Somehow I believe, Ken, that the balance shall tip in the favor of culture, like a big fat fucking retarded fucking black girl on a see-saw opposite... a dwarf.

 

6 am, before the sun came out, we rushed to Central Station in Amsterdam, catching a train that took us from Amsterdam to the beautiful Belgian city of Antwerp, which until arriving in it's lavishly painted station, I had no intention of visiting. The station was several stories tall, with beautifully engraved marble balconies, and a full station's worth of busy, day to day, Belgian traffic. With the timing working the way it did, we arrived in Antwerp station roughly 10 minutes before our next train, which allowed us to locate the correct train platform indicated by the train timetables all over the station (as well as an escalator that was both vertical, as if they were stairs, as well as horizontal, all in the same mechanism!). We settled into a comfortable place in the cab, and patiently waited to arrive at our final destination: Bruges.

Twenty minutes into the train ride, the ticket collector comes to our seat asking for our passes. She takes a glance at our tickets, furrows her brow, and looks back at us. She hands us our tickets and plainly states, "It's impossible for you to be on this train."Despite the strange nature of that statement, we figured out what she meant and we were told then to get out at the next stop, a tiny Belgian town named Lier. Here at this station, I saw something I never would have seen in the United States: a conductor of a train was waving to the small children waiting on the platform as if we were living in some children's show on PBS that has the words "Happy Time" in it. We sat on the platform, where we waited for roughly half an hour for a train back, and thus forty five minutes later found ourselves back at Antwerp Station. There it was another two hours until we left for Bruges, a train that ran infrequently since it was both Saturday and a less than central location.

We finally found the correct train, boarded after we had fully identified it's correctness, and promptly arrived in the town of Bruges, roughly three and a half hours later than we had planned (which unfortunately was 10% of the trip planned). We made due with what time we did have in the afternoon, and found our hotel promptly, got a strong lunch of croques- a French dish that's popularity has caused it to spread as a culinary staple in many regions surrounding France. The croque, of which Sean Malin has an unhealthy obsession, is basically the French version of toast, typically loaded with ham and eggs, though sometimes with variation, as my smoked salmon croque proved. Belgium is in a strangely unique position in this region of Europe, as it is one of the newer countries, one that initially was part of the Netherlands and split off due to its uniqueness, and is equally influenced by French culture and history.

So here we were, late in a new place, and decided that the best course of action was seeing as much as we could before everything closed (which was around 5 or 6). The first thing we went to see was the Basilica of the Holy Blood, a church that was built in the mid-12th century, and exhibited nearly every stereotypical quality of European churches that you can imagine: stain glass windows, grandiose artwork lining the walls, familiar architecture of the pre-Renaissance architects. What really stood out though, is an item that this church contains. The basilica's contents, "the holy blood" is a vial that supposedly contains a few drops of Jesus blood! This container, which looked to me to be straight out of Star Trek, had a few drops of congealed red liquid that hundreds of thousands of people must visit every year. To many, this signifies physical existence of the one that they devote all of their efforts in life to, their personal savior.

"Although the Bible never mentions Christ's blood being preserved, one of the apocryphal gospels asserts that Joseph of Arimathea preserved the Precious Blood after he had washed the dead body of Christ. The daily making present of the Blood of Christ during the Mass was central in the religious life of the Middle Age in Europe. If genuine, a relic of the Blood of Jesus would be of utmost significance, a uniquely important witness to Jesus’ Passion and a perpetual reminder of the historical character of the Christian Gospel."


Despite my skepticism of the legitimacy of the object that was presented in this basilica, I was still in awe and reverence of the atmosphere present. This was the most sacred I ever could perceive a christian structure could be; it was so separated from the profane existence of the christian individual experience. The atmosphere of the church was similar to the ones I had felt in Buddhist temples in China, in that there was a certain sense of spirituality truly felt that many try to artificially create all over the world in other forms.

Once leaving the building, we had found that all of Bruges had shut down, as far as historical sites were concerned. Sean and I, appreciating the beauty of this city that had been preserved throughout its history decided to take a walk along one of the canals. This stroll may have the most beautiful part of the trip, as we got to the see the lovely canal homes, lavish buildings that typically were pedestrian in their importance to the average Bruges resident, and humongous windmills that were unbelievably monstrous, though all were closed since it was the winter.

We then looked for a place to end our night, as we needed to get some food in us. We passed up on the "La Taverne Brugeoise" (La taverne bourgeoise, it was so bourgeoise). We found a moderately middle eastern place that had some truly delicious food and was being staffed by what must have been an 8 year old male child and a little girl no older than 4. Somehow, despite the child labour, I was able to enjoy my meal. We found an Irish pub to get a few drinks and then called it a night to get up at 9 and see as much of Bruges as we could in our 9 waking hours that we had left.