We ventured out to Bruges, Belgium today! It was supposed to be an hour train ride away, but the train we caught took a long detour, so it took 2 hours, but we are glad that we went. It is a city brimming with character and charm! I finished my book, "Mr. Darcy's Diary". It's a fun, light read. I enjoyed it. Everyone else read, napped, or played video games. Today was the first day of Bruges' Christmas markets also, so it was fun to peruse those. 

Bruges is a canal city. It used to be a very important world trade center. They speak Flemish here! All of the signs are only in Flemish. Enough people speak a little English, so we managed just fine.

Just look at this adorable street.

 Bruges has 20 churches in their little city! 

So much character!

These pix are taken in the main square.

LOVE THIS! We should have stayed here instead of in Brussels!

We went into the Historium at the square to get info, and while we were there we took the opportunity to take portraits of ourselves being admire and adored by the Flemish people! Haha!

Next we went over to the canal. We weren't sure if the boat tours would be running because it's post-season, but we were lucky - they were. Bruges is known as the Venice of the North because of the canals around it. 

You can't tell, but this building is built right alsongside the water.

This is the oldest bridge in Bruges that is still in use. From the 1500s! There are 43 bridges in this city!

Notice the modern units in between the old ones!

This "house" along the canal is for sale. It's listed at 1,500,000 and needs 500,000 of repairs and restoration work, and it has been empty for 3 years! It was built in 1675. If only we had that kind of spare change!

This used to be St. John's hospital. It was built in the 1200s!

After the canal tour we walked around some more. We shopped and admired things all around us. 

This is a map of the city made in lace! Bruges is known for lace, tapestry and of course chocolate, waffles and fries! :)

We went into a lace and tapestry shop, and had a wonderful lesson on tapestries by this man, Fabian! (See picture below.) We really enjoyed it! He is originally from France, but has been in Belgium for over 20 years. He said he used to be a marketer, but got tired of it. His wife encouraged him to make tapestries (I'm not sure if he already had some training in it), and so they moved to Belgium and that is what he has been doing since then! He usually works in the factory making the tapestries, but someone was sick who works in the shop today, so he came in to cover for them. Lucky for us, because he was great!

A few things to know about tapestries: you must get ones that are at least 60% wool, and the rest should be silk or linen. Cotton ones are no good, they fade very fast. There are machine made-tapestries, hand-woven ones, and hand-stitched ones. The hand-stitched ones are hand-woven first and then hand-stitched over. These of course are the most expensive ones and the best ones, and they will always have a crest symbol in the bottom right corner. He said that all of the tapestries made in Europe come from Brussels, and mostly from Bruges. Interesting! He taught us about the lace, too, and showed us the hand-stitching. We got a lovely piece of lace for ourselves as a memoir of our time here in Belgium. 

At the markets the kids got hot chocolate, Dave got a waffle with toppings, and I got a crepe with Nutella and bananas on it. MMMMmm mmmMM MMMmmm.

The market square at sundown.

Great lighting as the sun went down.

Josh bought himself an animal hat/scarf/gloves at the Christmas markets! The shopkeeper wanted in on the picture, too!

Me, getting loves from my wolf! HAHA.

I got a charm for my bracelet to remind me of Belgium. We also found a chess board and pieces that were made in Poland at one of the market booths. Since we came to Europe, we've been looking around for chess pieces to buy, that we can use on the board that Tyler made in his woods class. We had to buy the board as well, but it was reasonably priced so it's fine. I think that the pieces are going to look really nice on his board. Janae got herself a pretty little box from that Polish booth, too. 

The last thing that we did in Bruges was go to the ice sculptures. It's another Christmas event that they do here. Okay, IT WAS FREEZING IN THERE! I know, I know, "Duh"! But we weren't expecting it to literally feel like a freezer! It was fun to see the sculptures. We kind of beat the ticket salesman down on the price, and we were glad that we did. It was fun, but not as big or intricate as we expected. I think we were only in there for 15 minutes! Our discounted price was 46 Euros for all of us, so it still wasn't very cheap.

He fits right in!

We were able to get a train that only took 1 hour to get back to Brussels on, which was nice!

These pix are of the Grand Place square, lit up at night. We walked past it on our way home.

The Town Hall

The museum, which used to be the King's home, back in the day.

As we got near to our apartment there was a street corner with a bunch of police with automatic weapons, and police vans on it!! All of the policemen looked at ease, so I wasn't too worried. Sort of! I looked up the news when we got home, and apparently there has been a manhunt here yesterday, trying to find someone involved with the recent terror attacks in Paris, and then there was a terrorist threat tonight! As I was looking up the news, several army trucks and police vans drove down our street. I was listening for evacuation warnings, but none came. I have felt at peace about staying here tonight, though. Good golly! And then there is the loud party going on in the apartment above us. We will be glad to leave here in the morning. We are praying hard tonight!