Day 7

Tuesday, January 11, 2011 10:45 pm

Last night after I posted about 10 of us went to dinner and we planned to go to this Italian place around the corner that we heard was good, for dinner. It was called Pasta e Fagioli? I think...I can’t remember exactly. We walked in and it was completely empty...and once we got seated and the waiter was very unhelpful and we could hardly figure out what any of the dishes were. It was much more expensive than we expected and after such a long day we were all hungry and tired. I ended up getting a pizza called Rocusta? or something? and It said it had roquettes on it which I had no idea what it was but asked the waiter and he said it was an herb. So I was like thats fine. Then the pizza came and it was like covered with a leafy green...But it was fine, it tasted good. Others weren’t very satisfied and it was a pretty frustrating meal because the waiter was pretty rude and didn’t seem to have any interest in helping us with what we didn’t understand.

Then we came back here for an early night. I went to bed pretty early, and surprisingly fell asleep early! Then woke up at 5:55 am and we met downstairs at 6:30 and took the metro, to the RER (another train that was kind of like the amtrak). We took the Thaly which stopped in Brussels as well. We got on the train at 7:30 and we didn’t get to Antwerp till about 9:45.

When we got there we got off the train and walked into a beautiful train station!! It was absolutely gorgeous! I’ll put up pictures on my photo website soon if the internet is working well. We met out tour guide Karen for croissants and coffee (the coffee was delicious!). Then we walked for about 30 minutes through Antwerp. The city was incredible. It was so strange because it had cobblestone roads that were narrow and beautiful architecture. There was a spectacular church that we walked past and that stuck out among the buildings. It was so funny to me because walking through I kept thinking “This is such a cute town” but its actually a big city there. It was very beautiful though and had tons of vintage clothing stores and other stores also.

We went to the MOMU for a fashion exhibit on Stephen Jones. He’s a hat designer who works with Dior. At first I wasn’t sure how interested I was going to be because I’m not that into fashion but the hats were AMAZING! So intricate in all of the details and so out of the ordinary (none of them were regular hats AT ALL) they were all so extraordinary! I’ll post pics of that as well. I took TONS. Then we went to lunch at this adorable restaurant with Karen called ‘t Hofke (Thats what it says on the business card but the name doesn’t make much sense to me...). We all got tomato soup, wine, pasta with pesto and sun dried tomatoes, and then coffee. It was such a delicious meal!!

After that I went off with 5 other girls and we wandered to find a chocolate shop. I bought one to try that was really good and then a few boxes to bring back as gifts Then we went to a bunch of vintage stores and just shopped around a bit. I didn’t buy anything else. In the train station we met the rest of the group, I tasted a bite of a waffle someone bought (that was amazing!! best waffle EVER). Then we took a long train ride back and then finally back to the hotel!

Tomorrow is my birthday! It should be fun, but weird not being at home with the fam or at school...so hopefully it will still be a good day!