Skip to main content

My first day at Antwerp, Belgium.

 Before boarding my flight, from Birsa Munda Airport; I did quite an extensive research upon Antwerp. Historical places, stories behind them, best chocolatiers, best ice-cream parlors and many more.



Amsterdam was fun but coming to Antwerp was the main agenda, since I was a part of the summer school course at University of Antwerp. I had one day at hand to explore Antwerp, since my classes were scheduled from the next day. Early morning, I went to the nearest big Mart, picked multigrain -bread, croissant, cherry tomato and hummus dips. I picked a regular cup of coffee went to the Antwerp Station, fetched a map in French and Dutch (Oh Gosh! Maps in English were out of stock).

The person standing next to the Ticket vending machine asked me to go the board next to the exit gate, and click a photo of the map printed on the board. I genuinely wanted to hug him, he made my plans execute so easy.

Since Antwerp is a small city, finding my way towards Antwerp Zoo was not difficult. Being a student is always a perk, I received a discount of 5 euros on the ticket which made me even more happier. (I mean who doesn't like discount).



The zoo had a huge collection of different species. It was filled with the beauty of Flora and Fauna. The butterfly garden just melted my heart. It was so colorful with varieties of butterflies, I just couldn't stop from clicking so many pictures. (Yes, I clicked around 58 pictures). That was great fun, it reminded me of the day when my parents used to take me to the Zoo at Kolkata.

Since I was hungry walking so long, I found restaurants but was not in a mood of having something heavy, so I decided to grab an ice-cream from the shop named. Australian Ice-Cream. I have always been fond of the Amul Dark Chocolate, but that flavor of chocolate was simply mesmerizing.

I decided to come back to the hostel, take some rest and then visit the Opera House. (Unfortunately, I couldn't since the opera house was undergoing construction)

Nevertheless, I was satisfied with my one day exploration of Antwerp. I started arranging my stuffs that I needed at University and went back to bed for a good night sleep and a sigh of excitement within. Yayy! Super excited to meet multidisciplinary friends from different nation. 

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Lockdown Story

 Covid-19 pandemic led to national lockdown and multiple government restrictions for the safety of the public. You would agree to the fact that many of us took this lockdown as an opportunity and learned new skills, and many of us would curse the period since they were forced to do things that they usually don't do. As I mentioned in my previous blog that my roots belong to Bengal. My father visited by Grandfather's place in early March. And when it was time to return back to Mccluskiegunj , to us; national lockdown was imposed all over India. He was stuck there! Weeks passed, we applied for travel passes for both West Bengal and Jharkhand to bring my Dad back to Gunj . None worked! We waited for a month, thinking some restrictions on travel may be reduced by the Government in the weeks to come. On the contrary, instead of reducing the restrictions, imposed lockdown extended for another month. And this process went on until, the unlock phases began.   Meanwhile, we conti...
Post a Comment
Read more

Lives and Livelihood of people at Gunj: 2020

Dear Readers! As mentioned in my previous blog, " Life at Gunj ", the population of Mccluskiegunj can be broadly classified into two categories. One that have immigrated to Gunj for earning their living by working in institutions like Don Bosco Academy, situated at Mccluskiegunj . People falling into this category faced a lot of financial crisis as their major source of earning paused. Small proprietors earned no revenue during the lockdown. The sweet shop owners had no customer as the major chunk of customers are students who stay at hostels in Gunj. Even the crows and street dogs lost their weight, since the extra food of the hostel was their source of breakfast, lunch and dinner. Since there were zero corona positive cases here, people used to go out and meet among each other on streets (By maintaining proper social distancing and wearing masks). The best part of the day since everyone of us who met on the streets used to share about the pandemic situation, about the vacci...
Post a Comment
Read more

Indian Food at Foreign Location.

  As you all know that I am vegetarian, I used to survive on corn flakes, mueslis, breads, croissants, cappuccino and some Gujarati snacks that I got from India. I was bored to have the same type of food everyday. After doing an extensive research, I found two restaurants having Indian food on their menu card. One had a buffet food system, available between 12:30pm to 3:00pm, since I had classes till 5pm, I preferred to go to the another restaurant near to the main market of Antwerp . Expecting the increased bill, I ordered a plate of jeera rice and paneer butter masala, which I found worth paying for. While talking to Charlotte, my first friend at the University and my co-researcher of "Social Food Lab"; she expressed her love for Indian food. Another team mate of Antwerp, joined  us in having the Indian cuisine at the Indo-Nepali Restaurant . We ordered some good food and to my amaze, Charlotte loved the thick saucy paste of Paneer Butter Masala, so much that she dipped i...
Post a Comment
Read more