Well this day was all about getting married!
After rushing from the shower to the breakfast lounge and then back up to the room to get all dressed up and meet the couple outside the hotel, we finally got to the City Hall. Luckily, Mechelen is a very compact city where everything can be reached by foot! Though feet don't exactly appreciate that Mechelen quality as the streets are paved with those flat rocks simply placed one next to each other, creating a rocky and hazardeous environment for... high heels...
What took place in the City Hall, was the sweetest ceremony ever! The City Hall is also one of Mechelen's attractions as it is right accros the great cathedral, on Grote Markt, the central square! Steffi, our bride, is Bavarian, so she came dressed like Heidy, wearing a long stripped skirt and an equally long pink apron and had braided her hair, a white tight shirt with puffy short sleeves... she was sooooooooo cute!!
After the first ceremony we took a little stroll in the square that was full of kiosks as there was a big open market with clothes, food, fruits etc. We then changed clothes at the hotel and hopped on the boat that the happy couple had booked for their guests, that took us on an one hour boat ride down the river. It's funny because the river had numerous bridges to connect the two banks, but they are all so short that I never expected the boat to actually go under them. I saw them coming towards us and thought to myself "noooo, he's turning the boat, really why isn't he turning the boat, Gosh, it's off with our heads if he doesn't turn around NOW" but when I turned to our captain he shouted "achtung!" and we all ducked into the boat, almost grabbing our feet, and watched the bridge almost scrape the top side of our boat!
The river is not exactly "crystal clear" but it has improved in time according to our guide. Back in the day, everybody who lived close to the river was thought to be poor as the river was a dump place and smelled awful. In time, this changed. The river got some attention after being somewhat cleaned and people changed place to their back yards to face the river and not the road inland. During our boat ride we saw just that. People sitting on their balconies or yards that were built to face the river. There are also some "streets", steps really that lead to the river, that are saved from older times, when people used it to get water from the river for their daily needs. Besides that, the couple had also arranged a tour at the cathedral's tower, Mechelen's most easily identified land mark, that raises about 514 steps above the ground! Needless to say we chose the relaxing boat ride, our athletic days are over I suppose...
After about 45' we had lunch at one of the numerous little restaurants/cafes. Food, without any local specialities, was delicious and rather large in proportion to the money you paid, but service is another thing... I don't know if it is because our time was limited, or because we come from a country that everybody is running after something and waiters just break legs to serve you, but this is not the story in Mechelen. We waited and waited and waited for someone to take our order, and when we finally did give it, we then waited and waited and waited (seemed like forever) untill our order was actually there! And this is not just one place, this happened all over in every place we went for just a coffee or lunch. So brace yourselves with patience cause you'll need it when in Belgium!
After spending most of our time waiting and very little of it lunching, we had to go get ready for the second ceremony that took place at the impressive Mechelen cathedral. This time, the wedding was closer to what we had expected to see, but not entirely... Yes we did see the groom in a suit and the bride in a wedding dress BUT! the ceremony was sooo different and thus extremely pleasant! Besides the organ of the cathedral that still echoes in my head, they had brought over a gospel group, and when they sang "Amazing Grace" I couldn't stop crying, cause it was the most beautiful thing I have ever heard, more beutiful than hearing a thousand times "I love you", and there were simply no words to fully express my feelings at that time...
After the ceremony, the couple fled in a horse carriage and we met them again at a restaurant they had booked for the wedding dinner and later party called "The Met". The food was excellent, the beer was excellent (taste cherry beer, it's refreshingly different!!) and the surprises cept coming, as the friends of the bride had organised a little puppet show impersonating her and her husband. Unfortunately that was in German, so by the time our friend Mario (see "A road trip to the North") translated for us, we had totally missed out on the joke... We danced and drunk the rest of the night away.
All in all, I just feel like I have to give a great big fat THANK you to both Tom and Steffi for having us on that special event. I know they will never read this, but that's not the point. They have been terribly nice to us, they have embraced us as their best friends and treated us no differently than they would treat a member of their family. From the bottom of our hearts, I wish them all the very best in their new life together, may they always glow of joy, as they did today!
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