The Scroop's European Holiday: Paris-Brugge Day 21

This morning we get up and finish packing before walking down to the corner to catch a cab to Gare du Nord for our train ride to Bruges. We wait about 5 minutes and a cab comes along. We load our gear in the boot and the driver heads off. We get to Gare du Nord and the fare comes to 10 euro 30 so I dive in to my pocket to give the taxi driver 11 euro. He starts saying "No, no, no, blah, blah, blah.... I have no idea what he's going on about so he licks his finger and and draws 18 on the cars dash board and showing me four fingers to represent the four suitcases in the boot. This thieving prick is charging me 8 extra euro because we have luggage. We know this is not normal because we have done this cab ride three times before. This is the final indignation of our stay in Paris. This grubby little arrogant French shit head is ripping us off. The arsehole didn't even lift any of the bags in or out of the boot. We assume if we don't pay then he won't open the boot so we don't really have a choice. The major tourist cities of the world can at times have a way of leaving you with a bitter taste in your mouth after your stay. It reminds me of when we left Venice on our last holiday and the water taxi guy ripped us and some other passengers off. So, the train arrives on time and we get to Brussels without any issues. We have to change at Brussels to the local line for Brugge and that poses a little bit more of a problem. The platform number initially said 16 and when we get there it changes to 15. It's not a huge drama because they share the same platform, just different sides, but It causes mass confusion and people are grabbing conductors and asking which platform they should be on, the conductors are giving conflicting information, it's just a nightmare but we eventually board the correct train and make it to Brugge without any further issues. Once in Brugge we catch a cab and he drops us of at the door of our accommodation. We are staying in a group of apartments owned and run by the same person and that person greets us at the door. Dave at work recommended the apartment because he stayed here when he visited Brugge. The owner is a very nice bloke and goes out of his way to make sure we have everything we need for our stay, including an iPad loaded with tourist information and an app that allows us to have the local bakery deliver fresh bread, buns, cakes, pastries etc to our door for 7am the next morning. We get the keys to our apartment and it is huge. It is probably one of the best apartments we have stayed in on both our holidays. Dave also gave me some of his recommendations for pubs and restaurants so we dump our gear and head straight out to the first of the recommended pubs, Cambrinus, which is about 50m down the road. We are all starving by now and the place is packed but we manage to score a table and the waiter brings us a food and drinks menu which is about the size of an encyclopaedia. The first few pages of the menu is food and wine and the rest is dedicated to beer. We order our food and drinks and settle in for the arvo. The food ends up being amazing, some of the best food we have had on our holiday so far. I ask the waiter "What time are children allowed to stay in the pub until". He looks at me as if to say, what a stupid question and replies "As long as they want, as long as you are with them". "Ahhhhh" I say to Kris, "I love this place already". We must of hung around for at least 3 hours and by the time we left we were starting to feel the pinch. The beers in Belgium have very high alcohol content ranging from about 5% to 12%. After that we went for a bit of look around and stumbled on a supermarket so we stocked up on groceries. When we get to the checkout Kris had some milk she thought was "Hi-lo" so the lovely young girl says to Kris "Did you want full cream milk"? Kris says "Oh sorry is that full cream"? The girl says "Yes, but don't worry I'll shoot down the aisle and change it for you" and she rushes off and comes back with the hi-lo. We were gob-smacked. We have crossed the border and we are definitely not in Paris anymore! We head back to the apartment to check out the footy score (we were listening to the last quarter on the AFL website prior to going out to lunch and the Hawks were losing) and we see the Hawks have come back to win and we are all jumping around high fiving each other.....even Kris was excited!! We shower up and headed back out for another look around at about 8pm. Earlier, when we were at the pub, we noticed these horse and carriage rides going past so because we missed out on the boat cruise we said to the kids we will have a ride on the horse and carriage. €39 for a half hour ride around the historic part of Brugge and it was fantastic. The kids loved it and so did Kris and I. After our ride we find a coffee shop and have a coffee and waffle before heading back to the apartment for the night.