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Not every day is a fantastic day. Today was one of those not so fantastic days. It started going wrong when we booked our train tickets from Brussels back to London. When I had originally researched the tickets, they were about $65 per person. I really should have booked them right away since we knew we had to be back in London for a specific date. When I checked again last night, I was in for a nasty surprise. The price was now about $175 per person. Ouch. We had a quick discussion amongst the three of us. We decided to bite the bullet and proceed with our original plan of taking the train at a specific time. Then, just as I was about to complete the transaction, the internet connection froze and would not let me continue. We were resigned to complete the transaction in the morning. Strike one and two were complete. What else could possibly go wrong? There is always a trifecta in play.

It turned out that all three sites that we had scheduled to visit also did not work out. The first one was a power plant. When we arrived, we saw workers coming and going on the property. We decided very quickly to move on. The second site was an abandoned manor. It looked very promising when we drove up to it. However, we were stopped by a gentleman on the neighbouring property who informed us that we could only be allowed access to the property for a “small fee” of 50 Euros per person. Apparently he was the assistant to the person who was renting the two adjacent properties and this was the arrangement that was in place. Again, we decided very quickly to move on. Our last stop was at another abandoned mansion. By this point of the day, daylight was already starting to fade. We drove up and ... there was a large sign that indicated that trespassers would be fined a minimum of 250 Euros each. As you can guess, we again decided to move on. We didn’t move on right away. Matt and I waited while Bart did a very quick walk through. He returned and shook his head. We had been spoiled by better sites on this trip. We could move on knowing it would have been a waste of time.

Despite our setbacks today, we had some very good moments as well. We did not get rained on the entire day. We spent a bit of time in Brugge seeing the touristy sights and doing a little bit of shopping. We returned to Brussels briefly to enjoy “the best waffles in Belgium” and see the famous statue of Manneken Pis. We found a self-service laundromat and I was finally able to do some laundry. And finally, we received a few emails asking how we are doing (from other urban explorers) and a few emails saying that our daily posts were being thoroughly enjoyed. Maybe today was a good day after all!