{"id":17,"date":"2007-04-27T12:44:59","date_gmt":"2007-04-27T17:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/matero.net\/?p=17"},"modified":"2007-04-27T12:44:59","modified_gmt":"2007-04-27T17:44:59","slug":"day-11-belgium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/?p=17","title":{"rendered":"Day 11 &#8211; Belgium"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Brussels<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Last night I arrived on the EuroStar, which was a smooth, fast ride. Another time zone change too. I&#8217;m now six hours ahead of Eastern Time. My first observations: no public drinking fountains and you have to pay to use bathrooms. I tried to buy a subway ticket with my credit card, but it wouldn&#8217;t accept it. And my first attempt in asking someone if they speak English was unsuccessful (older man). Finally got coins and a ticket, then I got on the wrong train. I turned around and finally got on the correct subway train, and there was vomit on the floor of the car. So I had to stand next to that and just look away.\n<\/p>\n<p>First time &#8220;couch surfing&#8221; in <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Brussels\">Brussels<\/a> with Florent, who grew up in Paris and now works and lives in this city. It worked out well.\n<\/p>\n<p>The city is the center of the European Union, so there are a lot of government buildings around. Also a few older ones in the market square. After a look around, I validated my RailPass. So it is good for two months from today.\n<\/p>\n<p><em>Bruges<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>First journey with the pass is to <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bruges\">Bruges<\/a>, and where I&#8217;m spending the night tonight. This is an old city where you pretty much walk around and see the streets and canals. All the residents ride bicycles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels Last night I arrived on the EuroStar, which was a smooth, fast ride. Another time zone change too. I&#8217;m now six hours ahead of Eastern Time. My first observations: no public drinking fountains and you have to pay to use bathrooms. I tried to buy a subway ticket with my credit card, but it &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/?p=17\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Day 11 &#8211; Belgium&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/matero.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}