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  • "I wanted to buy Utilitarianism, but it was closed." Great line!

  • The building my apartment is in (renting) was built in 1929. So I guess that's not so bad if you consider Bruuuuuudge is from the 1600s or so.

  • So all while I watched that video, there was pleasant music playing from an ad that I didn't realize wasn't a part of the original video... and it was a nice touch. John and Hank, you should consider adding music to your "Thoughts from Places" series.

  • @PatientxWhatsername My cousin went on that this past summer and I went with American Music Abroad. It's the weirdest feeling, seeing things in this video you saw in real life

  • You speak like a poet. I love it.

  • 2:31 Okay so I see a Giraffe Love shirt, a Cloning Charlie shirt, a What Happened to You shirt...

  • Bruges is my second favourite city on Earth (my favourite being London.) There's buildings older than gravity, beautiful churches that haven't been effected by the Reformation period, fancy chocolate shops that sell even statues made of chocolate, pretty square gardens, horse drawn carriages, and hilarious French people staggering around drunk because they're not used to Belgian beer ;)

  • Why did you ever get married? Looks like you're having to beat 'em off with a stick.

  • IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW! WINKLE TO THE LEFT AND WINKLES TO THE RIGHT JUST MEANS SHOPS!

  • Two euros(before influenced by EU financial shock) for one toothbrush? das ist ganz teuer.

    In my country it cost less than 1 euro.

  • Utilitarianism is truly the ideal purchase for minimizing suck and increasing awesome.

  • i want to go to there.

  • I swear I stayed in that room at that hotel in summer of 2010. My sister got locked in the bathroom meanwhile me and my mom got locked out.

  • buurtwinkel means convenience store.

  • I visited Amsterdam and Bruges and a lot of other European places this year with a student ambassador group. I'm watching these videos and saying, "I SAW THAT!" this such excitement that you were where I was and vise versa. But I'm also sad that I never got the chance of such poetic feelings from the places.

    At least I have you to tell me ^_^

  • @PatientxWhatsername Was this called People to People by any chance? I traveled through Europe with them about 8 years ago. (And now I feel old) But I was also watching the video and thinking, wait! I've been on that street.

  • @IceHeart161 It was! ^_^ I went to England, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland.

  • TFiOS REFERENCES. <333

  • Gah, I was in Bruges last summer and it's so weird seeing it again.

  • OMG @2:33 THE REDHEAD WITH THE YELLOW SWEATER IS CUUUUTE!!!!

  • I feel that the thoughts from places that John compiled when he was in Amsterdam and Belgium may have leant to us a tiny peek in to the unpublished "The fault in our stars". I don't know if it's just me being crazy, but I feel like the thoughts shared in this video, are vaguely similar to the ones in the book. (Also talking about the boats in the canals of Amsterdam, full of water but still afloat, which, to be honest, is one of my favourite metaphors ever.)

  • This was the first Vlogbrothers video I ever watched and I still love it :)

  • this video reminds me of an old vlogbrothers video where john brushes his teeth in various strange places.

  • It wouldn't take 100 years to make a toothbrush. Go carve a piece of wood and then glue boars hair onto the brush end . . . it still might take a few years to get all the stuff and do it well, but not 100.

  • 1:48 is a lot like what Hazel said in TFIOS

  • Yes, John, but if we can each remember 14 different dead people... well...

  • Also, "Buurt" means neighborhood.

  • John, it's not a burtwinkle. It's a buurtwinkel. The uu is long.

  • I see a charlieissocoollike super hero shirt in that group of Belgium nerdfighters...

  • I LOVE DA FRIE MUSEUM WHY U NO GO

  • @ziggypwner The "Friet museum" is indeed pretty good :)

  • A little tfios, anyone? The whole part about there were people before us and there will be people after us...?

  • @kmjvt11 Totally. I'm going through the older videos, especially thoughts from places, and trying to gain insight into his mind while writing. John, these videos are the most perfect insight into your mind when writing a book and I love every bit of it.

  • Only those who have seen "In Bruges" can fully appreciate this vid. If you haven't seen it go watch it, now.

  • Burrt means corner

  • @NickRele buurt does not mean corner it means places aroung i know this because i live in amsterdam

  • @samuelvanheijningen Oh, I apologize, sarcasm not intended

  • @samuelvanheijningen Oh, I apologize, sarcasm not intended

  • 0:58 Madame Moustache? What?

  • Man I love Thoughts From Places.

  • Cloning Charlie AND Alex Day shirts. Nerdfigthers in Bruges are cool!

  • holy female hank at 2:22!!

  • @avdav8r after watching 5 or 6 times, I'm still not entirely convinced it's not just Hank in a wig.

  • "let's have another beer... take." YUSS

  • John, I love you... but in the interest of pedantic obsessive nerdism, I must point out: it's pronounced, "bell-FREE", not "bell - FRY"

  • Did no one notice that John was brushing his teeth in public? Where did he spit?

  • I am from Belgium and I have been to Bruges a lot!!! I have been where john was, the restaurants, the park... My grandmother lives near by and I have a lot of friends there. (OMG 2:10 My friends garden on the left!!!!) I enjoyed this video and it reminds me that we live in a small world but, there is one thing he was very wrong about!!!! Nothing is authentic and old in Bruges! It is all either repaired or rebuilt for tourists that think it is old. BTW that girl at 2:22 could be Hank's twin lol.

  • Do you ever tell people in bookstore that you are you? If so, what do they think? Also, how often do you get recognized?

  • @LegendShark That's crazy, you can't just make up history like you can with opinions. Ancient Greece for example was made up of many nation-states and city-states and many of the people had pride in their nation and a feeling of superiority over the people who lived in say, what is now known as Turkey.

    I have read books that are older than the time you said the idea of a nation came about and they mention the nation they were made. You cannot honestly believe what you said.. must be trolling me

  • @rabbitwho Ok, so maybe Ancient Greece, an ancient democracy (though nothing like a modern democracy) may have been an exception, but beyond that there were merely empires. Nobles and Aristocrats were loyal to the empire, but common folk (most people) were just people who happened to be ruled by, say, Austria. They could be taken over by France and not change the way that they live at ALL. It wasn't until the 19th century really that "nationality" was ingrained into average people's lifestyles

  • @LegendShark There are so many exceptions that they aren't exceptions they are the rule. Even the word nation has been in English from 1300, and no, it's not from Greek. I'm know the idea of a nation is older than the word and you can be sure it just replaced another one. The word patriot is from the 1590s. The word country is from around 1250, meaning "distinct, native land". Don't confuse the origin of a word with the origin of an idea though, words for things change a lot.

  • did you know that many of the historic looking buildings in Brugge are in fact not so old at all, considering that Brugge, as alot of the rest of belgium, was bombed flat in WWI...

  • I'm in Bruges atm :3 watching this and saying "JOHN GREEN WAS HERE" :D

  • uw buurtwinkel, love how you pronounce that (: huray for bruges!!

  • Bruges! Love that city. The concept store is awesome. Can't believe I was there just a week after you. Did you see the bread vending machine?

  • Jeez, john has the most beautiful way with words. Truly moving every time.

  • I Was There And Watching This Video Made Me Feel Like I Was Back :L @1:43 I Had Dinner In the Second Resteraunt From The End :L

  • "fracking" BGS references ftw

  • I stayed there just 3weeks after you. I walked through the exact same streets. LOL.

  • This video made me realize that one day, both of you will pass the ability to do great and connect the world using 1s and 0s on to the next generation and they will unto the next. That day will both be a sad day, and a day of rejoice..

  • At 1:44, the second building from the right looks like Grimmauld Place! Well, the windows do, anyway.

  • This is one of my favorite videos of all time. No, not favorite vlogbrothers video - favorite video in general. John, you make me want to see the world. :)

  • Listening to John Green talk like this always inspires me to go write something epic.

    ...

    Alas, I do not have the talent of prose as John does ><

  • "is a fact I just made up" is my new favorite saying.

  • so i'm pretty sure I'll be using, "Human life is ours only in trust" as my senior quote. Thanks, John Green!

  • I was there a few years ago. -sniff- you went by one location that I can clearly remember of me and my grandmother. Thanks for the flashback :)

  • Really enjoyed this TFP

  • That was beautiful, entertaining, and educational - an impressive combination.

  • I keep coming back and watching the video. A little bit because it's insightful and beautiful and it makes me think about life and places an what it means to be a person, but mostly it is for, "What starts with L and rhymes with mistake? ... Let's have another beer... take."

  • Been to Brugge yesterday. Beautifull city!

  • OMG! I just realized you wrote Will Grayson, Will Grayson! It's like my favorite book! I love you!

  • This video made me think, for the first time ever, whether or not, & how, I will be remembered after I die.

  • i was just in brugge and walked by that sam and co and was like JOHN WAS RIGHT THERE!!!!

  • ... You have very buff arms.

  • if hank and katherine had a daughter, it would be girl at 2:22

  • Holy crap it's a female Hank! O.o

  • I paused the video just to say that the girl from 2:22 looks like Hank and was pleased to find a majority had similar thoughts.

  • Craving chocolate now >.< Bruges is amazing. Want to go back there!

  • You are making me want to visit Bruges so bad!

  • Yup, welcome to Europe John. When I lived in England we kind of took it for granted that sometimes the houses we lived in were like over 100 years old.

  • Nice to see that you guys visit some places i know :D

    Bruges is great, best at night.

    Buurt = neighborhood so buurtwinkel is just a store in your neighborhood ;)

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  • 2:22 I thought that was Hank with a wig. I am not kidding.

  • You Americans... Always going "How'd they get it so old!?!?!?"

    Europe's all old. U Jelly?

  • @aliencheesemaker Yes we are jelly.

  • Aaaaaaaand *pause on shower scene*

    *Creepy nerdfighter is creepy.*

    my apologies

  • Thumbs up if you've seen the movie!

    "It's a fuckin' fairytale fuckin' city!"

  • "human life is ours only in trust". I fall in love with you every time you do one of these thoughts from places. Your poetic off-the-cuff rhetoric is astounding.

  • I saw Charlie and Alex t-shirts :)

  • I've been to Bruges, really nice place. 

  • It's so cool that i've been here a month ago and have seen the exact same things :)

  • we do kind of remember their nationalist identities, they were getting dicked on by the Spanish and didn't like it

  • Ooooh they have good chocolate.

  • John come to berlin! I'm germany for 2 months studying abroad and would love it if you had a nerdfighter meetup in here :)

  • Love hearing your thoughts on Bruges! I grew up in the Netherlands and it is hard to go from 24-hour Winco's and the like in the US to stores that are closed on Sundays and are only open until 6PM on a regular day. Glad to hear "buurt" meant toothbrush - Dutch people seem to think it means neighbourhood. Still kind of amazed how you managed to transition from needing a toothbrush to how we'll be remembered as a collective. Great video, funny and thought-provoking.

  • (just in case anyone was wondering and disregarding the fact that it was probably said before on other pages of comments 'buurt' in 'buurtwinkel' 1:08 means 'neighbourhood')

    And for those who feel the idea of owing the dead and the unborn, I'd recommend R.P. Harrison's 'The Dominion of the Dead', it captures precisely that idea in a captivating way. (Just an FYI here, because I liked it)

  • All things (like government issues) aside, Belgian chocolate rocks, which is the chief (and sometimes only) reason I stay here... Like most of the population, btw.

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  • heey wait a second I was a week ago in bruges :0

  • Straw and beeswax? (toothbrush from scratch)

  • @alaricdogface I would probably go with wood and horsehair, the way they make regular brushes. Cleaned, bleached horsehair. And some kind of baking soda mixture for tooth paste.

  • @Eunnette Thanks for the education! Now I need a horse.

  • I just keep thinking of the movie and picturing Brendan Gleeson jumping off of that tower... :L

  • COME TO CANADA PLEASE MAKE IT VANCOUVER OR IN THREE YEARS MONTREAL!

  • I anus u

  • Well said

  • "We ourselves will be remembered as a collective, for what we did and failed to do together."

    this really hit me...

  • I always watch this with my morning dank bowl.

  • I SWEAR I know that girl at 2:22. But I live in Ohio. What. The. Heck.

  • @TheMoocowmoo Which one at 2:22 ? Probably just looks similar. ^_^

  • i love how fascinated Americans get about old buildings and stuff.

    living in England, in the oldest recorded town, with some castle thing i sit under most weekends in the middle of the shopping centre, has clearly removed my excitement for history ;D

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  • I LIVE IN BELGIUM, near Brugge.

  • 400 years older than the idea of gravity... I like that sentence a lot!

    Thank you so much for your thoughtful words! And yes, toothbrushes are extremly cheap! You could have got one cheaper than 2 Euro.

  • 0:15 Why hello Shower John... ;)

  • I like how most of those Nerdfighters were girls.

  • When I grow up I want to live in Burges. I love the idea of history, and I love the idea of living with it. I remember distinctly leaving my old (and favourite) primary school at the end of year four, and thinking that the year six's that year got to leave their mark, but I didn't. It made me sad. But the thing is, the year six's mark was a picture created by weaving coloured plastic bags through a chain-link fence, and I realise now that it was gone by Christmas the next year at the latest.

  • John do you plan on going to England anytime soon? :D

  • you sound a lot like comic book guy from the simpsons when talking about the intricacies of life. which i find strange and funny. 

  • 1:50 there is a store named after me!

    My names Ellie :DD

  • Fact: There are only female nerdfighters in Belgium.

  • @holocrono And how many of the girls you see in an average day turn out to be guys? You might have a problem there, if you can't recognize which ones are guys. :P

  • @holocrono Wrong. :)

  • @holocrono Ahahahahahahahaha.xD

  • @holocrono That is not true. I come from Belgium and even though I am a female nerdfighter and the video consists of a lot of female nerfighters, my brother is also a nerdfighter.

  • Damn I wish MY school looked like that.

  • So if that's what Buurt means, what does Uurnie mean? You can't have one without the other! Maybe it's toothpaste.

  • Did anyone else notice the sign that said "Madame Moustache"? The Belgians are such winners.

  • I love old things. Here in England, they have little towns that have been around since the 1600s, but they have charity shops shoved into what used to be a butcher's shop or maybe a tailor or a wheelwright.

  • so I get annoyed sometimes when the funniest parts of the video are quoted in the top rated comments. On this video however I am gladly surprised that quotations of the video were not there. Instead two comments just as witty as any line from a video were in their place. This made me think how awesome Nerdfighteria is because we don't just go around living through others' funny ideas, with live WITH others and create more funny things to say. It's a much more enjoyable video viewing experience.

  • The girl at 2:22 looks exactly like Hank askdjhfalkdjf

  • @TheLindz2798 oh dear!

  • @TheLindz2798 lol

    

  • @TheLindz2798 So, basically, you're saying Hank looks like a girl. xD Also, you're saying I look like a girl. T_T #disappoint

  • @TheLindz2798 I read this comment thinking "probably some idiot, it wont really look like hank". So I waited patiently for 2:22 and she REALLY DOES LOOK JUST LIKE HANK! I laughed my ass off at how ridiculous that is.

  • hippies >:(

  • I was in Bruges a week ago! I saw the same bookstore with Will Grayson, Will Grayson - by the Markt Square. :D This was great, thanks for sharing.

  • Aaaah, I was in Bruges on Monday, as part of a school trip going to visit the battlefields.

  • Dear John,

    Do you teach classes on Philosophy and/or Literature?

    If not, do you have a clone that does either/both of those things?

  • Disregard currency, acquire toothbrush.

  • 2:22 Is it just me or does hank have a ponytail. O_o

  • @spazzyshortgirl23 Yeah, Hank got his clone to manage the Ning, and the clone let it's hair grow. :P

  • Hehe you said "fracking" like Lobo from the DC Universe.(unless you just said it 'cause you could and that was not a reference....) :D

  • 2:22 Hank lookalike.

  • @Shodex4 So true! Haha it's just eerie.

  • @schweppers Just think, if we could harness her power, we could create an evolved version of Humpy Hank. It could take over the world!

  • @Shodex4 I would appreciate if you would stop calling me female. Unless you're referring to the power my girlfriend has over me. xD

  • @JoinTheMadVender My apologies good sir, it's the hair.

  • I've been there i thought it was so cute and historical, i don't think that the whole world needs to look modern half the modern stuff doesn't look nearly as pretty

  • girl at 2:35 wearing a nerimon t shirt >:D nerdfighters rock! :P

  • I've been in Slovenia, in a small town called Bled. It was a musical Excursion, but I would have loved to find out about the local history there.

  • I was just in Dunster, a mid-evil town in England. And also saw the Magna Carta, in person. I had very much the same thoughts but couldn't have said all of this better than this. So thank you!

  • Been in Bruges the other day... makes me miss it so much :) Great video!

  • "AND THIS IS A DOMINOS"-John Green

    ----I'm not worthy

    \

  • John,

    I think it is your ability to compose these amazing statements that keep bringing me back to your videos. The understanding that life is "ours only in trust" from this video and the realization that the goal of a journey is not adventure or escape but to finally reach home from your video "Baby On the Road;" they just do something to me. Thank you for these videos and I look forward to the next one.

  • if you were in africa you could have used the toothbrush plant. which in market cost about 6 cents. You could also use a branch from the alder tree in north america. This is if you would like to go a little more natural that a branch with hair from a horses tail.

  • Dear John,

    How is it that your words are always so damn beautiful! Your ability to form sentences in awesome ways never stops astounding me.

  • How much planning goes into a "thoughts from places" video? You always sound so put-together :).

  • While watching this, all I could think of was the movie, In Bruges. I now want to visit more than ever, just to go to the bell tower.

  • geez why do you ALWAYS have issues with your toothbrush???? (Yes, I still remember that one time you borrowed someone else's toothbrush [disturbing] and that counts for always because it was super disgusting!)

  • I love Thoughts From Places. All of them. Always.

    <3

  • Totally just freaked that you were in Brugge!! IIII WAS IN BRUGGE LAST WEEK TOO!!! :O :O ...on Saturday >.< I'm from Ireland though, and you should totally come there :D

  • At 2:30 there's a girl with a Cloning Carlie t-shirt! As in charlieissocoollike!

  • Mm, I miss Belgium. Have you tried the sugar waffles yet? Smakelijk!

  • As a history buff, I totally envy you.

  • "It starts with an L and rhymes with mistake... Let's have another beer...take"

    Oh man, I've been there...

  • "AND THIS IS A DOMINOS!"

    <