Hurray for Eurail passes! Trains go back and forth from Brussels to Bruges all day, every 30 minutes, and the one way trip is an hour.

A nice lady I chatted with in York told me that I would like Bruges, and she was right. The place is charming. The "Venice of the North", it has canals, it has 13th century towers, it has a market square, a lot of tourists, and delicious belgian waffles.

The official rules for busking in Bruges? You have to apply for a permit. The permit is for the day of. You're allowed three per year. The permit office is closed on weekends. And I didn't see ANY street performers, in a town that appeared to be custom built for them. This was yet another city, like York, in which lots of tourists were wandering aimlessly, looking around for interesting things to see. And I've learned that's the easiest vibe for me.

See all these bicycles? Fully 3/4 of them aren't even locked up. It's that kind of town. Behind them you can see a portion of the town market square, frankly too large for me to perform in. But that break between the buildings is a wide pedestrian road leading to another large square. It is a perfect busking funnel.

The rules being what they were, I didn't even try. I decided to just play tourist for the day. I did the tourist things. I ate waffles. I would have had belgian beer but I loathe beer, so I had some Strongbow, which I can't get in the US since Budweiser bought it and sweetened it. Ick. I walked around and looked at all the charming old buildings. I saw a lot of sights, had a great time, wore myself out.

In one large civic tower, I found a stealth street performer, Valery Kruchkovski, who was doing silhouette cutting on a walkaround basis. He and I traded busker info about several cities. He agreed about Brussels, recommended Cologne, and was interested in my York findings. His report on busking rules in Bruges was that enforcement is "selective" and that sometimes they don't care, as long as there are not too many buskers. But it depends on the specific policeman. He also agreed with me about where the very best busking spot in town would be. I cut our conversation short, as my blood sugar was dropping and I had to eat, and he had to work. I considered doing a show just for the checkmark, knowing I could play the Dumb American card and walk away clean if a cop stopped me. But I was tired and gave it a miss.