JET AND LIESBETH ON ADVENTURE IN ANTWERP

for the Giftsuite

Whenever Jet and I go travelling together, there always seems to some or other disaster. Transport-wise. Last February we went to London for Fashion Week and we missed almost every bus and tube possible, and ended up far too often in exorbitantly expensive cabs. Last September was the same. The highlight was of course our dramatic car trip to and from Paris, something that still wakes us up sweating at night.

The trip to Antwerp was pretty easy. Caught the train and we had planned the route from station to hotel carefully so that was also a piece of cake. We were not only invited to admire the brands taking part in The GiftSuite, but also to spend a night in the hotel. The hotel was De Witte Lelie, and if you’re ever looking for a romantic weekend in Antwerp, go there. Our room had a mega big terrace, a bed that we wanted to move into and a shower that is bigger than my entire living room.

Monday evening started with a drink in the hotel and then the big work started the day after. The GiftSuite is an American concept whereby brands give their products away to celebs in the hopes that they will start using them and be photographed doing so. Karlijn Visser from Holland brought this concept over to the Netherlands and after a few editions in Amsterdam, decided it was now time for Antwerp. Around twenty FB’s (Famous Belgians) were invited to check it out and so were a handful of bloggers. Including us.

We could not believe our eyes when we saw the sensual suite, including the latest Marlies Dekkers collection, we learned about the newest Dermalogica products, were given information about saffron tea, suddenly received a temporary tattoo on the wrist thanks to Bohotas and danced to music from the music-box-for-on-the-go from Ultimate Ears. And we were let loose on the super-food shelves and healthy supplements in the Albert Heijn suite. And yes even I got excited.

When all FB’s and bloggers had left the building, we took our stuff and went to get ready for the trip back home. We stumbled from the hotel with hundreds of bags and found a cafe for a fast wifi moment to send our posts back to the office. But the danger with opening your laptop is that you end up doing three thousand things and forget the time. I had neatly written down the time of the departing train and we had loaaads of time, until I realised that the time I was looking at was the departing time from Roosendaal and not from Antwerp.

And there was stress again. Weighed down and stressed, we ran direction the station, only to realise 5 minutes later that we were running very FAST in the wrong direction. About turn, moaning and groaning, we arrived at the station with no second to spare and raced on to the platform. We sat down. We had four minutes for the swap over at Roosendaal station, so nice and chilled. Not. Jet had to risk her life by jumping out of the train and running to another station to check our tickets in, because we had forgotten to do so in our haste. Everything eventually turned out alright and we arrived exhausted but satiated in Amsterdam. Thanks GiftSuite, we’ll happily come back for another visit!