{"id":1985,"date":"2014-08-23T17:36:04","date_gmt":"2014-08-23T16:36:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2014-08-23T17:36:04","modified_gmt":"2014-08-23T16:36:04","slug":"meet-you-on-the-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/23\/meet-you-on-the-train\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet you on the train"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>So Joe has been working in Amsterdam all week, leaving me all on my own. Except last night I got on the ferry and came over. Got to Rotterdam and got on the 09.58 train to Antwerp. Joe got on the 09.18 from Amsterdam to Antwerp. I booked the tickets separately. Our seats were across from each other. Now that is planning.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Antwerpen-Centraal_railway_station\">Antwerp train station<\/a>\u00a0is pretty nifty &#8211; lots of levels with trains! Four levels &#8211; we came in on the bottom level and left on the top level. So nifty! And do read the link &#8211; apparently the design is interesting.<\/p>\n<p>So the the first thing we did in Antwerp was sort our tickets to Bruges. Then walked all over the historic district of Antwerp &#8211; well, after stopping for brunch. So an eggy omelette thing with bacon and bread and coffee later we were walking in the historic district of Antwep. Saw the main square, apparently there is a bollock festival (according to Joe, actually it&#8217;s Bollekesfeest, ok, same difference)\u00a0 and walked along the river. Walked around <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Het_Steen\">Het Steen<\/a> (giggled at the Lange Wapper statue &#8211; Joe will have to put that on Flickr!) and back through Antwerp to the station. To find out that tickets bought in a machine at Antwerp must be used within an hour. So ours are no good. The man at the ticket office was very nice, very helpful, talked us through the entire claim process, sorted out new tickets, told us the train we needed, printed a schedule, talked us through the changes, highlighted the information we needed &#8211; all the while we were smiling and nodding and fretting; because, the train he was talking about left in five minutes. And we needed to get our luggage from left luggage and find the platform (four levels, remember?) We got sorted and found the platform (luckily not far from the left luggage), but in the end our tickets were never checked! We&#8217;re going to see if we can use the original tickets to get back. Or maybe just go straight for the Netherlands.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">So across to Ghent; we were there long enough to scoot from platform 4 to platform 12 and the train to Bruges. Got to Bruges and headed for the <\/span><a style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.hotelacademie.be\/ukhome.html\">Hotel Academie<\/a><span style=\"line-height: 1.5em;\">\u00a0where Joe got in the bath and I relaxed and rested. The walk through Bruges was lovely and I&#8217;m looking forward to seeing everything tomorrow. But for now we&#8217;re out for flamed grilled meat and frites!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So Joe has been working in Amsterdam all week, leaving me all on my own. Except last night I got on the ferry and came over. Got to Rotterdam and got on the 09.58 train to Antwerp. Joe got on the 09.18 from Amsterdam to Antwerp. I booked the tickets separately. Our seats were across [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-w1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":438,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/13\/a-rib-too-far\/","url_meta":{"origin":1985,"position":0},"title":"A Rib Too Far","date":"Tuesday, 13 September 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"And we're back and traveling again. Though not far - just Amsterdam and, hopefully, Delft. Up far too early this morning for the very full train to Brussels and onward to Amsterdam. Nifty train from Brussels - one of the old style with compartments and corridor and seats that slide\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1185,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/15\/5am-thunderstorm\/","url_meta":{"origin":1985,"position":1},"title":"5am Thunderstorm","date":"Sunday, 15 June 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"So to bed. Only to wake up at 5am to thunder. Our hotel was really nifty, all space themed, and the blinds were operated from a switch by the bed (but just not quite close enough to open and close from bed). So I had to sit up and open\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":223,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/25\/efteling\/","url_meta":{"origin":1985,"position":2},"title":"Efteling","date":"Monday, 25 August 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Is a nifty park! I woke up at 7 but we couldn\u00c2\u00b4t go into the park until about 9.45, so we had breakfast and a bimble and an update of the blog, then headed into the park. The nifty rollercoaster, Python, was shut. Joe looked rather relieved but I was\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Frog Blog&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":225,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/26\/amsterdam-joes-version\/","url_meta":{"origin":1985,"position":3},"title":"Amsterdam &#8211; Joe&#8217;s version","date":"Tuesday, 26 August 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Kathleen awoke far too early (it was after 7!) still hoping to get into hte park and that the Python would be fixed. However, after explaining we were going back to Amsterdam she did calm down a bit. So we packed the bags, checked out of the hotel, put the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Dyslexic Discourse&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":429,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2010\/09\/05\/wedding\/","url_meta":{"origin":1985,"position":4},"title":"Wedding","date":"Sunday, 5 September 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Took it easy on Friday, slept and read and not much else. Saturday up just in time for breakfast at the hotel. Then off shopping. Got a couple of new tops and a new shirt for Joe. Actually sort of liked Amsterdam shopping! And I hate shopping! Go into a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Frog Blog&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1365,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/16\/siesta-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":1985,"position":5},"title":"Siesta Update","date":"Monday, 16 June 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"So up a bit later today (just before 9) get ready and head out to the nifty places we found yesterday. Had breakfast in a little bakery\/cafe - Joe said it was a good one because when we went in there was a policeman getting his coffee and pastry (doughnut?)\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Travel&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1985"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2025,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1985\/revisions\/2025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}