The world is ours and ours alone!

Part one of that great weekend I was telling you about earlier on was last Friday, when I went to see The Rifles play in Antwerp. Been a fan of the band since their first album and even more since I met the lads, a bunch of really great guys.

They were playing the Trix last weekend, which is a rather small venue somewhere in the outskirts of Antwerp. I hadn't been there before, but telling from the website, one could get there by bus or tram. I figured the tram would be the easiest way. Horrible choice. I started feeling a little worried when the tram started driving in directions it definitely shouldn't be driving in, so I asked the driver what was going on. He told me all trams were driving to the Sportpaleis (another gig venue, but a lot bigger and most of all...somewhere very different!) that week, so I had to take the tram back to the station (where I started out) and take a bus from there on. On my tram back to the station I was joined by seven British boys. I figured out they were going to The Rifles as well and felt very relieved now I wasn't lost in Antwerp on my own anymore! We hopped on a bus (those lads were fantastic, high fiving with the bus driver etc :p), and after a very long drive we finally got to our destination.

At the venue, I met up with Rob from The Rifles. The two of us, joined by the British blokes, looked for and miraculously found a bar not too far from the (very isolated) gig venue. Not really what you'd call a trendy/charming/any positive adjective bar, but ah well. There was Belgian beer and everybody was happy.

Back at the venue I started talking to this guy from France who turned out to live very near me and was dj'ing in the Make Up Club the next evening - seriously, how small is this world?? :) The gig was really good, a long and energetic set. The Belgian crowd sucked, but I had my newly found British friends to ensure me of a great night.

Afterwards, Rob and I wanted to go out in Antwerp, and some nice Antwerp people we only just met were friendly enough to take us to a good pub. The start of a very good night out!!

There are no holes in his shoes but a big hole in is his world

Me and my Finnish friend Ann-Sofi decided to go shopping in Antwerp last Saturday. During a couple of hours we tried to find her a navy blue winter coat that exactly fitted her desires, but we unfortunately didn't manage.

When we were walking passed a shoe store we suddenly heard a lot of noise coming from the balcony of the shop. We looked up and saw two Zwarte Pieten yelling at the people on the streets and throwing candy and balloons to them. I told Ann-Sofi before about the Belgian/Dutch Sinterklaas tradition so she was very exited to hear Sinterklaas was arriving on his boat in Antwerp that day (the celebration itself is only on the 6th of December, but the man always 'arrives' a while before).

After taking some pictures with the Zwarte Pieten in the shoe store we went over to the harbour to witness the arrival. Apparantly he had already arrived (his boat was quite small and we hadn't seen it yet, we were even photographing the wrong boat - a huge one that was just passing by - that explains why we were the most exited people around).

When we finally saw him on his carriage, we watched a part of the procession. Ann-Sofi got completely obsessed by Sinterklaas and it didn't take long for me to get completely sucked up by her enthusiasm and happily join in. I can't remember laughing like that for a long, long time.

Ann-Sofi being obviously Sinterklaas' biggest fan

me displaying my pervert nature on this doll

6 euros

My favourite Belgian city must be Antwerp (and I'm not even from there), but it still keeps a lot of secrets from me. Yesterday my friend Ine (co-writer of this blog and someone I hadn't seen for waaay too long, two years to be honest) and I unraveled some of them when we met up in the beautiful city.

After having lunch (as in a berry muffin for me and chocolate pie for Ine) at the Foodmaker,

we managed to see more than the Meir (for the non-Belgians: famous shopping street in Antwerp) for once.

It was enough to walk into a sidestreet to find the Think Twice, a charming vintage shop that was having a sell-out. (thanks for the tip, Phara!) For only 6 euros I bought these two beauties: