A train to Antwerpen with no ticket despite my attempts to buy one. Thirty minutes in which I think upon what I like about living in Europe. Sleeping. Thirty minutes to a new city as intriguing as Brussels or… that a short trip can take me somewhere new.

I arrive. Find chocolate. Walk. Admire the architecture, reminding me of Amsterdam, along with beautiful towers of Art Deco and other edifices laced with Art Nouveau. The Centraal Station for example, one of such beauty. Well, me, I do have a fondness for train stations and airports. Bus terminals tend to be the shabby best-left-unmentioned cousins, as perhaps evinced by the name terminal instead of station.

I walk towards fashion. Yoji Yamamoto, with exquisite felted wool trousers, skirts, jackets, Dries van Norten … I look for Anna Demeulemeester, but fail, though wander near the canal. I find Walter van Beirendonck, but struggle to find my way into the old carpark. Later I do, and exit, with a scarf. Thinking of Daniel.

Later still, I find my way east to Troubleyn. My reason for venturing to Antwerp, to see Orgy of Tolerance (I shall try and write of that elsewhere). I exit the toilet and find Ivo standing there. Later again, it rains, a phenomenal deluge turning highways into small lakes, we pass through in hazes of mist and opaqueness.