An Afternoon in Antwerp

Spent a lovely afternoon in Antwerp (about 2 hours north-west of  Liege and Europe's second biggest port after Rotterdam) yesterday with Winand, a  friendly colleague from school, and Greet his girlfriend. G was brought up in Antwerp and W had spent a lot of time there so I was lucky to be there with two experts - much nicer than a guidebook.

The Cathedral from the Grote Markt

 We had a good look at the enormous Cathedral of Our Lady which is delicately embellished with latttice work, a smaller baroque church built by the Jesuits, and the world's first Stock Exchange! Also interesting was the Butchers' Guild House or  union building which is built of a combination of reddish-pink bricks and white mortar which gives the building the appearance of streaky bacon. The Flemish of the past were obviously  not without a sense of humour!

The first Stock Exchange - the birthplace of Capitalism?

The streaky bacon building!

 We soaked up the atmosphere walking the cobblestoned streets admiring the narrow, multi-storied houses with their staircase tops and and other more intimate alleyways where the less wealthy lived. We enjoyed a hot choc in the Grote Markt where we could admire the statue of the characters from the legend from which Antwerp gets his name. Evidently, Antwerp comes from Dutch words meaning 'hand throwing'. Apparently there was a giant who controlled the large river Scheldt and used to extract a toll from people who passed by. If they refused, he used to cut off one of their hands and throw it into the river. One day a hero called Brabo slayed the  Giant, cut off his  hand and threw it into the river: hand (hand!) werpen (throwing) became Antwerpen.

The hand thrower!

Walking beside the large river was almost as good as being at beach. Although it was a liitle chilly, the sky was blue and I thought that I could smell the sea, but was told the sea was at least 30 k away. We left Antwerp as the sun was setting - the first time I have seen a sunset in weeks. I was happy in mind and stomach having supped on gluhwein and eaten apple pie and cherry waffles at a cafe in the. Delicious!

The guild houses in the Grote Markt

More step houses!

Later, we arrived at W and G's house near Landen. We were greeted by 2 rather boisterous but aimiable dogs (some sort of foxy cross). It was dark but I put on the proffered gumboots to go out the back to feed the ponies - two wee Shetlands. I  had a tour of the house which was originally very small and mostly made up of stables but which had been almost totally  rebuilt inside by W. Impressive! Dinner - spaghetti bolognaise and a glass of red wine -   reminded me of a hearty NZ dinner - tasty and relaxed. A great day!

CCCCCCCCCold!

As I noted in a previous post, the snow finally arrived last Monday  and  - it's still here!It has been freezing (and I use that word in it's true dictionary sense) here ever since.

On Tuesday, I crunched my way to the bus-stop looking like a red Michelin man with my bulky merino and polyprop layers bulging under my red Macpac jacket. (No photo - just use your imagination). I also had two pairs of possum-merino socks on and my boots.

At the bus stop, I stood beside a teenage waif who was hatless and gloveless and who wore a thin coat over a dress and pantyhose. She literally shook with the cold. I offered her my gloves but she declined. The barometer on the nearby pharmacy read - 8 degrees ( I thought that was cold at the time but now I know better!) Most pharmacies here seem to have an electronic sign outside which records the date and the temperature - there are 3 pharmacies in the  village of Embourg and two of them have these signs. Interestingly the other pharmacy's sign reported 18 degrees - I know which one I believed. But I digress.

The buses all seem to have been late this week. Funny how 20 minutes of standing in the cold can feel like an hour in the freezer. My feet and nose have suffered the worse. I do wish that my genes had allowed for a more petite model of the latter.

By Wednesday, I knew that this was really winter in Liege: finally, people were wrapping up like mummies or the Michelin family and Granny's daughter, Anne - a true Liegoise, told me it was unseasonably cold when she gave me a lift to the LD site in Seraing on Thursday. I wondered why we didn't have more snow but Anne and Granny both explained to me that it was TOO cold  to snow. C'est vrai??? We did have a dusting of snow yesterday (Friday) when the temperature rose to -4 but today we were back to -13 at 9.30 am.

 I have to say that I am a bit over it now. I'm sick of freezing while I wait for buses that are always late. I miss my little red Toyota with its excellent heater. However, I did read a report yesterday of Europe's longest traffic jam which occurred  in Belgium - it was 1000 kms long. At least the buses (with their designated lanes) seem to avoid the traffic jams and I haven't frozen to death on the street yet - about 200 people throughout Europe already have.

 Apparently most of Europe is experiencing Arctic conditions at the moment and its forecast to continue into next week!  Dunedin winters are going to be a cinch after this.