Europe Equals Adventure: Signs of the Apocalypse in Antwerp

November 9th--First order of the day in Antwerp was a city center tour with Alex after breakfast.

The weather had cleared after the storm at night, and the sky was a clear, if chilly, blue.

While Antwerp is on the small side, there are some cool buildings and sights to see. One of the most impressive was a former gala and party hall that burned down in 2000 in an electrical fire. It reopened a week ago as an ultra-chic shopping center with bars in the middle.

It had all the evident wealth of Western Europe mixed with that sleek Scandanavian design style, but there was no way I was even looking at the menu at that bar.

Then, in a theme that would continue for the rest of the day, it started hailing. Alex and I retreated to a small coffeeshop for a hot chocolate, whereupon it promptly stopped hailing. Blue skies again. We met up with Ward and continued through Antwerp, moving towards the dramatic central cathedral.

Ward and Alex

Showing off a bit more of the gothic, this was placed front and center at the foot of the cathedral:

Then it started hailing again in earnest, and we ducked into a store to do some shopping. I had to pick up an alarm clock and some batteries, because I'd soon be moving away from places where people would be there to wake me up.

After the hail stopped again, we moved towards the river and and a small castle on the bank.

To get to the castle, we had to climb over a smal wall with a stepladder because a big orange gate had been raised on account of the possible flooding. From what Ward said, there is an immense counter-flooding system across Belgium and the Netherlands.

As we walked around the uneventful castle, the light changed and allowed for some cool, surreal looking pictures. The sky on one side was clear and blue, and moody and dark on the other.

In fact, the colors really reminded me of the old Dutch sea-storm paintings, as I was able to capture once we crossed the river via underground tunnel.

After a fantastic late lunch at a small sandwich place, Ward left for a job interview and me and Alex continued looking around town and doing some more shopping. We met up with Ward again and went to catch the bus to his family's home in the suburbs for dinner.

Ward lives north of Antwerp, literally in sight of the border with the Netherlands. His house was used as a hospital in World War II, with there being records of 2 babies being born there during that time.

The meal was great, a beef stew with potatoes and vegetables on the side, and while we were eating I had a conversation with Ward's father, the equivlalent of the mayor of their town. Our subject was something I hadn't heard a word of in America, but had begun to be aware of while in Belgium.

Belgium is divided between the Flemish (Dutch) speakers in the north and the French speakers in the south, and not always amicably. Because of the tricky balance in the national government (one of six separate governments in the country) between the two languages and between economic issues, problems can arise. For the last 150 days, Belgium has had no government. The elections took place, but no one could agree on the outcome. Now, as the municipal governments and systems make sure the country continues to function, Belgian politicians are fiercely divided, making it possible that the country will split.

While it wouldn't be a civil war, and the actual changes would probably be largely official rather than practical, Belgium might not exist soon. People, including Ward's father, are downplaying that possibility because of the beauracratic headaches involved, but the fact that it's even being mentioned in national debate as a possibility is fascinating.

Then came the hot chocolate experience. You haven't had hot chocolate till you've dipped Belgian dark chocolate on a stick into hot milk till it dissolves.

After dinner it was time for a tour around the harbor with Ward, Alex, and Ward's sister. Unbeknownst to me, Antwerp's harbor is one of the biggest in the world, and second only to Houston in oil production. Hacing displaced several whole towns during its expansion in the 60s, the harbor now stretches for miles and miles along the coast, as well as extending miles inland. Approaching the first area felt like coming into some alien world, with blueish lights defining city-like structures as gas vents shot fire into the sky.

Also, there are still churches dotted around the harbor, relics of the towns that surrounded them. Since the refineries were built on raised ground in case of flooding, we came upon a church in a hole 10 feet deep. Abandoned and overgrown, it looked like the setting of a horror movie. I did the best I could with my timer function.

Eventually we came back to Ward's house and then caught the bus into a house party in another part of Antwerp. It was a birthday party for one of Ward's friends, and we stayed until around 1:30, me trying to add as much as I could to conversations mostly in Dutch (except for when they spoke their excellent English).

The last part of the night was perhaps the most anticipated, as Ward and I had been discussing it all day. A 15-story building close to his apartment has been undergoing complete renovations, and we wanted to climb it.

I won't go into all the specifics, but we didn't do anything damaging or scandalously illegal, just mildly dangerous. And the view of Antwerp that we got on the top was unparalled.