Belgium: Mistakes and Lessons

It seems I promised another Belgium post, and did not carry through. As I mentioned (some time ago at this point), I went to Belgium in February with my parents. We went to the cities of Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp. Ghent was the most medieval city I have ever seen. Think Game of Thrones times Harry Potter with a touch of Throne of Glass (if you know, you know); that is, until I went to Bruges. Ghent had that whole mossy, damp, run down kind of feel with molding buildings that clearly haven't been altered in centuries. Bruges on the other hand was more like stepping back in time to the height of the medieval era, complete with the near constant sound of horses hooves clopping along on the cobbled streets. 

Bruges

Ghent 

While in Bruges, we toured the historic "de Halve Maan" brewery, home to the world's first ever beer pipeline, which transports the freshly brewed beer two miles across the city to the bottling plant. Although it sounds tempting, we were informed that no, no one has attempted to tap into the line in the years since it was put in place. 

This was not the only fun fact I learned on this trip however. In Ghent, my dad and I climbed one of the (many) belltowers hoping for a good view of the city below. A good view we got indeed, but the truly fascinating element of the climb was learning how exactly the bells in the tower are programmed to chime their classic songs. The carillon drum works much like a gigantic music box with movable pegs that are placed in a huge perforated, rotating drum to correlate with the corresponding bell tone to invoke a melody. After climbing the hundreds of steps up the tower, I was shocked to see this huge device, even more shocked that the fact of its existence was advertised nowhere despite the level of awe it inspires. 

Once at the top, we completed our original goal of looking down at the city, (looking even more medieval from above)with the added bonus of being nearly blown off the tower with intense gusts of wind (not visible in the photo). This inspired the birth of a joke of my own devising. I will bless you with it now. You're welcome. 

What do you call a French conqueror who gets hit by a cannon ball? .... Napoleon blown-apart! Haha. 

After these two delightful small cities (maybe better to call them towns) we went on to Antwerp. Now, I feel that I must preface this story with a disclaimer. I, as you might know, and an anti-car kind of person in my daily life and have made this ideology part of my professional life as well. When my parents decided to come to visit me, they asked me what I thought about them renting a car. Obviously my answer was absolutely not, there is no need for that, it is dumb, and challenging, trains exist, and parking is a nightmare. Also its dumb. Did I mention that cars are dumb? Anyway, so obviously they rented a car. Thanks for consulting me guys.

As a result of this decision, throughout the trip we had a hard time finding parking, my dad had to drive for several hours (when we all could have been chilling on the train.......) and we took more wrong turns than I care to count. Now, it takes a lot for people to admit that they were wrong, even more for them to admit that I, Abby, was right (and this happens quite often I must say), but what finally brought it to that point was Antwerp. More precisely, arriving in Antwerp. 

After taking our sweet time to leave Ghent (due to a comical number of consecutive missed highway exits) we were on the road to Antwerp. We arrived in the city and obviously, the first thing to do when you are a car person is to find a place to put your metal box on wheels while you go out and actually enjoy your life. A silly American brain thinks "we should go park as close to the center as possible so that we can go walk where everything is immediately". This is an unfortunate mistake to make. Especially when you are prone to missing turns and other driving skills. After weaving our way (slowly) to the center of the city where the parking garage was, we made the predictable error of missing the entrance to the garage. In fairness, the entrance was in a very weird spot, appearing to be located in the middle of a pedestrian square. 

After missing this turn, we began an endless roll down an extremely busy, very long street. We desperately needed to turn around and go back the way we came, but the street was endless. Turning down a block to reroute was not an option, as all seemed to be one way in the wrong direction. After a nice ten minute snail crawl down this hellish street, my dad put the lives of everyone around us at stake, and took a left turn across the lanes of traffic. I mean we were mere inches from creaming an e-scooter as a result. 

To get back onto this cursed road was another trial in itself. The street was so congested, that there was no way to get into the flow of traffic when the light was green. Besides that, we had to contend with a constant stream of cyclists as well and deal with the car behind us absolutely laying on the horn. After finally making it through and getting to experience again the delightful hellish snail street, we finally made it to the parking without killing anyone or ourselves. And so, with blood pressure though the roof, we finally set foot in Antwerp. (All this could have easily been avoided by listening to yours truly, but what do I know, I'm just an aspiring urban planner who has lived here for the past half year). 

For anyone concerned, this is all in good humor, and this post was created at the request of my parents.