Last Wednesday we had a long day, as we had made plans to visit Antwerpen in Belgium. A week ago I was figuring out what I should do on my freetime for the last few days and decided to just go to Google Maps and see if there are any cities in Holland/near the border worth visiting for. Then I came across Antwerpen and remembered one of my friend saying it is a nice city.
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| Rise and shine! |
At 9:15 we took a train to Rotterdam, where we changed and headed over to Roosendal. That was the closest city to the border, so the tickets to Belgium would be the cheapest from there. We had day tickets for the Dutch train, so of course we wanted to use those as well as possible too. From Roosendal it only took another half an hour to Antwerpen with a bit of a dodgy train, it reminded me of a Russian or Indian-like train.
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| Effective train traveling |
In Antwerpen, we had no other plans other than to go and see the castle by the water. But the city itself surprised us, or at least myself, massively! Everything was so pretty, and as we walked across the center we just kept stopping and pointing to buildings and repeating the sentence "Look, thats so pretty!". In the end, the castle itself was my least favorite thing about the city.
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| Pretty impressive Welcome to Antwerpen must admit |
It was really, really nice to just walk around the city without any hurry or schedule. After visiting the castle we kind of just wandered around and at one point realized how hungry we actually were. Lucky for us almost right after this we saw an Indian restaurant. The restaurant literally opened up a minute before we got in, and obviously we were the first and only customers during our stay in there. Nevertheless, the food was really good. I don't even remember when was the last time I had Indian food, so a piece of Naan bread, a good portion of curry and rice together with a mango lassie was just what I needed before turning into a hungry grumpy cat. Since then I have been craving for more of that yummy combination. Its a good thing we have one awesome Indian restaurant in Tampere so I can treat my new addiction back at home too :-D
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| Casual shopping mall |
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| Casual office space |
Even though we easily walked across and around the city center, it felt like a big city kind of a place. Not massive, but in a Finnish perspective at least bigger than average; they had trams, a lot of different clothing/accessory/interior shops, shopping centers and Albert Heijns. In every corner there was also a some kind of a cafe, chocolate factory, restaurant or bar. We even wondered how can they all survive and keep up the business, as there didn't seem to be that many people going around.
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| Grote Markt |
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| Reckless Kitty |
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| Going to miss these girls soooo much <3 |
After dinner as it was starting to get kind of late, dark and especially very cold it was time to head down to the train station. Surprisingly enough, first we walked like half an hour to the wrong directions and ended up being 37 minutes away from the central station.. At this time, the coldness had kind of got to us but luckily the city was so beautiful and full of everything to look and be amazed by, the way back went really fast.
Finally after a comfort pit stop (as in (iPhone) battery charging break) at Starbucks, two train changes and almost 4,5 hours of train traveling later, we were back in Groningen, safe and sound. The day was so nice. I got to enjoy a new city, and actually a new country also, in the best company and in a really lovely weather. My day was filled with laughter, jokes about Sieni(...) and too many family pictures.
Oh yeah almost forgot, first thing at the train station we came across to this super funky thing, "Working corner". I saw one woman cycling inside the station and, of course, it caught my eye. After a while I realized that it was a charging point, where you can make your own electricity. How cool is that! Of course I had to test it out, and it was the funnest phone charging experience I have ever had. I also had just a little bit of battery left, so perfect timing! I want these to Finland too!!!
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