Belgian Highlights: Beer and French Fries

Date: July 14, 2008
Location: Antwerp
Lat: 51° 13.3N Long: 004° 23.71E

Well, the good ship M/V Explorer has finally made it to Antwerp, Belgium. Belgium seems like a pretty cool place. Everyone speaks English which is real convenient. We’ve also finally arrived to the first country that takes the Euro. Prices are pretty fair here. The exchange rate is around .65 or so.

The ship actually arrived in Antwerp last night. The Kiel Canal transit cut the distance to Belgium down substantially. However, this didn’t benefit us at all because we weren’t allowed to get off. The whole Kiel Canal experience is kind of a push it seems. The money we saved on fuel was used to pay the Kiel Canal Authority to allow us to transit the canal in the first place so it’s pretty much a wash.

After the ship cleared customs, a friend and I decided to wander around town. We didn’t have a map so we headed where we thought looked the best. This resulted in us wandering into Antwerp’s red-light district. The working girls of Antwerp were all dolled up at 0930; you have to admire their work ethic.

After we got out of there, we headed to the main drag. This was pretty neat; there were a ton of cool shops and things. I did not buy anything, though I did get some Euros. I suppose now is a good time to address credit cards in Europe. All the cards here, both credit and debit, have a chip imbedded in them. This can be problematic as not everyone takes cards without the chip. However, what’s actually a great idea is that credit cards have pin numbers here. This is obviously a great idea because if your card is stolen, someone can’t run around running up the bill without knowing your pin too.

All the wandering made us thirsty so we decided to head to a local drinking establishment. It was an Irish themed pub which had some great beers. The interesting thing is that every beer here has its own unique glass. We found an excellent beer, called Kasteelgard. This had 11% alcohol, but unlike the disgusting Onxa in Saint Petersburg, this beer tasted excellent. They had both a light and a dark variety which tasted excellent.

After we had wet our whistles, we decided to go after some French fries. Apparently, fries are one of Belgium’s proudest accomplishments. You can get huge plates of fries everywhere. The interesting thing is that mayo is the traditional topping in Belgium. Surprisingly enough, it tasted pretty good; however, I had been drinking so I’d take that with a grain of salt.

We started to head back to the ship, but we found another bar, which had some very good beers as well. After all this, we ran into some other people from the ship and made plans to go out for the night. We got back to the ship and I took a nap. Unfortunately, the nap which I started around 1500 hours went until midnight so I missed going out. I guess it’s for the best though. I’m touring the De Konnick brewery tomorrow and that starts kind of early.

Unfortunately, I am now fully awake at 0343. I lifted some weights earlier though. I wanted to go run for a bit, but the cardio room was being cleaned. I’ll make up for it later. As always, life is good.