July 11, 2002 : gratis bus en tram

Once again the Flanderen Feest, in its second day, was welcomed by rain. Eva had previously told me about today being a free-ride day, so I had plans of gallivanting all over town and riding every tram. Instead, clad in t-shirt and jeans, I rode a couple of buses to the outskirts of town. Antwerp seemingly sprawls out in every direction. It sprawls like the suburbia of any city, with cars becoming more and more necessary the further you get out of town. By the time my journey ended up back in the city center, it was pouring rain and I was freezing.

I headed home, stopping just long enough to buy Eva some flowers. Gorgeous home-grown bright orange colored African daisies. They were beautiful. She's been treated to a surprise every evening when she comes home. Any or all of the following: no dishes in the sink, the clothes picked up, dinner made, stocked fridge, trash out, living-room spotless, water bottles filled, working computer, and now flowers.

What can I say, I'm trying. If there is anything I've realized in the last couple of weeks, it's that I need to be in the continuous-woo mode. It's relatively easy enough, and it's fun to do. It's not that I'm trying to convince her to stay, I just want her that I am just as crazy about her now as I was almost two years ago. Completely bonkers...her being always on my mind. If she's not at the forefront when I'm actually being productive and working on a project or reading, then she runs a close second, always about to overtake the first.

For the second time in two days, I rode the train to meet her in Mechelen. We had fritjes (fries) with curry ketchup and tried a new deep-fried treat called a Kraker. She tried it. I took one look at it and ate my Viendel. (a rolled-in-batter deep-friend sausage-type thing.) While standing in line (lines at a frituur usually signify frit quality) a pigeon flew in the window of the frituur. (which is basically a small little trailer with an awning.) Panic ensued. The bird was stuck between the glass of the window and the angled glass protecting the food. Our food was safe, but the bird was helpless. Enter an innocent customer who walks into the cooking space, takes charge, asks the people to pull out the food-viewing refrigerated part, and there goes the bird. I have already mentioned a couple of days ago about the status of pidgeons...but this girl made them seem birds with dignity. It flew out like a bat out of hell and perched on top of a building across the street. So worn out, I guess, it stayed there until we hopped our bus.

We decided to take the buses to anywhere. All of Flanders was free. We hopped the bus to Lier and enjoyed the scenery. All of Flanders is seemingly connected by a well-planned-out bus system. If you are the patient kind, you can ride a bus almost anywhere. Not ever living in a place catered to by bus, I appreciate this. It's a novel concept. little old ladies can visit their childhood friends who live three little dorps (towns) over.

Lier is beautiful. We've heard it call our names many times. Every arrow always seems to point there, and so it was great to end up there at the end of a 45 minute bus ride. People were walking along the canals and even jogging. I can list the number of joggers I've seen since being in Belgium on one hand. One hand. After living in Healthville, California, it was a pleasant site to see an older man in running shorts running on the footpath. Families with their all-terrain baby buggies and packs of just-graduated-two-weeks-ago boys out for an evening bike ride. In Lier we caught a bus to Herentals.

We've almost been there before. On a night earlier this year, Elka had her father's car for the night and we went on a joyride. We ended up in the same places and the same roads that we were on this evening--passing the very same restaurant called "Plane Crash" that has a 1950s plane half-sticking out of it's second story. I remember passing it that night with Elke. Just seeing a plane sticking out of a building made us weak-kneed. So there it was in broad daylight on a free bus from Lier to Herentals.

The same road has brothel after brothel. It's unexplainable. It's not really close to the highway, and it's not a road really big enough for truckers, so we're still wondering about all of the seedy brothels that line the road between the highway and Herentals. You might think that I'm exaggerating a bit, but I'm not. Literally on a stretch of road that takes 5-10 minutes to drive (off of the highway) there are maybe 15 bar/sauna/rooms by the hour/girls girls girls places. It's strange. Here next to homes that cost millions of euros are sex shops. We don't get it. I'm waiting for an explanation. There has to be a good one.

After Herentals we head back to Antwerp. We had a good discussion over coffee about our future and the plans and actions we have to take...and we made some headway. We mentioned things like grad school, the US, South America, 3-month holidays, teaching jobs, agency work, etc. Eva kept saying, "I know that I don't show it, but I'm excited...so excited I feel like i have diarrhea." I guess that's a good sign. :) And for what it's worth, I have diarrhea then too, Eva.

So I didn't mention the countryside. If you are ever coming to Europe and you want to see what 99 percent of the tourists don't see, simply go to the bus depot and catch a bus out of town. As long as you aren't leaving at 10 o'clock at night, there will certainly be a way back, and you'll go over countryside and through little towns and stop at random bus stops alongside the road in the middle of nowhere...as long as there is someone waiting for a ride. This is definitely something on my list for my parents to do. We're going to ride a bus. You don't have to talk much, but just take in the scenery. Brick house after brick house, shetland ponies in a field without grass, greenhouses, wildflowers, muscled cows, perfectly manicured gardens and lawns, bicyclists sharing the road with the bus, scooter boys passing us on the left, and the sunsetting behind a thundercloud.

We came back home at 11. I wanted to see the apartment one last time and so we headed to Sint Vincentsraat just to be sure. I took pen and paper as to write any of the obvious faults down: sea-scene mural in bathroom, scratches already on floor (thank god), unpainted wall in bedroom, etc. After having someone blame a rewiring job on me back in Cincinnati, it's alway best to take a look around and get it all down on paper. :)

By the time we got home we were knackered (Eva's word) and we hit the hay (American verbage)

IN THE NEWS:
Hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans have brought the capital, Caracas to a halt, demanding the resignation of President Hugo Chavez. Three months after an abortive coup attempt against him, demonstrators yelled "Out! Out!" calling for a reduction in the length of his presidential term or for him to step down.