Border

Once again, I find myself in the country of Belgium- and what a glorious country it is! I woke up late this morning, having wanted to sleep in at least once on this trip, got breakfast, and then took the long way to the train station, soaking up my final views of Amsterdam. After finding a train that stopped at Antwerp, I got on and said goodbye to the Netherlands!

Antwerp is a small town near the border with the Netherlands and is the home to the second largest port in Europe- the first is Rotterdam in the Netherlands, only miles away. With the population of nearly half a million, this is no small town. I arrived in the central station, which is one of the most beautiful stations I have seen on this trip, since it had tons of marble and high vaulted ceilings.

Unfortunately my guidebook did not have a map of Antwerp, so I stumbled about the city looking for my hostel. After consulting the public maps on the sides of the streets, I got my bearings and checked in. While preparing to go out into the city I met two of my 8 room mates, who are from British Columbia.

Antwerp doesn't have too many big sights to see, so I wandered around, seeing all the chic shops lining the streets with their previews of the coming season. One interesting thing that did see was a bicycle race going through the city, and it looked like the contestants were in father/son teams, with the fathers on motorized bikes and the kids on normal ones. I wish I knew the reasoning behind that logic...

I did see the city's maritime museum, where they had a special exhibit on the Red Star Line, one of the major passenger ship routes from Europe to NYC in the early 20th century. Pretty interesting stuff. Also, they had a shipyard with various types of boats on display. When they closed for the day, I continued my prolonged wanderings and got to see more of the city. As you can probably tell, I am happy that I am leaving to Bruges tomorrow, since there really isn't that much to see here. Oh well.

I'll be heading home in two days! Ah!