Antwerp

The two weeks after my last post weren't that interesting, so I'll keep that very short: my boss said goodbye and our new boss is starting tomorrow. We'll just wait and see what happens. The most important and most fun thing that happened was the long weekend Antwerp I planned with Marieke!
She arrived on Wednesday the 30th (Queensday in the Netherlands) and after a nice cup of coffee and cake we had a little walk around Haarlem, enjoying all the live bands playing in all kinds of spots: little squares, alleys, streetcorners etc. Everywhere we went there were all sorts of bands 0r dj's playing. Loads of very cute looking guys as well: Yep, Haarlem is THE place to be on Queensday :D
Thursday early in the morning we left to go to Antwerp! There is a direct train from Amsterdam Central towards Antwerp Central which takes only 2 hours, so that was brilliant. We set off to find our B&B, which was right in the centre of town. The room was ok, but not brilliant. It was really Belgian: there was something wrong with almost everything (chipped mugs with breakfast, curtains falling down when you want to open them, smugges on the sheets etc). Off into town to get a "White Night" at Mockamore, which is a coffee with hot chocolate, whipped cream and white chocolate sprinkles. Do I need to say more? RRRRR
After checking out the "Grote Markt" we went of to see het Steen with "lange wapper" in front of it, near the Schelde, and had a boat trip on the Schelde, to see the city from a different perspective. The weather worsened a bit and there was a huge, dark cloud full of rain heading our way. Fortunately we were dry inside the boat and by the end of the trip the rain was almost over. It made for some nice pictures though ;) . Everybody knows Belgium is famous for its fries, so we had to go to the hotspot of fries in Antwerp: Fritkot Max (with a small museum as well) and have a great bag of fries We also had to do some serious siteseeing, so we walked one of the routes as described in Mariekes' Antwerp book. Impressive was the Sint Carolus Borromeuskerk which is way to big to put in one picture, but this one will give you an impression. Loads of other lovely churches along the route as well, and one really annoying tramp asking for money. Antwerp is nice, but the streets are a bit behind schedule, repairwise, and could do with a bit more care and some paint here and there. Time to head to the B&B, chill out a bit and pick out a restaurant. We ended up in a lovely pizzeria 'Del Sud', which had amazing lasagna! Absolutely a place to go if you're ever in Antwerp. We ended up in Kellys Irish Pub, listening to Akim playing great live music. Around one"ish" we went back to the B&B to have a long sleep.
The next morning the weather was lovely to start with, so we decided to walk another of Mariekes routes, which took us to the Marnixplaats with an huge statue of Neptune, the Palace of Justice, the "Museum voor Schone Kunsten", and to a lovely terrace where we had a cappo at "boerentien" before heading off to the 'Vogeltjesmarkt' to check out the goodies. Nothing worth buying, but nice to have a stroll around. Time for a museum, the Rubenshuis, this time. Wonderfull house, nice art, good company and great weather, what more can a girl ask for :) Ofcourse we had to have something to eat at the famous "wappertien", where the food is nice, but the service crap (so don't go). We did see a famous Belgian: Helmut Lotti. We knew who he was, but it took us more than 12 hours to figure out his name (after a few beers in the pub later that night it finally came to us haha). Antwerp is famous for the "Onze Lieve Vrouwe Kathedraal", where we had a quick glance inside and burned a candle. We walked through the "Vlaykensgang" a lovely little oasis in the centre of Antwerp and after a busy day went back to the B&B to relax a bit. Our B&B had little blackboards besides the rooms and our downstairs neighbours (2 guys) made a habit of leaving us all sorts of notes on ours (and ofcourse we had to reply to those). Lots of fun :)
In the evening we went to Désiré de Lille for a lovely pancake and headed to 'het elfde gebod', a pub full of statues of holy people (Jezus, Maria, the apostels etc) just to get some great pictures haha. Again we ended up in an Irish Pub, this time the Irish Times Pub, where we chatted all evening with Ed and Janco from the Netherlands and enjoyed another live singer.
Saturday we had another busy schedule planned, but ended up taking it a bit slower because of the lovely weather. We went to the Begijnhof, walked through the Jewish neighbourhood and back through the citypark and the botanical garden towards the city centre for a nice pizza at Da Giovanni and a bit of shopping later on. Back to chill the rest of the afternoon in the B&B. In the evening we had some dinner at "The Celtic Ireland" pub (yes another Irish Pub) and spent the rest of the evening in The Irish Times pub where they had another live singer on. Yes, the Irish pubs kinda ended up being a big part of our trip hehe. Another great night, where we chatted to a group of guys on their 'vrijgezellenavond' and headed home early (around 12.30). Sunday was time to pack, check out, have a last cappuchino at The Bistro and off with the train to go home.... What a great weekend! Certainly worth repeating :D
Today was a lazy day, doing some laundry, hanging a bit etc and tomorrow off to work again.