DIScourse - Antwerp

Today is my last day in Antwerp.  I can't believe how fast the time has gone by!

I spent Thursday in Bruges and on Friday evening I went to Bristol, England to visit friends for the weekend.  I'll write more about this when I return to the US.

Yesterday I returned to Belgium at 10:00 only to run into a baggage handlers strike at the airport.  I ended up not leaving the airport until 17:00!  After six hours I finally filed out the lost luggage forms and was going to leave but it was 16:10 and the bus to Antwerp leaves on the hour.  So, I sat down and after about ten minutes the words "THE HOUSE OF DIS" caught my eye.  I couldn't believe it.  My luggage had finally made it out of the basement.  It was supposed to arrive on Belt 2 but ended up coming out on Belt 7 so it was pure luck/fate that I happened to sit down across from Belt 7 (in a completely different part of the terminal).  

Today I'm at the office for part of the day to mail out a box to clothes to the US, check my mail, say my good byes and clean out my desk.  I'm still not sure what my future is going to be at Theo but I am hoping that I can at least continue to do some freelance work with them.

Tomorrow I have to catch a train from Antwerp to Schiphol in Amsterdam at 07:00 for my 10:30 flight back to Portland.  I'm glad that it's a direct flight because I'm not looking forward to hauling my luggage around.

Packing

I'm in the middle of packing up my things to put in storage while I'm spending the summer in Antwerp, Belgium.  There's a lot to do but I had to take a break from packing boxes and turn to packing my suitcase.  What do you bring for a three month stay in one of the most fashionable cities in the world?  Belgian clothes of course.

I recently got new Globe-Trotter luggage after I saw them in an editorial photo spread.  I had never heard of the company before but I wanted something simple and black with wheels to bring with me to Tokyo and I really liked the design, as well as the heritage of the luggage company.  However, I wanted to customize my luggage a bit, especially after seeing the luggage everywhere in Tokyo, so I decided to brand them with a stencil.

A friend of mine who owns a sign shop, Sign On, made the stencils based on my font layout and I sprayed them on the cases.  I had a little problem with bleeding on the large case (the paint started to react with the vinyl) but overall I'm really happy with the way they turned out.  Now people will really think I'm wheeling around instruments.