Our final site visit of the trip was Wednesday morning. We walked a little over a mile to get to the Diamond District of Antwerp. Unfortunately, because of the recent shooting at the Jewish Museum in Brussels security was extra tight in the district and we were not allowed to take our tour that had been planned. We ended up only having an hour lecture before we were free to spend the last bit of our day on our own.
The Diamond district is only a block away from the train station so we walked over there to purchase our tickets for the morning early. Our flight home is was out of Brussels at 11:40 and that's about an hour train ride from Antwerp. Just to be safe!
The train station is absolutely gorgeous.
From the panorama picture you can see three vending machines pushed together to the right of Braxton's head. They had a set of bleachers on wheels that they had pushed close to them and a group of decked out Belgian national fans cheering. We walked over to investigate.
Classic John.
They had a Belgian National soccer player in the vending machines playing against fans on a miniature field. Super cool.
From there the group set out on some errands. A few guys were looking for a post office so that they could get packing materials to bring back glasses and bottles, some people were looking for touristy souvenirs, I was looking for specific truffles and all of us were searching for lunch.
To our disadvantage it was the first day that it was truly raining. Honestly it was a blessing, for the first day of rain to be the last day we were there. We were so lucky. That meant all of us cowering under the three (personal) umbrellas total for our group of 5. All of us ended up pretty wet.
Here's a picture of the grocery store that I had gone to throughout the week.
With the rain storm our group dwindled as people ducked inside of restaurants to get out of the pouring rain. It ended up just being Wells and I that went into a chocolate shop to get some last gifts for family.
We walked from there to the hotel to put on actual rain gear (the first time I wore my rain boots!) and headed back out into the rain to grab a sandwich. We went to Perruche. It was a place that our professor's husband had introduced to us and it was both our third time visiting.
Stuck to the Kip I had gotten the last three times and it didn't disappoint.
I spent the last two hours of the afternoon packing a few of my things and turning in a paper. That night we had the final reception at the University Club. We first had to fill out a survey of the program and all of the specific site visits we took. It ended up taking over half an hour to fill out and by the time we finished it was three of us walking to the University Club. It is a sprawling urban campus but I was completely confident that I knew how to get there from the classroom we were in. HA! Psych!
I had no idea and we ended up at the dinner after the first course was served. Whoops!
The first part of the dinner was a little sketchy. It included a lot of raw (I think) fish and asparagus. I downed the constant bread and champagne and enjoyed the veal and dessert. I'm going to miss these casual 5 course meals.
The only picture I have from dinner was this one of Mary Anne and Braxton.
From there we headed back to the University. A lot of people wanted to go out to celebrate the last night but I still had my bags to pack so I turned towards the Ibis. Such a good move on my part because I ended up falling asleep mid-packing anyways and had to wake up at 5:00 to pack my bags.
Gonna miss this place.
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