In Bruges Part II

Just after arriving in Bruges, our couchsurfing host, Tom, took us on a three-hour tour. [♫A three-hour tour!♫] We crossed and re-crossed the canals that make this picturesque city the "Venice of the North" (along with Strasbourg and Amsterdam, which share that title). Now, the only boats you see are those shuttling tourists around the various sites.

Tom, a history and Dutch teacher, took us to places most tourists don't see and shared wonderfully obscure (but totally relevant) factoids. One of my favorites:

Just above the entrance to the skinniest building in Bruges (left of center) you'll see the following figurines.

It's a little hard to tell from the picture, but they're stevedores, and they're carrying the building just as they'd normally carry goods from the ships that docked in Bruges' canals when the city was the largest port in the world, in the 15th century. The figurines denote the building's role as headquarters for the stevedores' guild, which was a kind of nascent union/lobbying group looking out for the stevedores' financial interests. Neat, huh?

The only thing Tom couldn't explain was the architectural predilection in Bruges for terraced roof facades. Any ideas?

Thanks, Tom, for the great tour and for your wonderful hospitality!

Cautionary Tale

Most people who come to Europe with chargeable American electronics (laptop, cell phone, iPod) know they need an adapter. We knew, too.

Plugs look like this in Europe.

Outlets here provide a 220V current, whereas in the US they provide a 120V current. Maggie and I came with 8 adapters - some we'd accumulated over the years, some we bought just to have for this trip. Out of all the gadgets we brought with us, only one used a charger that couldn't accept a 220V current - my Phillips SoniCare toothbrush. (Maggie's newer model was fine.)

So I bought a converter. Not to be confused with an adapter, which merely changes the shape of a plug - but does nothing to the current - a converter actually changes the size of the current. My toothbrush charger could only handle a 120V current, so the converter took the outlet's 220V and magically turned it into the needed 120V. Until tonight.

Converters are much bigger than adapters, and often have LEDs.

I set up my toothbrush in its charger, plugged in the charger using an adapter, and came back later to find that it wasn't charging. Well, yeah, of course - because I didn't plug it into the converter. And because I didn't plug it into the converter, the 220V current fried my 120V-loving charger. And now I can't ever use it to charge my toothbrush again.

Moral of the story: never confuse an adapter with a converter. Try not to bring electronics whose chargers won't accept a 220V. And don't look too closely at my teeth while I wait for my new charger to arrive.

In Bruges Part I

In Bruges, there's a greenway that encircles the oldest part of the city. Here's one way they mark the bike lanes:

Dogs of Paris

Just because Panda gets most of our attention doesn't mean we can't notice other dogs. Here are two of our favorites so far:

This one is wearing what is basically a Parisian uniform: a black-and-white striped shirt (and no pants!).

This next dog is getting a work-out in the Canal d'Ourcq:

We will never let Panda be anything like these two dogs.

La Brûlerie

Seeking refuge from the rain in Lille, we stepped into an inviting café/teahouse just next to the Wazemmes market, called La Brûlerie.

The selection of teas was fabulous. I had a tchaï bio (organic chai) that was deliciously spiced, hot, and milky. Louis got a "cappuccino" - in quotes for real because instead of frothy, foamy milk, it was topped with a mountain of whipped cream!

If you get a chance to pass through Lille I would highly recommend stopping in to La Brûlerie when you're in need of a break from all that shopping you'll do at the market!

More Lille

We planned our trip so we'd get to spend one full day each in Lille and Bruges, but it didn't quite work out that way. Thanks to a last-minute rush to get Panda one more vaccination before she went to the kennel, we didn't arrive in Lille until Wednesday evening (instead of early afternoon), so we only had a few daylight hours on Thursday to explore. We split that time four ways:

1) We checked out the "famous" market at Wazemmes, the outdoor portion of which was similar to the Marché aux Puces in Paris, or Cowtown in New Jersey; the indoor portion of which was much like the Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia (fairly swank, high-quality stuff). The building around which the Marché takes place (Lille's own, well-preserved "Les Halles") is quite nice too.

2) We visited the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, one of the premier Beaux-Arts in France (supposedly second only to Paris). Again, I was as impressed by the building housing the collection as by the collection itself. Highlights: Velasquez, Rodin, arch-arcade hallways, the modern extension behind the building (which reflects the older building beautifully; everyone wants their own glass-pyramids-at-the-Louvre kind of thing), I could go on . . .

3) We walked around the Grand Place, Place Rihour and Vieux Lille, all of which was fine, but not too distinctive. (Sometimes it seems like every city in Europe has a pedestrian-only shopping district centered around the "old" part of town (including a central square) characterized by winding, narrow streets first laid out in medieval times and recently gentrified to attract tourists like us.)

The Grand Place

Lille's Opera, just off the Grand Place

4) We ate at an amazing restaurant we stumbled upon quite randomly. It's called À La Renaissance, and the food we savored there deserves its own post. Coming soon.

We left Lille after spending almost exactly 6 hours touring the city. Clearly, we're going to need to go back, and since it's only an hour from Paris, it's possible to make a day trip out of it. Anyone want to join us?

Culture Rapide

Just across the street you'll find a funny little "place" bordered on two sides by streets and on the other two sides by graffiti- and street art-covered walls. You've already seen what it looks like at night. Part of the allure of the place is the bar/café that claims a decent chunk of its square footage with small tables and chairs. In fact, based on the signage, the place and the café are indissociable.

I'm talking about Culture Rapide, which not only satisfies basic requirements for a corner bar/café but is also a concert venue, hosting lots of spoken word, blues, and slam poetry performances. I only just got around to checking out the inside last weekend, when I convinced a few college friends to meet me there (right across the street = easiest meet-up ever). The verdict? Based on the décor, Culture Rapide is one of the hipster-est, grungiest, grittiest bobo hangouts around.

While we were there, a raconteur got up on the tiny stage in the corner and started storytelling. We didn't really understand, but that didn't matter. Culture Rapide is a cool space, its food/drink offerings are excellent, and it's 500 ft. from your favorite people - clearly worth checking out.

Lille v. Cracovie

First stop on our whirlwind mini-sightseeing adventure last week: Lille. Once again, we found a great host via Couchsurfing. While we were on the train, we received a text message from Xavier, our soon-to-be host, saying that he had some extra tickets to a basketball game, and would we like to come along? Never ones to turn down random and potentially interesting opportunities, we were more than happy to take him up on the offer.

Here we are, with our host, post-basketball game:

And here's a shot of part of the crowd and the delightful clown mascot/pump-up-the-crowd-guy.

But wait - here's something I bet you weren't expecting... (and neither were we!) the basketball game we went to was professional, and women's. SO. Awesome. The Lille team is known as the Entente Sportive Basket Villeneuve d'Ascq, or ESBVA and is part of the Ligue Féminine de Basket.

Watch this video to get a little taste of the sweet, sweet basketball action and hear from three of the players themselves, including former Wisconsin Badger all-star Joelene Anderson!

Oh, and I cannot forget to mention one of the highlights of the event: the pep band, Les Z'hurlants! This video comes from their official website [warning, there is unstoppable (but really awesome) music at this site... best not to open this link at work]:

What an adventure!

I leave you with a not-so-great action shot that taken right from my seat because I was too stunned to leave it: I was at my first-ever professional women's basketball game... in Lille, France!

A taste of things to come

We're back from Flanders!! (When I said we were going to Belgium, I really meant Flanders, since Lille is technically in France, but Lille, Bruges, and Brussels are all historical centers of Flemish culture.) We'll be posting about our experiences traveling this weekend in batches over the next week, so as not to overwhelm anyone (especially ourselves). For now, consider this picture our e-postcard to all of you - hello from Bruges!

Every good Belgian beer has its own glass and its own bottle, each idiosyncratically shaped. If your server places your glass and/or bottle without the beer's name facing you, you should immediately leave the establishment.

Coffee Grounds

You already know how much we love coffee. So it's no surprise that we buy fresh grounds and make our own. Part of it has to with a need/desire to faire les economies, as they say - to save money. Another part of it has to do with quality. "But you're in Paris!" you protest. "Surely every corner café has the best coffee 1 euro 20 cents can buy!" And you're right. We're not the first to note that at Parisian cafés, you get what you pay for.

So where do coffee snobs go for grounds? Normally I wouldn't know, since I'm no coffee snob (talk to Maggie). Luckily, though, we've randomly stumbled on two of the best places in the city to get beans, ground or whole. One is mentioned in the blog post I just linked to: Café Amazones, 11 Rue Rambuteau, 3rd arrondissement. That's where I got the snazzy coffee beans-container you can see in an earlier post about coffee. (Even if you're not into coffee, you should at least check out Rue Rambuteau. Starting with the Centre Georges Pompidou at your back, walk east along Rue Rambuteau from Rue Beaubourg to Rue des Archives, ending at the Archives Nationales. It's about 2 blocks, and it's jam-packed with all of the tiny artisanal food stores you could ever want, some of them high-end, most of them just your normal neighborhood places.)

The other place we've found is Torréfaction Guiraud, 21 boulevard de Reuilly, 12th arrondissement. "Torrefaction" means roasting, and when we happened by during an epic walk with Rachel and Adam, we were drawn inside by the sight and smell of the roaster itself:

Talk about witnessing the processing of your food or drink. We bought two bags of grounds on the spot and have been very pleased with the results. And we're not the only ones.

In a city full of coffee, we're surprised by how few torréfacteurs we've seen. People mostly seem to buy their grounds at the supermarket,or stop by the corner café for a quickie. In any case, we're happy to combine quick fixes at the café and the tastier (and ultimately cheaper) coffee we make at home, thanks to Café Amazones and Torréfaction Guiraud.