penultimate day

This morning I packed nominally while the sun was hidden, but once it came out, I went to Antwerp for one last visit. I bought my long-sought black-and-white book of photography by Maartien Coppens, Antwerpen, der wereld der Sinjoren. I claimed my free drink from Mockamore and realized they use Ghirardelli chocolate in their coffee, I saw Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekatethdraal and heard the luxurious automatic play, I searched to no avail for a slim wallet at Mango and Zara, I wanted to get a last Brusselse wafel from the Désiré de Lille stand, but couldn't imagine downing it after that giant cinnamony cup of Indian Summer. I also realized--how could it have taken so long to put into words?--that I grew up in a land of convenience, and that has led to my constand friction with Belgian business practices. You start a bank account in California and you can almost everything with it 3000 miles away at their branches in New York. In Belgium, you open an account in Mechelen at Dexia (which has given me more grief than Wachovia, if that's possible) and you can't do squat with it 30 km away: I couldn't get a new NetBanking code or change my address! Yet everything the Mechelen branch was centrally processed, and my card and addresses were udpated centrally. So why the Antwerp branch can't do the same, I cannot fathom. To add injury to insult, I returned to the Dexia in Mechelen only to find that it closed at 4 pm. Somehow I ended up at a bank for provincial farmers who never leave their backwoods, or I ended up in a country where the businesses work for themselves and not for the customers. Perhaps hateful Dexia is a combination of the two.

When I returned and threw my boxes together, Elvo kindly helped me move my boeken/zeepost packages to the KBS Archive (a big historic locker for carillonneurs, much like belfries) and get the new Mac up and running somewhat smoothly again, the only hitch being that the admin account is not the root. Go figure.

After the most clangorous peal I'd ever heard from the tower, Geert played the most virtuoso concert of Callaerts arrangements I had ever heard on St.-Rombouts in my life (even Koen van Assche was breathless). Afterwards we all had drinks on the school in 't Oude Conservatorium, a place I'd always been curious about but never classy enough to enter. It wasn't really that classy, same menu as every other establishment. He took my final box away, heaven bless him, as well as the spices I knew he'd use well.

Two hours to sunrise from St. Rombouts. Back to packing.