Tuesday morning, I got up slightly more quickly, and after breakfast headed over to the Belfry to see if the line was shorter. When I got there, I found out that it was actually my favourite: non-existent! The Brugges Museum ticket thing I had bought before also works for the Belfry, so I showed my ticket and went up. It was mostly a lot of brick; the stairs themselves were wooden, reinforced at points with brick, and incredibly narrow. It was really hard to pass anyone coming down; someone had to wedge themselves into a corner and wait for the other person to go by. There were a couple of stopping points along the way; at one of them you could see the giant drum that rings the Carillon bells, like a giant music box drum; unfortunately the bell system is undergoing a complete overhaul that won't be finished until June, so there were no bells, and lots of construction work. When I got to the top of the 366 steps, I took a bunch of pictures of the view, and then headed back down. To be honest, I was pretty disappointed; it felt like the only reason to go up was to see the view. Maybe I've just been spoiled by amazing Gothic cathedrals, but I like architecture that's fascinating and fun to see in and of itself; so the Belfry didn't impress me.
After the Belfry, I headed off in another direction, and found a cool little museum; however, right as I was taking pictures of the pretty outside, my camera decided to tell me that the battery was dying. As I hadn't brought an adapter that my camera charger could use, I decided to go ask the hotel if they had one. So I walked all the way back to the hotel, and went to talk to the concierge. It turned out they had one for Great Britain and for (what I think was) Asia. No North America. I asked her if she knew where I could find one, and she gave me a bunch of directions. I have come to the conclusion that I cannot navigate by verbal directions, because I had no idea where to find what she pointed me to, and wandered all over the place for a while. I found a random electronics store, and they didn't have any kind of universal adapter. So I wandered more, finally found the shopping street that I think she had meant to direct me to, and little store that matched her description but appeared to be closed until July. I went on, and found a little phones-and-accessories store, and when I asked there they directed me next door, to a larger electronic supplies store. The guy there was rather gruff, and more so when he found out I was American (in this situation I didn't feel like messing with French and went straight to English), but they had one model of universal adapter that was basically exactly what I needed. It was also over 20 Euro. *sigh* So I bought it, went back to my room and plugged it and my camera in, and sat on my bed in a sour mood for a while.
Eventually, after hanging out and talking to Tim on AIM for a while, I figured it was probably charged, and went out again. I got lunch at a little restaurant next to the museum I had found before, where they had a menu for 15 Euro. My entrée was basic potage (soup) of the day, made with whatever vegetables they get in that day. The main dish was fantastic, however; thick juicy steak with a mushroom sauce (which cost extra but was worth it), fries, and a little salad. The fries were also good; the salad was a little questionable, but okay. For dessert I had profiteroles, which were okay, but not as fantastic as I've had in the past. After lunch, I headed back to the museum, this time with a charged camera.
The museum turned out to be the "Gruuthuse," where a prominent rich noble family of Bruges used to live in the Middle Ages. The house was covered in the crest and symbols of the family; it was actually really cool. They had a bunch of exhibits, most of which were religious stuff. They didn't allow pictures, which was really dumb (especially since it was the house itself that I really liked the most), but I snuck some shots of the chapel. Apparently, since their house was right next to the Cathedral of Our Lady anyway, they got permission to build a little private viewing chapel into the wall, so they could participate in mass without leaving home! I thought it was pretty cool.
After the Gruuthuse, I wandered around a bit, and did a little shopping. I found a really cool little row of shops tucked away by the Burg, and wandered through them. I had stopped to look out at the canal at one point, when a random man dressed as a musketeer (feather in his hat and all!) came up to me, said hello, and kissed my hand. It was rather bizarre, but he seemed very friendly. I was talking to him in French, and so when he asked where I was from I told him I live in Tours. He had me follow him to his little shop, which was right behind me, where he had a little camera set-up that took my picture, and printed this calendar/picture thing, that had a map of old Bruges. It was obviously a ploy to get me to pay for it, but he seemed nice, so I went with it (and it didn't turn out to be expensive, so it was okay). He was chattering on the whole time, like he never gets to talk to anybody. He also sold me a little poster case for it, which I think will come in handy for my poster of Tours, too. As we were talking, I found out that he likes to get people to send him postcards from wherever their home town is; he gave me his card (his name is Erwin, apparently), so I thought I'd send him something from Tours and maybe from Bozeman. I did end up telling him that I was originally from the States, and so we talked half in French and then in English. After a while, I made a polite excuse for having to go, and he as much as admitted that he gets lonely in his little shop, tucked away. I ended up feeling pretty sorry for him; he was fun.
After that encounter, I walked back to my hotel and just decided to relax and not let the frustrations of the day get to me. I ended up deciding that I really just wasn't hungry for dinner (I swear I eat so much at each meal when I go out, I can hardly handle it), and that I would save money by not going out, so that was my day.
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