Antwerpen, Belgium

The last weekend of October we went to Antwerp, Belgium!  The country of Belgium is split in half, with the French-speaking part of the country in the south and the Dutch-speaking part of the country in the north.  Antwerp is in the northern Flemish region of Belgium, which means that everyone speaks Dutch there.  Fortunately for us, virtually everyone speaks at least conversational English as well, so it wasn't hard to get around.  Actually, we were told that we were better off speaking English than French, even though French and Dutch are the national languages: there's a lot of tension between the two regions of the country, and speaking French could have gotten us a negative response from the locals.

Antwerp was first named in the 4th century and is famous for being a major port city, the home of 17th-century Flemish painter Peter Paul Rubens, and the diamond capital of the world--80 percent of the world's rough diamonds and 50 percent of cut diamonds go through the 1 square kilometer of the city's diamond district!  Beth, Xavier, and I left for Antwerp in the wee dark hours of Saturday morning.  We took the Eurostar train to Brussels (I got to go through the Chunnel!), where we met up with Josh, who was in Brussels for business.  After that it was just a quick commuter train to Antwerp.  

Dupuy family in the beautiful Antwerp train station

When we arrived, we took a wander around the city, stopping for some famous Belgian fries.  It's popular in Belgium to eat your fries with different sauces, so we got ours with peanut sauce, which was quite delicious!  Then we took a ride in a cool old-fashioned beer cart that had been turned into a carriage to tour the old part of the city (I don't think we went beyond a half-mile radius for the whole 45-minute trip).  For lunch we went to a funky restaurant called Elfde Gebod (the 11th Commandment).  The walls were covered in religious statues and paraphernalia, and the windows had quirky painted-on stained glass.  It was a really cool place, and we were having a grand old time enjoying our strong Belgian beers and appetizer as we waited longer and longer for our meal...finally, after waiting for probably 45 minutes and watching a couple other tables arrive, eat, and leave, we flagged down our waitress, who had disappeared while we were waiting.  Earlier, when she had brought us our drinks, she told us to remind her, when she brought out the appetizer, to put in the order for our entree, otherwise "she might forget."  As we waited we thought, surely she didn't actually forget to put our order in, especially since we did indeed remind her.  Well, we finally get her attention and ask her where our food is, and she gives us some lame excuse about the "computer being full"and our order not making it to the kitchen.  So basically, we didn't get our meal because she forgot to put our order in.  By that point we were really hungry, so we left and went to get some food at our hotel.  Little did we know that this was only the beginning of our bad luck with restaurants for the rest of the weekend, although we didn't have any other experiences that bad.  Basically, if you go to Antwerp, don't expect to get reasonably fast service anywhere you eat!  

The beer cart that took us on our tour of the city

The Elfde Gebod: cool restaurant with unfortunate service

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the charming streets of Antwerp and window shopping.  The next day, Sunday, we visited Rubenshuis--the house where the artist Rubens lived and worked--the Antwerp Zoo, and the Cathedral of Our Lady.  We even got Belgian waffles from a street vendor for lunch! (It seemed like a safer option than another slow-serviced restaurant.)  We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering the quaint and charming streets and enjoying some more Belgian beer.  I was surprised that I didn't see more Halloween revelers over the course of the weekend, but it just really isn't celebrated much here.  However, All Saints Day is a big day, at least in Belgium, and none of the shops were going to open when we left Antwerp early Monday morning.  All in all, it was a lovely weekend abroad in a very cool, very European city!

Rubenshuis, house of Peter Paul Rubens

Cathedral of Our Lady (Onze Lieve Vrouwekathedraal)

Antwerp Zoo