A European Lesson

“But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.” – Ernest Hemingway

The United States and Europe are two very different places. Most of the buildings in one are about two hundred years old, while the other has buildings that are four hundred or more years old. One thing I had heard in Europe was that public restrooms were not a big thing, and that we needed to be prepared in case there wasn’t one nearby. I limited how much I drank outside of the boat, so I wouldn’t have this issue. We learned the hard way in Bruges, Belgium. When our bus dropped us off, my wife and I both had to use the restroom. We thought that finding a restroom wouldn’t have been that bad, but little did we realize we were in for an adventure. When we got to the entrance of the old part of the city, we looked at the map to try and find a restroom. The nearest one was a long walk from where we were. So we started to walk there, both of us needing to use the restroom really badly. When we finally arrived at the spot, the public restroom had a gate, and you had to pay to use it. My luck would have it that the machine that took credit cards was down, and we didn’t have any coins. I looked on my phone to see if there was another one closer, and I found one at the Church of Our Lady. We did another 10-minute walk there, and luckily the person who ran the register to use the bathroom took cash. What did I learn on this trip? Find a bathroom on the map before you leave.

Since we were already at the Church of Our Lady, we decided to walk around and take a look inside. The church itself is very beautiful. It’s hard not to stand inside it and not just be in awe of it. The Church of Our Lady is a Roman Catholic church in Bruges, Belgium, dating mainly from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Its 115.6-meter-high (379 ft) tower remains the tallest structure in the city and the third tallest brickwork church tower in the world. Here are some of the photos I captured of the inside of it and around the church.