The first thing we did on Monday morning was to shed about 15 pounds. All of the guidebooks, maps, memorabilia, and other stuff that we won’t need anymore got rounded up and put into a yellow box. We left it at the post office for a “slow boat” journey back to Wisconsin. We’ll meet it when we get home.

Bobber connected us with his sister Jen and her husband Gabe, who live in the East End of London. We chatted for a bit and made arrangements to meet them in London on Wednesday.

We boarded a northbound train for Köln at about 11 in the morning, and plan to arrive in Bruges, Belgium, by early evening. It seems as if we’ve been seeing a lot of this route, but only at night. This is the first time we’ve been through here in the daytime, when we can see it.

The train follows the Rhine valley, which looks a lot like our own “back yard” in the Mississippi valley, complete with tour boats and freight barges. Like the Upper Mississippi, the Rhine is flanked by steep hills (at home we call them “bluffs”). The hills along the Rhine wear a patchwork quilt of vineyards and are frequently crowned with ancient castles. We’ll have to come back to this valley sometime and see it from a riverboat.

A switch on our camcorder had inadvertently been left on, so the battery was too drained to shoot the castles. Sometimes you just have to accept the pictures you record in your mind. We sighed, said “oh, well,” and wrote it off as part of the adventure.

Somewhere between Freiburg and Köln, we decided to spend an extra day in Belgium. So in Köln we have about 40 minutes to make a quick phone call to Jen and Gabe, advising them that we’ll be in London on Thursday instead of Wednesday.

We had ten minutes left on our “Yello” phone card, which should have made that phone call a routine affair. But the Phone Gods had other ideas.

Our first few attempts to make a connection were answered by a computer saying, “there is no reply.” We called customer service, and after being passed to two more operators, we were told that the number should be ok to reach.

We did not trust this. “OK, well let me try it on the phone next to me and I’ll tell you what happens.” By the time all the numbers were dialed on the next phone, and the robot operator said, “there is no reply,” the customer service guy on the other phone had hung up.

We had to give up on our phone call or miss our next train.

Our train from Köln to Brussels is the Thalys, a “premium” train that required a reservation and the payment of a “supplemental” fare of $20 each. For this “premium” fare, we get cramped seating with no extra amenities that we notice.

We had to go three cars down the train to find a working toilet, and the train plods along at the same speed as any other train. We’ve been told that this is a high-speed train, but right now the only high-speed track is between Brussels and Paris. Even though our trip was confined to the old slow tracks, we still had to pay the premium anyway.

The Thalys delivered us to Brussels at the tail end of the afternoon commuter rush, so the station was fairly busy. We quickly deciphered the Belgian method of listing scheduled departures and found our train to Bruges.

While we waited, we were treated to some of the most foul and disgusting elevator music ever inflicted on a captive audience. We only came here to change trains, what did we do to deserve this. Brussels Midi station is not a pleasant place.

Our train to Bruges was packed with commuters, so it was hard to find seats. In the center of the car were two pair of seats that faced each other, and each pair was occupied by a suit and his luggage. We said, “these look like a couple of good seats,” and the suits grudgingly made room for us.

On this particular railroad car full of suits, we felt more disdain than in any place since Salzburg. We rode for 50 minutes with people who acted insulted to be sharing a railroad car with a couple of old hippies.

It was close to 8 o’clock when we arrived in Bruges, and the tourist information office at the station was still open. The lady behind the counter suggested we could stay at the hostel, which should be a ten minute walk into town.

We could have bought a map for 20 francs (about 50 cents), but we don’t have any Belgian money yet, and this station doesn’t have a cash machine. We set out into town with the directions to our hostel drawn on a piece of paper.

We soon took a wrong turn and got lost in the medieval maze that is Bruges. We found our hostel, called Passage, after schlepping our packs around town for about an hour, asking for directions four or five times, and getting our sense of direction turned backwards.

Along the way we found a machine that dispensed a couple of days worth of Belgian money, even though we had to try three or four machines.

For 1000 francs (about $25) we got a double room on the ground floor. There is almost enough heat, and the bed has springs that poke into our butts as we sleep.

Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.