Jun 2008

The combination of the arrival of warmer weather, students finishing their exams, the world cup and the tourist influx means that Antwerp is hotting up. It is now not unusual to have our beauty sleep serenaded by drunken late night revellers wandering home past our apartment. Last night I actually went out and indulged in a bit of the cafe culture, meeting my fellow blacksmith student Klaas and a few of his university colleagues. We brainstormed a name and a logo for the absinthe we are planning on distilling. The best name we came up with was "Bad Moon Rising" with a silhouette image of a wolf taking a bite out of the moon..yeh yeh it needs work.

I have maxed out all our library cards and the apartment is littered with about 30 travel guides and country picture books. Antwerp central library is extremely well stocked, with numerous copies of guides in various languages for most countries in the world. This week is my last week for my 3night/wk Blacksmith classes...I will miss them deeply. The creative expression and brotherhood I have felt in the community of students that forge at the Zuiderpershuis has touched me deeply and given me a new vision, to have a forge in the centre of my life.

Well hello out there! Welcome to my first blog entry. The inspiration to start this blog comes from the my need to share what I see hear and feel with you, my friends and family. Facebook just doesn't have the depth I have been looking for, so perhaps this blog format from Travellerspoint will do the trick. I hope you get something out of it.

The goal of this blog will be to outline the life and times of me "Estebaan Cortez Dante", my wife (Lut) and twin 12yr old boys (Max and Victor) for the next 6-7months. At this stage we are based in Antwerp. Lut is working fulltime as an archtitect and my boys are attending a Belgian school. We have been based here since last August 07 after hurtling out of Melbourne following my former companies takeover and my realisation that I was at a midlife career junction.

Although this trip began last year its really a journey and in that respect a lifelong one. The title for our journey "Reis van de Nautilidae", literally translated as "Trip of the Nautilidae" is a Flemish inspired title from the what could be considered our family emblem, the Nautilus. Nautilidae is the taxonomic name for the family of cephalopods in which the Nautilus is categorised... We have lots of these shells in our collection back in Australia, our most valued being a Paper Nautilus shell found by Victor on a windswept beach on Wilsons Promontory many years ago. The beauty of the form, its symmetry, is one of natures true treasures, just like us. Below is a photo was taken on a bike trip we made to Lier a few weekends ago. There was a feast of good wrought ironwork for me to photograph on the route which went from Antwerp through some streets in Mortsel before heading into the fields around Hove. This is just one of the many great rides around Antwerp that can be found on the bike map you can purchase from the Tourist Info centre on the Grote Markt.