Happy New Year - Antwerp Style

Antwerp rung in the New Year this past weekend with a free event in Grote Markt.

We met up with a bunch of our friends and walked up to check out the activites. We ended up hanging out under an awning during a brief period of blizzard like conditions. Lucky for us, the awning was right next to the tents where they were giving away soup, friets and beer. We thought it was funny that you had to wait in line for 10-15 minutes to get a cone of fries but there was no wait at the beer stall. We were all saying that would not be the case in the towns that we came from, besides the fact that they wouldn't be serving any type of alcoholic beverage at all.

The kids had a lot fun on the swing ride and eating cotton candy. We managed to get some of the large balloons they used to decorate the square. Craig said that we looked weird and that people were looking at us carrying the huge balloons. Our friend, Amelia, insisted that they were just jealous. When we got home, the balloon would not fit in the elevator. We live on the third floor, so we tied a long string to it and brought it in through the sliding glass door.