The promised land

It's nice to catch a 9am train. Sleep is important according to Garmin, so a sleepin is good for my health and the congratulations that Garmin gives me is good for my ego.

The train we arrived on in Antwerp was covered with graffiti so I'm not sure what the landscape was like.

In contrast, Antwerp station was spectacular. To quote 1970's Rod Stewart, every picture tells a story, so sit back and enjoy. 

Nobody else would be excited by this, but the escalators turn into a travelator and then back to an escalator. Do holidays get any better than this?

We headed down the main drag on the way to the river. There was a fries place on the other side of the river that I had in my thoughts. 

We stopped in lots of shops, because there are lots here, and checked out a possible toilet site (a daily ritual).

You know when the shopping centre toilets are made by a company that advertises their restrooms they're expensive and will have a turnstile that works (I am so sorry that I didn't take a picture).

We saw shops and churches and statues and visited Frites Atelier, which was the place Annette mistook for Huggys a few days: ago. This was reconnaissance on the way to the over the river fries place. 

At about midday, things got weird and we ate early lunch in place of morning tea and decided to have afternoon tea later as a substitute. I am coming to some sort of understanding of the editor and when she eats. 

We continued to the river, visited a castle, saw some things I can't explain,

(early proctologists)

1. Why John Wayne on a horse in Antwerp ?

2. Why no hands?
and then realised that despite the fact that Google maps had mapped a trip across the river, there was in fact no bridge.

We went back to plan A and headed back to Frites. Good that the Belgians had not built a bridge because our fries were spectacular. Shout out to Joe Lysaght for the recommendation on the Off Menu podcast (do yourself a favour and have a listen). 

Next stop Lidl, one of our two go-to supermarkets, to get some chicken to go with salad and then back onto a train to Brussels. Over $30 return each and nobody checked our tickets. Doh.

From the station to apartment is all up hill and at the end of the day, this is not good. But we made it, cooked dinner, watched tellie and fell to sleep as the sun disappeared (sometime after 10pm).