It was around 18:30 local time, on the next calendar day. Singapore is 15 hours ahead of the West Coast of the U.S. Crossing the International Date Line is a bit surreal, in either direction.

I walked through the terminal to Immigration and waited in a short line. The customs agent reviewed my passport and declaration form, which stated my length of stay as 54 days. He requested the letter of invitation from the company for which I was here to do business. Uh-oh.

No visa is required for visitors from the U.S. for either business or pleasure travel, and this was the first I’d heard of any such letter requirement. Many employees from the Portland office visit and work in Singapore, probably for a lot less time than my assignment.

I told him I don’t have any such letter, and he asked how he was supposed to buy my story. I replied that I wasn’t aware my story needed buying. I offered to show him my employee badge and as I did so realized it doesn’t have the company name on it. He said I should be aware of this next time, and I told him I would absolutely bring this requirement to the attention of our HR department.

He moved on and asked for proof of my onward travel out of Singapore. Goddammit.

I’ll be flying home from Chiang Mai, Thailand, and had researched flights from Singapore to Chiang Mai many times and found that I didn’t like any of the options so I hadn’t booked one yet. It hadn’t occurred to me I would need this prior to entry into Singapore.

I told the customs agent I’d had a lot to do to prepare to be away from home for two months and had not prioritized the planning of my leisure trip after my business assignment. I felt very lucky that he again relented and allowed me to pass.

My suitcase was already off the belt and waiting for me, and with nothing to declare there was no bag scan necessary and I walked right out. Whew!

I withdrew cash from an ATM, as I always do at the airport upon arrival in a new country, and then followed signs to the MRT — Mass Rapid Transit. At home, I’d looked up the route from the airport to my Airbnb listing and found it was easy and straightforward. I believe most of my colleagues would have taken an Uber but it honestly never occurred to me. I love public transportation.

A co-worker had just returned from Singapore shortly before I left, and she had given me her EZ Link card, on which you can load funds for use on MRT and local buses. It already had enough to get me home, but I put $20 SGD on it at a machine anyway.

I took a train from the airport two stops to Tanah Merah station, where I needed to cross the platform to continue on the same line. It was here that I got my first blast of Singapore’s heat and humidity. I removed my hoodie, though I was soon back on an air-conditioned train. MRT runs frequently and efficiently.

I rode another 20 minutes to Tanjong Pagar station in the CBD (Central Business District) and Google Map-walked 5 minutes to my listing, a serviced apartment in a high-rise called Lumiere. The Airbnb “host”, a team of property managers, had sent me self check-in instructions via WhatsApp, and I had taken a screenshot in case my T-Mobile cellular data connection was spotty.

I opened my photos, reviewed the screenshot, and found that I was to retrieve a lift pass (lift = elevator) from unlocked mailbox 16-04 and I would find apartment 18-05 unlocked as well. Mailbox 16-04 was not unlocked, but I was able to reach inside and grab three lift passes. One of them was a master, and I took it with the intention of putting it back after I’d coordinated with the property team on getting my own. I rode the lift to the 18th floor and found that apartment 05 was not unlocked.

My phone’s data was working just fine, and I messaged the property team on WhatsApp, desperately hoping they were paying attention and would answer quickly. As I did so, I saw that they’d updated the instructions: both my lift pass and apartment key were now in unlocked mailbox 15-05. I rode the lift back down, replaced the master lift pass in box 16-04, and retrieved my lift pass and key. After nearly 26 hours of travel, I entered my listing and dropped my bags. The property team apologized for the inconvenience, and I thanked them for their prompt replies.

I unpacked my toiletries and laid a blanket from the couch on the floor to do some press-ups. It was 21:00 and I didn’t feel particularly hungry, but in the last several hours, I’d only had a small breakfast sandwich on the plane shortly before arrival and was afraid of eventual hunger keeping me awake. I had no energy or desire to eat in a restaurant or even deal with takeaway, whether by calling an order in or sitting and waiting for it to be prepared. I looked up supermarkets and found one less than a 5-minute walk away. Clutch.

I shopped at Cold Storage, a local chain, picking up mostly breakfast items: eggs, yogurt, granola, almond milk. I’d noticed that the shower has shampoo and shower gel, but no conditioner, which is a must to detangle my curls, so I grabbed a bottle of that since my travel size wasn’t going to last the duration of my stay. For my dinner, I grabbed a frozen pizza. And what kitchen is complete without a bottle of wine handy…

Throughout, I had constant sticker shock. The value of $1.00 USD is about $1.38 SGD, but even after calculating the prices in the currency I’m accustomed to, they were surprising. These seven items cost $71.20 SGD, or about $52 USD.

Back at home, I realized I had a microwave and no oven. I would not be having frozen pizza for dinner. I still wasn’t hungry and decided it was now too late to eat and, having been awake for almost 29 hours, I just hoped I would sleep through the night.

I showered off the travel and headed for bed. I’m always a little bit anxious about the quality of the bed in any Airbnb I book, and I was especially concerned for such a long stay. To my great relief, the bed at my new listing for the next 8 weeks is fantastically firm, as I need.

I laid my long two-days-in-one to rest at 22:45.

My day began at 3:00am. I had turned the lights out between 11:45 and midnight. Three hours is more sleep than I expected to get.

My scheduled Lyft arrived exactly on time at 3:40 and dropped me at PDX at 3:58, probably the earliest I’ve ever been there. I hadn’t been able to check in with Alaska online, probably because I needed to show my passport for the connecting flight. As I checked my bag, I looked at the scale reading as I always do out of curiosity. Typically, I bring about 35 pounds. Today, my suitcase weighed in at 44.6. For my return, I would need to be cautious about new purchases that would tip that over 50 (or just pay the damn fee, I guess).

When I booked my itinerary through my company’s travel agency, they told me I would need to pick up my bag in L.A. and go through security again to begin my Singapore journey. The Alaska counter attendant, however, was able to check my bag all the way through. I would just need to pick up my boarding pass at the Singapore gate in L.A. Sweet!

TSA Pre-Check wasn’t available at security to the A/B/C gates, and the plebeian line (yeah, I said it) was significant enough that I walked the thoroughfare of shops over to D/E security, where the Pre-Check line may actually have been slower than the standard entry.

My flight was leaving from a B gate, so if I’d gone through security on the other side, I don’t know if I would have walked all the way over here, but since I had already, I made my way to the current end of the E gates, which are being expanded and in front of the wall separating the existing final gate and the construction is a section of PDX’s iconic old carpet. I took my send-off photo for Instagram and made my way over to B.

I paused in the airside thoroughfare between the terminals to drop to the floor and do some back extension press-ups. Any opportunity to do that on this very long day of sitting was one I should take.

One of my primary motivations to apply for and receive the Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card was for its Priority Pass membership, allowing access to airport lounges around the world. I used it almost immediately, arriving ridiculously early for a flight to California in April, specifically so I could check out the Alaska lounge at PDX. As lounges go, it’s a modest affair, and I LOVED IT. Free food and coffee and, unexpectedly, no-paywall access to digital New York Times articles. Cool. When I flew in July and August, however, the lounge was closed to Priority Pass members due to capacity. Harumph. Unexpected and not cool.

At 4:45, I realized my 5:20 flight was about to board, but I headed for the lounge anyway and found it just opening. I used my access just because I could. I had the women’s restroom all to myself, and I grabbed a hard-boiled egg on my way out.

I had missed my boarding group but still had plenty of overhead bin space for my backpack and laptop bag. Again, knowing it was going to be a very long day of sitting, I gave my newly-strengthened-by-physical-therapy-but-always-vulnerable-to-extreme-conditions lumbar back every fighting chance I could to remain healthy by upgrading to a premium seat on this 2.5 hour flight to L.A. This gave me not only lots of legroom but also the ability to order a mimosa when service came around. My seatmate: “Did you say mimosa? I’ll have one of those too.” Me: “I know it’s really early…” She: “Well, it’s almost light out.” Flight attendant: “I’m not judging.”

I arrived in L.A. a bit before 8:00, over 3 hours before departure of my connecting flight to Singapore. I looked forward to relaxing and stretching in a lounge. Little did I know the lounge-related travel fuckery I was about to embark on.

In advance, I had checked lounge access at LAX and found that some had limited hours for Priority Pass members, e.g. not available until 11:00 or 13:00, but some were available nearly 24 hours. At the time, I didn’t know which terminal I would land in, so the first mistake I made was in not checking the app again as soon as I arrived.

I thought my first order of business should be securing my boarding pass for Singapore. Likely, there wouldn’t be a gate attendant available yet, but I wanted to figure out where I was supposed to be eventually and I thought maybe I could hit a lounge once there.

I didn’t know it was going to be a 25-minute walk from Terminal 6 where I’d landed to Terminal B for international flights. Along the way, I passed billboards and digital signs from a campaign called #WhyWeRise with messages like, “Your feelings are also your superpowers,” and “Everyone’s going through something.” Well, that’s nice. When I arrived in Terminal B, the combined straps of my shoulder bag and backpack were digging into my shoulders, and my toes were blistered inside my compression socks. And the wing of gates where my flight would depart was entirely deserted.

Now I checked the Priority Pass app again and found that: 1) Terminal B has two lounges, the ones I’d seen before that are available at 11:00 and 13:00. Fuck. 2) Terminal 6 has an available Alaska lounge near Gate 64, about two gates away from where I’d landed. Fuuuuuuck. OK, so I’ll head back to Terminal 6 to wait it out.

There were signs for a shuttle to Gates 21 to 39, so I thought that would perhaps get me closer to Gate 64 than walking back the way I’d come. As I approached the doors to the shuttle outside, some airport staff asked me whether I needed to go to Terminal 2 or 3. My second mistake was in not simply saying, “I’m trying to get back to Terminal 6.” Instead, I explained I was trying to follow the sign that said I could get to the 21 to 39 gates without saying why. I was sleep-deprived and frustrated and not communicating well, so after some back-and-forth, they gave up on getting a definitive answer out of me. I got on the shuttle with some folks who were all getting out at Terminal 2, as did I.

Where I learned that you cannot simply walk to the higher gates. There is no access to Terminals 4, 5, and 6 from Terminals 2 and 3. I had to get back on the shuttle to Terminal B and walk back the long way after all. And there was a line for the shuttle.

(It occurs to me for the first time as I write this that I could have changed gears and accessed an available lounge in Terminal 2. I don’t even know how to count this among my enumerated errors. As will be revealed below, this likely would have been a bust anyway.)

It was about 9:10 when I arrived back at Terminal B, two hours before departure and still no gate attendant in sight. My third mistake was not to wait there and get my boarding pass as soon as it was available. My stubborn pursuit of lounge access would not be thwarted.

I walked all the way back to Terminal 6 and what did I find in front of the elevator to the Alaska lounge but the all-too-familiar sign informing me that Priority Pass members are restricted due to capacity.

I decided, fuck it, I’m going to try to get in anyway. I took the elevator up and asked the counter agents if they thought Priority Pass access might be opened in the next hour or so. To my wondrous surprise, they said they were already allowing some in now. Victory!

I showed my digital membership card, and then the agent asked for my boarding pass. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or both. For my 5-minute lounge visit at PDX, I had been required to show my membership and my boarding pass, and I had already forgotten I would need this before I could visit any of the lounges I desperately sought access to.

It also seemed from my conversation with the counter agent like I needed an Alaska boarding pass and maybe my boarding pass for a Singapore flight wouldn’t have allowed me in anyway. I’m not sure that was actually the case and I don’t think that’s true in other lounges.

In any regard, I wasn’t getting in. Compounding my frustration was my shame at being frustrated over lack of access to something that is such a privilege in the first place.

Now there was nowhere to go but back to my gate in Terminal B. It occurred to me that I was in danger of passing my entire layover without getting any food. I arrived near my gate as my name was being announced overhead. They wanted to give me my boarding pass as much as I wanted to receive it.

Boarding pass in hand at 10:00, I actually asked the gate attendant if I had time to go back to Terminal 6. She looked at me extremely doubtfully, and my stubborn resolve dissolved. I got a mushroom and cheese brioche and some coffee and sat at my gate to await boarding. I took another opportunity to get on the floor for some back extension press-ups while an alarm of some kind blared outside for several minutes with seemingly no one feeling the need to stop it. My layover experience may have made me cranky.

At the gate, we boarded shuttles to the plane. I got settled in my Premium Economy seat with its luxurious 38-inch pitch. The pilot announced that sky conditions had reduced our 17h flight to 15h20min. I’ll take it.

For my first entertainment, I chose the 3-hour movie Avengers: Endgame. Between meal service and standing breaks, this easily passed the first 5 hours. I moved on to TV episodes I’d saved on my laptop: two episodes of the half-hour comedy A Black Lady Sketch Show, two one-hour episodes of Perpetual Grace Ltd, and one hour of Succession. I switched back to onboard entertainment and began the 5-hour HBO miniseries Chernobyl.

Somewhere in the 12th hour of flying, despite my many standing breaks, my body had had enough sitting and I could no longer get comfortable. I could only grimace and bear it for another 4 hours. As we landed, I’d watched all but the last 12 minutes of Chernobyl, which was very, very good. I was grateful for all of the guilt-free binge-watching that passed the many hours.

to be continued in the next post

In June and July, I applied for a new role at work.

The application process took about 3 weeks, which in retrospect is not that long, but at the time it felt grueling. Submitting my CV and cover letter was a fairly easy step. The intermediate step was completing a project in three parts that took me about the equivalent of two full work days, taking up evenings and most of an entire weekend. And then there were two interviews.

I absolutely hate interviewing, either because of or leading me to be not very good at them. I’m not a bullshitter. I don’t spin. I answer the question as it’s asked, without finding in it the opportunity to say what I really want to say or thinking about why it’s being asked and the answer I’m supposed to give.

I did better this year than when I applied for the same role last year, but I had stiffer competition this time and I was not selected.

The feedback I received was insightful and valuable, up to a point. It’s a global role, and I readily admit that I presented with a North America-centric focus. It’s a project-based role, and I lack specific project experience. Those are things that I can improve on. It was also given to me that I am detail-oriented to the point of compromising productivity. I will never apologize for producing qualitative over quantitative work. That part left me feeling disillusioned and dejected over the whole experience.

About 10 days later, another opportunity presented itself. My team is co-located in Portland, Dublin, and Singapore. My equivalent team members in Singapore were both going on maternity leave, creating a gap not only in coverage of the role but also in availability of someone to train a team member being promoted into the role.

I couldn’t apply fast enough, and the feedback I’d received on the previous application could not have more seamlessly applied here. Working from Singapore would provide me with the opportunity to gain a more global perspective within our team, and because of the training component, I would gain project experience as well.

The idea was for two team members, one each from Portland and Dublin, to go to Singapore for consecutive four-week stints. For 5 days, I was the only one from the North America team to apply, until another application came in at the last minute from someone who had also applied for the project role. One of us was going to be disappointed again.

Another week passed, and I got the good news today — I’m going to Singapore! There was a lot of hiring and shuffling going on in Dublin, and through those circumstances, I ended up filling both four-week slots. Holy shit, I’m going to live in Singapore!

I have traveled for 5 weeks, moving from city to city and country to country. And I have traveled for work, staying in one place for only a week or so.

This is going to be a whole new kind of travel.

I got up at 8:15 with my alarm. I have somewhere to be today!

I got dressed and walked about 10 minutes through De Pijp to Omelegg for breakfast. Rain was in the forecast, but it was merely overcast 👍

Back home at 10:00, right on schedule, I put clean clothes away and did back stretches before heading out to the tram stop around the corner, just as the 4 arrived four minutes early 😬

I still arrived early myself at Amsterdam Centraal for the 11:30 start to Airbnb Experience “Windmills +Tulip fields + Keukenhof”, which I’d excitedly booked back at home. Riding a bike and seeing Keukenhof were on my must-do list, and I was thrilled that this Experience offered the opportunity to do both, with a bonus visit to Zaanse Schans, which came up in my research on day trips from Amsterdam.

A train accident meant both that our guide Hans and two group members arrived late and that we couldn’t leave when they arrived. The Experience listing on Airbnb described group size 10, but including Hans there were 15 of us. I met and chatted with many of the attendees, not terribly concerned about when we would get going or how the day might be affected by the delay. In our group were: Hans; myself; Devyn and Darren from North Carolina; Ken and Paula from Brisbane; Jian from Shanghai; Gil and Carol from Salt Lake; Mikaela (mih-KAY-la) and Mikaela (mih-KYE-la) from Prague; Lauren and Melissa from L.A.; and Anthony and Casuandra from Florida.

I hadn’t noticed that Hans left for a while; he and four of the group returned with bikes, at which point we headed into the train station. I felt like I might have missed something as far as when the rest of us would get bikes, but I figured I’d know when I needed to know. Hans ushered us through the train gates. I might have been able to organize this tour on my own, but it sure was nice to have it all handled, not needing to worry about tickets or where we were going.

It was maybe a 20-minute train ride into Zaanse Schans and another 15 minutes on foot from the station to the village. Zaanse Schans is a recreation of 18th-century life in a mill town, with both houses and windmills having been relocated there to preserve the history. Across the bridge into the village is a view of 5 large mills: a spice mill, a pigment mill, two saw mills, and an oil seed mill.

At the entrance to the village, we learned that the houses are all green because this was the least expensive pigment when they were painted. It was unfashionable for the roof to be exposed, so all the house facades extended vertically upward beyond the apex.

We walked over a small bridge into the village. While the houses were relocated here to preserve their history, actual modern residents live in them and just deal with the millions of tourists walking by them all year long. We passed by picturesque homes and through fields with sheep and onto bridges over tiny waterways with ducks.. lovely.

We arrived at the wooden clog workshop with displays of the many types of clogs and a clog-making demonstration in progress. Mostly it was a gift shop, and I passed quickly through, stepping outside and asking Carol if she would take my photo in the comically large yellow clog out front of the shop.

We moved on to the cheese shop, which we were all pretty excited about. There were about 20 different cheeses to sample. I found myself returning a few times to the truffle cheese 🤤. I also bought a small jar of truffle mayo. I never saw any of Anthony Bourdain’s travel shows and so my first experience of him, maybe within a year of when he passed away, was hearing him interviewed on Wait Wait Don’t Tell me on NPR. He was asked something to the effect of, “Which food trend are you not on board with?” and he answered, “Truffle oil.” Sorry, Anthony, you lost me.

The Experience in total would be about 8 hours and didn’t include a lunch break. Many had brought their own food and some got food from the cheese shop counter. I got a midday coffee and a grilled cheese sandwich, which I ate as we walked back to the train station.

From Zaanse Schaans, we rode to Amsterdam Sloterdijk, not quite all the way back to Amsterdam proper, and changed trains.

As we waited, Hans showed me a website where you can purchase a heavily discounted train ticket to visit cities outside of Amsterdam as long as you travel in off-peak hours: 9:00 to 16:00 and 18:30 through the rest of the day. He explained that Dutch people are always in search of a bargain or discount.

The Anne Frank House is sold out almost through July, and Hans also told our group that the likelihood of us scoring the handful of tickets that are released at the beginning of each day was very low. You can access the site just before 9:00 and keep hitting Refresh, like trying to buy from Ticketmaster, but success was not likely. I wanted to visit the Anne Frank House more out of a sense that I should, not because I was looking forward to it, and I admitted to myself that I was not super disappointed to learn that it didn’t look very likely that it would happen.

It was about a half hour on the train to Hillegom. Here the rest of us picked up bikes that Hans keeps locked there. I thought at first that my bike was the right height and thankfully realized the seat needed to be raised, which Hans did for me, otherwise I would have ended up with very sore knees.

We rode through Hillegom to Lisse through fields of tulips that had just been cut down for the end of the season. I imagined the colors we would have seen here two weeks ago and couldn’t help but feel disappointed, though it was still a pleasant view.

We locked our bikes outside Keukenhof and gathered outside the entrance to make a meeting plan. It was 16:35, and Hans asked us to meet in the front at 18:10. Only 95 minutes to explore.

I grabbed a map; Hans had said the freshest tulips were in the back of the park, so I started in that direction. I came upon a pond surrounded by flowers with an instrumental, carousel/circus style version of Bohemian Rhapsody playing on speakers somewhere nearby, which was wonderfully surreal.

I found the source of the music, which somehow reminded me of a carousel, though it wasn’t round, just a tall and wide facade. The music changed to Shakira and Coldplay, and the tinny organ wasn’t so charming anymore. The music machine sat near a nice fountain that I should have been able to locate on the map; I realized the map made no sense and just strolled through the various gardens, which were an Instagram dream. If only it weren’t overcast!

It was just starting to sprinkle when our group met up at the entrance. Thankfully, it was light as we rode our bikes back to the train station. I tried to put up the hood of my raincoat, but it wouldn’t stay up, which was better as it was too warm.. the rain actually felt great. Ken had just had a knee replacement a couple weeks ago, and after riding to and walking around the gardens, Hans gave him an assist all the way from Keukenhof back to the station, holding on to his handlebars while riding his own bike. ❤️

It was 19:30 by the time we arrived back at Amsterdam Centraal. Many of us exchanged Instagrams before hugging our goodbyes. I was tired and began walking in the direction of food; I soon realized I’d stumbled into de Wallen, the famed Red Light District. Sex shops here, coffeeshops there, way too many people. I wanted to explore it more another time; my immediate desire was pub grub. Searching on Google, I found Brouwerij de Prael, which I would later find out is a recommended stop for being environmentally friendly and socially conscious, hiring people who might otherwise have trouble entering the job market.

I stood in the entrance for a while. There was a bar and tables and a hosting station, where employees came and went, seeing me and yet not seeing me. After a few minutes, I asked one, “Is there something I should do to be seated?” It was super busy but still sit-wherever-you-can-find-a-seat. There were stairs going up a level; she recommended I go down the stairs, past the occupied tables down there, to the left, and then back up a set of stairs near a second bar, where I indeed found an unoccupied table in a sort of tucked-away and upstairs corner of this giant brewpub.

While waiting at the entrance, I had chosen an IPA from a hanging set of chalkboard pieces, each with a beer name written on them. The bar back here had a different selection, though. I ordered a pale ale and some nachos. Beers aren’t served in pints here. In Belgium, I often had my choice of 25cl or 33cl. I never quite got used to centiliters, other than knowing 25 is too small and 33 is better but still smaller than I’m used to. I don’t know how much pale ale I was served, but I finished it before the nachos came, so I ordered another 🙂

I arrived home at 21:45, completely knackered. I experimented with Portrait mode taking a mirror selfie of my exhausted and slightly burnt face; must find sunscreen tomorrow (and add to my packing list that I should *always* bring some, not just for beach destinations).

On my laptop, I deleted some work emails and sent an email to Casuandra, who has an Android phone and couldn’t receive our group photo via Airdrop. I was too tired to look up what to do tomorrow. Also, when and where did I lose my sunglasses?

I went to bed at 23:30 — no alarm!

I awoke before my alarm at 8:25 with the muscle in my side very unhappy. I soon found that my nose was running as well. Today was looking like a down day.

I took a few drops of dōTERRA Melaleuca (tea tree), the only oil I’d brought with me, specifically for this purpose. I have found over the last year and a half since my sister-outlaw Mari shared dōTERRA oils with me (some of which can be taken internally) that on the rare occasion I feel I’m coming down with something, Melaleuca kicks it in the pants. My runny nose stops running before advancing into a full-on cold. AWESOME.

I logged credit and cash transactions, got dressed, took a couple more drops, and walked to a nearby brunch place I’d found last night that I wanted to try, Little Collins.

I sat in the window watching bicyclists pass by, none of whom wear helmets. The infrastructure here keeps bicycling away from cars, trams, and pedestrians in separate lanes, but it still seems so unsafe to me!

I ordered a latte and when it arrived it was very small. I miss bottomless brewed coffee. I feel silly saying that, but there it is. I had a lox/asparagus/poached egg thing that was presented very prettily and tasted fine but wasn’t much food for €16.

I looked up nearby geocaches and found one a block away. There was a spoiler photo as to where it was hidden, and I *still* couldn’t find it!

That was fine as the hunt led me to the Albert Cuypmarkt, a daily street market that is one of the main sights in the De Pijp neighborhood. I’m not much of a shopper, but I wandered the stands for the experience. I found a ramen joint I was pretty sure would be my dinner and bought a gift for Mari, who’d given me a relaxing oil treatment shortly before my trip began.

There was another cache in nearby Sarphatipark, but I skipped it for now, opting to go back home and lay down with my laptop.

I showered (yay for overhead water instead of handheld) and put in a second load of laundry as most of the first was dry.

I spent a few hours writing about my experiences in Bruxelles 3 days ago, getting up for walking and stretching breaks, and then took a full break with a walk in the park at 17:00 (I’d unfortunately missed a window of sun and it was now overcast again).

I made a loop around the park, enjoying ducks and fountains and stopping in the center for a while to stare at the geocache. I spotted it easily enough; retrieving it was a whole other matter.

It’s a 35mm film canister at the bottom of an open-ended tube, about a foot long, which is solidly attached to a wooden signpost, with said sign blocking the tube’s open top. So maybe there’s a magnet on the lid of the cache, but I can’t see it and I don’t carry a spare magnet on me. Looking up possible retrieval tools for this cache type, it seems that is exactly what some cachers do, carry around a bag of tools. I am not likely to find this cache.

Back at the listing, I spent another 2.5 hours writing about my birthday in Brugge 2 days ago.

I received an email from Apple informing me my 50GB of iCloud storage was almost used up. It was on my trip prep list to move my photos from last year’s travels out of iCloud and onto my desktop, but it seems like such a monumental task, I kept putting it off. So I knew this would happen while I was on this trip. I upgraded to 200GB, just until I get home (she said optimistically).

On my way to dinner back on the Albert Cuypmarkt street, I spotted the location of the first cache from this morning and found it – Netherlands is on the map!

I arrived at Ramen Dining Bar SORA at 20:30 and took a seat in the window. I just wanted ramen, and there were two sizes. I ordered Choya plum wine and a small ramen, and the server said, “That’s all?” I had brought leftover pizza on the train and hadn’t eaten it yet, but from her response, I thought perhaps that still wouldn’t be enough food and I should upgrade. As it was, I ended up with ramen leftovers 😂

Another gentleman had joined me in the window, and we began chatting. He’s a designer and lived and worked in S.F. for 14 years. He didn’t like how the City was changing and began looking for work that would bring him home to Europe. He got a job with Uber that did that. He’s from Spain, where his family still is because they didn’t like Amsterdam. He visits them frequently, so he’s had a rough go at making this place his home, but he’s starting to feel it as he just moved into this neighborhood with more walkability and eateries like this than his last place.

At home, I had some wine, showered and washed my hair, wrote a bit more, and slept at 12:30.

I awoke with my alarm just after 8:30. I got dressed, and as I opened my door to go downstairs for my last breakfast at Le Flaneur, I teared up. I fought back full-on crying as I made my way downstairs and continued the battle as I sat down. I didn’t much want to cry through my breakfast because it was my last one, not only out of (misplaced) shame in front of Erika but also because I wanted to enjoy it.

Erika doesn’t usually have guests stay 5 nights, and she apologized that she’d made another crumble. It wasn’t even the same crumble – it had different berries! I was more than fine with it, and when she offered to make me scrambled eggs, I wasn’t going to argue with that either.

In addition to running the B&B with Dietrich, who works full-time, she also worked full-time as a store manager at Godiva, until last week. The long hours and stress took their toll and got to be too much, and since I arrived, she’s been talking about how relieved and how much lighter she feels now. This morning, she talked about how grateful she is for her life. More tears.

The only other guests in this early part of the week were an older French couple who spoke no English. I looked up the train schedule to Amsterdam over leisurely coffee while Erika chatted with them. Then she would switch to English and chat with me. She pulled some walnuts from a jar that came from Dietrich’s father’s farm that they had brought home recently as it’s nearby and they visit about once a week.

I asked how she and Dietrich met. They worked at a job together and at first were just friendly but then fell in love over time, and that was 20 years ago. She talked about how he’s 8 years younger and they have very different characteristics, but they complement each other, influencing the other in positive ways and bringing out each other’s best qualities. More tears.

This trip began with the idea to visit Amsterdam, with Luxembourg and Belgium bonus destinations. I know I will find new experiences in Amsterdam, but at the moment I’m feeling very attached to Belgium.

My low back has been a total champ on this trip, but some movement I made while finishing packing up was just the right kind of wrong, and I pulled a muscle on my left side about halfway between my armpit and my hip, somewhere around a rib. Holy god, it hurt all damn day, catching my breath and making me wince about 1,000 times.

I got dressed and carried down my bags at 11:15. The train I wanted was at 13:30, and I thought I was pretty good on time for the morning. Erika stowed my bags in a room off of the front entrance, and I headed out to the Markt. I retraced my steps from coming home last night as I’d seen some new views that I wanted to see again in morning light.

The Markt was packed with people and vendors. I was so glad I got to see the Wednesday market! I took a look around and stopped at the waffle stand. They had two kinds of large rectangular waffles, the light and crunchy Brusselse wafel and the sweet and heavy luikse wafel, as well as smaller circular waffles. Toppings were separate; €0,50 for chocolate, caramel, or strawberry “sauce” (syrup?) and €1,00 for Nutella and whipped cream. I ordered a Brusselse wafel (€3,20) and strawberry sauce and people-watched while it was made to order.

I take photos of all my food when I travel (and sometimes at home.. I swear I was doing this on Facebook before everyone did this), and I nearly dropped my waffle trying to balance it in one palm. Silly tourist.

There were stand-up tables nearby, and I joined a couple until she lit a cigarette. No faster way to get rid of me. I walked over to another set of tables just outside a cart where a woman was steaming clams. She gestured in a way that could have been “you don’t want to eat your waffle here in my clam steam” or “these tables are for my clam customers”. Either way, I moved again and took a seat on a bench next to a woman precariously balancing a waffle in her palm while she took a photo. Ha.

And then I finally got to take a bite. It was so impossibly light and crunchy and airy! I’ve never had a waffle like that, which I suppose is the point of having it here. The strawberry sauce wasn’t too sweet, nor was the light dusting of powdered sugar. It was delightful.

I took one more walk around the market, and the scent of the fresh flowers got the tears rolling again. I had thought I’d be going straight from checkout to the train, and I was so grateful for my bonus Brugge experience this morning.

I got back to Le Flaneur around 12:30 and found Erika in the kitchen. She had prepared a receipt for me and reminded me I needed to pay the city tax, which is not collected through the Airbnb reservation. It was only €10,60 but it would have nearly wiped me out of cash. She asked if I could do a bank transfer, like from my account to hers, and I told her that’s not a thing with American accounts (at least that I know of). I told her about Airbnb’s Resolution Center, which allows guests and hosts to exchange money outside of the reservation, for extra services or damages. I tried to use it on the app, but it wasn’t working; I went to my bags and unpacked my laptop, and I was able to make the transfer that way.

As long as I had my laptop open, I bought a ticket for the 13:30 train from Brugge to Amsterdam, including the high-speed Thalys on the leg from Brussels to Amsterdam, for €36. I just love how accessible rail travel is here.

I asked to use the bathroom one more time before departing, and Erika directed me to a door at the bottom of the stairs that I probably thought was a closet. I guess it’s a water closet. Dietrich built it, and it was cute and charming and smelled like jasmine. Sigh, this place.

Erika found me in the room with my bags and presented me with a gift. While I was out at the Markt, she had called Dietrich at work and they agreed to give me their one bottle of Damme Noir. Well, that’s it… no holding back the tears now. Erika said about my crying, “That’s good!” She also gets emotional, she said, when she connects with people whom she can feel have the same heart as her. God, I will miss this place and these people.

I walked to the bus and rode to the train station and with my ticket already purchased was able to go straight to my platform. I was almost 15 minutes early. As I had done at this station a few times already, I walked past the covered area to stand and wait in the sun.

I didn’t wait long enough. A train came by at 13:23, and I thought it was going to sit there before departing at 13:31. The sign said Gent-Sint-Peters, the first stop after Brugge that all trains make, and I made the incorrect assumption that this was my Bruxelles train.

I stepped up into the front compartment of the carriage and dropped my bags at a seat where there wasn’t really room for them. I went looking for a better seat with an open area where I could stand my roller suitcase, and it was then I saw a monitor detailing the stops for this train, bound for Antwerp. I had a moment of hesitation and just as I committed to getting off, the doors closed.

Fuuuuuuuuck.

A nice man from Oostende (on the coast, which I wish I’d stayed long enough to see on a day trip) helped me figure out which train to switch to in Gent to make it to Bruxelles-Midi in time to catch my connection to the Amsterdam-bound Thalys. A conductor came around to check tickets. I explained that I had gotten on the wrong train, and he said that was totally fine but informed me with some regret that he had to ask me to move as I was sitting in first class with my second class ticket. Wow, I did this train all wrong.

I started to walk past Mr. Oostende and leave the carriage, but both he and the conductor stopped me and said the seats just behind the front of the carriage where Mr. Oostende was sitting are second class. What. So… the seats that constitute first class have less room but they’re better because they are literally one stair step above second class. I would be pissed if I paid for a first class ticket on this train. (Even if I’d seen that a first class seat was just a little more than second class and had the idea to treat myself, the Seat 61 general FAQ on European trains said there is very little difference between the two, so I knew not to bother. But wow.)

Toward the end of the 20 minutes to Gent, the conductor approached me with his own guidance to get back on track (literally!). His info contradicted Mr. Oostende, who deferred to how the conductor directed me.

I had a five-minute window, so as the doors opened at Gent-Sint-Peters, I ran. No lift, stairs only. FML. I made it back up to the correct platform and onto the Bruxelles train. This one was due to arrive at Bruxelles-Midi two minutes earlier than my original one. Snafu fixed.

Mr. Oostende worried me a little when he said Thalys trains must be boarded 30 minutes early for security reasons. I had a 25-minute transfer window in Bruxelles, so that didn’t seem to make much sense and I pretended I hadn’t learned that from him. I went in search of coffee before deciding I didn’t really need any coffee, it just sounded good. As it turned out, there was no security/early boarding thing, and if I wanted coffee or anything to eat, there is a cafe aboard the train.

I boarded the Thalys and found someone in my assigned seat. He and his girlfriend had misread the overhead sign indicating window or aisle. They started to move over, but I didn’t really want to squeeze past him to the window, so I just sat across the aisle in some empty seats. All seats in the carriage filled in, though, so squeeze we did.

Over the two-hour journey to Amsterdam, I deleted photos and chose my favorites for an Instagram post of my day in Brugge, I booked an Airbnb Experience wine tasting next week, and I researched day trips from Amsterdam. Every time I shifted position in my seat, which I need to do frequently when I’m sitting for two hours, the muscle in my side screamed at me.

We arrived at almost 17:00 and I made my way to the exit, where there were ticket gates. I thought a local GVB transit pass was needed to go through them, but the kiosk only allowed a check of one’s balance, not to purchase a new pass. I walked across the station to the exit on the opposite side, thinking maybe I had been trying to enter the bus depot but this one also had ticket gates. WTF.. how do I get out of this station.

I waited in line at a nearby info booth and learned that I needed to scan my train ticket at the gate in order to exit. I asked where I could purchase a GVB pass to take the tram to my listing once I’d successfully exited, and she directed me to the visitor center just outside. I backed up the queue to exit when the scanner wasn’t seeing the train ticket on my phone, and an attendant did something to the gate to let me pass.

At the visitor center, a group of people were kind of waiting off to the side but I didn’t know for what, so I formed my own line in front of the 4 agent windows. When one became available, I approached and asked if she spoke English; she replied, “What number are you?” At the entrance is a touch screen that dispenses numbers for helping people in order; hence, the loose group of people. Nowhere said, “Start here and get a number.” SIGNAGE, GODDAMMIT.

I would be here for 9 nights, 8 full days. I could buy a permanent transit pass like a local for €7,50 and then top it up as needed, or I could buy a 7 day transit pass for €36,50 and deal with the extra day later. I asked how much each trip costs, and she said it depends as it is charged by distance. I didn’t know if it would be more economical, but I was tired and the latter option seemed like the easier one in the moment. She gave me what looked like a business card and said to swipe it on board. It had no strip on it, so I asked which side and she said it doesn’t matter. OK.

Tram 4 arrived, and I watched people tap their passes on a pad at the doors. I let everyone board before me because I couldn’t see how I was to swipe my card. Someone showed me that I just tap it. So the ticket agent did not literally mean “swipe”. I was so over today’s travel fuckery.

Allard and Jet are my hosts; they live in the apartment where I’d be staying but they’re letting it on Airbnb while they housesit for Allard’s parents. I like to stay in private rooms with hosts, as opposed to in entire homes, both for the company and for guidance from a local. In my Zen planning for this trip, however, I’d waited too long to book Amsterdam, and this was the nicest of the available options in the De Pijp neighborhood, where I really wanted to stay. It was a spendy one; I’d used my Airbnb credit (so, so, so grateful for this benefit) to book my Luxembourg and Amsterdam listings and paid for Brugge on my own.

Jet (yet) was waiting for me at the listing and helped carry my roller bag up the highest, steepest stairs I’d ever seen. She said moving in had not been too fun; they’d rented a lift to get some of their furniture in. She showed me around and left me to get settled.

I unpacked and looked up where I wanted to eat from the plentiful options. I walked to nearby Bulls and Dogs, a burger and hot dog and milkshake joint. I had a falafel burger with truffle mayo on a pretzel bun and a Brand Weizen, uploading my Brugge post on IG while I ate.

I walked back past my listing in the other direction to Albert Heijn supermarket for a bottle of wine. I also looked at pain rubs, but they were €15 and I already have so many at home. I remembered that I’d brought ibuprofen with me and that would do as this thing in my side settles down in the next couple days.

At checkout, I tried to pay with my card, and both the checker and a sign told me they don’t accept Visa or MasterCard, only Maestro. What. WhoTF accepts cards but not Visa/MC. I would find out from a local tomorrow that Albert Heijn is the only place in town where this is the case. I paid for my wine in cash (€3,10!) and walked home.

At the bottom of the stairs and at each door in the building is a switch that turns on the lights in the stairway on a timer. I tried to make my way up using just the daylight from the front door but at the first landing it was pitch black. Bad idea on these steep-ass stairs. I used the 2nd floor apartment’s switch to turn on the lights for the next set of stairs to my 3rd floor apartment.

I spent some time online trying to figure out all the settings on the washer and eventually just picked one and hit Start. I pulled a blanket from the bedroom and laid it down on the living room floor. This would be my back stretching area for the next week. I had the sense as I did my maintenance press-ups that my rib muscle was going to be worse, not better, tomorrow.

I uploaded another post to Instagram about Brugge, specifically my stay at Le Flaneur. I was ready for bed, but the laundry cycle I’d chosen was over two hours long. As soon as it finished, I hung my clean clothes on two drying racks, one overhead and one portable. Very European.

I slept at 00:30.

I awoke at 9:15 just before my alarm.

I checked Instagram and found a comment from Todd, a lifelong close friend, asking if I’d gone to Cantillon, a brewery in Bruxelles. Oops.. it was recommended to me a couple times but I hadn’t made note of it and didn’t realize either that it’s in Bruxelles or that it’s the originator of Zwanze Day, a global beer event Todd has told me about a couple times. I would definitely have gone.. another time, perhaps. I have so much of the world to see, I can’t imagine making repeat trips, but I am digging Belgium. I commented back to Todd, and he replied right away asking me to check my Facebook.

Facebook has been problematic for me on this trip. Facebook is where my mother is, and I’m No Contact with my mother at the moment. Besides all the other reasons not to post on Facebook (privacy nightmare, echo chamber), this has kept me from sharing much of anything there over the last year. I don’t really want her to know my mind or what I’m up to, and yet I haven’t had the courage to disconnect from her there either.

Before I left, I added her to the Restricted list, which allows her to only view my posts with the Public share setting. This would keep her from seeing my travels and thus from having to make the choice of whether to engage with that content through likes and comments. And I wouldn’t have to figure out what to do with those likes and comments if they came, but also it’s shitty not to get them 😔

As it was, I haven’t shared anything on Facebook from this trip other than an initial push from Instagram to begin a photo album. With my non-exploring time, I’ve prioritized Instagram and journaling. My Facebook shares of my travels are not nearly as detailed as these journal posts but a lot more detailed than IG shares, and I just don’t have the time for all of it.

I’ve been considering removing her from the Restricted list but haven’t really wanted to face what to do either way, so when Todd asked me to check my Facebook, I took a pass on that until later.

I went down to breakfast and talked waffles with Erika. It was my fourth and final day in Belgium, and I hadn’t managed to eat a waffle yet. She had recommended Lizzie’s Wafels above all others in Brugge for their freshness and authenticity, but I didn’t realize they are closed Mondays and Tuesdays. We made a plan for me to check out of my room at 11:00 tomorrow morning, Wednesday, and leave my bags while I went to Lizzie’s for a waffle before taking the train out of town.

Back in my room, I logged into Facebook and un-Restricted my mother since there was no travel content there anyway. I’m pretty sure I did this because I knew she would look at the birthday posts on my profile, and she would know something was up if she didn’t see any. I still can’t help taking care of her first before figuring out what I want in the absence of being able to have what I really want.

On a much, much lighter note, Todd had posted to my profile the most insane birthday gift, in the form of a video made by the actor Michael Rapaport, who played Dick Ritchie in my favorite movie, True Romance, wishing me a happy birthday in Belgium! He talked about what a great experience he had working on the movie with Gary Oldman, Dennis Hopper, Christopher Walken, Tony Gandolfini, and the director Tony Scott, before bringing it back around to more birthday greetings. Very cool.

Todd would be asleep by now. He must have really wanted me to check FB before he went to bed.. I would have to text him later to both acknowledge his anticipation and express my gratitude for knowing me and for giving me a gift we could both enjoy because we have loved True Romance since we saw it at UC Theater in Berkeley in 1994.

I did a little bit of research on Brugge spots and formed a loose idea of how to go about exploring for the day. I’d gotten a feel for the place since I arrived here 4 nights ago but I’d walked the same streets several times and was looking forward to seeing more.

I sent a message on Airbnb to my hosts in Amsterdam regarding my check-in in a couple days, then got dressed and went downstairs. I asked Erika if she had any tape I could put over the label of my leggings that couldn’t easily be cut out but the corner of which was scratching me. She found some and handed me a piece, and we chatted about their cat — Moni? — who was prowling on the outside terrace table. She’s 21! She came from Dietrich’s father’s farm. She was a stray, and the father picked her up by the scruff and asked Dietrich and Erika, “Do you want her? Otherwise, I’ll kill her.” Farmers, man.

I embarked on the day just after 12:00. Early for me lately.. still late but at least I was already in the place I would be walking around.

I had walked over many canal crossings but had not yet walked along the canals, so that was my first destination. I found the perfect spot for my birthday selfie and only made about 7 attempts to get the right one 😜

I also wanted to see the canals from a boat tour, and on the way there I stopped at a geocaching spot. I’ve had no mojo finding physical containers on this trip, but there was another Virtual I was pretty sure I could handle. De Garre apparently is the narrowest alley in Brugge, and all that’s required to log the cache is to take a selfie with the street sign.

Belgium added to my caching map, I bought a boat ticket for €10 and went in search of a bathroom. The ticket agent had directed me across the street, but I wasn’t seeing any public restrooms, only businesses. I did find a ginormous wall of beer bottles at the entrance to 2BE, a canal-side place to drink. I eventually asked the staff there and they gave me a token to use their bathroom. And the sink was a fish tank. Cool.

Every one of the boats I’d seen on the canals was packed full of people, and they went by one after another after another. Mine was no different. I was the last to board, so I was seated directly behind the driver. This was a pretty good vantage point; I liked that it faced forward so I wouldn’t be craning my neck all around.

The driver’s narration was kind of cheesy but not nearly as bad as the audio guide at Gravensteen in Gent. And it turned out the boat navigated much of the same canal route I had taken on my walk about an hour prior – ha! There were new areas too, and I love being on water.

At 14:00, I was starting to get hungry, but I was near the Belfort, the belfry tower, and planning to climb it today. I didn’t want to navigate away from it and backtrack. I paid the €12 admission and climbed up the 336 steps, resting in the informational rooms on the way up, like the one where you push buttons to hear the different types of bells the townspeople relied on beginning in the 13th century. There were combinations of bells and bell tones for signaling the time, work hours, and gathering events. I checked out the view from the top for about 10 minutes. It was windy and chilly, and I was ready for lunch in the sun.

I tried one more cache in the Markt, the Market Square where the belfry stands. It was a small box, much larger than the nanos and micros I’m used to hunting, but I still couldn’t come up with it 🤷‍♀️

I was interested in visiting a couple of the local breweries and started with Bourgogne des Flandres. They offer a tour, which I didn’t need, but I wanted a beer and I definitely wanted food. Unfortunately, they only serve snacks so I didn’t stay.

From there, I was close to Rozenhoedkaai, one of the most famous canal viewpoints in Brugge. Interesting.. the view was nice, as are all the canal views, but I’d already seen lots better.

I was starting to get hangry when I found a little zigzag walkway off of Rozenhoedkaai that opened onto a trio of restaurants with the sun blazing down on them. YASSSS

I looked at their menus and chose the one with the smoked salmon salad, taking a seat and ordering that and a Brugse Zot, made by Brouwerij De Halve Maan, another spot I wanted to hit up today. I luxuriated in the sun for an hour and 15 minutes, long enough that I burned my forehead and cheeks a little.

I’m not huge on sweets, but I wasn’t going to leave Belgium without trying some chocolate. Erika’s recommendation in town is The Chocolate Line. The selection was overwhelming. I was less interested in the small pieces like you’d find in a gift box and more interested in the slabs of uncut chocolate. I chose dark hazelnut, and the counter server snapped off a piece when I described about how much I wanted. She weighed it and asked for €1,50. I sat on a bench in the small plaza just outside the shop and enjoyed my small dessert.

My next destination to the south was the Minnewaterpark, which I thought was so named because it’s a park with water features. When I got there, I realized it’s a park next to the lake called Minnewater.

This was just fine because at the entrance to the Minnewater is a lock house, or Sashuis, and the view north from the Sashuis was my favorite in all of Brugge. Swans and a small bubbling fountain in the canal, birds flying and singing overhead, a building and colorful tree on the grounds of the Begijnhuisje to the side (an organization of religious laywomen, dedicated to God but not nuns), and ahead the tower of Site Oud Sint-Jan, Old St. John’s Hospital, now a museum and tourist attraction. When they call Brugge a fairy-tale town, this is that view.

I walked into the park a little bit and made a small circle around the lake, crossing over the Park Bridge and passing by Poertoren, a remnant of the city walls like I’d seen in Bruxelles. And then I came right back around to the Sashuis and stayed there a while. I tore myself away at almost 18:00, planning to visit De Halve Maan and then realizing when I looked it up that they were about to close.

So I pretty much blew it on breweries during my Belgium visit.

The salad didn’t go very far to satiate me, so I’d be ready for dinner soon and began heading back north. During my brief research this morning, I’d found a site describing the various filming locations of In Bruges and decided I would walk back to the main area of town via Koningin Astridpark. I walked up into the gazebo featured in a memorable scene from the movie, which I’d re-watched shortly before my trip. On the way to my chosen dinner spot was Restaurant Diligence, another movie location; Dietrich and Erika had recommended it for dinner on the night I arrived, but I looked at the menu and it was way too spendy and the food too heavy.

At 19:00, I arrived at vegetarian restaurant De Plaats. They have a Flemish stew made with seitan that I really wanted to try, but alas, as with 4 nights ago I was turned away for no reservation and because they are short-staffed tonight. This left me wandering somewhat aimlessly, not really finding anything else I wanted to eat and afford.

My back was starting to feel tired, and so was I, so I gave up on finding something particularly distinctive and chose Bella Italia, a pizza/pasta joint. A glass of red wine and a vegetable pizza did the trick.

I arrived home at 20:45 and searched the beer coolers for a Damme Noir, a beer Dietrich had shown me upon my arrival. It has chocolate in it – how very Belgian! The Chocolate Line was selling them; I didn’t want to carry a bottle around for the evening but thought it would make a nice treat once I got home.

Beers in the guest coolers are €2,50 and you just leave the cash in your room for the hosts to pick up later. I didn’t see any in the cooler just outside my room on the 2nd floor and went up to check the one on the 3rd floor. None there either, but I did find a guest book to sign, which I did, expressing my sadness that I was soon to leave and my gratitude for the hospitality I’d received here.

Speaking of that, though it was now 21:00, I decided to knock on Dietrich and Erika’s door across the hall from me. In addition to asking about the beer, I wanted a photo of Deitrich for my memories. He obliged and picked up Flanelle; I now have a photo of each of the hosts holding her as I’d taken some of Erika at one of my breakfasts.

As far as Damme Noir, the bottle he’d shown me was the only one they have, and it was gift from Erika’s son. Ah, well.. I still had half of the wine split that was in my room when I’d first arrived.

Dietrich told me about today’s news piece that Brugge shops are selling Westvleteren 12 for €18,00 a bottle. He wanted to show me the article on his phone.. adorable. I told him I can look it up 🙂

Erika mentioned that another option for a waffle in the morning would be the Wednesday market at the Markt. She said they are just as fresh and authentic as Lizzie’s. That sounded good to me.

Back in my room, I began packing up my clothes (sad face) and got in bed and edited today’s photos.

It was a really good day, and it was a bit lonely. I booked an Airbnb Experience bike tour on my birthday last year, and that was a good idea, not being totally alone. I also felt sad and just weird about not receiving birthday greetings from my mother for the first time ever in my life. My choice, and a difficult one to live through.

I put my birthday to bed at 00:15.

I slept not quite 7 hours, waking before 8:00 with my alarm.

The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones had just aired about 6 hours ago, and I was not only excited to watch it but I also wasn’t willing to risk spoilers online. At home, I’d downloaded my personal VPN onto the work laptop I brought with me to make sure my IP address identified me as located in the U.S. so I would be able to access my HBO subscription. Priorities. I blacked out the curtains and watched from 8:15 to 9:45.

Breakfast goes until 10:00, but Erika had no problem with me sitting as long as I liked with my coffee after I ate, and she chatted with me while she cleaned. I asked her if there was anything in particular I should see in Brussels, or Bruxelles as it’s written locally, and she likes the Sablon neighborhood.

Back up in my room, I looked up self-guided walking tours but didn’t find any I liked as there were too many recommended sights. Given that the most-recommended one is a fountain statue of a little boy peeing, I had low expectations for Bruxelles and felt I would probably be happy with 5 or 6 hours there. I made my own loose tour using a few of the main sights and available geocaches as a guide. I also booked a beer tasting Airbnb Experience that starts at 17:30.

I put together an Instagram post about my Westvleteren experience, cleaned up and got dressed, and headed out around 13:00.

I barely caught the next bus to the train. They run every 10 minutes at the most, but despite being on a schedule that totally worked for me as far as how much time I wanted in Bruxelles, I was still feeling behind on the day and was glad to get on this one. The compulsion to do/see/go as much as possible while traveling is deeply challenging for me to overcome. I successfully rebel against it with how I spend my time, but I don’t feel good about it, yet.

I arrived at the train station with plenty of time to catch the 13:30, which was good because again the kiosk wouldn’t process my credit card payment and again I waited in line for an agent window, although this time my app purchase went through just as I was called up and I didn’t need the agent. I prefer a digital ticket and email confirmation of my purchase over a paper ticket and paper receipt.

It was 14:40 as I arrived at Bruxelles Central station, and I headed for nearby Parc du Bruxelles. A fountain! Always nice. I love me some water features. At the south end of the park is the Palais de Bruxelles, or Royal Palace. It’s big. It’s not particularly attractive. I took a couple photos and moved on.

Just a little further southwest was the recommended Sablon neighborhood. I wandered its streets for a while, looking for a place to eat lunch and finding that many places were closed on Mondays. I randomly encountered another elaborate skatepark, similar to the one I’d seen in Luxembourg, and across the street from that the Anneessenstoren, a section of the original wall that encircled the city in the 12th century. Cool. Europe is such a fascinating mix of the old and the new.

I had just about given up on finding a spot to eat, preferably in the sun, before I made it to the for-some-reason mandatory Mannekin Pis when, lo and behold, in front of me appeared Cafe Novo. Cheap food and beer and lots of outdoor seating. I had a Bel Pils, a Belgian blond, and pesto linguine and people-watched in the sun for an hour and 15 minutes. As with my beer and cheese and pickles in Gent, this moment fulfilled the very purpose of my trip.

As I paid, I asked my server where the classical music was coming from. It sounded like it was playing overhead through some city-sponsored program, so I was surprised when she didn’t know. That told me it was not a regular occurrence. As I crossed the street on my way to the little pissing boy, I found the source of the music. A man was sitting on a bench near his parked bike, which he’d rigged with a sound system. I wanted to ask him about it, but he only spoke French. I gestured to ask if I may take a photo (and video), and he enthusiastically jumped in front of his bike to be featured.

Just down one sloping block was the Mannekin Pis. I can’t imagine what the crowd looks like over the weekend as it was quite busy enough today. Such a small pissing boy! It’s really a rather unremarkable sight. Sigh.

There used to be a geocache at the site but of course it would go missing, so the current one is a multi, where you use facts from the site to plug into the coordinates of a second location and find the cache there. I counted the rungs on the gate surrounding the fountain but couldn’t find a sign telling me how many inches tall the pissing boy is, and I lacked both the time and the interest to look up that info or where the coordinates of the second cache might take me.

It was 17:00 when I arrived at Grand Place, which really is an impressive sight and a UNESCO World Heritage site, in fact. A large central square is surrounded on all sides by tall, wide, and incredibly opulent and ornate civic buildings. The 360˚ view was impossible to capture, but I gave it a go.

A short walk to the northwest is Place Saint-Géry, a small and lively neighborhood of bars and restaurants, including the steampunk-themed La Machine, where I was to do the beer tasting. I probably should have done an activity like this *before* I had Westvleteren 12, as I was looking to gain an appreciation of what is distinctive about Belgian beer and what makes it so renowned.

I had been communicating with a host named Sancar, so it threw me off a bit when his co-host named Christophe arrived, as well as the first thing he said being that I was the only attendee. He and Sancar thought they had canceled the slot, but I’d been able to book at the last minute.

This was problematic not only because a beer tasting would not be the same experience in the absence of a group dynamic, but the way they do the tasting is to order 5 or 6 full beers shared among the group, as opposed to each individual receiving an assortment of taster sizes. I didn’t want individual education and was not going to get my money’s worth of beer, but the event had officially started so canceling with Airbnb would be a thing. Christophe called and put me on the phone with Sancar, who couldn’t have been nicer about the situation and said he would take care of it with Airbnb. I also messaged support so they would have both sides.

Sancar said Christophe could recommend a place for me to get a beer on my own; actually, he had his own tasting he was going to at 19:00 and asked if I wanted to get a beer with him before he left. We went across the street to Halles de Saint-Géry, both a bar and a large exhibition hall. Around the far side of the building, he found us the last available table with one seat in the sun, which he gave to me.

We looked at the menu, going over his beer recommendations, and I landed on the Affligem tripel blond (I generally aim for lower ABV options). I gave him a €5 and he went in and ordered, bringing me back €1. Other than the Westy, beer in Belgium is rather inexpensive compared to what I’m used to at home.

We chatted about Belgium: the beer, the politics, the language. I told him I’d learned upon arriving in Brugge that generally, the northern half of Belgium (Flanders) speaks Dutch while the southern half speaks French and so I was surprised to come to Bruxelles, still in the Flanders region, and hear only French and no Dutch. He said Bruxelles used to be Dutch-speaking until Napoleon came. Oh.

He wrote down some recommendations for my evening and walked me over to Saint Catherine Church before riding away on his bike to his tasting event. In front of the church was a long rectangular pond around which people sat eating and drinking from nearby restaurants. It was a nice plaza and I was glad to see it.

I wanted to have dinner back in Brugge but first I wanted to take up Christophe’s recommendation for frites, Belgian fries. I’d had fries served with most of my meals in Belgium, and they seemed more or less like the French fries I’m familiar with. I wanted actual frites and visited Tabora, the friterie (real word) he recommended. It was in Quartier de L’Ilot Sacre, a busy shopping area that I wasn’t inclined to hang in for very long.

The frites options were easy enough — small, medium, and large — but I was overwhelmed by the sauces menu. I didn’t recognize very many of the French names and kept telling people in line behind me to go ahead. I eventually asked if the counter server could recommend something herby, and he offered garlic. Sure.

Yum.. the savory seasoned fries and garlic sauce were both super tasty, though they didn’t settle well in my stomach. In fact, I don’t know if I’ve had any meals in Belgium that didn’t upset my stomach. The food here is much richer and heavier than I’m used to.

It was chilly out with the sun disappearing behind buildings, and I’d gotten my fill of Bruxelles, but I had one more stop on my way to the train station. I wasn’t going to see the little pissing boy without seeing the little pissing girl. There were a few people gathered around Jennekin Pis, but far fewer than Mannekin Pis. Typical…

I did not see Zinneke Pis, the dog lifting his leg while he pees. Whyyy, Bruxelles…

I arrived back in Brugge at 21:00 and took the bus back into town, having decided on the train to eat dinner at Olive Tree if they weren’t full without a reservation. A sign on the door said they were closed for three days. I didn’t have a backup option but walked toward home and found a Thai place on the way. The restaurant smelled badly of body odor, but I was too tired to find somewhere else and I figured I would get used to it, which I did.

I got home at 22:45 and washed my hair in the tub with the handheld shower, my one dislike of Le Flaneur. It’s uncomfortable and awkward and something different about the water stream leaves my hair flat the morning after I wash it 🙅‍♀️

Though it was late and I was tired, I deleted photos and assembled an Instagram post of Bruxelles. I like to keep my posts in chronological order, and I wanted to share a birthday selfie tomorrow 😊

I slept at 1:30.

I’ve been rolling down the shades and keeping the curtains open to allow the morning light to wake me. This morning, that happened at 7:30, a full hour before my alarm.

I will mention once and not again that today is the first Mother’s Day since I went No Contact with my mother last June, and my sadness about this cast a mild pall over my day.

Breakfast is at 8:30, so I grabbed my laptop and deleted loads of work emails. I had some vacation-itis my last week of work, so I kind of owed the time and it would make reintegration and catch-up upon my return a lot easier.

In addition to the daily bread rolls and cheeses, breakfast this morning was a strawberry crumble and Erika had also made raspberry-almond muffins. Much sweeter fare than I’m used to but made with so much love! Dietrich and Erika chatted with myself and other guests at the table, and I’m finding them to be the most wonderful, warm, amiable, kind people.

I laid back down and cleared out more work emails, logged all the geocaching trackables from Luxembourg, and deleted photos.

I washed up in the tub and got dressed, heading out with my laptop around 13:30.

With my plan to drink Westy 12 at Cambrinus, I wanted to avoid a repeat of Friday night, being turned away without a reservation. I walked there first and made one for 19:00. They initially said I could either do 18:00 or 20:30, and I chose the latter, until I said it was just me and in that case 19:00 was available. I would be in a front window table.

I walked on to De Republiek, a place Erika recommended when I asked where I could sit with my laptop for a couple hours.

I was in the mood for a salad and ordered the only one on the menu, their version of a Caesar. I asked if it would be possible to substitute another protein for the chicken, and the server said not really but he would ask the kitchen. He came back and offered fish sticks. OK, sure 🤷‍♀️

I connected successfully to their wifi network using the password on the menu, but then found that nothing would load, as if I weren’t actually connected. This was a big speed bump in my plan for the afternoon.

I put away my laptop and focused on the salad when it arrived. It didn’t much resemble a Caesar. It had green leaf lettuce rather than romaine, a piece of asparagus, no garlic or croutons, a poached egg, and some kind of guacamole. And the fish sticks.

I gave it a go, but once I broke the poached egg, it became rather soggy and nearly inedible. While waiting for the server to bring the check, I used my phone to start choosing photos for an Instagram post of my time in Gent and wanted to research some of the landmark names for the caption, which required data, which was slow.

The check never came. Between the broken wifi, terrible salad, minimal service, and crying newborn sitting behind me, I needed to GTFO of De Republiek.

I gathered up my stuff and approached the entrance, where three of the staff looked at me expectantly, not at all anticipating my desire to pay.

While he was processing my card, I asked the host who’d seated me where I might find wifi, and he recommended I Love Coffee, 50 meters away. I had to use Google Maps because I have no idea how far that is, and it was farther down the street than it sounded.

I ordered a coconut matcha latte and spent 2.5 hours on my laptop, mostly journaling. I posted to IG, wrote a summary post of Luxembourg, and finished the post of my travel day to Brugge.

I dropped my laptop at the listing, arrived at Cambrinus just before 19:00, and was seated in the window as planned. I perused the giant bound tome of a menu, only three laminated pages of which were the food menu (repeated in various languages), with the rest being beers.

The pages were color-coded by beer type, and I found Trappist beers on orange sheets toward the back of the book. On the last page, alphabetical by brewery, were the three Westvleteren beers.

I ordered the 12, and it came in an unlabeled and already opened bottle with a glass. Any Westvleteren beer with a label is a bootleg. The legally obligatory information is printed on the cap, a golden yellow one in the 12’s case (which I kept, of course).

My first sip, or second or third, didn’t blow me away. It just tasted like a dark beer, not particularly complex. That changed, though. It opened up in the glass and I found it malty and rich, with a subtle cherry note. That wasn’t all that changed. Its 10.2% ABV progressively hammered me over the course of my dinner, the fish stew.

I arrived home at 20:30, and it was a while before I could return to writing. Once sober, I finished my Gent post.

I’m not a basketball fan, or a fan of any sports, but I’ve been loosely following the NBA playoffs.

I watched the Warriors (my always and forever home) with my dad when I visited him last month, and it’s been easy to get caught up in Blazers (my adopted home) fever since Damian Lillard’s nearly half-court three-point buzzer-beater to advance them beyond the first round a few weeks ago.

I don’t watch the games, but I sometimes keep live Google updates open while they’re being played. As I finished up for the night, the Blazers advanced to the Western Conference finals against… the Warriors.

I have weird feels. I don’t care, but I kind of do? I don’t know which to root for, if either?

I texted my dad about this and went to sleep just after 1:00.

I awoke at 8:15, about 20 minutes before my alarm, to a message from the host of the Airbnb walking tour I’d booked at the last minute last night saying she’d come down with a stomach bug and needed to cancel. I was not only not disappointed but I was relieved. It continues to be the right thing for me to not have a schedule of any kind on this trip.

I went down to my first breakfast at Le Flaneur, consisting of coffee, OJ, breads, cheeses, and French toast. Nice. I like this.

I laid back down with my laptop and spent a couple hours on financial business, not only logging transactions but reconciling a couple credit card statements and adding yesterday’s paycheck into my monthly budget. Home tasks continue on the road.

I looked up a self-guided walking tour for Ghent, or Gent as it’s written locally. Both the Airbnb host and the blog post I found recommend starting in Patershol. I Google mapped my route there and headed out around noon.

I just barely missed a bus to the train station, but plenty of them go there. I nearly missed the next one while I was futzing around with the De Lijn app, which was not registering my Current Location. I looked up just in time to raise my arm to flag it. The tickets section of the app was working just fine; I activated one as I boarded and showed the driver.

At the train station, I used a ticket kiosk to select a Standard ticket to Gent, and the machine automatically switched me to a Weekend ticket on this Saturday morning, which costs 50% less and can be used overnight until Sunday if needed. Thank you, smart kiosk. Unfortunately, the payment with my credit card didn’t take; I got a “Technical Error” on the screen. I canceled the transaction and tried using the SNCB (Belgium’s train network) app. No love. Similar error.

Analog, then! I got in line and didn’t have to wait long for a window. I paid €7,80 with my card for a return ticket. So cheap! And I love that the trains are so frequent, you just turn up and go.

Alas, the next train to Gent was canceled due to a collision 😬. The next one was in 20 minutes. I went up to the platform and stood in the sunshine, so grateful for it after the rains in Luxembourg.

It was only 20 minutes and one stop to Gent-Sint-Pieters and then a (crowded) streetcar from the station to the Gravensteen stop, named for the castle beside it and located closest to Patershol.

I walked toward the Patershol neighborhood, known for its eateries. I was ready for lunch but only a couple places came up when I searched for restaurants, so I wasn’t quite sure from the map which streets constituted the neighborhood.

The Airbnb host who canceled sent me some tips from her tour and I was looking at those combined with the blog post I’d found. Not knowing where exactly Patershol was, I moved on to the next suggestion from the host, which was to walk along the Lieve canal in the direction of Rabot. When I realized this was in a direction away from everything else I’d want to see, I turned around and headed back toward Gravensteen where I’d started.

I planned to do the castle tour but I really needed food to start with. I walked the very, very crowded streets, including a shopping main where I wanted to body check every mother$#^&*@ in my way.

This street opened on to a plaza where a singer-guitarist was on a stage playing to a crowd mingled around food stands. I walked to the far side of the plaza, checked some menus, and had a seat at De Postiljon, ordering a beer called Primus (no relation to the band that I know of) from Brouwerij Haacht somewhere in Belgium. The sizes were offered in centiliters, which I’ve never seen before. I learned that 25cl is on the small side, and 33cl is about bottle size, which I got. I also ordered “portie jonge kaas”, or portion of young cheese. Not exactly lunch but I figured I would get hungry again soon and have an opportunity to try another place 🙂

The sun was warm, the beer was light, and the plentiful cheese cubes were served with a few small pickles and hot mustard, which were delightful together. With the people-watching and my refreshments, I was content in a moment that was exactly what I’d envisioned for this trip.

Temporarily satiated, I walked back down the shopping main (grr) and around the corner toward Gravensteen. A woman was carrying two servings of waffles and beer slowly and precariously among multitudes of bodies, and I asked if she needed help. She smiled and said she was almost there. The quick juxtaposition of my misanthropy on the shopping street and my wanting to help a fellow human a moment later amused me.

I arrived at the castle at 16:00 and paid €10,00 for admission and an audio tour. You could spend two hours there, but the audio guide was both cheesy and hammy and I was in this more for the panoramic city views than learning about the history of inhumane imprisonment and torture here, so I was done in an hour.

I bailed on the Airbnb host’s loose guide and focused more on the step-by-step blog post guide, though I had no signal when I left the castle and had a hard time figuring out the next step. The tourist information center was just across the street, and I used their wifi to get my bearings.

The next sight to see was the best! The streets of Graslei and Korenlei run along either side of the canal toward the Sint-Michielsbrug, or St. Michael’s Bridge. The views are amazeballs. Gravensteen in the background ahead, St. Michael’s Church behind the bridge, loads of people sitting along the canal, and three towers of various cathedrals across the bridge and further into town.

For not knowing where the hell I was going when I got here, or for most of the time since then for that matter, I was glad to have made it to this spot. For the first time this trip, I asked a photo-taking stranger if he would kindly take mine (returning the favor for him and his companions). Though I’m generally not into selfies, I took some up on the castle. A selfie would not do here, however.

I walked in the general direction of the rest of the tour but quickly decided that: 1) no further spots were going to compare to that one, and 2) I needed dinner soon and wanted to give Patershol another try.

This time, I found the street full of restaurants that was definitely the Patershol neighborhood. I walked the length and nothing grabbed me. I’d already had Indian and Italian, and I didn’t feel like sushi.

A side street looked curious, and I made a turn to see what else I could find. Spontaneity is what I found.

I encountered a pub in a building interesting enough that I took a photo of it before I went in, which I’m glad of now. I wondered why the door was open once I’d walked in. It clearly had been a pub at one time but now I thought I had found someone’s junk storage.

I walked back out and continued on the side street, finding a group of five or six people, half locals, half travelers, drinking beer on seats in the sun. I must have slowed my roll or looked curious about them in some way, or perhaps they were calling to every passerby. They offered me beer and I said I really needed to find dinner, and two of the three travelers were Americans, and they were about to go to dinner with their Belgian friend and invited me to have a beer with them before we all go out to eat. Well, then!

The proprietor went into his only-appears-to-be-abandoned pub and came back with a Trappist Rochefort for me. Yeeeeaaahhhhh… this’ll do. I signed the guidebook and introduced myself to and met the group. Lisa and Justin are on a 2.5-week trip from Michigan, spending the day with Patrick, whom they met in Guatemala and who lives near the border with Luxembourg. Lieven is the eccentric local celebrity pub owner (I would later tell Erika, my host, this story, and she knows of him), and his friend Derek was half amiable, half grumpy-pants.

We chatted till our beers were gone and took some photos, including one with me and Lisa each sitting on Lieven’s lap. It was more innocuous than it sounds (I think). I was a bit surprised by the €7,00 Lieven asked for the beer, but I figured I was paying for a whole experience. He gave Patrick his dinner recommendation, and Lisa and I chatted while the boys navigated. Or tried to.. they’d had a few more beers, I reckon.

We made it to the brasserie called Keizershof and found it full. With no reservation, we were initially turned away, but Lisa worked some verbal magic and instead we were somehow seated immediately. I had the salmon and a Duvel beer and traded travel stories with Lisa and Justin.

Meanwhile, Patrick searched for a train home and realized there aren’t any. He had a tennis match in the morning and really needed to figure out a solution. He stepped outside to smoke and call some friends for favors. At some point, he figured out a plan that I think involved a train as far as he could go and a friend to either stay with or give him a ride. In any case, he bounced back and was ready to celebrate.

He bought the four of us shots of Jenever, Dutch gin. It smelled like rubbing alcohol, and that was more or less how it tasted, but in a good way? We sipped rather than shot. When in Belgium…

Patrick paid the bill, and the rest of us settled up with him in cash. We exited to the same square where I’d had Primus and cheese, and now the stage was oontz oontz oontz oontz. Turns out this is a Pride festival. Whoo!

We made our way to the stage and got our dance on for a bit while the moon rose above. Goddamn, I love this.

I thought I might need to make the decision whether to responsibly go home and drink water so I wasn’t miserable in the morning or…. go hard, but thankfully we were all on the same page and ready to head to the train station around 21:45. We walked at first and then took advantage of a passing streetcar most of the way there. On the walk from the streetcar to the terminal, Justin turned around to make sure I was still with their group, which was a small gesture but one I very much appreciated as I felt so included.

Lisa and Justin were also heading back to Brugge. A train was arriving in 5 minutes, but they wanted a bit more time to say goodbye to Patrick. I hugged all of them and thanked them for folding me into their group tonight, and Justin said, “That’s what travel is all about.”

I ran to the platform and caught the train home. I was thankful for the De Lijn app as the buses running from Brugge Station to my listing at this time of night were not at all the same ones running during the day.

I got home at 23:00 and phone-browsed in bed.

My physical therapist, Kevin, had told me about a top-rated and exclusive beer made by monks in rural Belgium called Westvleteren 12. I’m not a huge beer nerd, but that was too good to pass up.

I’d researched at home and found that no visitors are allowed at the abbey or the brewery, but a pub across the street called In de vrede serves it.

Unfortunately, it’s not easy to get to. A two-hour train journey would get me as far as Poperinge and then there either is or is not a bus from there to the pub.

Researching again now, it seems I would need to rent a bike to get from the train station to the pub. I didn’t bother looking to see whether there are any bicycle rentals near the train station. It now seemed silly to drink “Westy” 12 in a pub there when I could drink it in a pub here, in Brugge.

Ah! That meant that I could visit Brussels on Monday instead of tomorrow, which can now be a rest day, i.e. nothing in particular to see or do and time to journal. Exactly the point of playing this trip by ear.

I slept at 00:30.