Gone Antwerpen

With a little under 500,000 people, Antwerp is comparable in size to, say, a Minneapolis, but you wouldn’t guess it from walking the streets. Antwerp has a way of looking bigger than it is, with dense rows of four, five, or six-story buildings lining the streets, cyclists zipping every which way, and a tram and cable car network. Not to belabor the oft-mentioned absence of what was once a comprehensive transit network in the metro area of the Twin Cities, MN, but I could easily see Minneapolis, in a parallel universe, being very much like an Antwerp: cable cars, bikes, a downtown built on a river.

Antwerp is on the Scheldt River, which flows into the North Sea. Antwerp has a long history of maritime trade; it is, in fact, the second-largest sea port in Europe. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a bridge over the river anywhere near the city. To get to the other side from downtown, commuters on bikes and on feet go down two escalators, traveling 31 meters below sea level, and span the river via an underground, under-river tunnel. From the other side, two escalators up, you see the city’s beautiful waterfront: the new art museum, the seaport, and the cathedral.

I should mention that, most likely, we wouldn’t have discovered the tunnel, as well as many, many other sights in Antwerp, had it not been for our fantastic tour guide, and friend, Hans-Christian. While Karina and I are having a great time seeing the sights and experiencing a bit of each destination, there are times we miss home, and, most of all, the people at home. It’s been about three weeks since we arrived as I write this, which isn’t a long time by most standards, but we’re definitely feeling the distance from our loved ones and friends. It’s not only that we haven’t seen any familiar faces in three weeks; it’s also that we can’t possibly see anyone familiar, mostly on account that we’re thousands of miles away. We can’t just pick up the phone and invite someone over for a drink, dinner, or a game of cribbage, and we’re missing that. So when the front desk of our hotel delivered us a note from our Belgian-born, honorary Minneapolitan friend, Hans-Christian (HC for short), we were elated. We’ve gotten to know Hans-Christian over the years through our mutual friend Kevin. He’s awesome, and we were fortunate enough to be able to get together with him during our time in Antwerp. What’s more, he knows and loves his city in a way a Minnesotan can understand.

When we finally met up, after a game of international phone tag, we hadn’t eaten yet, so he led us to a delicious falafel/pita place by an art museum. This being Belgium, there was also beer involved. We dined on the patio – Belgians love their patios, and realize a beautiful night when they see one – and had one or two…or three more beers (when in Belgium…) with HC and another friend of his.

Over beer, we discussed what we coined the “Married with Children Effect.” Before leaving the hotel, I had casually turned on the TV to have something playing in the background while we got ready. What did I find? Married with Children (heretofore referred to as MwC). Personally, while I’m not a fan of the show myself, I’m generally okay with MwC being included in the canon of long-running American sit-coms. That said, I’m not sure if I’m okay with the show being played overseas, and thus serving as a representative of sorts of American culture to Belgians. Yes, there probably is a certain percentage of slobby, crude, lower-middle class Americans in shoe sales who enjoy resting their respective hands in their pants and occasionally frequenting the Nudey Bar, and the representation of this small sect of American society could well be portrayed fairly here. But is it fair – or at all wise – for this program to be exported out of the US?

Traveling thus far through Interlaken, Strasbourg, Paris, Bruges, and now Antwerp, one thing that’s clear is that a prominent export of America is its media: in our hostel in Bruges, contemporary American bands dominated the pub’s playlist – the Dead Weather, MGMT, LCD Soundsystem; posters for Hollywood movies are prevalent at bus stops, subways, and sides of buildings; Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” is rocking a small Parisian convenience store. Because of our massive media export, Europe knows a lot about America, but, beyond Monty Python and Amelie, America knows little through European media. Before I met HC, I hadn’t even heard of Antwerp, but, thanks to the MwC Effect, Antwerp knows what the American living room looks like – or at least a version of the American living room. Even HC, who professes to not watch much television at all, knew each of the characters, even Marcy, the neighbor. For better or worse, Al Bundy is our de facto ambassador to Antwerp. The MwC Effect.

On our second day in Antwerp, HC took us to one of his favorite buildings in the city: The Cathedral of Our Lady. Having been to a handful of old churches and cathedrals on this trip and my previous trip to Europe, I can say that I lose some enthusiasm about visiting old church after old church as the trip goes on. This is mostly because, in many church sights, you walk in, look around, take some pictures, and then leave with no context of what you just saw. Maybe – just maybe – there will be a laminated piece of literature with some scant information about the church, and, okay, maybe you can take a glimpse of some of Christ’s blood. Not the case here in Antwerp. We were very appreciative to have a free guide with us to further explain the context: some history about the guilds, the tombstones, and the paintings. The Cathedral was showcasing several paintings by Paul Rubens (not to be confused with Paul Reubens). We came away with an appreciation for both the dramatic artwork as well as the impressive architecture of the building itself.

Good beer is about as easy to come across in Belgium as water, and you can’t beat the price. One place in particular, I would suggest, is a must-see in Antwerp for appreciators of beer. The Kulminator is a bar, I guess, as much as all they serve there is beer. Though to call it a bar doesn’t seem fair somehow. It’s not a place to kick one back after, I don’t know, staining your deck or something. No Heineken here. It’s a place to peruse a several-page menu of beers from some of the finest breweries in Belgium, many of them Trappist, and many of them aged several years. If we were still not satisfied with the several-page three-ring binder of very reasonably priced beers, which included my selection, a five-year-old Orval for 4.50 Euros (which was, as the beer gods would have it, bottled on the exact date of my birthday five years ago), there was a separate menu of relatively expensive beers bottled only in the hundreds. Mythology has it that the fellow who owns the bar obtains – or culminates, as it were – by driving from monastery to monastery, buying as much as is allowed by one person, or what will fit in his car. I plunked down 10 Euros for such a beer, a decision I would make again. The Ma & Pa operation is cozy, comfortable, and the conversations around us always came back to beer.

Our last day got rainy, so we took the opportunity of the not-so-great weather to actually do our laundry in an actual machine, rather than the sink of our hotel room (see: Paris). Laundromats in Europe, you might be interested, are exactly like laundromats in America, only, of course, the washers spin more delicately so as to not tear any fine European garments. (That’s not true, but I thought I needed more to say about the laundromat.)

With one day left in Antwerp, we decided that we should finally do a picnic. That’s in the next post, and there’s a special guest! I won’t spoil the surprise, but let’s just say his name rhymes with Fonz Fishtin.