We rented a Eurocar for the drive to Brugge and Normandy. Got lucky and didn't have to pay the intercountry fee of 400 euro since somebody from France had just dropped the car in Amsterdam. We loaded up and drove about 2.5 hours to Brugge. Along the way we saw field after field of flowering yellow plants that were obviously being harvested for something. Decided to ask Aurelie. We parked at the city train station and took a bus 5 min to city center. Cobblestone streets and medieval architecture. There were several lace shops, belgian beer stores, and of course chocolate for which the region is famous. We partook of beer and chocolate but left the lace behind - the lace I liked was "antique" and started at 975 euro!
We wanted to walk up the bell tower from the movie "In Brugges" but the line was too long. So we did a walking tour of the city instead and stumbled upon a flea market. Decided to sit down and do some people watching and we ended up in front of a group of local townies. People kept stopping by to chat, waving hello from across the street, etc. It seemed like the entire local population was walking the streets, hanging out on the sidewalk bars. A fun look at how the locals live. There weren't many American's in the crowd.
After we checked out the two dutch windmills in town we went back to our hotel around 16:30 (7:30am PST) for our daily Skype with Maren. Then we start our beer tour. First stop: De Garre. It's hole in the wall tucked away off a narrow alley that would have been difficult to locate if we hadn't been warned. Here's a YouTube video De Garre (taken by someone else ) to get an idea of what the bar was like…and Margo was actually our server too. We ordered the house beer for Brent and a blond for me and spent an hour pouring over the beer menu. We got to talking with a local couple and then a student that wandered in - it just happened that she was from Carlsbad attending college in London. The local couple was very friendly and knew English so we all talked until they left. Then another group came in - another group of locals with one guy that was from Del Mar. We chatted with them 
for a bit and then continued our belgian beer tour, heading to t' Bruges Beertje (Little Bear). There we met an engineer from SF, and couple from Gent (he) and London (she). We all chatted for several hours before we decided the belgian beers had done us in. Overall, the picturesque-ness of Brugge surprised me. I could spend another day hidden behind the lens exploring what she has to say. But on to Normandy and Paris. The following morning we had breakfast in the hotel restaurant which is a total rip-off, but none of the cafes/restaurants open until 8:30-9am. If you're on a schedule that's a late start so the hotels capitalize on tourists.
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