That's what one of the railroad employees said today when he came through our area of the train. And it was like that: 15 semi-miserable people straight from International Casting, plus their luggage, all piled into an area designed to seat 5 people at best. We all laughed semi-miserably.
Needless to say, there were train problems today. When we opened our eyes this morning, we found out that all of the trains we could've taken to Antwerp were cancelled except one, so we bolted to Centraal Station at 9am to catch it. And catch it we did, 3 hours later at Schiphol. And yes it was 3x as crowded as it should have been.
But cool! We got here somehow. Then I immediately lost my brand new nice woolen gloves while sharing a huge braadworst with Mara at De Laet. That's unfortunately not even a euphemism. Thank you Mara for not killing me. And then we had some great Belgian beers (Barbãr Winter Brassin was my fave) and a soup of pureed brussels sprouts with bacon in Paters Vaetje. Yay! And then we couldn't find a functioning cash machine. Boo.
But then things turned around!!! We found a cash machine! Then we formulated a plan. Then we got lost!!! For a while!!! Then? Like several of our European friends believe Americans are unusually predisposed to doing, we "turned things around".
More superlative beer was involved, this time at 't Waagstuk, where the hot food (stoemp with spek) was pretty tasty, the cold food (salade nicoise, which we didn't really order on purpose, it was a desperate substitution for a turkey breast in beer-champignon sauce that they ran out of) was, call it "underconsidered." A bit of a disappointing end to a day of eventual triumphs.
Nonetheless, overall, in the spirit of triumphing eventually, let's just say "yay".
2 comments:
Ah, Pater's Vaetje. Jealousy!!!
A nice place for sure...wish you were here!
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