Bruges in one billion photos

We went to Bruges a few weeks ago.  Getting to Bruges is easy, even for us, the people who tend to make disasters of really easy things.  The high speed train to Brussels is a piece of cake, made cake-ier by an iPad loaded with games.  There's also a "bar car" on the high speed train and it just happened to be right next door.  Mentioning the bar car makes us sound like crazy fun party animals, but we really only went there to buy the kids some overpriced fruit salad.  We still got it, Alex baby.

For smaller trains, such as the one we took from Brussels to Bruges, we like to hang out on the floor between the train cars.  That way we can spread out and do obnoxious things without impacting the lives of others --

things like this

The lady who owns the house we rented in Bruges came to pick us up at the train station.  She was nearly flattened by a bus when she pulled over to the curb, which made us all scream.

We had a very cute house in the center of the action --

 Look, a little shed in back of the house...

Umm.... oh.  

It rained for awhile, then the sun came out, then after we let down our guard -- hail.  Bruges has a serious weather attitude problem.  We forgive it because it's so charming, so lovely, so "Venice of the North."

Of course we took a canal tour --

A small, opinionated member of the family was not happy about being held captive on the canal tour.  She wanted off that goddamn boat right now or someone was gonna get a punch in the throat.

The people passing on the other side were happy Coco was in our boat and not theirs.

We also took a carriage tour, or as Alex called it, an "I can't see sh*t but this guy's ass" tour --

We were relieved when Coco deemed the carriage tour acceptable --

this is pleasing to me

We stopped for a break to feed the horse --

whatup

The next picture was taken two seconds after the driver told Lucien the horse was "very mean" --

the kid didn't move a muscle

There were many bike rentals during our long weekend in Bruges.  And it's not too much of a stretch to say all Alex and I did was drink Belgian beer, eat sugary crap, and say "F*ck Bruges" a la Colin Farrell (movie reference, and a darn fine one).

I tried to take Lucien up the belfry tower twice.  The line was too long the first time, and the second time they were just about to close.  When Lucien picked out a souvenir at a gift shop later, he chose a snow globe of the belfry tower.  When Alex asked him why he chose it, Lucien said, "So I can always remember the thing I didn't see."

 smartass 

We almost missed our train back to Paris.  There was some frantic running through the train station, some blame yelled back and forth.  But we made it, and then we ate salad --

Upon return to Paris, Alex's Kindle was stolen right out of his bag at the train station.  What a stupid way to come home.  It's like Paris said, "Welcome back, assholes!"

Well I don't know about you, but I think that's the crappiest summary of a Bruges vacation I've ever read.

MJ

 gratuitous waffle shot