Happy Birthday to ME!!

Thanks for all the various greetings and congratulations you guys, you warmed the cuckles of my heart as always. In addition, Elena and Ksenia very sweetly got me a card, which was waiting under my door this morning, so all in all, it's been a pretty community-love kind of day. I did in fact go to Brugge, and took a buttload of pictures for you guys (so much so that the tour guide asked me if I was a photojournalist) but I haven't decided how I will lay them all out on here, since it's a big pain in the butt and I am super, super exhausted. The big opening day parade is tomorrow too, so I need to be up and ready for that bright and early. It probably won't be as great as the frosh parade in Toronto, but you know, who can beat walking en masse through the streets of a major city chanting "These are your tax dollars at work!!", "The beast from the East!!" and what not.

Overall, I think the day exhausted me for two reasons: (a) I didn't take the boat tour the way I should have and wanted to; (b) looking at buildings all day and not getting any sense for the people leaves a hollow feeling in my chest. I love buildings, and Brugge is beautiful. Really, really beautiful. But all I can think of when I look at them is how much work must have gone in. Maybe it was 70-30 love-suffering, maybe more, maybe less, but here are your ancient gilded statues, here are your mile-high clocktowers, and here are the cobblestone streets teeming with tourists craning their necks to see these things, and the people who made them are forgotten. Now it is Brugge that is so beautiful, SO beautiful, and so abstract. There's no one to thank or embrace or even ask how hard it all was, there's just the sound-byte stories about the judge who was flayed here or how some Dutchess of Burgundy fell off her horse and died at 25 ("She couldn't have been that nice-looking since she only had two teeth! HA ha ha ha ha...") I get tired of it.

There was one really nice moment though, when I went into the chocolatiers. I ordered a lot of chocolates and it took him a while to get them all ready, so we chatted a bit about Brugge and the U.S. and the differences. He told me that his was the oldest Chocolatier in Brugge (surprisingly only from 1955) and that all the others had either gone under or had changed families. I had veered off the busy touristy streets as soon as I could get away from the group (hopefully not offending anyone) and I was the only person in the store. He gave me a piece of dark chocolate while I waited and I felt like a little kid, like it was Christmas back before I was jaded. It was round and flat and pressed into the shape of an elaborate budding rose, just so GD wonderful it made me want to cry. I bought some sour gummies in the shape of sea shells just to postpone the effect, and since they came in this cone shaped plastic bag that made me feel very European. That was wonderful, talking with people is wonderful.

Another really beautiful moment not (directly) involving people was when I wandered into the modern art garden and came across these sculptures by a Uraguatian artist whose name I will look up and post when I get a chance. There were all in either white, grey or pink marble, and something about them made my heart expand. It was another of these moments when I was just tired and unsatisfied with the way I had spent my time, and here was this little encouragement. They fairly glowed, especially against the deep green of the garden.

I think I'll stop there and leave the architectural musings for tomorrow. After all my birthday is almost over in this timezone and I haven't licked any knives yet.