This begins a series of posts detailing my forays into the Benelux region – over what seems live a lifetime, but really only constitutes 6 days. I traveled overland (not getting back on the ship) from Belgium to the Netherlands to France. The trek took a lot out of me, but it probably was my favorite and most eventful port yet. Thus I am breaking it up by country again.
** also apologies for the lateness – ship wifi did not work at all in Ireland
The highlights (of Belgium):
Day 1 – September 14th: surviving the apocalypse and ending up in Antwerp, Belgian delicacies, mystical alleyway, turn up on a Sunday at a karaoke bar and a gay bar
Day 2 – September 15th: field lab to Brussels for Global Security – waffles round two and a visit to NATO, getting lost at McDonalds on the border of Belgium and Netherlands
Day 3-5: Amsterdam – next post!
The details:
Day 1:
Another port, another early morning. I met with a small crew of friends at 9:00am to explore Antwerp, our port city and one of the biggest cities in Belgium. Our plan constituted of searching for Waffles, Chocolates, and Beer – preferably in that order. To our dismay, however, the people of Belgium do not rouse from their post-Saturday night stupor until much after 11:30 or 12:00 – we even saw a club that contained a few people still on the last leg of their nights out around 9:30.
We were walking around an entire city essentially devoid of all life, except for small hoards of Semester at Sea students. It was quite an eerily and disorienting experience. We felt as if the world had ended and the only living survivors were SAS kids.
It took a while, but eventually we found the only waffle shop in all of Antwerp that opened before 11:00am, Désiré de Lille, along with every other person from the MV – and we ordered.. take a guess? Some Belgian Waffles.
As you can see, mine was absolutely amazing. Belgian waffles are a bit crunchier than American ones, so at first I did not think I enjoyed it, but after the second bite I was hooked and about 2 seconds later I had cleaned my plate ☺
Then we set off to explore the city- that Sunday was a carless Sunday – literally no cars were allowed in the city. It happens once a year in Antwerp and we lucked out to arrive on that day. We saw tons of festival booths being set up promoting bike riding and being green. We also stopped in for a bit of Dutch mass in the main cathedral. Unfortunately, we neglected to realize the service would be entirely incomprehensible to us, until we sat down, but luckily we were not too far up and could sneak out quietly.
After, we wandered around until we found the oldest house in Antwerp, called Vlaaikensgang. (your guess about pronunciation is as good as mine here). A few Belgian students that visited the ship had told us about it beforehand and typed the name in my phone. From the outside, it just seemed like any old alleyway, but inside it was astounding.
Of course, the next stop on our self-led city tour was chocolate shops. We visited several, before all buying lots of truffles. I’ll just say, Belgian chocolate really lived up to its reputation.
Fun Fact of the day: Antwerp is named after the myth of a giant who used to cut off the hands of people who could not pay to enter and throw them in the ocean. Ant means hand and werp apparently means throw or throwing. So, of course we bought some Antwerp chocolate hands as well.
Then, we then stumbled upon antique market
We tooled around before our stomachs began to gnaw, so we decided to break for some Sushi, for a change of pace. Yes, I know, Belgian Sushi? Sketchy. But actually it was not at all. I finally satisfied my craving for sushi – which was quite big, being I previously lived in Los Angeles, home to some of the best sushi ever. I am here to say, Belgian Sushi is just as good as any I’ve had before.
We found the day of no cars festival had finally begun and people were cleaning bikes in one of the coolest ways I had ever seen
After that, we tired of being tourists and decided to go local – aka start drinking beer. We stopped at a small pub right outside the festival in one of the main squares. We tried a couple of beers as a group and unsurprisingly enjoyed them all. Here is a shot of my friends at the bar ☺
Then here are the beers:
Some cherry one – Lindemans
Triple Karmeliet
And lastly De Koninck
If you ever go to Belgium, I’d recommend all three. After a few beers, we all realized how long of a day it had been thus far and headed back to the ship for a quick rest before taking off for the night.
Leave it to hundreds of semester at sea kids to figure out exactly how to have a rowdy night in a random port town on a Sunday. I believe the owners of the only open bars – a Karaoke Bar and a Gay Bar – were pleasantly surprised or abhorred with the amount of business they received that evening. I called it an early night though because I had a field lab the next day.
Day 2:
Meet my class at 9:30 with all my stuff for overland travel. I’m sure I looked a bit odd in business casual and a backpacking bag on my back. We took off for Brussels on the tour bus and everyone almost immediately passed out. Our tour guide led us around the city, seeing their huge statue tribute to atomic energy – back when it was viewed more positively I think and a ton of beautiful architecture.
As we were walking, we passed a restaurant called Drug Opera. Everyone had a bit of a chuckle about the name, until our guide led the group right up to it – apparently we were eating lunch at the Drug Opera. To this day, I have absolutely no idea why it is called that. But I swear it really is:
Lunch was, of course, waffles.
Then we headed to NATO, where we got to listen to two amazing speakers discuss the recent Wales Summit and the Russia/Ukraine conflict. I’d tell you what we learned, but then I’d have to kill you… well, not really, but you’d probably be a bit bored. I myself was completely overjoyed and enthralled.
By the end of the lab, a few other students and I checked out from the bus back to Antwerp and detoured to the Brussels train station to catch our various rides to Amsterdam. We are now allowed to check out of field labs at the end, and not ride the bus back to the ship, so that was essentially a free trip to Brussels, which worked out perfectly for my bus to the Netherlands.
I met my friend Bryce at the train station and we hopped on a eurolines bus to Amsterdam. About halfway there, we made a pit stop at a gas station and the driver informed us we had 15 minutes. Bryce and I, absolutely famished as we both had been in Field Labs all day, stopped at the McDonalds right by the gas station to grab dinner. Unfortunately fast food isn’t so fast in Europe because apparently it took longer than 15 minutes. To our dismay, we walked outside, chicken tenders and smoothies in hand, to an empty parking lot.
Immediately, we turned to each other, too shocked to be angry, and both uttered some form of expletive. Then we started thinking about plan B.
The situation: we were stuck at a McDonalds in maybe the Netherlands, maybe Belgium, with around 40 euro on us. I had my passport. We both had our phones. And we had chicken tenders. Location:
The obvious conclusion was: head to the nearest bar and start drinking. Just kidding! First, Bryce drew the word ‘Amsterdam?’ on a sign. We sat outside the station, hoping someone would be heading in that direction.
Then, I pulled out my phone and started looking up the emergency number for our bus company – thank you so much mom and dad for giving me an international phone plan! I called the number and got through immediately.
I went, “So, a friend and I are traveling from Brussels to Amsterdam and we just got left by our bus.” The operator barked a laugh and replied knowingly, “The McDonalds.” Apparently we were not the first to have made this mistake, and undoubtedly we will not be the last.
Luckily, another bus was headed our way in an hour and the other driver could hold our bags at the station in Amsterdam for us. Here is where our new SAS motto comes in to play: IT ALL WORKS OUT. Really, it does. Anyway, we mulled our “misfortune” out over a few beers and caught the next bus to Amsterdam, where our bags were waiting for us at the station and our friends were waiting at the hostel.
I just need to reiterate: it all works out. Throughout all of our travels, in some bizarre way or other, everything always works out okay. Time and time again, we think the worst has happened, but we all go back to our motto: it all works out, and it does. Try it sometime. Positive thinking really does work.
On to Amsterdam… To Be Continued!
paige gets around [the world] 