Antwerp

Above is a picture I took while outside in Paul Reubens house garden. It was a great museum that I visited while in Antwerp. It had lots of his paintings as well as numerous of his friends paintings within his beautiful city estate.

After the trouble I had leaving for my adventure I was trepidatious to go to Belgium at all. However, I got on the train headed to Amsterdam to catch the international train from there to Antwerp. I got to see Rene briefly that afternoon to get some tea and have a brief chat about his many adventures across Europe with Johnny.

Then, onward, to Antwerp where I had booked a hostel for the night. As I became more informed on the train towards my destination I found out that Antwerp was P. Reubens home for many years as well as a fashion capital and I excitedly anticipated my arrival in the city. The train took quite a while and I had not left until late so it was early evening by the time I arrived in Antwerp.

I got quite lost looking for my hostel because the man at the ticket office in the train station gave me very bad directions. The silver lining of getting lost with my huge bag of clothing was that I got to see the Jewish neighborhood of Antwerp that I would not have visited otherwise. There are very few Orthodox Jews living in California and so it was very different to see a large community living in Belgium, a notoriously Catholic country.

I finally made it to the hostel and had a yummy dinner. The next morning I spent exploring the city center and these are some of the pictures I took while doing that.

Yummy Belgian Parlines (chocolates). I got one with mocha filling.

More yummy pastries in the window. The frambois (raspberry ) tarlette was really delicious.
This is an art museum. I peaked in but didn't have time to go through all the exhibits. It was mostly 17th Century still lifes and portraits.

That building is a bank. You have to go in to use the ATM. Luckily more places in Belgium accept visa cards.
Here's antwerp city hall.