In Bruges

This town seems to be spelled with a different number and combination of g's and umlauts in every known language, and I can't seem to get it straight. My dad wrote me back with this helpful comment: "In English we spell it Bruges, and pronounce it with a 'zh' sound, as in 'leisure'. Mostly, we just don't say it."

Indeed.


Celebrated arrival in Belgium last night by eating an enormous portion (it was the "small") of fries drenched in mayonnaise. Afterward, felt slight ill and figured I'd fulfilled my quota of deep fried things for the foreseeable future.


Bruges is known around Europe for being so ridiculously picturesque it borders on disneyworldesque, and in this, Bruges does not disappoint. Last night I wandered down the street from my hostel to the medieval town gate next to a row of old-fashioned windmills, then watched a drawbridge rise so a modern barge could squeeze through the narrow moat that surrounds the old town. Seriously, Bruges? You still have a moat?

Nighttime at the main square:

Also, all over the place are tours and things relating to the city's one big recent claim to fame: the 2008 movie "In Bruges," which apparently (I just finally looked it up) concerns two hitmen stuck, purgatory-like, in Bruges.

The weird thing is that this turns out to be the very same movie as the German title "Brügge sehen...und sterben?" (See Bruges...and die?) I feel like I've been hearing that title forever, so I assumed it had to be a different movie from this "In Bruges" thing I'm seeing advertised everywhere. But apparently, in this case, "forever" means "two years."