Made it to Brugge

today, this travel with denne,
Well, we always wanted to come here since Louis Guies said it was his favorite place in the world. So far just wandering around this evening, it is spectacular. This mornings train ride was eventful, the train broke. We rushed to make the 10:54 and got in with all our suitcases in tact, found a nice seat and settled in. 25 minutes later the train was cleared of us and everyone else when on of the doors didn't work. So they sent us to track 14b from 14a, which is interesting cause its the same track, just different ends. Well on our way, we were sent back to the 14a location to wait for the next train so we wouldn't have to change trains in Rottedam instead of Antwerp. (Rotterdam in not luggage friendly). So we walked back the other way until they made the anouncement that the broken train in front of us wasn't moving and we all had to go back to 14b which we did and the rest of the trip was uneventful. The hotel room is small but has a bose sound system and a fish tank, so we are staying.
The van gogh (pronounced Go, or Gock, we still don't know) was very interesting with 200 paintings from his first to his last and all the changes in attitude he went though icluding on of the 7 Sunflowers.
The Diamond museum was 1 solid hour of looking at the way diamonds were made and harvested and separated and colored and cut and polished and sold wholesale in antwerp and sold retail in amsterdam and replicas of every crown ever made (and some other stuff).
The boat cruise through the canals was interesting and the 2500 houseboats (max number) go from $200000 to millions and just a little bigger than a large camper.
The Reiksmuseum with Rembrandt's "the night watch" was great, lots of vermeer and the dutch masters (just like the cigars).

The trip to Haarlem to see the Bollenstreich Flower Parade was well worth the trip (about 20 minutes by train with a lot of walking). The pictures speak for themselves ans the whole town turns out.

Middle of the night here so bedtime an sightseeing tomorrow...we are well into this trip now.
Tomorrow, Mike
woops...spell check doesn't like Flemish either.