Here's the situation for those who don't follow football or watch the news. Just under 5000 Geordies travelled to the small city in Belgium to watch Newcastle United. The main square in Bruges was flooded in black and white by 2pm on Thursday, with a 6pm kick off leaving far too much time for drinking and shenanigans. The atmosphere around town was one of party and celebration, with shops and bars getting the best business in one day than they've ever had, and the police having a quiet and fun day with only 20 arrests in total on the Newcastle side.
Having got the ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam, we (myself and the group) drove from Amsterdam to Bruges in 2 separate cars, and arrived in Bruges at different times thanks to the other car following what they thought to be us, only for it to be a Dutch car cleverly disguised as us. The crafty bastards. Meeting up in Bruges' main square, black and white jester hats on our heads, we had the local delicacies of stews and beer. One beer in particular proved to be more popular among us than the 1217 others that a waiter told us about, and this one was a pink in colour Cherry Beer. I hate beer. Disgusting stuff. But this one didn't have the hoppy taste that I detest, instead was nice and fruity without being sickly sweet and alcopoppy. Only later did that same waiter tell us that the Belgians call that "gay beer". Oops. Looking back, a pink beer is pretty gay.
Amsterdam, however, couldn't have been more different from Bruges in terms of atmosphere and general safety when crossing roads. Yes they both have canals, and yes they both have old, quaint buildings, but at least you could drive around Bruges and the only thing you had to worry about was parking. Amsterdam is a death trap. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice place, but when you're not worrying about getting squished by a tram, you're getting harrassed and beaten around by cyclists. I fecking hate cyclists. They don't even wear helmets, and yet they'd probably blame you if theitr side hit your swinging right foot and they were thrown from their saddle. The twits. Some of us did go to the Rijkmuseum and saw some actual Rembrandts and Vermeers, among others, which I would recommend.
In terms of the ferry and life on the sea, I was fine. Some not so fine, but we all got our sea-legs eventually. I, personally, still have them which isn't the best when you're on land, but I'm pretty sure that I'll get my land-legs back soon enough. Just to make it clear, google the expression sea-legs, because I don't want to give you the impression that I have prosthetics limbs and somehow lost my land legs and I'm forced to wear my sea legs which make me sway from side to side. I have my original legs, the ones I was born with.
Glad that's cleared up.
Anyway, that's it for this week, but please also take some time to read my film reviews of Argo, Ben Affleck's new one, and I'll be posting one of the new James Bond flick, Skyfall, shortly. So stay tuned Internet!
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