Volume 2, Day 51
I made a grocery run in the morning to try to finish off all my coins before I left England, but that was somewhat unsuccessful as I had 3.57 but remembered it as 3.6 while I was doing the math on different yogurts, protein bars, etc. After cancelling an item I was still stuck with a handful of coins that may be worthless soon.
After checking out, I should have plopped down in the lobby for a bit, especially as I had a number of tasks to do on my computer, but its hard to work in only ten minute increments and I was feeling anxious for my bus ride to the continent. So, I headed out into the slightly drizzly weather to catch the Circle Line around to Victoria (Coach) Station. While waiting for the Tube, I received a message from Flixbus saying that my bus would be delayed by an hour and a half. I kicked myself for not just hanging out five minutes to get that message.
I was still waiting for the subway when an announcement came over the intercom. The Circle Line was broken. Garrr…. It wasn’t a huge deal to reroute, but still an inconvenience. The coach station was a pretty good walk from the Underground and the bus port I needed was on the far other side of the station. All along the way, I had to dodge the swarming masses of people who don’t know how to either walk or get out of the way. Knowing I had a long wait in front of me, I found a spot by the wall and sat on my picnic blanket. It occurred to me that I had also forgotten to update my podcasts and let’s just say that the occasional Wi-Fi signal I could get from a bus throttled the connection at a few kbps. Eventually, I asked a girl sitting next to me to watch my suitcase a minute and I went over to the Starbucks to use their Wi-Fi.
I chatted with a girl a bit when I returned. She had landed in London yesterday from Columbia for a week long course. I’m still questioning what prompted her to pick Bruges for a 2 day excursion before the course properly began. When the bus finally arrived, we got separated in the boarding procedure, but she saved me a seat.
There is a law of nature that a long journey feels much longer if the outset is delayed. I swear we spent at least two hours in street traffic and only approached highway speeds when London was just a distant memory. It was a bit of a mystery to me how we were going to cross the channel on a bus, but all was revealed in time. The eurotunnel (aka channel tunnel aka chunnel) runs from near Dover to near Calais. It is solely a train tunnel, most famous for the Eurostar highspeed train connecting London and Paris, but most of the time there is a shuttle service moving cars, trucks, buses and more than 2 million pets to date.
At what looked like a shopping mall with tons of numbered parking lots surrounding a central building, the bus dropped us off to walk through passport control. We had an hour to kill and I wandered into the terminal containing duty free shops, fast food chains, and a band playing on the stage in the central food court. An information terminal showed that all “boarding groups” were delayed. I queued for a Starbucks and ended up with even more coins when I broke a 5 quid note.
Back on the bus, we drove 100 meters to a second passport control, which took slightly more time to pass than a quick swipe of the passport through the machine. We were technically entering France on British soil. The bus drove around the rail yard and followed the directed path onto a cargo train. In front of us were several RVs and other large passenger vehicles. The cars and semi trucks were loaded separately somewhere else. I cannot imagine trying to drive up onto a train car angling just perfectly not to scrape against the sides. It didn’t help the claustrophobia that we were a double decker bus.
I think the vehicles were secured in place and plastic gates emerged from the walls to separate the train into compartments. After an nearly interminable wait, the whole apparatus began shaking gently and I can only presume we were off. The cargo train was lit gently and I exited the bus to have a look around and use the restroom at the far end of the train. The first and last cars are left empty and only used for loading/unloading traffic. I couldn’t make anything out through the small porthole windows, but we were rumbling our way under the English Channel.
The journey took about 30 minutes and we emerged in France straight onto a highway. Given the lateness of our bus, our driver was noticeably anxious and made an error at the scheduled stop in Lille (or wherever in France). We had to turn around and go back because we missed some people…though we didn’t actually. It was another 45 minutes to Bruges.
Bruges, or Brugge in Flemish (Dutch?), is the best preserved medieval town in Belgium. After getting dropped off, the Colombian girl and I passed through the train station to the city side. It was a bit of a tossup as to how to get to my hostel, on the other side of town. I wouldn’t mind walking 2 km, but not with luggage over cobblestones. My new friend had a much closer hostel, but we decided to try a bus which passed by both of our locations. Since she only had a 50, I spotted the bus fare.
The bus was so fast, I actually missed my stop and got off one later next to a canal where some kids were swimming from a platform. I did my best to carry my luggage over the bumpy streets around the corner and over a bridge to find my hostel–Charlie Rockets.
Instead of being a hostel with a bar, it was a bar with a hostel. A very popular and busy bar. It took some time to flag down an employee to get checked in and every time I went in or out, I would have to squeeze between packed tables of drinkers. I popped a look at the menu and was shocked. The beer prices were somewhat reasonable, but I wasn’t expecting to see pizzas and pastas going for 14-18 euros.
I guess I had been upgraded to a four-person dorm because I thought I had booked a 6-person. It was just as well because the price also magically increased by 2 euros from what was quoted online. The room was a bit cramped, but there was a private sink and the showers and toilets were just across the hall. Though the heat wave had passed, the interior rooms were still sauna levels of hot. I threw open the windows to try to cool the room down and changed into shorts to go out and have a look around town.
Reaching the first plaza (in front of the city hall), I saw a stage being set up and looking closely at the schedule, I was shocked to find that The Proclaimers were scheduled to play at 10pm with an opening act at 8:30. I needed a bit of food, but because of the bus delays, I missed the 7:30 pm closing time of the Carrefour Express. Checking out the menus of cafes, mains averaged in the 20s. Even the “immigrant” shops (Chinese, Indian, etc) were charging 10 euros for a simple meal. Everything was so expensive. I did find several gelato shops, which were comparatively cheap compared to London, so I ended up just eating ice cream for dinner. It was really good.
The opening act–The Antler King–was already playing by the time I found my way back to the stage. As it was not crowded, I worked my way up close to the stage. I liked the music. It was a duo which used loop machines to create complicated slightly psychadelic, mostly instrumental tunes. After they finished and some people left, I found myself right up front against the railings.
The Proclaimers were a lot of fun. Despite being solidly middle aged and conveying a real “dad” vibe, they brought their A-game. Their roadie was a real interesting character. He was the spitting image of Kurt Russel and while doing the initial setup, he would pull down the reading glasses he wore as a crown. During the show, I could see him quietly singing along while tuning guitars or otherwise prepping for the next song. He exhibited more “cool” than any of the actual band members.
Though I only know the one hit song (their show closer), I fulfilled my duty of being right up front by visibly rocking out. To my right, a red haired girl was also really into the music. Beyond her, there was a guy in glasses who just leaned against the railing, smoking cigarettes and looking profoundly bored. On my left, there was an older couple, the female half of which systemically pushed me out of my place by systematically dancing in my general direction.
After the show, I headed back to the hostel to find my three roommates snuggly tucked away in bed.
| Sainsbury | 3.25 GBP |
| Starbucks | 1.95 GBP |
| Flixbus | 46.17 EUR |
| Bruges bus | 6 EUR |
| Hostel (2 nights) | 48 EUR |
| Gelato (4 scoops) | 5 EUR |
| Total: | 872.2 RMB (USD 126.79) |
Running Total: 19048.5 RMB (USD 2769)
Daily Average: 373.5 RMB (USD 54.29)