One Weekend, Two Port Cities – Port 2

I was sent to Hamburg for work and, due to labour strife and confusion with my Hamburger friends, I couldn’t stay for the weekend. Instead I returned to the Dorf and boarded another bus to a second port city. In this the second port of two blog posts, I write and ramble about our trip to Antwerp.

Our Lady of Antwerp

Antwerp

What pops into your head when you think of Belgium? Beer. Okay, that was easy. But what else? Waffles? Fries? Jean-Claude Van Damme?

Sadly, fries and waffles do not require a secret recipe or a local ingredient. Van Damme is, well, that's a blog post on its own. Is Belgium really that blah? Is it really just about starchy foods and washed out action dudes living off the irony of their washed-ness?

No. Belgium has Antwerp. You know, that city where diamonds come from. Amsterdam's less well known little brother. The biggest city in Flanders, you know? "Flanders Fields, where the poppies grow..." That one? The place where they don't speak French and they don't quite speak Dutch either.  

You can be forgiven for not knowing much about Antwerp, I didn't until a colleague mentioned what a cool place it was. Antwerp? "Yeah, it's a cool town. Better than Brussels. Don't go there. Brussels is a hole."

With a long weekend approaching and no couch to crash on in Hamburg after the ADC, we decided to get onto a bus to see what all the fuss is about in Antwerp. And give Brussels a wide berth in the process.

An unexpected surprise

If you wanted to be anywhere in Medieval Europe (if you don't mind lack of hygiene and a high risk of disease, dismemberment, and/or death) Antwerp was the place to be. It was an international port, filled with merchants and artists and thinkers and beer. Its fortune was built on wool, and, to this day, it's still a cool fashion and design city. 

It was also a hub of religious violence. It was sacked by the Spanish during the Eighty Years War. There were street fights and looting during the Reformation. It had a 'Great Fire' and was blocked from the sea (the city's livelihood) for centuries, then showered with V2 missiles during the troubles in the 40s.

They didn't give up on it. They always moved back. They rebuilt what was destroyed. They maintained what wasn't destroyed. They brewed beer. They kept on going, and today Antwerp surprised me – it's a fun, cool city with a great vibe.

The old town, like the old town in most Western European cities is touristy, but a 10-minute walk in any direction (except towards the river) takes you to a cool neighbourhood. It might be a student hood or the hipster corner of town where streets are lined with antique shops filled with knick knacks. On our first day we even chanced upon a food truck market. 

Culture, Motherf**kers!

I mentioned artists earlier. Some of my favourites put brush to canvas around here: Bruegel, Bosch, those guys. Needless to say, I didn't need a few beers to get excited about checking out the Fine Arts Museum. That excitement evaporated when I learned it's closed for renovations until 2018! 

Rather than sticking the collection into a basement somewhere until 2018, the museum has spread its masterpieces around. There was a Bruegel Land somewhere in the countryside, which I hope didn't look like this:

So, instead of anger-drinking beer on patios and binge-eating fries out of sadness, we managed to see some of the great altar paintings. They were put on display in Antwerp's cathedral, so for an easy six euros we saw a beautiful gothic church and some Flemish masters.

Beer your beery beers, beers.

I might have been a little too hard on Belgium earlier on. They make good beer. And a lot of it. They also age the stuff. They stick bottles into basements and forget about them for a few decades. At one place, Kata ordered a fruit beer that was almost as old as her. They have delicious darks and awesome ales. Most of the wheat beers are palatable enough that you don't need to stick tropical fruit into them.

We were also lucky. We visited on one of those rare weekends in northwestern Europe where it was sunny. Naturally with weather that good in a beer country, we hit the patios. Who has ever told you they got a tan in Flanders? I can! But that was two weeks ago, so it's gone now.

Many of us have a bucket list of places we'd like to visit. Antwerp never rated as a place on my list, but it has earned a spot on my list of places worthy of a second visit.

Kata's fruit beer from 1987. It tasted as bad as that sounds.

Going to the Toilet Disco, complete with a DJ.

Artsy Antwerp and its street art.

A photo of the photo taker.

So long, Antwerp. See you again soon!

If you go:

Drink beer and eat Flemish food at Bille's Beer Kafeteria. There are plenty of great beers, which can be a little overwhelming. But overwhelming is good, because you just ask the staff for advice, they are nice, attentive and all-knowing about the Belgian beers. The bar's mascot is a French Bulldog, who is not as nearly as nice and attentive as the staff unless you're sharing your Flemish rabbit stew.

One Weekend, Two Port Cities – Port 1

I was sent to Hamburg for work and, due to labour strife and confusion with my Hamburger friends, I couldn’t stay for the weekend. Instead I returned to the Dorf and boarded another bus to a second port city. In this the first of two blog posts, I write and ramble about Hamburg, the first port.

The Ad Party in the Fish Market with
a really big Disco Ball

Hamburg

Hamburg and I have never had the luck to get to know each other. The first time I was there was for four or five hours. Enough time for a job interview and a few quick beers with a friend at a bar near the train station before hopping onto express back to Berlin. Oh, it was rainy and grey the whole time too.

This recent, second trip was less brief, but there wasn't enough time for everything other than the trip's intended purpose.

Ad Party!!!!!!!!

Hamburg was the venue for this year’s Art Directors' Club of Germany's annual awards, so my agency sent a contingent of its ad folk, including me, from the Dorf to Hamburg to take part in the event.

The event includes an exhibition of the winners and a pretty big after party. Everyone was excited about the after party, while the exhibition was an afterthought. Me? I am an non-German-speaking ad nerd, so I was excited about the work and was nervous about the party.

But the trip was not so easy. A rail strike (it's Europe, it happens often) forced the agency to rent a bus. The rail strike also made it impossible to stick around in the city for the weekend to visit Hamburger friends, which I had planned.

Upon arrival and after a quick traditional lunch, which for a producer and I meant eating a pink mess of mashed potatoes and pork with two sunny-side-up eggs on top, we hit the exhibition.

Mixed reactions to Labskaus, a traditional Hamburger dish
of mashed potatoes and meat with eggs on top.

How do I describe German advertising? I can't. It's a nation of 80 million people, not counting Austria and Switzerland, and without a command of the German language, my generalizations would barely generalize properly.

But they're working hard over here. The design is fantastic and, even in our little global village, it feels distinctively German in some strange, indescribable way. They're also into visual ideas, which cheered me up when I went through the ad poster category with my limited command of German.

Just because I said I was excited about the exhibit, doesn't mean I was also a little excited about the ad party. It did not disappoint. They threw the party in the Fish Market building, with free drinks and a gigantic disco ball. 

I went to bed at 3am, which was late for me but early for many of my colleagues – some of whom lasted until 8am. I am only 32 years old, but I guess that is truly old in advertising years.

Hamburger Friends

In the months leading up to, and right after, the shuttering of my old ad agency in Budapest, colleagues were blown to the wind. Some returned home, some drifted to other places, and others found work in Hamburg.

Usually a free ride to a strange right before the weekend would mean that I would stick around for a said weekend. But with the rail strike, some Hamburger friends moving apartments, and other Hamburger friends flying away for the weekend, it didn't seem like a possibility.

Instead, we met for a great, but quick, catch-up lunch. The agency's bus had a departure time for 1pm. At 12:55, still partway through the lunch, I received frantic instant messages asking where I was. It turns out a 1pm departure time means arriving before 1pm – what an amateur move by the Canadian.

Once again a visit to Hamburg and Hamburger friends is cut short. There's always the third time, though.

An ad for a newspaper. "In Berlin it could be a bum or a CEO."

In the illustration category...

I've posted this before, but some of my
favourite work was the student work.

Patio Season, I mean Spring, is here

You know its spring has come to Canada when the first warm day arrives. People peel off their winter layers, ditch their toques – some even don shorts, just to make a point. And they all head for the patios, where they drink beer merrily until the sun sets. 

Of course, it's not summer so as the sun sets people migrate to tables remaining in the sun. until there are no sun kissed table left on the patio. Then everyone peels on their warmer layers or head for central heating in the bar or at home.

Germans are not unlike Canadians in this regard. Sure, we have our differences: a loopy doopy language barrier, Immanuel Kant, and really dark children's tales. But when it comes to drinking beer out of doors, we share some common ground.

Granted, it's a bit different. Many pubs in the Dorf have high tables, so you have to stand to enjoy your outdoor beer. This is good if you want to avoid those I-just-stood-up-to-pee-then-fall-back-into-my-chair moments. This is a bad thing if you're like me and like to lean when you drink.

The standing likely has a purpose. When I arrived to the Dorf in November, Canada's patio season was long over. That was when you sat inside the cozy pub with your frosty pint and cursed the grey sky and the coming snows. In the Dorf, those hearty Germans were drinking outdoors, standing mind you, so there's no frost-bitten toes. 

But there are people who prefer to wait for fairer days to sip their outdoor beers. And the wait, with us Canadians in the cozy beer halls, cursing their grey skies.

Now, as my social media fills with patio shots and outdoor beer pitcher pictures, I am reminded that there are two seasons in Canada: winter and patio season. It's no different in Germany. The Germans come running out to the parks and patios for outdoor drinks and snacks and drinks. The crazy ones who lingered outside all winter, puffing their smokes and shivering over their cold beers, also join us, if they survived. 

We all linger in the sun, drinks in hand. Some of us shuffle chair to chair to follow the setting sun while others remain on their feet, working on their tan until the end. 

That's probably how its meant to be. Beer, whiskey, wine, whatever, all tastes better in the outdoors. No one sits in a basement and uploads photos of their beers. Well, no one on my social feeds, anyway.

Germans will perch at their high tables in the sun after work. Canadians will stretch out on their patios. We all do it differently, but we all have the right idea.