Antwerp, Belgium

This week, my friend Julie had a friend visiting. It is mid-term week at school and I had only one mid-term, so all my other classes were cancelled. Julie, Jessi, and I took the train to Antwerp, Belgium for an overnight trip, just to visit and check it out.

Antwerp was a very nice city, very clean, and NO tourists. Walking to our hostel, we kept passing tons of people dressed in traditional, Orthodox Jewish apparel, so I can only assume we were staying in some type of Jewish neighborhood. Our hostel was in an extremely old building. The smell was atrocious; it smelled like an old house that had never been cleaned or renovated, mixed with cigarette smoke. Luckily, we were only there to sleep and did not have to spend any time there. We were sharing a room with four other girls, so the accommodation was not ideal.

We arrived around 7 pm, went to dinner, then out to a small bar with a live jazz band. There wasn’t much night life since it was Tuesday, but the band was good and we were able to go to bed early so we could spend the next day exploring.

On Wednesday, the weather was cloudy, but luckily the rain held off until the evening. First, we set out to find the beach. Antwerp is bordered by a river and there was supposedly a beach that you could visit. To get to the beach, we had to cross the river. Instead of a bridge, Antwerp has a tunnel 32 meters underground to accommodate pedestrians across the river. It was really cool to walk through, the escalators are ancient and wooden and you feel like you are going down forever. When we finally arrived at the “beach” it was about two meters wide and you could not even walk on it. Basically, we walked about 45 minutes to see nothing, but we got to experience the tunnel and get some good views of the city.

Antwerp has a lot of historical buildings, castles, a fortress, and is very pretty-I will try to put pictures up soon. We spent the rest of our day walking the city, shopping, and exploring. I did eat a Belgian waffle which was delicious, but we did not get any chocolate. Much to our surprise, chocolate was very hard to find. When we asked a local where a good chocolate shop was, she suggested we try Godiva.

It was a very quick, short trip, but we all had a good time and I got to put another star on my map!!

As school is picking up and funds are dwindling, my travels are probably going to become more sporadic. Currently, I am looking forward to my parents’ visit for Easter and our trip to Paris. For May break, we just booked a trip to the Canary Islands, off the coast of Morocco. At the end, I am planning Spain, Southern France, and Italy. Stay tuned!