Maybe that's what hell is, the entire rest of eternity spent in Bruges.

Somewhere amidst our insistent movie quotations and waiting on the train platform, we realized it: we were going to Bruges.

The Provincial Court on the Market Square. Bruges

The city with one of the oldest standing belfrys in the world. With thousands of years of combined history and even a smell that felt timeless, the greened channels and medieval bridges cutting across them bridged the gap between imagination and reality, as another major check on our list was about to be ticked off.

Just hours before we had taken the train to Brussels International Airport to meet our fourth brother, who was finally going to be with us again.

Michael coming out of the BRU arrivals gate.

If you can't guess, that says "Brussels North"

Michael, who we declared as the true gadget wizard among us, didn't let us down when he walked through the arrivals gate wearing an active head camera. He looked like some sort of man of the future. (A man of today?) We exchanged hugs and caught up with each other, and started coordinating with a couple of his Belgian friends who we were to met in Bruges. After that we had gotten our tickets and waited on the train platform.



When the train came its doors hissed opened. After the others got off, we stepped on board and found our seats. It was a one-hour train ride to Bruges, which was the terminus stop.

When we arrived we swam through the crowd of tourists to disembark from the train, where we made our way to the front of Bruges train station.

There we met Ilia and Freya, Michael's two friends from Belgium. Friends he had met online, through a video chatroom which he had been a regular part of for years. Ilia did not hesitate to bust out his Persian jokes with Aryan, and the quiet Freya kept us company with her subtle sense of humor. Both were good company!

Frey on the left, Ilia on the right. In front of the unmarked Bruges train station.

Good enough to compensate
for that lens flare?

So the six of us made our way to the town of Bruges, to explore the city and its beautiful architecture. On my personal list was: climbing the Belfry of Bruges, and seeing the Basilica of the Christ. Whether you believe or not, making pilgrimage to a sacred icon of a major world religion, and the one in which I was raised, held a special significance to me. And of course I wanted to see the top of the Belfry, to prove Colin Farrell wrong: American's aren't too fat to climb it.

On our way, we explored some of the spectacular sights of the town, and took in the architecture and culture of it.

Finally we arrived at our first destination: the Belfry of Bruges. We stood in line, and climbed our way to the top. Didn't think to get pictures of the stairs, which were about an inch wide at their skinniest, tightly winding, and extremely steep.

We passed many a tourist huffing and puffing in a rest area, while we made a hearted (more like winded) effort to get to the top as quickly as possible.

We matched! Mostly. On the way up the few hundred stairs to the top of the belfry.

Only occasionally did we stop in a rest area, to see the inner workings of the belfry's bell mechanism.

Via Michael's GoPro: A giant music box–cylinder controls the bell tolls....

Atop the tower we had a perfect view of the rest of the town, including the channels running through it, and an examiner's-eye view of the others touring the streets, riding the channels, relaxing on a horse-drawn carriage.

View from the top, through the grating.

 A thick-wire mesh stopped us from throwing each other from the top, so we were unable to re-create one of our favorite scenes from a particular movie: In Bruges. You know: where one of the main characters falls from the top.

Not that we really planned on doing it.

Pointers to landmarks in the city

Group selfie atop the Belfry. Via Michael's GoPro.

I also had a very unique experience at the top of the belfry, which I wrote about here.

Inside the Basilica.

Our next stop was the Basilica of the Christ, in the nearby square. We made our way there, stopping to rest and converse, before the interested among us entered the basilica to see the blood of Christ. Is it real?

Does it matter?

Inside was quiet, hallowed ground. Whispers seemed not to echo off the grand stained-glass and ornate statues decorating each wall. Those of us there sat down and meditated on the significance of what we were seeing. I deposited a couple Euro to approach the blood of Christ and genuflected before it, staring deep into it.

The priest smiled genuinely and handed me a small pamphlet. To me, the image was sullied by that, if only slightly, by the commodification of this sacred icon.

Yet the significance stood there, unshaking in my mind, as I walked back out to rejoin the others. From there we continued to explore more of the city, walking through Minnewater Park before making way back to the station, for our train ride home.

See the belfry in the background? Yeah, we climbed that. Hence Aryan's eyebrows.

Dapper as usual.

In Minnewater Park.

Back at the town square. I'm not sure.

Michael with two of his good friends, who came to see him and meet us.

Michael stayed behind for work abroad, which he does from his laptop.

That evening, we stopped at a grocery store in order to buy some food ingredients, so that we could cook our host dinner. Ailean seemed to enjoy it, as well as the beer. We sat around the table for hours, exchanging conversation, drink, and a very spontaneous pasta recipe.

We went to bed early by comparison to our regular schedule, so that we could wake up early for our trip to Antwerp the next day. There, we would meet Stefaan, a native Belgian and fellow couch surfer who offered to show us around town. Our time with him would prove especially interesting, with another unique chance encounter not to be forogtten...