Amy: We survived our all nighter in Luxembourg City. We hung out at the music sites until about 1am and then managed to hang out in the lobby of the Hostel until morning. We felt the hostel would be safer then the train station. In the morning we successfully navigated our first train ride from Lux. to Ghent. We even had to change trains in Brussels but thankfully our 2nd train left from the same track we arrived on.
Important facts about Belgium:
1. They think they invented french fries and are quite unhappy they are called "french" fries
2. The Belgium chocolate in the grocery store is as tasty, but less expensive then the chocolate in the little shops
3. There are over 500 kinds of beer made in Belgium.
Within moments of arriving in Ghent we had a Belgium waffle and some Belgium chocolate. Life is good. Despite poor directions from the tourist information we were able to find a beautiful campground. ( love cities that have maps around for tourists) We checked in and headed off to the historic area of Ghent. The weather for the evening was beautiful, much warmer then in Lux. We awoke to rain and it pretty much rained all day. Despite the rain we headed back into town without our trailrs and did some more site seeing. I survived my first crash when my back wheel slid out from under me on a wet street car track. Patti said it was quite loud but both my bike and I were fine. After some lunch we headed back to pick up our gear and start the 50K ride to Brugge. After some confusion in finding the trail we did manage to get on the correct cycle path and managed to find our way to Brugge. The rain let up as we got close to the city but we were quite the site when we pulled up to the hostel looking for a room. Soaked and muddy from the ride. We were lucky to have a whole wing of the hostel to ourselves and managed to dry out all our camping gear.
We spent yesterday walking around Brugge taking in all the sites. We probably walked about 8 hours (Rest day). We capped off the day by trying a Peach beer, on Larissa's recommendation, that was made in Belgium. It was a light beer but still a no go with Patti. Got to give her credit for continuing to try. We had a quiet evening visiting with our roomate from Manchester and today we had a short ride to Oostende. We will likely take in some of the WW1 war museums tomorrow as we head down the coast.
We will try and upload some pictures soon.
