Belgium Study Abroad 2012: Going to Antwerp for a Day

6/23

Today Paige and I went to Antwerp which is a smaller city in Belgium about an hour train ride from Brussels. We didn’t leave too early in the morning so we were able to pack lunches for ourselves. The train station has trips to Antwerp 5 times every hour so it was easy to buy a ticket for the train on a very relaxed schedule. The train ride wasn’t too bad and we arrived and Antwerp Centraal in the early afternoon. We spent the majority of the first few hours shopping for clothes and souvenirs. Antwerp is known for fashion so it’s a great place to buy all different kinds of clothing. I bought myself a nice jacket that is warm and also deflects water. It was on sale which made me very happy because I was needing a jacket for when I go to my internship. After a few hours of shopping we were able to go to the different sites around the city. In the main area of the city called Grote Markt there was an Indian market and festival happening at the same time. It was fun to walk around and see all of the different things; there was a large mixture of things that were being sold from India as well as other Asian countries. The majority of the city was small enough that we could visit almost every place that there was to see in a few hours. My legs hurt a lot after walking for so long but we were able to sit down and let our legs relax while we ate some dinner. Paige and I shared a pizza at a small Italian restaurant. After dinner we walked near the Albert Canal and we got to see the port that was there. We headed back towards the train station soon after because it was early in the evening and we didn’t want to get back too late. We walked through a lot of the side streets instead of on the main road and we got to see some fun shops and paintings. The ride back was nice; I was letting my legs relax after so much walking. We got home around 9PM and I stayed up for a little while later just watching tv before going to bed. I really loved getting to visit Antwerp for both the shopping and the sight seeing.