Empty Antwerp

To raise my spirits after the El Sur practica I decided to have a look at the city park. The day was sunny and it was only a few minutes cycle away. As I arrived I came across two dogs fighting. Then I saw a couple on a bench arguing loudly in French. The day was beginning to pick up a theme.  The park was of reasonable size but with arid grass and dusty paths around a stagnant looking lake. I cycled round it marvelling how this could be the city park. It was late afternoon. 

I was delighted at this low ebb to rediscover drawings by my children in my notebook from when, out somewhere I must have given it to them to pass some spare time. The spiky sketches of lava girl and shark boy lifted my mood a little.

The few cafes I saw were mostly empty. I hoped the happy people were away at the seaside.  I was rather wishing I had done the same and chosen a Saturday night milonga somewhere in the Netherlands. At this stage of the day, when in doubt what to do next there is always the aperitif option.  I found several ordinary looking cafe-bars on a sort of square formed by the intersection of several roads on Montignystraat. It lacked atmosphere but I couldn't find much else around. Prices were on the steep side. I ordered and watched a car that didn't give way nearly get hit by a tram.  A minute later a cyclist swore as he saw his route partially blocked by a van. All my observations in this town so far had been of cross, unhappy people not co-operating with one another. 

I wrote down the address of my host’s house and of the evening's milonga to come - El Centro - before my phone shut down. In the time before I learnt to travel with a backup battery I had left the charger at the practica.   Happily, the young guy at the table next to mine lent me his phone so I could sketch a map to get home and to the milonga.  He had hitchhiked through South America.
- Haven't you ever travelled before?  he said.
- Well, yes.  I said, thinking: Not the way you have and remembering all the brave Spanish-speaking Euro-travellers I met in Buenos Aires who hopped from country to country with narry a thought while I wrestled for ten days with my fear of getting on a bus in that city.
- Are you so reliant on your phone? he said. Why don’t you ask people?  I thought I just had but this excellent advice was to resonate many times across the coming months. It no longer surprises me the positive and lasting effect small encounters with strangers can have but I appreciate it every time. He was kind, taking my phone to a couple of bars to enlist various friends who worked at these to charge it for me. He had recently returned from the walk to Santiago de Compostela.
- Everyone who walks has something to work through, he said.  - Everyone who walks alone, he qualified.
I said: People often discover that dancing tango too.    He was at a loss now, antsy:
- It's a bit depressing.  I'm thirty-five.  Everyone in my life is getting married and having kids but I was never made that way.  Then, more optimistically: So I'm going to Thailand to be a diving instructor!  I told him I thought that was great and that there were many people who felt like him.

I reminded myself there are even some like me:  not exactly married married, not off on single adventures either. Somewhere inbetween.  A bit like my dancing, I thought:  most of the time not a girl  in heels, in skirts and in my place but for sure not a guy either.  I only felt half-rueful.  The other half, as I thought of my family, my children and the ideas, roles and places I have still been able to explore, felt very lucky.  I have rather a lot of freedom.  Wistful?!  I chided myself.  For what?!  You have your cake!  I knew I was fortunate in very many ways.  What is marriage supposed to be anyway? I thought, forever wandering down sidestreets, mental or otherwise,  And who says?  Supposed for whom?, echoing my friend in another context:  Normal for others?  There is no normal for others.  Normal for you?  Only you know :) 

- What did you think about dad saying I shouldn't be gadding about to milongas in "my situation"? I asked mum.

She smiled as though she'd been waiting for this.  I felt slightly reassured.
- And not wearing a wedding ring! she said more seriously, that evidently being the sticking point for her.
- The milongas aren't dens of vice you know. And I don't like feeling owned by symbols.  I'm not good with jewellery and my rings were lost or stolen.
- Mmm, she said, sceptically at the surfeit of reasons.
- The milongas are no more about picking up people than other hobbies. It's one of many social environments.  Besides, it's a small world, I said, still piling up justifications.   The trouble that kind of thing causes when things go wrong: divorces, separations, broken engagements, re-partnering.  All the small scandals, the realignment of friendships.  It isn't worth it.

I was struck by how empty Antwerp seemed. In this city of half a million inhabitants where was everyone? In November in a bar in Dundee I fell into chance conversation with Bouli Lanner, the Belgium director of the bleak, deep, funny film The first, The last. I asked him about Antwerp. He seemed unimpressed and dismissive of that city.  The mayor was right wing and the city had turned conservative but it hadn’t used to be that way. Now, business was full flow. The cultural buzz had gone he said, but it was there in Ghent.  Antwerp on the river Scheldt is one of the world’s biggest ports. It is, perhaps incongruously also a fashion hub and the centre of the world when it comes to diamonds which constitute some 5% of the country’s exports. But what, really,  I wondered have high fashion and diamonds to do with most people?  

My father has been ill and I have been going to see him most days.  I asked him recently where was nice in Belgium.  He looked back across many years and shook his head:  Losing my marbles he said, uncharacteristically. Then, more resiliently: I always forget the name of that place.
- Those statements aren't that compatible dad, I pointed out, relieved. Bruges?
- Yes. Beautiful, he breathed.

The next day on my way to the station I met some helpful, friendly people on the bus. Although some of the individuals I had met were nice, I was demoralised by my experiences at El Sur and the El centro milonga and the city in general.   I found a cafe-bar near the station for coffee where a confirmed-looking alcoholic was having a beer at 1030. When we see that in mainland Europe we think it’s a shame. When I see it in airports and train stations in Britain it seems all too normal.   I was about to leave the city but did not want to, under this cloud.   There has to be more to Antwerp than this.

At the last moment I hopped on a tour bus outside the station after the friendly bus driver had helped me find a charger. Most shops are shut in Antwerp on a Sunday.   The city it turns out has a long history and is packed with museums and interesting cultural places to visit. 

Its most famous folk tale, memorialised by the city's Brabo fountain is rather gruesome. The giant Antigoon lived by the Scheldt exacting a toll from passing sailors. If they refused, he cut of their hands and threw them in the river. Eventually the young Roman Silvius Brabo, cut off the giant's own hand and he died. Apparently one version of the etymology of Antwerp is related to this idea of hand-throwing.

Photos via Wikimedia Commons: Brabo fountain and Antwerpse handjes

You can mull on this as you eat the well known local product, Antwerpse handjes with your tea. By this stage I couldn't help feeling the city brand might benefit from a general overhaul.

Perhaps I am wrong about Antwerp. Perhaps I was unlucky or saw with the wrong perspective.  I said to a friend:  I could go back to Belgium to try to find out more, but need motivation.  Luckily, for a small country Belgium has a wealth of cultural heritage.  Still, there is lots I'd like to to see were I to return to Antwerp, not least: more of the historic centre, and the Plantin-Moretus complex. Also the Cathedral of our Lady, the Botanics, Rubens' house, Antwerp's own MAS museum an de Stroom, the Red Star Line museum and the parks Spoor Nord and Middelheim.

In the tourist information centre in the station I picked up some literature to read on the train. I asked the guy what the difference was between the Dutch and the Belgians. He chose his words carefully: Belgians are perhaps more reserved, he said. Other times I heard a blunter view of the Dutch: loud.  Occasionally I felt crass was implied.  Although I might sometimes agree with the  former description, I have seen few of whom I felt the latter was true, and met none.

So how did the Dutch view the Belgians?  I had heard things like dull, rule-bound, conformist.  I had even seen an advert for a liberal sounding milonga in the Netherlands the gist of which had been something like:  We welcome all sorts, you can sit where you like and if you're from Belgium and need to keep your seat we can accommodate that too.  That sounded pretty much like the liberal-minded, cheerful, direct Dutch, not too worried about stepping on toes: "We'll try not to but if we do, it's how we are!"  I asked a friend with some experience.  His report was, unsurprisingly mixed, also tolerant and characteristically agreeable.  All in all... individual Belgians come in all sorts... like a box of Belgian chocolates.  I find the Dutch I have met by chance and those I know reflective, reasonably unbiased and fair-minded  - qualities I admire. 

The train to Rotterdam was noisy with fretful children, no-one waiting for people to put things away and lots of pushing in the gangways. I felt tired. Without sun the flat landscape punctuated by pylons and wind turbines was depressing. What would it be like in winter? I wondered, and found out when I watched The First, The Last. 

The sun came out in Rotterdam. I waited in it for my connection, feeling immediately better. But how without a phone was I going to find my way from a suburb of Antwerp to a remote suburb of north western Amsterdam - my next Airbnb destination? A quick sketch and a few notes.  It worked a dream!