Okay doke, let’s rewind a bit to last night because I ended yesterday’s blog at the end of my Flanders Fields tour but that’s actually not when my day ended.

After the tour I quickly went back to my hostel, picked up my bag from the storage locker, and boarded a train to Antwerp where I’ll be staying for the next five days.

The hostel I’m at here in Antwerp is kind of far out of the main city center and as I walked the streets from the train station I noticed there wasn’t alot of businesses or restaurants around.

I checked in around 9pm and actually found literally the only restaurant around here just around the corner for a much need late night dinner.

I ended up have a filet steak with a glass of wine for 34€ ($52).   Pretty pricey and honestly, not that great of a meal but beggars can’t be choosers.   I was just happy to get some food in me.   Foreshadowing, perhaps???

Anyway, spent a late night putting together last night’s long blog while watching some of my favorite poker streamer on YouTube in the background.   Before I knew it, it was 1am and it was time for bed.   I was exhausted.

So, on to today…

For some bizarre reason I was up at the ungodly hour of 6:30 this morning after just 5 1/2 hours sleep.   What the hell?!?   Am I ever gonna get 8 hours sleep and where is that damn jet lag I’m supposed to have?

I kinda took my sweet time this morning as I didn’t have to be anywhere early on and ended up finally leaving the hostel at 9:00.

Good breakfast

I used my phone app “Find me GF” to find nearby breakfast places that offered gluten free options.   Again, because of where the hostel is, everything was a good 20 minutes into town.

No worries though because my plan was to head into town anyway and explore a little.

On my way to the restaurant I stopped by at an Orange store to pickup a new sim card that’ll work for the rest of my trip (unlike Vodafone, thanks for nothing!).

The place I had marked actually had a sign on their door that said they would be open again tomorrow.   Lame.

Okay, a quick check of the app and I found another place open but it was yet another 15 minute walk away.   Also lame.

Whatever, I hiked over to Joe & The Juice and, sure enough, they have gluten free flatbread available for their sandwiches.   Color me happy.   It’s always a great feeling to walk into a place and ask “do you have gluten free” and have them immediate respond “absolutely, we can do everything”.   So, yeah, I was pretty damn happy with my breakfast today.

My own walking tour

I had lunch plans at 2:30 so I had planned on doing a 10:30 walking tour before then but it turns out that the free walking tour I was going to go on only offer their 10:30 starts on the weekend and the tour today was at 1:30.   Well, that wasn’t gonna work for me today.

So, I did what any self respecting backpacker would do – I created my own walking tour.   Before I headed out today I marked the different attractions in the city on my map and I was ready to go.

The only difference, of course, is that there were no stories to hear but I still got to see alot of nice things and take a bunch of photos.

An amazing lunch

Why was it amazing?   Well, it was because of who joined me.   It was my favorite poker streamer, Lex Veldhuis.   He’s Dutch but currently plays out of Belgium because of silly poker regulations in his home country.

Before I left for my trip, we made plans to meet up for lunch today.   It was my first time meeting Lex in person after following his stream for almost 5 years.

I was actually supposed to meet him back in 2020 on the infamous trip that got cancelled because of Covid.   It was his poker community meetup, Lex Live 3, that I had planned to attend in London before I embarked on the rest of my trip.

I’ll be honest, I was tiny bit nervous about meeting him.   I mean, after all, he’s some big famous streamer and poker ambassador and I was just one of the people in his community.

How was I gonna greet him?   Would the conversation be awkward?

I arrived a couple minutes late and Lex was already sitting there waiting for me.   I was quickly put as ease as he got up and greeted me with a big hug.

And the conversation flowed naturally.   We talked about my travels and about poker.   The person I see on stream all the time was the exact person I was now face to face with.

We both had steak tartare cause, ya know, we be fancy like that and the time flew by.   Before we knew it, it was 4pm and Lex had to get back to start streaming for the day.

Lex picked up the tab cause that’s just the kind of guy he is and we said our goodbyes.

It was a great lunch.   He’s a great guy and I was happy to finally meet him in person.

A crappy dinner

Let’s just skip the rest of the afternoon and fast forward to 8pm.   I was hungry and it was time for dinner.

I found a place offering gluten free items about halfway into the city so I embarked on the 15 minute walk over there.

It was closed.

Seriously.   Just randomly closed every Wednesday.

Okay, this was the impetus to alot of bad decisions and circumstances that would follow.

So, the place was closed and I debated whether I would just continue to walk another 15 minutes into the city center.

Then I remembered all the Deliveroo drivers on bikes around the city (think Uber eats but on bikes).

Screw it!   I wasn’t going to walk all the way into the city.   I’d just get a food delivery to my hostel.

As I walked back to the hostel, I downloaded the app for my phone, found a gluten free burger place, and started to place my order.

I got to the checkout screen and, again like last week, my visa was sent to secondary security wanting to text me a verification code to my number back in Canada.

Oh, for the love of God!

I wasn’t defeated yet though.

I got back to the hostel and decided I would call visa in Canada and tell them to let my purchase go through.   To do so, I had to reinstall my sim card from Vodafone because I had purchased 50 free minutes of overseas calling from it.

I switched the sim card and took my laptop and phone out into the lobby to make my call.   Well, whatcha know, the call didn’t go through.   Like, seriously, Vodafone?   Never again.   What a stupid company!

To make matters worse, my newly purchase Orange sim card was lost along the way.   I searched high and low for a good 20 minutes before I finally found it on the floor.

It was now past 10pm.

It had been 2 hours and I still hadn’t eaten.

This was a colossal disaster on so many levels.

I finally gave in and went to the same restaurant around the corner that I had gone to last night.

Ah, but while they were open til 11pm, they had stopped serving food already.

Alright, that was it.   I gave up.   I admitted defeat.

I skulked back to the hostel and bought 2 bags or chips and a coke.

Dinner was served.

What a bizarre day.   I went from having an amazing lunch to just going through the most ludicrous search for dinner tonight.

I just kept telling myself that at least it’ll make for a good blog.

So, yeah, you’re welcome…