Saturday in Antwerp

Another late breakfast, today with Gordon and Greta Stewart.  They had taken a group of faculty and adult learners to Berlin, where Gordon has taken students  many times.  (He teaches in the German Department at UVa.)  They shared their Berlin story – sounds great and they are certainly great folks to lead people there.  And we shared some of out trip to Heidelberg with them.  

We left the ship just before 11 am and found a grocery store first and got a few things we needed and wanted.  Barry found the beer he really likes at half the price he had been buying it for in shops on the strip up from the ship.  We continued looking for another backpack to replace the small Eddie Bauer rolling bag.  Founds a bag we would come back for – more than we wanted to spend but I think it will last us a while once we are home. 

The young man at the check out immediately spoke to us in English.  Barry asked how he knew to speak to us in English and he pointed to Jayne's "Virginia Tech" shirt and explained that he played club basketball and their big team had recently played a team from Virginia for the first time. (Of course, it was the UVa team!)

On our shopping trip we ran into the shipboard family of the little girl Jayne tutors.  That's Ellie standing on her own two feet!

Walked toward the Saturday outdoors market and passed the Rubens House.  We saw Andrea there and she told us it was free for teachers, so we went in.  It was very nice – lots of great art and furnishings.  The garden was not very impressive. 

We went then to the market – to say it is impressive sells it short!  It is an international food market, a as seen on TV market, a general store market, a florist and an international food court all rolled up into one!  

  

I had an excellent Turkish wrap with ricotta cheese, an olive mixture and honey – yes honey!  (This young lady helped Jayne order what she wanted.)

It was wonderful.  I had a class of warm mint tea with lots more honey served with it!  Excellent.  Barry needed meat so he had a bratwurst with sauerkraut and mustard – so traditional!  I bought two scarves from Tibet!  Both very nice.

We walked on two the Botanical Garden.  Very small but with lots of variety, the largest angel trumpet plants I have ever seen – cannot wait until mine get that big!  They must be 30 years old – I think mine are 10 or 12 years old!  A nice water feature and a neat art piece of a man coming out of the ground – you have to see the picture! 

     

We walked through the high fashion shopping district next, where the doorman limits the number of shopper at any given time looking at the over priced high fashion jeans, shoes, purses….

We then got the backpack and saved the best for last WAFFLES – mine chocolate and Barry's plain – both with whipped cream.

This morning we had tried to find an old wooden escalator that takes you down two long sections of steps before getting to a 5K tunnel under the river – then up two more sections of escalators to the other side of the river.  Barry got good pics of the ship from the other side of the river.