Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Bergen-op-Zoom to Bergen-op-Zoom
ok, sorry, I haven't gotten to describing the hike Brenda and I did in the alps which involved crossing the border between italy and france 4 times within 3 days, eating a tasty meal in an italian refugio, a bit of via ferrata with large packs on, a tasty tartelette aux mytilles from a french refuge, homemade ricotta, a cacophony of cow bells, a crazily windy pass, an old salt trading tunnel, and bougetins! Realistically, the chances are I won't get to it. But you can ask me or Brenda about it :)
Plus there have been several other fun things in the interim - the highlights include the following:
- Becoming healthy and sweaty, Swedish-style
- A carpet of flowers
- Quatro gatos
- A Belgian skeet shooting, swimming, and feasting party in the land where people take their goats for walks
- Crepes et glaces et tartes delicieuses
- les Moules
- Following in Tintin's footsteps to Nyon (a visit to Switzerland)
- food in tubes
- pukkelpop
- sidewalk chalk portraiture in paris
.. but the adventure that I would like to describe now took place just yesterday, and it all began with a small street in Nanaimo.
As Greg will attest, Nanaimo is known to have some rather peculiar street names (in fact I found some limericks someone wrote about them online yesterday). One such name is "Bergen-Op-Zoom Drive" (although actually I always thought it was just "Bergen-Up-Zoom", but that is incorrect according to google maps). Anyhow, so on Monday evening I was taking a look at a map of the Brussels area and I happened to notice that just across the border in the Netherlands there is a place named Bergen-op-Zoom. Wow! I thought it might hold the key to the mystery of the aforementioned street in Nanaimo. I decided that I would take a train to Antwerp and bike the 40km to Bergen-op-Zoom for the following reasons, which I emailed to Brenda's friend Guillebert, hoping he would be convinced to accompany me:
1. c'est dans les "Netherlands", ou je ne suis jamais aller
2. c'est pres de la mer
3. il y a une rue dans la vie ou j'habite qui s'appelle "Bergen-Up-Zoom", et
peut-etre qu'il y a un lien avec cette ville
4. c'est environ 40 km d'Anvers - un bon distance pour un petit tour a velo
5. c'est un lieu inconnue alors qui sait ce qu'on va trouver...
The following morning, we met at the train station at 9am, and thus the adventure began..
When we arrived in Antwerp (Anvers to the french, Antwerpen to the flemish), we opted not to seek out a map and instead starting weaving our way through the streets in a haphazard manner that generally led towards the north. This is perhaps not the best way to see the best sides of a city - I got the impression it was a rather ugly city and Brussels started to look much better in my eyes. We seemed to be making decent progress for a while, but as we twisted and turned and the sun still failed to really reveal itself, I started to doubt my sense of direction and we consulted a map on a bus stop. We saw that the water should be to our west and decided to head towards it as a good landmark to follow - we needed only to keep the water on our left. This strategy worked, and we soon found ourselves on a "piste cyclable" following well, not actually the water, but a highway buzzing with large trucks next to the most enormous port I have ever seen. It was not exactly the pleasant voyage along the shores of the North Sea that I had been anticipating. There didn't seem to be many other options, however, given our lack of cartography, so we continued on and on with the big trucks, the stacks of containers, the large giraffe-like machines, and no sign of water to our left.
Finally, there was a fork in the bike path, and we decided to turn east for a while where the landscape looked much more green and quiet and calm, hoping that we would find a route that headed north before we went too far. Though I find ports interesting, it was wonderful to get away from the busy gray road and into the countryside. And yet.. the road we chose to head north on, though pretty, was horrible to ride on! It was a cobblestone track leading past farms of oignons, chevals, and corn. But I felt so shaken up by the vibrations that my whole body hurt, especially my head. Oy. Luckily, after about a km or two, the quaintness of cobblestones gave way to smooth concrete. Soon we found ourselves on the official network of biking pathways that I hear can be found throughout Belgium, or at least the Flemish part of it.
After riding through a lovely forest and making a few wrong turns onto hiking trails, we arrived on the outskirts of the town of Putte. Guillebert found this to be incredibly funny. (This might help to explain why). A few minutes down the road/path, we crossed the border and I began my first visit to the Netherlands.
After our lunchtime picnic (baguette with filet d'anvers, gouda, and tomatoes), we looked at the time. Eeps. It had taken us 4 hours to get to there, and I wanted to be back in Antwerp about 3 hours later in order to make it back to brussels for some Friskis & Svettis action. We decided to continue for about 20 mins to look for a worthy destination then to turn back.
Well, 20 minutes turned into about an hour and a half because just a few minutes from lunch we saw a sign that told us Bergen-op-Zoom was only 10km further - it would be such a shame to turn back when we were so close that we decided to go for it. If it had not been for my taking a picture of an odd painting on some kind of electric box and Guillebert's examining of a Dutch mailbox, our visit to Bergen-op-Zoom would have been very ho hum. Luckily, fate smiled upon us. I asked Guillebert whether what he was looking at was a mailbox. He replied in the affirmative. I mentioned that it was a pity I didn't know anyone living on Bergen-Op-Zoom in Nanaimo, as it would have been nice to send a postcard. Guillebert had the brilliant idea that I *could* just make up a random address and send a postcard anyhow. !!!. Though the town didn't appear to be touristy (despite the sign at its entrance claiming it won the prize for #1 Binnenstad in the netherlands - me having no clue what a binnenstad was), we decided to look for a postcard. We found a shopping centre with a small newstand that did not have postcards, yet did have a large assortment of cartoony cards saying various things in dutch - and all of them said something about Bergen-Op-Zoom on the front. I think some were get well cards, others birthday cards, and some I had no idea. I selected one and wrote a message inside to explain why I was sending it, then addressed it to "Whoever lives in the first house on the right on Bergen-Up-Zoom" in Nanaimo, BC, CANADA. No postal code and as it turns out I got the name of the street wrong. I am very curious to see if it makes it to its destination and whether it will actually be read even if so. I sure hope so!
Sending this card was an adventure in itself, and luckily so. You see, I suggested that we go back to the mailbox we had initially seen, but Guillebert said it was marked "TNT", which he knew as a courrier company - not a normal postbox. We asked a fish vendor in the mall's parking lot, but he didn't speak English well, he wasn't from town, and he was useless with information - he told us he didn't know where to find a mailbox, but that they were red (the TNT one we saw was orange). We asked him the best way back towards Antwerp and he pointed in the opposite direction to the one we ought to take. So we headed off down the main road and asked a few other people, most of whom also didn't really speak English or French, where to find a mailbox. We found it very hard to believe and to understand why everyone gave such vague answers and seemed to have no idea where to send a letter from. At least they did all seem to point us in the right direction - to the end of the main road, they said. It was about then that the rain started to pour down. The reason I say all this was lucky is that when we did finally get to the end of the road, soaking wet, we found ourselves actually in the centre of town, and in fact it was quite a nice place after all. Had it not been for the quest for the mailbox, we likely would have missed it altogether. Anyhow, we finally got some more precise directions to a postbox - precise enough that when we got to the right spot and saw another orange TNT box, we realized that this must, in fact, be just a normal mailbox. So off went the letter, and, mission accomplished, we turned back for Antwerp.
This time the ride was super-speedy since we managed to follow a marked bike path all the way back to the city. We avoided the ride along the port altogether.
The only unfortunate thing is that we missed the last train that would have gotten to Brussels in time for Friskis & Svettis. But on the other hand, we did have time for ice cream.
While in Antwerp I learned that it is the diamond capitol of Europe because of its former colonizing of the Congo and its enormous port. After Guillebert pointed it out to me, it was hard to understand how I had not noticed that every store across the street from the train station was a jeweler's. I also learned that Antwerp is home to one of the biggest zoos in Europe and that its entrance is right in the middle of town also next to the train station. And that, horrifically, Belgium once housed a "Zoo" showcasing african tribespeople. This apparently did not last long, however. Hmm, actually after doing some research on this, it seems that there have been numerous examples of humans showcased in zoos in the history of Europe and the US. Not all are as horrendous as it may sound, but very much morally questionable nonetheless.
Anyhow. Bergen-op-Zoom. Nice place. I'm still not sure what the connection is to Nanaimo, but if I hear back from whoever lives in the first house on the right, I will be sure to post an update.
kat
ps. pics are in my gallery here
Plus there have been several other fun things in the interim - the highlights include the following:
- Becoming healthy and sweaty, Swedish-style
- A carpet of flowers
- Quatro gatos
- A Belgian skeet shooting, swimming, and feasting party in the land where people take their goats for walks
- Crepes et glaces et tartes delicieuses
- les Moules
- Following in Tintin's footsteps to Nyon (a visit to Switzerland)
- food in tubes
- pukkelpop
- sidewalk chalk portraiture in paris
.. but the adventure that I would like to describe now took place just yesterday, and it all began with a small street in Nanaimo.
As Greg will attest, Nanaimo is known to have some rather peculiar street names (in fact I found some limericks someone wrote about them online yesterday). One such name is "Bergen-Op-Zoom Drive" (although actually I always thought it was just "Bergen-Up-Zoom", but that is incorrect according to google maps). Anyhow, so on Monday evening I was taking a look at a map of the Brussels area and I happened to notice that just across the border in the Netherlands there is a place named Bergen-op-Zoom. Wow! I thought it might hold the key to the mystery of the aforementioned street in Nanaimo. I decided that I would take a train to Antwerp and bike the 40km to Bergen-op-Zoom for the following reasons, which I emailed to Brenda's friend Guillebert, hoping he would be convinced to accompany me:
1. c'est dans les "Netherlands", ou je ne suis jamais aller
2. c'est pres de la mer
3. il y a une rue dans la vie ou j'habite qui s'appelle "Bergen-Up-Zoom", et
peut-etre qu'il y a un lien avec cette ville
4. c'est environ 40 km d'Anvers - un bon distance pour un petit tour a velo
5. c'est un lieu inconnue alors qui sait ce qu'on va trouver...
The following morning, we met at the train station at 9am, and thus the adventure began..
When we arrived in Antwerp (Anvers to the french, Antwerpen to the flemish), we opted not to seek out a map and instead starting weaving our way through the streets in a haphazard manner that generally led towards the north. This is perhaps not the best way to see the best sides of a city - I got the impression it was a rather ugly city and Brussels started to look much better in my eyes. We seemed to be making decent progress for a while, but as we twisted and turned and the sun still failed to really reveal itself, I started to doubt my sense of direction and we consulted a map on a bus stop. We saw that the water should be to our west and decided to head towards it as a good landmark to follow - we needed only to keep the water on our left. This strategy worked, and we soon found ourselves on a "piste cyclable" following well, not actually the water, but a highway buzzing with large trucks next to the most enormous port I have ever seen. It was not exactly the pleasant voyage along the shores of the North Sea that I had been anticipating. There didn't seem to be many other options, however, given our lack of cartography, so we continued on and on with the big trucks, the stacks of containers, the large giraffe-like machines, and no sign of water to our left.
Finally, there was a fork in the bike path, and we decided to turn east for a while where the landscape looked much more green and quiet and calm, hoping that we would find a route that headed north before we went too far. Though I find ports interesting, it was wonderful to get away from the busy gray road and into the countryside. And yet.. the road we chose to head north on, though pretty, was horrible to ride on! It was a cobblestone track leading past farms of oignons, chevals, and corn. But I felt so shaken up by the vibrations that my whole body hurt, especially my head. Oy. Luckily, after about a km or two, the quaintness of cobblestones gave way to smooth concrete. Soon we found ourselves on the official network of biking pathways that I hear can be found throughout Belgium, or at least the Flemish part of it.
After riding through a lovely forest and making a few wrong turns onto hiking trails, we arrived on the outskirts of the town of Putte. Guillebert found this to be incredibly funny. (This might help to explain why). A few minutes down the road/path, we crossed the border and I began my first visit to the Netherlands.
After our lunchtime picnic (baguette with filet d'anvers, gouda, and tomatoes), we looked at the time. Eeps. It had taken us 4 hours to get to there, and I wanted to be back in Antwerp about 3 hours later in order to make it back to brussels for some Friskis & Svettis action. We decided to continue for about 20 mins to look for a worthy destination then to turn back.
Well, 20 minutes turned into about an hour and a half because just a few minutes from lunch we saw a sign that told us Bergen-op-Zoom was only 10km further - it would be such a shame to turn back when we were so close that we decided to go for it. If it had not been for my taking a picture of an odd painting on some kind of electric box and Guillebert's examining of a Dutch mailbox, our visit to Bergen-op-Zoom would have been very ho hum. Luckily, fate smiled upon us. I asked Guillebert whether what he was looking at was a mailbox. He replied in the affirmative. I mentioned that it was a pity I didn't know anyone living on Bergen-Op-Zoom in Nanaimo, as it would have been nice to send a postcard. Guillebert had the brilliant idea that I *could* just make up a random address and send a postcard anyhow. !!!. Though the town didn't appear to be touristy (despite the sign at its entrance claiming it won the prize for #1 Binnenstad in the netherlands - me having no clue what a binnenstad was), we decided to look for a postcard. We found a shopping centre with a small newstand that did not have postcards, yet did have a large assortment of cartoony cards saying various things in dutch - and all of them said something about Bergen-Op-Zoom on the front. I think some were get well cards, others birthday cards, and some I had no idea. I selected one and wrote a message inside to explain why I was sending it, then addressed it to "Whoever lives in the first house on the right on Bergen-Up-Zoom" in Nanaimo, BC, CANADA. No postal code and as it turns out I got the name of the street wrong. I am very curious to see if it makes it to its destination and whether it will actually be read even if so. I sure hope so!
Sending this card was an adventure in itself, and luckily so. You see, I suggested that we go back to the mailbox we had initially seen, but Guillebert said it was marked "TNT", which he knew as a courrier company - not a normal postbox. We asked a fish vendor in the mall's parking lot, but he didn't speak English well, he wasn't from town, and he was useless with information - he told us he didn't know where to find a mailbox, but that they were red (the TNT one we saw was orange). We asked him the best way back towards Antwerp and he pointed in the opposite direction to the one we ought to take. So we headed off down the main road and asked a few other people, most of whom also didn't really speak English or French, where to find a mailbox. We found it very hard to believe and to understand why everyone gave such vague answers and seemed to have no idea where to send a letter from. At least they did all seem to point us in the right direction - to the end of the main road, they said. It was about then that the rain started to pour down. The reason I say all this was lucky is that when we did finally get to the end of the road, soaking wet, we found ourselves actually in the centre of town, and in fact it was quite a nice place after all. Had it not been for the quest for the mailbox, we likely would have missed it altogether. Anyhow, we finally got some more precise directions to a postbox - precise enough that when we got to the right spot and saw another orange TNT box, we realized that this must, in fact, be just a normal mailbox. So off went the letter, and, mission accomplished, we turned back for Antwerp.
This time the ride was super-speedy since we managed to follow a marked bike path all the way back to the city. We avoided the ride along the port altogether.
The only unfortunate thing is that we missed the last train that would have gotten to Brussels in time for Friskis & Svettis. But on the other hand, we did have time for ice cream.
While in Antwerp I learned that it is the diamond capitol of Europe because of its former colonizing of the Congo and its enormous port. After Guillebert pointed it out to me, it was hard to understand how I had not noticed that every store across the street from the train station was a jeweler's. I also learned that Antwerp is home to one of the biggest zoos in Europe and that its entrance is right in the middle of town also next to the train station. And that, horrifically, Belgium once housed a "Zoo" showcasing african tribespeople. This apparently did not last long, however. Hmm, actually after doing some research on this, it seems that there have been numerous examples of humans showcased in zoos in the history of Europe and the US. Not all are as horrendous as it may sound, but very much morally questionable nonetheless.
Anyhow. Bergen-op-Zoom. Nice place. I'm still not sure what the connection is to Nanaimo, but if I hear back from whoever lives in the first house on the right, I will be sure to post an update.
kat
ps. pics are in my gallery here
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