Beer in Brugge

My mood improved dramatically upon leaving Brussels. I took the train to Ghent, and despite being seemingly the only tourist out on Veldstraat, a shopping area close to the university, I met the nicest people while I bought an oversized pair of pajamas and walked in the rain.

In a tavern near the train station, I ordered a Leffe beer, had my pronunciation corrected by the bartender, and my beer bought by a very drunk Belgian postman who introduced himself as Mauricio, but whom the bartender said was named Willy. "Now or never," he said, leering at my chest. "That's the only thing he knows in English," the bartender chortled.

"You're from America?" he asked, and I admitted as much. "Het spijt me," I begged, which means, "I'm sorry." He laughed again and said, "It's OK, my sister lives in Louisiana."

I thought he was joking, but he said she works as an assistant to some type of government official, and I told him I visited there once, and we shared stories of the swamps and the craziness of the French Quarter.

The drunken Belgian insisted on buying me another beer, and the bartender, translating to me, said, "It's on him. Free Willy." I burst into laughter and the bartender was much amused at his joke. "He has no idea what we're saying," he laughed. At that point, Willy or Mauricio or whatever his name is, began to look put out, so the bartender mollified him by bringing him another beer.

When I woke up this morning in Brugge, the sky was an amazing blue. I looked out the window, beyond the tiny terrace in the room at the bed and breakfast I am staying at, and was grateful.

Last night I had five beers, at only 2.50 apiece. Finally tasted a framboise besides the one they sell at Safeway back home, and was blown away at the fresh and cool rasberry taste. I took long walks along the canals and bought my nephew some toys at a wooden toy shop.

In my misery of my first morning in Belgium, I was terribly mistaken -- it is not winter at all. It is the middle of autumn. Here, the leaves fall into the canals in patterns of gold and red and pale green, and in this tiny, preserved medieval town near the North Coast, I finally breathe and the dizzy and crazed jet lag is a million miles away, and I concentrate on the cobblestone streets, breathing in the cold air and I sip coffee in a cafe and watch the November afternoon.