying the night at an airport hotel before our flight early the next morning.  Of course there were some adventures finding the hotel: including running down the street in the dark searching for it (flashbacks to the Glasgow airport hotel were playing in my mind).  But we finally found it, and despite the fact that there was no reception for the day and we had to be let in through the restaurant next door, it ended up being a decently nice place.  So, overall, I would have to say that Amsterdam may just be one of my favorite European cities so far.  The friendliness, beautiful canals, architecture, museums and quirks made for a different and great trip.  Now I just want to figure out when I can go back!

A Note on Procrastination

Spanish kids are pros at procrastinating. Their favorite procrastination takes the form of pencil sharpening.  Standing over the garbage can, they stare off into space, occasionally giving their already sharp pencils a lazy twist.  When the teacher finally notices their inactivity, they quickly resume their sharpening with a look of intense determination on their faces.  This form of procrastination is the norm, practiced by all.  Sometimes the procrastination is enforced by the teachers, who insist that students cut out all handouts and glue them into their notebooks (never heard of a binder?).  This can take anywhere from 2 minutes to 15, depending on the level of rowdiness of the class and the motivation of the Seño. 

My favorite new method of procrastination took place this week, while Michelle was visiting.  My favorite little fourth grader Montiel, who I have written about many times, was energetically engaging in the class activity.  We were learning about the solar system, and he couldn't hold his tongue before shouting out the answers. "Asteroids! Jupiter! The moon! Seño, seño, seño!"  I noticed that however enthusiastic his participation was, he was not completing the assigned worksheet as he jumped up and down in his seat.  When I brought it to the attention of the class that they need to be writing as well as participating, he yelled out "Seño, Fran le robó mi lápiz!" (Fran stole my pencil).  Fran, a row behind, looked confused and held up his one pencil, indicating that he had no memory of the robbery.  Recognizing the theft most likely as a lie, I quickly wondered why Montiel thought he could get away with it, especially with a rather full estucha (pencil case) in front of his paper.  Then it all came to me: he was biding his time, hoping he could confuse me by throwing a robbery into the mix.  Nice try, hombrito.

We didn't wear green on St. Paddy's Day.

There aren't many things more badass than getting a huge, bright green stamp from Ireland on your passport on St. Patricks day. That stamp will forever be proof that I arrived in Ireland on March 17, 2011. After a long day of planes, trains and automobiles, we finally arrived at our destination, Galway, in the late afternoon of St Paddys day. After dropping our bags at the cute little hostel, we made our way into town in search of dinner. Little did we know, however, that the celebration had long since begun. We were bombarded with green everywhere: all green outfits, shamrock hats, glasses, wigs, and every other cheesy St Paddys gear you could imagine. Not wanting to stick out as tourists, we opted not to adorn our bodies in green shamrocks. So we became just dots of random color amongst the sea of green. At least they don't pinch for not wearing green in Ireland!

Instead of conducting a lengthy search for dinner, we decided to stop and ask the only group of people that didn't already look hammered. The lads we stopped were very nice, but informed us that at this time of night on Paddys day (7 pm) there is only beer to be found. They themselves were on their way to a pub and invited us along, as beer is a good substitute for food in their opinion, but we needed a good meal after a day of travelling, and ended up settling for a pizza by the slice stand. Eating our pizza outside, we were bombarded by drunkards excitedly asking where we got our pizza from. When we pointed up at the large PIZZA sign above our heads, they got ecstatic and ran in. We should have been paid for all the business we gave that pizza shop. Now, let me take a moment here to describe the scene of Paddys day in Ireland. I always thought the Irish could hold their liquor, but clearly that theory goes out the window on this day. The streets were literally packed with the most drunk people I have ever seen in my life. A large, green crowd of chaos ran the streets, amidst fire twirlers, drunken musicians, burly bouncers and debauchery. It certainly was a sight to be seen. Inside the pubs were even crazier. Fighting our way through the thick crowd, we bought our first Bulmers Irish cider and made our way to the stage, where a band was performing. The crowd proved too difficult, and it soon became a mosh pit of spilled beer. By the end of the night, we were all drenched in beer, reeking of God knows what, and just a little beat up from trying to fight our way through the crowds. All in the name of celebration!

Although we would have liked to sleep off the night by staying in the next day, we had booked a bus tour to the cliffs of moher that unfortunately left at 9:45 am. Feeling slightly nauseous, we listened as our bus driver excitedly told us about the landscape of the Burren and involved us in his bizarre, day long, desperate search for bunnies. It seemed as though he stopped short at every field, idling the bus in the middle of the street, desperately scouring the landscape attempting to distinguish the rabbits amongst the rabbit-shaped rocks. When we told our guide for the next day about our driver's odd obsession, he laughed ¨aye that must be Billy! I reckon he fancies himself like a rabbit¨. Despite its lack of bunnies, or shall I say abundance of sneaky rabbit-esque rocks, the landscape was beautiful, with rolling green hills separated by crumbling stone walls. My favorite spot of course had to be the cliffs, which broke off from the landscape into nothingness.  Our tour for the next day provided with an entirely different, but equally beautiful landscape.  More yellow than green, with small rounded mountains overpowering the landscape, the Connemara area is, as Oscar Wilde accurately describes it, ¨a savage beauty¨.  Our less bunny obsessed driver told us stories of Irish folklore as he winded through the mountainous landscape, stopping every now and then for a photo op, or just a pretty thatched roof.  Our main stop of the day was Kylemore Abbey, a former palace now converted into a home for nuns.  The beautiful Abbey rises from the mountains across a wide lake, providing for beautiful photos despite the dreariness of the sky.  We quickly explored the grounds and gardens before the rain settled in, and were thankful to get a warm lunch of soup before our bus ride back to the city.

Saturday night, we set out to the pubs again in search of a more tranquil night after St Paddys day.  We returned to a bar we had been to on Thursday, The Front Door, where we stayed most of the night.  Of course, no night out in Galway is complete without pizza, so we stopped at our favorite pizza stand around 2:30 for a late night bite.  The pizza was so good, in fact, that Rachel ate her plate as well to soak up even more of the flavor (okay maybe not actually, but she did take a few accidental bites).

Sunday we took the day to actually explore Galway, which of course translates into eating a lot.  We had an amazing lunch, went to a little tea shop for tea, and finally a bakery for cupcakes to tide us over on the train to Dublin.  Our last night in Ireland was spent in the capital city, eating Mexican food and checking out one of the most famous bars there, Temple Bar.  Finally tasting a real Guinness, poured the true, Irish way, we sat back and enjoyed the mellow cover band, reminiscing on a great trip.

This is the Witch. The What? The Witch! (Belgium)

Last weekend, for the Puente de Andalucía, I headed to Brussels and Bruges.  We arrived in Brussels Thursday evening, eager to set foot in yet another new country.  We arrived at our hostel and made our way towards the main center to look for dinner.  My first impression of Brussels: it is confusing. All streets have two names: one in French and one in German.  Sometimes only one name is posted, sometimes none, and our map would alternate between French and German names.  Especially confusing considering I speak neither German nor French.  We found a restaurant with a fixed price menu and decided to get eating.  Now, here’s a tip about restaurants with fixed prices: never order off the menu.  Worried that our appetizer of escargot and main course of mussels wouldn’t be enough food, Rachel and I decided to both order the small side salad, figuring it couldn’t possibly be too pricey.  Wrong decision.  Our meal of appetizer, main course, and dessert cost 12 Euros, and we each had lovely extra charges of 8 Euros for our salads.  That is 2/3 the price of our entire meal!

Feeling frustrated, and wallets considerably lighter, we headed to Delirium, a bar that came highly recommended.  I could quickly understand why: the bar hosts the largest collection of beer in the world with its impressive menu of 2,004 different beers.  Of these beers, over 40 are on tap, lining the long bar with shiny and glistening handles.  As if this isn’t overwhelming enough, each beer comes in its own glass.  The glass shapes ranged from standard long and tall to short and fat, to everything in between. Asking the bartender for recommendations, we began our night with an IPA boasting a whopping 11% alcohol.  The beers in Belgium are definitely more potent and consequently stronger tasting than beers in the United States.  For our second round, we decided to try the famed fruit beers that we had heard so much about.  I opted for the cherry beer: dark in color and in flavor, and tasting less like cough syrup than I anticipated, it was actually delicious.  Rachel tried the apple beer, which for me was a bit too sweet, tasting more like cider than beer.  At this point, we made friends with the British lads sitting near us, and they started teaching us fun British drinking games such as “20 plus 1,” a game involving fluffy bunny ears, and a weird game about witches (the what?).  We had a really fun night hanging out with them, and realized that this bar offered what bars in Spain lack: friendly people, a relaxed atmosphere where girls weren’t dressed to the nines, good music without the standard Spanish techno dance beat, and beer options other than Cruzcampo.  Can’t we take Delirium back to Spain with us?

We had been planning on going on a tour of the European Union headquarters in Brussels the following morning, but when our alarm sounded at 8 am we had no desire to leave our beds.  So missing breakfast and the one thing we really wanted to do in Brussels, we continued to sleep.  We finally rolled out of bed around 11:30, had a quick breakfast, and realized we had no idea what to do in Brussels.  Lacking ideas, we headed to the main square to look around.  The streets in Brussels remind me of a mix between Parisian architecture with a small German town.  It was certainly pretty, but unfortunately there is really not much to do.  We saw the famed statue entitled “Mannekin Pis,” which depicts a little boy peeing.  This statue, like many other things in Belgium, had been hyped up in my head so much that I was surprisingly excited to see this statue.  To say that it was a letdown is an understatement.  To me, this is probably the most overrated tourist attraction in all of Europe, just above the laughable astronomic clock in Prague.  The tiny statue was barely a foot tall and so far off the ground that you could barely see it.  We took an obligatory photo and left, feeling cheated out of a peeing statue.  We wandered around a bit before lunch, and then headed to a Thai/Vietnamese restaurant, where we stuffed our Asian food-deprived bodies with noodles and rice.   

After lunch, we met up with Rachel’s childhood friend Zach, who was nice enough to take us around the city and show us a few delicacies.  We stopped at a frites cart to get Belgium’s famous fries.  I opted for the garlic alioli sauce, which tasted great going down… but did not feel so good coming back up (more on that later).  We also checked out a few chocolate shops and bought some delicious samples of the praline chocolate.  Heading back to the hotel, my stomach started disagreeing with me.  I don’t know whether it was the frites, or the alioli sauce, or the sheer enormous quantity I ate, but I was definitely not feeling a hundred.  I vowed never to eat fries again (a vow that was then broken two days later in Bruges when the smell of frites overcame me).  That night, I opted for a simple meal of pasta to settle my stomach and headed back to Delirium to sample some more beer.  I managed to try a coconut beer, which despite the odd sound, was actually delicious.  Being a Friday night, it was considerably more crowded and impossible to even find standing room, and without our British friends to pass the time with we simply weren’t feeling the crowd quite so much.  That, and my stomach felt like it was going to burn a whole through my skin.  So after our one drink we decided to call it an early night and head back to the hostel.

Saturday we checked out of our hostel in Brussels and were on our way to Bruges.  As with the Mannekin Pis, Bruges had been hyped up in my head by people saying that it was the most beautiful city on Earth and their favorite stop in Europe.  That being said, it is certainly a lovely city, but by no means is it now at the top of my list of favorite destinations.  As with Brussels, there simply wasn’t much to do.  As a traveler who likes to seize the day and see as much as possible, this was certainly frustrating.  The weather did not help my feelings: the rain, and my umbrella inverting with every tiny gust of wind, made wandering the streets undesirable.  We started off our visit at the Chocolate Museum, which provided a rather lengthy history of the origins of chocolate.  My favorite part of the tour was the chocolate demonstration, where we learned in 5 languages how chocolate is made.  A free sample of course was provided at the end, but I easily could have done with 10 more samples to cover the cost of admission.  After the tour we ran into our British friends from Delirium – turns out they had the same itinerary as us!  It certainly is a small world… or at least a small country.

Without much else to do, we headed to dinner at a lovely candlelit restaurant recommended by Lets Go.  Rachel and Julia both ordered the ribs, which they said were delicious.  I opted for a traditional Flemish stew.  It was okay, but did not have as much flavor as I would have hoped.  After dinner we hopped around a few bars, looking for a good atmosphere to match Delirium and hoping to run into our British friends again.  Our first stop was a little café bar with cute tables and a long beer list.  I tried the Triple d’Anvers, which quickly became my favorite beer of the trip.  After our one drink, we headed to a bar called The Cellar which claimed live music and a fun atmosphere.  Upon arrival, my first impression was that they took the theme a bit too seriously.  The place was incredibly creepy – the only thing the dim lighting didn’t hide was the creepy clientele; people who looked as though they would hang out in cellars.  Our third and fourth stops were more nightclubs than bars, so we decided to give up our search for the perfect atmosphere and just dance.

The next day we were awoken by our first day of sun!  Wanting to take advantage of the good weather, we headed to the main square, which was certainly more beautiful in the sunshine.  We climbed all 340 stairs of the belfry, got a view of the red rooftops of Bruges, and had a simple lunch of soups and sandwiches.  In the afternoon we went to what I was most looking forward to: the brewery tour.   Situated in a pretty area by the canals, the De Haalve Brewery was tucked away in a little corner of the city.  Our cheeky tour guide cracked crass jokes and took us on a wild maze through the brewery and up to the roof, for our second panoramic view of the day.  Heading back down, the steps were so steep that you had to climb down backwards, as if on a ladder.  I certainly hope that nobody is sampling the products during production – there is no way you could make your way down the stairs after a few beers.  They wisely held the tasting until the end, where we were all given a tall glass of pale ale.

Monday was perhaps the craziest day of our entire trip.  We took the train from Bruges back to Brussels, and had to take a bus to the airport.  The way in, we flew a reputable airline and flew into the airport that is actually in Brussels.  The way out, we were flying Ryanair, and therefore had to take an hour long bus ride to this remote location.  To say getting on this bus was a nightmare would be an understatement.  We arrived with our tickets for the 1:00 bus to find a huge crowd of angry Spaniards huddled around the bus.  Turns out the driver wasn’t letting anybody on, even though they all had tickets.  He had stupidly been selling tickets to any joe shmoe that walked up to the bus, leaving no room for the people who had pre-bought tickets.  The crowd was screaming in Spanish, we were screaming in English, turned to Spanish, and the driver was yelling back in French.  Not a good situation.  One Spaniard spoke a little French and tried communicating to the driver that we all had tickets, but the driver didn’t want to hear it, and sped off with us all standing on the curb angry.  When the 1:30 bus arrived, we ran to the front and stampeded through the doors, showing our clear frustration to the confused second driver.  Thank you once again, Ryanair, for ruining my day.

Narrative on the Perfect Crime

It started innocently enough.  With a look of guilty mischief, he slowly pulled his cellophane-wrapped chocolate donut from his bag and slid it onto his desk.  Nobody but me noticed a thing.  With the first turn of the teacher’s back, the donut was slowly and lovingly unwrapped, taking care not to make a sound.  The teacher turned to the blackboard and the smallest chunk was taken between his thumb and forefinger – testing the waters to see the reach of her sight.  Looking suspiciously at me, another tiny chunk was taken and slyly pushed into his mouth.  He was testing whether I would tattle.  The teacher turned her attention to another student.  Two more greedy bites.  Ten more minutes and half the donut had been covertly consumed.  Announcing that she needed to make a photocopy, the teacher abruptly left, closing the door with a snap.  With one swift motion, he messily shoved the remained of the tasty treat into his greedy mouth.  The cellophane was crushed and sent sailing through the air, landing perfectly in the garbage.  Leaning back in his chair with his arms folded over his full belly, his satisfied smile signified only one thing: the perfect crime.  And he would’ve gotten away with it too… if it weren’t for the ring of melted chocolate coating his mouth, staring the teacher in the face as she walked back through the door.