Bonjour de la Suisse: <em>“…no, really, this is going to be a great tour!"</em>

After a very early flight to Amsterdam, what do we do? Chica & I get on the (slow) train to Brugge in Belgium. On the way we figured we would stop in Brussels, the unofficial capital of Europe, for a little sightseeing & lunch. There isn’t a ton to see in this capital city, besides the Grand Place and Manneken-Pis, so we decided to kick up our heals and take a nap… right on the front lawn of the local cathedral, St. Michael’s. It was quite comfy and gave us the strength we needed to continue on with our journey!

Belgium is known for a few things, beer, chocolate, waffles, and beer. We arrived in Brugge pretty late, so after checking in, there was only time for dinner. At a cozy little restaurant right on Market Square, we ordered two local Belgium beers and the waiter asked us, “medium or large?” Large! “No, no, I would recommend you start out with the medium.” Thank goodness we did!! The mediums were two feet tall and served in these crazy wood contraptions to hold them.

After, we found a little bar and made friends with this great couple from England. When they asked us to talk in our best English accents we had them on the floor laughing… something about Chica sounding like an Aussie and me sounding like a Scot. We didn’t get it. We thought our accents were right on, “aye mate?” ;)

In Brugge we did some sightseeing, took a quaint little boat ride, and on our way out of town we stopped in the last working brewery in the city for a tour. Soon, we were headed back to Amsterdam.

Now, the weather in northern Europe was quite different from Geneva. It wasn’t cold, really, but it was raining quite a bit. And when we went to meet up with the Mike’s Bike Tour, the weather didn’t look like it was going to get any better. But, ponchos in hand, we braved the weather and pedaled away! For four hours we rode around town and into the countryside where we saw windmills and visited a cheese farm & clog factory. The tour was really great! The guide and the rest of our group were really fun, even the guys from the Bay Area (we seem to meet people from Cali every were we go!)

That night we decided to go on a Red Light District tour. We took Rick Steve’s advice (who has never steered us wrong) and went with “Randy Roy’s Red Light Tours” which was described as: 'a fun, casual, yet informative walk through this fascinating and eye-popping neighborhood'. Okay, sounds good. Well, our guide showed up drunk as a skunk!! She had this crazy little sign written in ball point pen to advertise her tour. There were two Irish gals there for the tour also, and we thought, "if they're in, so are we" (besides, it was too late to do much of anything else). So, off we went, with our guide slurring her words and repeating over and over, “…no, really, this is going to be a great tour!”

I wouldn’t call it great, but it certainly was entertaining. (Hey, with lines like, "This is where Quentin Tarantino wrote 'Pulp Fiction' and I don't remember sleeping with him, but that doesn't mean anything! Hahahaha...”, how could the tour not be entertaining?) It was absolutely pouring rain, so when we ducked into the bar at the end of the tour for our “free drink” included in the ticket price, I didn’t even notice it was a gay bar. Then the tour guide’s “boyfriend” sat with us for a while to share his worldly experience. He was very old and a bit scary. The looks on the Irish gals faces was priceless, and not-soon-enough, the four of us were out of there! The rest of the evening we were trying to ditch our all-to-friendly-gay-German-boyfriends (who were married to each other). But that, dear readers, is a whole other story... (but we were successful in getting rid of them!).

Despite the on & off rain, we signed up for a canal tour with the St. Nicolaas Boat Club, which is a small nonprofit group that preserves historic Dutch boats. It was hands-down the best tour we had ever taken! There were only seven of us (all Americans) and Captain Diego, our fearless leader from Buenos Aires. He was hilarious!! Because of the rain (and a lack of a roof), we kept ducking under bridges to stay dry, but when we went under a smaller bridge, we ran aground (or something) and got stuck. Of course, we didn't believe him. "No, seriously, WE ARE STUCK! But don't worry because this boat is unsinkable!" "But didn't you salvage this from the bottom of the canal to restore it?" one guy asked. Diego replied, "Oh yeah, we did!"

We eventually got loose, but because we kept stopping, the 90 minute tour lasted over 3 hours! We talked and talked about all kinds of things and had the best time! One girl even offered us part of her mushroom sandwich, but we declined. After about 2 1/2 hours Captain Diego's phone rang and he says, "Oh yeah, I'm still on the tour..." without a care in the world. The only mishap was when we were cruising through the main canal in the Red Light District and Diego became a little distracted and ran into a parked boat! He quickly recovered, checked to see there was no damage (& no angry owner) and we were off once again! Our only issue was we had a plane to catch. Although we were bummed when we finally pulled into the dock, we were glad that we made our flight back to Geneva!