September 17, 2003

Antwerpen

My old stomping ground, Antwerpen, where I have spent most of my life before coming to NZ. It's quite a cosmopolitan place with some good gay life, but in general the atmos has been soured lately by some fascists dickheads who have been trying to take over the town council.
I didn't check out the latest gay clubs and pubs, but my good local sources told me they are still thriving.
Belgium - and Holland - has this gay marriage thing going in real time for a while now. The snag is that they can only marry Belgians or Dutch, or a citizen from a country where gay marriage is allowed too. Bit of a bummer if you were planning to snag a Belgian or a Dutchman, him/her being your ticket to a Euro passport. Belgians marrying Dutch seems a strange concept since we make jokes about each other (sort of like kiwis and aussies). Don't let it put you off loving one for a while, say, an hour or so (if you want him all night, you gotta serve him breakfast!)
I watched some gay TV too. It was on far too late at 11:30pm. It was also furiously fast. It had about 20 coming out stories by 'famous' Dutch people (from boy band members to lesbian comedians) but split up in one sentences each, so it certainly made no sense if you didn't know any of them. Nice try but not good enough, methinks.

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