ALL ANTWERP. “My husband has a thing for water, but I always have to see land” (Antwerp)
Every weekday our reporter and photographer pick a casual passer-by off the street for a nice conversation. Want everyone has a story. And certainly in Antwerp. Today: Marijke Goijarts (71).
“In 2011, my husband and I went to Antwerp cake. We lived in Essen, in a big house with a big garden. That was great fun, but it also required a lot of maintenance. At one point my husband said, “We’re getting older already. Why don’t we move?’ So that idea has gradually started to mature.”
“We both worked in Antwerp for a long time. In the 1970s I worked for a trading company in the Schuttershofstraat, which specialized in grains. They bought a big boat with grains in America. Those grains were then sold here on the merchant market. They negotiated about this in the Handelsbeurs at the time. Afterwards they were divided over ships and trucks or they were divided into silos. The silo where M HKA is now located used to be such a grain silo.”
“Now that museum is my neighbor. We live right next door, in an apartment with a view of the Scheldt. From our window we see the boats coming and going, the large and the small cruise ships. Yes, we live well there.”
“My husband has always had a thing for water. We used to have a sailboat and he would sail with friends to England, France, the Netherlands. I don’t have sea legs myself. I always have to see land.”
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