2/7 - Bruges-Antwerp
*This post was supposed to have some photos in it, but thanks to the incompetence/stupidity/laziness of a French Internet Cafe staff member in Nimes, they have been lost for eternity*
*Ark*
1710-2, 1753
This is in the shape of the Ark of the Covenant
*Pulpit*
Replacement picture:
1713
*Organ*
1891
Below the explanation about the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament: "Shall we let outselves be filled with the presence of Jesus? Why shouldn't we remain here in silence for a short while?" I've seen similar exhortations in the rest of Continental Europe. Probably another translation artefact.
*Fountain in front of City Hall*
Replacement pictures:
*City Hall*
I then went to the Rui Huis, but it was even more popular than the Last Supper, since it was booked till October (whereas the Last Supper was only full till August). What is the Rui Huis, you ask? Basically you get to walk through 1.6km of old Antwerp - underground. You get a special suit and boots, and you can smell the sewer stench from the entrance. Unfortunately the website is in Dutch and isn't very informative to boot: http://www.ruihuis.be/.
*Steen*
Replacement pictures:
Shipping museum. Formerly a fortress, then a prison for Antwerpens (and only Antwerpens).
*Docks*
Note the woman mounting the man. She then lay on top of him and they made out.
The Use-It guide said you hadn't been to Antwerp till you had dangled your legs over the docks, but I noticed no one was doing that - it was a long, long plunge down. I dangled mine until just before my knees, and then scrambled to my feet.
"Emery et cie" was a shop that sold bathroom tiles and similar things. It also provided free public toilet services so you could go in and see (and use) a model toilet. What a novel publicity tactic.
I was sitting on a bench and watching the triathletes. One guy was topless except for his bra (heart monitor). He has a lot of hair on his lower back. I think it was more disgusting than if hair covered his whole back, since attention was then drawn to the small of his back. Meanwhile some other men were wearing half-singlets - cut off at some point below their breasts. They looked like tank tops.
"Frituur Max", according to Use-It, was "one of the last fanatical advocates of fries in bags instead of boxes". I was wondering what they meant by this - it turned out "bags" referred to paper cones. It's so much more fun eating them from cones, albeit slightly messier, and you can fit more (maybe this explained the slightly higher price - €2,20). Sauce cost another €0,60, so I carefully squeezed a bit of various types of sauces. I asked for a container for more sauce but the irascible woman said I'd have to pay €0,60 more. Bah. In the end I had barely enough sauce to last me till the end. The frites were good, but I still prefer freshly-made fries, like those served by Mannekin Pis (a Belgian said it was a Dutch chain and not a Belgian one, and indeed I saw none in Belgium) or Hank's in the Utrecht Vredenburg market (the current blog header picture) - these are moister inside and taste fresher and more natural.
The cheeky Use-It guide had marked the red light district as a romantic hotspot and I was bored, so I went to have a look. Fittingly for the city of Rubens, there were some Rubenesque ladies in the windows. The place wasn't as commercialised as Amsterdam - almost everyone walking through was a lone male, though there was the odd male couple or group. The only women I saw looked like they worked there. Meanwhile a police car crusied slowly through the place every now and then,
*Figurine at the corner of a building*
Below it was a closed-down Indonesian restaurant. This was along 'straat zonder racisme'. Gah.
At an Antwerpen internet cafe near my hostel where they charged 2 cents per minute (€0,50 minimum), the terminals also had an interface to order a cola, hamburger or one more food item. Hah! I was annoyed though that the counter to tell you how long you had left contained ads. Wth. It was also the second internet cafe in a row where IE hated my Hotmail and I had a problem with the javascript.
Mosquitoes bothered me that night. Not since Singapore had this happened to me.