Home away from home

Thursday, we had planned to run some errands first thing, but I couldn't get myself out of bed. Julian and his mother went for my euros and also a phone card for me while I slept the morning away. Around 1:30 I stumbled out of bed and downstairs just in time to say hello before his mother left for work. After a little bread, and some more relaxing, because clearly sleeping all night and day was not nearly enough, we went for a little twilight bike ride to grandma's cottage. Grandma's home was once a carriage house and is authentic European charm inside and out. I wanted to sing "over the river and through the woods, to grandmother's house we go", because you really do ride through the town forest to get there.

We were greeted to a cozy fire in the woodstove and a freshly baked cake, complete with real belgian chocolate sprinkles. If you have only eaten sprinkles in America, you might as well not eat any. I have to bring enough of these home with me to celebrate every cake occasion until my next euro-trip. The biscuit (pronounced bis-quee - fancy, right?) is something like an angel food cake, frosted with cream and covered in chocolate sprinkles, and is even tastier than I can describe here.

Friday was to be an early afternoon train ride to Brugge, but Grandma had insisted we stop in for another piece of biscuit before we go. She had made it special for us after all and I could hardly resist a second piece Thursday evening. So then we waited for a slightly later train, but our packing took so long we had to miss that one as well. Finally, we skipped Grandma's and still had to rush for the next train, which we missed by a few minutes. Luckily, the staff at the station told us of another leaving soon and we were on our way.

We arrived in Brugge a little after 7, took a bus to the rental house, and realized halfway down the street that we'd forgotten to write down the entry code to the front door. A somewhat lengthy phone call from the front steps to check our email, and we were inside.