stunning memories

Yesterday evening, a conversation with Geert on a drive to Antwerpen that ended all too soon reminded me to dig up the fictionalized account I wrote during my junior year of a couple of EuroTour 2003 mishaps, of which there were many. Each time I bike past Sint-Romboutstoren and find my breath stolen by the sight of it rising through the midnight mist, I am reminded of this excerpt:

14:32. The minivan screeched to a halt by the statue anchoring a cobblestone roundabout and Serena leaped out, struggling to extract her camera from her backpack as George asked why she had demanded that he stop in the middle of the road. She simply pointed her lens at the Brabantine Gothic belfry and began to shoot madly.

From amidst the two- to three-story Rococo buildings of Mechelen's Grote Markt rose the magnificent white stone mass of St.-Romboutstoren for over thirty meters--a hundred feet. The monolith gleamed in the warmth of the afternoon sun, layer upon layer of heavy stone articulated by elaborate stringcourses. Powerful piers pushed their way into the sky, dissolving into elaborate Gothic carving in the upper third of the tower in answer to the piers that branched into glazed clerestories in the cathedral. Forty-nine carillon bells hung within the upper third of the tower.

“She’s having a towergasm!” quipped Tanya as Serena marveled at Sint-Romboutstoren, stern, immovable, and timeless as a mountain. With nothing else tall on the horizon, the tower seemed to soar to impossible heights.

The bourdon, the heaviest bell of the carillon, began to toll the half-hour like a summons to perform. She hurried into the minivan, and the group took off at full speed for one of the most glorious instruments they would ever play.