"Just" a pre-meetup in Antwerp.

At Pieter's (Kornifalig's) place.

Watching the pictures and reading the blogs about all that travelbuddy meetups that took place made me envy the fun the participants had there. I just hope one day a meetup would appear I would be definitely able to join. I think the first one who told me about the Antwerp meetup planned for May was Lauro. It looked really fine, that was the time when I was supposed to be in Düsseldorf in Germany, Antwerp is not that far away, yeaaah. I found the corresponding blog and put me on as a possible participant.

Cathedral in the center.

The Eurolines bus Wouter suggested cost only 34 euros to get there and back (a train would have cost around 100 euros!!!!), but it had a disadvantage. There was only one bus daily leaving at 6:30pm arriving in Antwerp at 9:30pm.

Sightseeing in Antwerp.

Pieter came to pick me up, the message I received on my cellphone couple of minutes before was: “Oh yeah, I have a sleeveless shirt on and no foot wear”. He wasn’t joking at all. The travelbuddy who picked me up was a huge bear alike guy walking barefoot. Nevertheless he turned quickly to be a very nice and funny guy, step by step we found a way how we could adjust to each other our senses of humour so it would fit perfectly…it didn’t take long at all, haha.

First we went by subway to his place to bring my stuff away and then by his car back to the city center to meet with Sylvie.

Five "heavy" belgian workers.

We met with Sylvie on the square next to the cathedral. I saw her already on several pictures from other meetups, but now she looked much more…shiny…like a weak red neon light…she got sunburn that day, haha. And she was damn tired, I wondered how she would survive the following days. Honestly. We went all together to the favourite pub of Pieter and I tried the beer “de Koninck” he suggested, pretty good I have to confess.

City center.

Sylvie stayed with us at Pieter’s place, but we didn’t get that much sleep as she had to wake up in the morning to go to pick up James (pearcetoyou) and an hour later Jeff (jefrois) from the airport. Yes, I meant WE didn’t get much sleep as she is able to sleep so deep that she ignores the alarm clock completely, hahaha.   

After she left I fell asleep again and didn’t really get up until 11am when we suddenly left. I wanted to see something from the city and Pieter turned out to be a very good guide. He could tell me some of the town legends and knew about other things related to Antwerp as well.

Town hall.

Our next destination was the Central station where we met (after waiting a bit) suddenly with James and Jeff

 Who were brought there by Sylvie. Little bit later Wendy (Wendyveer) joined us as well, but not for long as she had to go to bring her stuff to the hostel she was staying. We went back to Pieter’s place and had a little rest while Sylvie went to pick up Alex (alex-b). Then it was around 5pm when we moved to the city center again and found a bar to sit down and have some drinks. Step by step more travbuddies were joining us, Wendy reappeared with Devika (Devika1985) and Daniel (DanielOostdijk), got to learn as well Wouter (wouternet) and Bennie (BMatital) who was stucked in a traffic jam, poor guy.

We were moving from the pub to a Spanish restaurant and later on to a Turkish restaurant with the only empty chairs outside, haha. Might have been a bad choice, but we were just too many already to be too exigent the 2 other travbuddies arrived here, Ashish (ashishrb) and Kim (latinlover). After a little refreshment at some Belgian fastfood place (I was so dam hungry already, haha) we moved to a night club…don’t ask me the name, something in Flamish, unpronouncable, haha. But before something strange happed in the fastfood restaurant we’ve been to. When I went to throw my trash away a young blond girl asked me something in Flamish I couldn’t understand. Then she asked me in English if my name is “Ivanka”!? !? !? !? !? !? So strange…later on I remembered that I asked some Dutch girl here on travelbuddy whose name was Ivanka how comes that she has such a Slavic sounding name.

Antwerp architecture.

Anyway, in the club we ordered some drinks and had just fun. That was the time when the last travelbuddy that night arrived, Dave (wanderinwurzel). We danced, chatted, fooled around and took pictures, all of this can be described with one single word…FUN. What a great night. It was after 2 o’clock when the last of us took a taxi together and got back to Pieter’s place. Of course even the people who got back before us weren’t sleeping. We continued chatting and joking around until 4am suddenly we went to sleep…8 people in Pieter’s living room, haahaha. Pieter himself slept in his bedroom. Well, I didn’t get much sleep as I had to wake up around 6am to catch my bus back to Düsseldorf. Oh and guess what. It had a delay of one hour again.

Townhall.

Thanks to everynbody for a great pre-meetup and especially a huge THANK YOU to Sylvie and Pieter. Will never forget the time I spent with you all guys. Hope to meet you again somewhere in the world. Martin (skydiver), over and out.