In Bruges

Today we went to Bruges. Our tour guide showed us a lot of historical spots there—especially centered on religious things. We saw a few areas that were started by beguines—women whose husbands were away at war but didn’t want to join a convent. Beguines were also the women who started what is now Het Anker Brewery in Mechelen. The beguines here started a hospitality house where foreigners could sleep in a bed for a night before they found their way. Many of the foreigners were sick and the beguines would pray for them to get better—and it started what we would now call a hospital.

Our tour guide also had a special surprise for us—a chocolate demonstration. She took us to a local chocolaterie, Sukerbuyc, and the chocolatier showed us the basic process for making chocolates. Although this particular chocolate shop doesn’t make their own chocolate from scratch, per se, he still told us how chocolate is made. Although the end product is very different, the process has some similarities to beer brewing. They start with cocoa beans and open them to get out the cocoa powder and oil—in beer brewing this would be the malting of barley to get the usable product. Dark chocolate is primarily cocoa powder and the cocoa butter that is made from the oil—the same cocoa butter that is used in many cosmetics. Milk chocolate is the same, but also with sugar and milk or milk powder. White chocolate is just the sugar, milk or milk powder, and the cocoa butter—there isn’t actually any of the cocoa powder in it (which is why it is still white) and really isn’t chocolate… The chocolate is then put into a mold, shaken to get out the air bubbles, and then dumped after about a minute so that way it creates a shell. Later, they add in the filling and another layer of the chocolate so it is completely covered. I’ve made chocolates before similarly: every year for Christmas we get candy melts which you melt down and then put it in Christmas shaped molds. After all these years I’ve gotten pretty good at painting white “chocolate” of different colors into the molds to make them even more decorative. After the chocolatier talked about how important the temperature is when you’re dealing with chocolate, like with beer, I’m thinking I’ve been doing it wrong all these years. We normally just heat up the chocolate melts in the microwave and then once they’re in the molds we throw them in the fridge. I’m thinking now that we might’ve gotten the chocolate too hot to start with and maybe if we did melted it a little cooler, than we could get our Christmas chocolates all shiny and super professional looking!

We then continued our tour of Bruges and had two hours—until 3pm—to explore on our own. Again, I really had no clue what there was to do, so I just wandered through whatever shops I found interesting. I kept pretty close to the meeting spot in the city center for a while, but after a bit I had been to pretty much all the stores that looked interesting. I wandered down a side street to some more shops, and when it was about 2:40, I decided I should head back. I went down a few streets in what I thought was the right direction, but ended up in a spot that was unfamiliar. I knew the city center had a giant bell tower so I just started walking towards the big tower that I saw. As I got closer I realized that it wasn’t the bell tower, it was a tower at the top of a church. I asked a group of business people how to get to the city center and they said it was pretty much on the other side of town, but gave me directions. I quickly walked down a few streets and finally recognized some of the shops. By this time it was already 3pm, but at least I was headed in the right direction. I finally got back to the group only about 5 minutes or so late, but I was bright red and sweaty, and we still had to walk back to the bus. I’m usually pretty solid with my sense of direction, but I had wandered a lot farther than I had thought. Plus the streets in Europe tend to curve so you can turn left and think you’re headed back in the right direction, but because the street you were on curved so much, you’re going the opposite way! Luckily I was able to find my way back without too many problems or being too late.

We then walked back to the bus, stopping at a little mini-town within Bruges that rich people had built for poor people to live in—in return that the poor people prayed for the rich people so they had better chances of getting into heaven. After a long drive back to Brussels, I’m now sitting on my bed resting my feet before we meet up for dinner at 7:30. We again don’t know where we will be going, but hopefully it is good. Then I’m guessing we will go out tonight since it’s really the last night we have to do something before we head back since Thursday night is out unless we want to stay up all night until we leave for the airport at 3:30am. Tomorrow we are going to a museum nearby then have most of the day free until our farewell dinner. I’m hoping to pick up some last minute souvenirs, maybe find a comic book in French for myself, and try to get some reasonably priced chocolates to take back. Also I’ll have to spend a good chunk of my day packing or deciding what to leave in Belgium so I have space to take stuff back.