9/12/10 - Dudzele to Oostende, 40 km

Breakfast at the Herdersbrug hostel was a lot like our usual Stayokay affair - brood, cheese, meat, yogurt, cereals, melk, juice, koffie, etc. etc. It was a rainy morning, but despite my (amie's) grumbling we decided to bike anyway. We headed down to Brugge, only a short 6k away, and we parked our bikes near the city center. Remembering it was Sunday, we realized our errands would have to be put off until tomorrow. Brugge is a sprawling but very old city, that seemed particularly quiet this morning. We saw a band play in the main plaza, and heard a church bell ring for about 10 minutes, but that's about it. We hopped back onto the bikes after a short loop in the city, and realized our maps stopped about 1/3 of the way into Brugge. I used my awesome navigation skills and a city map to at least get us back onto the LF trail system, then we all used our senses of direction to make some smart choices, and before we knew it we were back to following our usual numbered intersections. We played on a playground we found (while still lost). The rest of our ride was amazing, we followed a canal, I learned how to ride without hands, and before we knew it, we were already in Oostende. As usual, it took us another hour to actually find our hostel, good thing we budget this kind of time. Oostende is a surprisingly hoppin' city, right on the coast, full of older, wealthy people and expensive chocolate shops, and we're starting to hear more French. Currently we're chilling in the lobby of the De Ploate hostel on Langestraat (they won't be back until 5:15) so hopefully we actually do have a place to sleep tonight. In the meantime, we've been doing ab workouts, giving massages, and listening to Erin's Glee playlist on her ipod touch.

--UPDATES--
5:17pm: Yep, we've got a place to stay, don't worry! Hostels aren't too busy on Sunday nights.

8:36 pm: Just came back to De Ploate hostel from "Sunday night out on the town"....aka an inexpensive sandwhich shop dinner, delicious ice cream (breadpudding for Erin), and a view of the sunset over the Atlantic. We are now chillaxin' in our hostel room. Erin's reading Forest Gump, Amie's listening to her I-pod, and McKayla's writing this, but plans to do some journaling and investigate our map of France.

Quote du jour: "If you're worried about falling off the bike, you'd never get on."- Lance Armstrong (nope, I'm (McKayla) not too worried about falling...today it happend twice. I can already feel a couple bruises.