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.

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