(Tuesday, May 24th, 2016)
We are in Antwerp, Belgium for the next couple of days. This is my penultimate stop, and the last port that I will exit on board a freighter ship. It has been a long voyage. I’ll probably say that again in the next couple of posts!
The voyage into Antwerp was rainy and windy and cold, so we were out on deck taking pictures for short periods, then scurrying back in to our cozy cabins and looking out portholes for the next photo op. Along the way were some small towns, some beaches, and a resort town, then a gap with only green small hills, and then the bustle of Antwerp Port. We went through a lock to get to Antwerp. I have some photos through a porthole, but it was late at night and I didn’t go up on deck to seek better pictures. We berthed after midnight. Our schedule has us leaving at night as well, so I don’t expect great pictures on the way out.
Antwerp is also a huge port. I didn’t see that as much on the way in, because it was dark and was also the middle of the night so I didn’t get out of bed for it. But when we went to immigration in the taxi, on our way into town, we saw signs for so many ports. We were in docks 468 and 470 (our ship is long, tee hee). There were signs to docks numbering to 2000. Oh my. We traveled over several small drawbridges, the roadways and channels intertwining in the port.
Yesterday, our first full day in port, I went into old town Antwerp and walked around, mostly for the entire day. It was drizzly and a bit chilly but not so much as to prevent walking. For us Americans, the “old town” of these ancient European cities include still-in-use buildings that predate our entire history, so “old” really means old.
Since I knew that I was going back to the ship via taxi, I walked wherever I wanted, never consulting a map, since I knew that after I got lost (it isn’t an “if”, it’s a “when”, I know me) I could catch a cab back to the ship. So I wandered, taking pictures of whatever seemed interesting. I did get lost, and walked into a nearby restaurant for a nice dinner and some very nice, compared to the box wine on board, California wine. Tee hee!
The only trouble with this “technique” is that I cannot report where I was or what, exactly, I saw. Some days this concerns me, but yesterday it didn’t. I just walked and snapped. Quite satisfying.
There was one square, and a tall cathedral, that was more of a focal point than some others. Several streets meandered away from this square, maybe five or six at least. All of these streets were narrow, many of them restricted to pedestrian and bicycle traffic only, and all of them paved with cobblestones. The cobblestone streets and rail tracks help me to understand the big wheels and fat tires of the typical sit-up Belgian bicycles. There were shops all around, and some restaurants that claimed to be hundreds of years old. Pretty cool.
I imagine that it is true for most European cities, but maybe more so here, that “ordinary folk” are extremely (at least to Americans) multi-lingual. I was warming up with a latte in a coffee shop, and my server, and her helper, spoke clear American English to me almost without accent, French to the next guy in line, Flemish (I assume) to a boyfriend of one of them who came by to chat, and German to a group of ladies deciding about pastries. In each case the talk was fast, not halting, and so I assume that they were as smooth with the others as they were with me. They switched languages as if there were no switch occuring, as if it were all the same language. That’s so cool. I understood maybe two or three German words and maybe, maybe, four French words. And I am giving myself credit for “Hello”.
It is also true, at least it seems that way in my limited exposure, that more young people in Europe smoke than in the US. That’s not so cool.
Again, I took some photos of small cars I want to see imported to the US. Or, better yet, to be designed and manufactured by US automakers. Ford still makes good profit building F-150s at the Rouge plant near Detroit. I took a plant tour there last year after a volleyball tournament. So why not great little cars, not just cheap little cars? Alfa-Romeo gets good money for their great little cars. I believe there’s a market. A teensy soapbox moment there.
We are in Antwerp until tomorrow evening, so I might go out and about again, and might add to this post or to photos. Or maybe I will leave it as is. Tonight I expect to be at the Seamen’s center, with WiFi, so I’ll post this post much closer to its original date.
I updated my progress map. Look in “cooked” for “Progress Map”. There’s only one dashed line left. I hope we pass Gibraltar in daytime!