so weit die Meldungen

As far as diamonds go, I still wouldn't have a clue about Antwerp, however I cam impart some knowledge about Antwerp's night life its pulse. Many moons ago I arrived in Antwerp Centraal station by rail. As with most train stations around Europe, they're placed right in the heart of the red light district. I guess every train traveller is supposed to be needing a release of some sort after a hard journey on the caboose.

The hostel I had booked was in Pilgrem's Straadt, but after several passes along the length of the short street, my best guess as to where it was located was a bar; couldn't be... Sure enough, after ringing the telephone number, the burly bar owner told me that I had the right place. I was greeted with what I can only describe as a cross between Young Einstein (the guy who put bubbles in beer) and a more pudgy version of Lurch from the Adams family. With several grunts to answer my questions, he parted a heavy curtain and let me out the back and up some creaky stairs to my room.

"Be back before 3am otherwise the front door will be locked, since the bar closes then", he told me.
"No worries" I replied.

I made several trips around the area, but at 11pm, there wasn't much in the way of food open. I made my way to a pizzeria and chowed down on a tasty 15cm before heading to as close a local bar as I could find. I wandered in to the pub and ordered a Hoegaarden straight away. Hoegaarden is like ambrosia to me, since Germany imports very little in the way of beers, so whenever I can, I always order Dutch or Belgian beer when I was overseas. I met one of the local lads there, and after a few rounds, we wandered on to a local bar which was one of his favourites. I wasn't able to match his enthusiasm since a rawdy sailors bar (Antwerp being one of Europe's major shipping ports) wasn't my idea of a good time. Besides, it was nearing three and I'd prefer not to have spent a night in the streets of a Flemish town. I got up the next morning after having spent a couple of hours in the bar listening to a gay Irish fiddler sing some odes to ole bonnie Ireland.

The next day, the bar was deserted and the other guests were just wanding in behind the bar and out the back grabbing various supplies for the "all inclusive breakfast". It wasn't like they were getting in to anything they weren't supposed to, but it was odd to see the guy opening his place out to his guests in such a very informal manner. Perhaps he was able to look in to our eyes and see that we all had good hearts - just like Donald Rumsfeld. I met Emile later in the morning and we spent the day wandering around the city doing shopping and having breakfasts (I think we were up to three by the end of the day). In between the breakfasts, we helped ourselves to Belgian waffles and Belgiam chocolate (usually at the same time). Very tasty. The shopping in Antwerp was really fantastic (didn't spot any diamonds though). It seemed like there were no locals around, since everyone was doing the same thing as us - spending our disposible (or Visa's) money.

That night we had relatively early ones since we both had benders the previous night. The next day, as with most European cities (except for Amsterdam) the city was deader than Elvis. So dead in fact that we tried to resort to movies, but the only one that had a showing that was suitable for us was a German movie (der Untergang) with French and Flemish subitles. We would have needed a lot of entropy to go through with it, so we both left Antwerp early. I headed to Brussels for a hour of soaking up the EU captial and Emile headed back to Amsterdam via Brudge. Surprisingly a lot of Brussels was open, but I didn't have much inclination to stay there long - quite touristy and a bit dirty - as dirty as I found Paris, so I think it's a French thing myself (since most of Brussels is French-speaking). I caught a quick cappuccino and boosted to the train station with perhaps with 5 minutes to spare before the ICE (inter city express) left to Frankfurt.

The trip back was a bit of a laugh. The train lost about 50% of its traction on the way back, so we had to cross over to another ICE, which was pretty full anyway so for the next hour I was standing between two carriages, feeling like a washing machine agitator. Luckily I had some conversation to keep me interested - a couple of German students coming back from a bit of a hui in Brussels.

Now I'm still three weeks behind after this update... so next weekend is Jaharmes and Mouse coming to Frankfurt. Right now I'm hoping that I don't miss checking in to my flight from OSlo to the 'furt. Expensive beer up here in Scandanavia.