7 June 1999

I am writing this entry in Central London, in a small room in a somewhat shabby hotel by American standards. I arrived last Saturday afternoon. Evidently the hotel for which I had a confirmed reservation had overbooked so my travel agent, being cooperative viz. the hotel's predicament, canceled my confirmed reservation on my behalf. Regrettably, they didn't inform me. I arrived at that particular hotel, which is more on the outskirts of London, only to learn that I had no room.   I was somewhat concerned, it being a Saturday, that I might have a problem securing another room. But said travel agent was wise enough to provide staff on Saturday, who I was able to contact, who was able to find a room for six nights in Central London in the theater district. And since I don't evangelize until Wednesday, staying in Central London makes much more sense, shabby hotel notwithstanding.
So I've been exploring London a bit. I saw an excellent play on Saturday night ("Plenty" starring Kate Blanchett -- two thumbs up) and will likely see another before I return home. It occurs to me that while this is probably the 8th or 9th time I've been to London in my life, I've never been here sans jet lag. So really, it's almost like my very first time here. I've never gotten to know the city before; not even a section of the city. This time, I'm finding my way around and discovering some of the charm of this fair town. And being in the theater district is reminding me of home a little, as I live in the theater district in Manhattan. I'm content here. For the moment.
The event in Antwerp came off without a hitch. The technical difficulties that plagued me in Munich didn't surface in Antwerp, and even my laptop behaved although it's still being somewhat temperamental.   I will need to reinstall Windows (sigh) when I get home. But at least I should be able to complete my commitments on this trip before going home -- knock on wood.
I've found the internet cafes in London to be wanting. The ones I've found aren't cafes so much as boutiques; online services, phones services, fax services, but no coffee or tea or sandwiches. Not even a rest room. They charge by the minute, the standard rate working out to roughly US$15 per hour with all the systems (8 or so) sharing a single ISDN line. The bandwidth iss roughly that of Munich, which is tolerable. But since Munich, I've found the Valhalla of internet cafes, the ACME of online impresarios, the best of Europe, at least from what I've seen. And it was in what I would have considered to be the most unlikely of towns: Antwerp, Belgium.
The Cyber Cafe in Antwerp was not on a well traveled thoroughfare. It was hidden, with no obvious signage. Had I not been directed there by the young concierge at my hotel, I'd have never known to look for that particular place. The fact that they didn't accept plastic beyond local Belgian credit cards betrayed their business model as much as did their location.   They weren't interested in serving business types from abroad. They were there for their regulars. And I suspect they have a loyal following.
Their systems, 9 all together, were recent model, high speed Pentium II systems running Windows98. All systems had luxurious 19" monitors and all were well maintained, showing no signs of wear. There was only one available system when I walked in the door at about 6:30pm on a Wednesday evening. All the rest of the systems were running what appeared to be Quake or similar interactive games, presumably over the shared bandwidth. I remember being a bit concerned about bandwidth, having shared a single ISDN line in the past with my Quake playing son, and found it to be wanting. But I was thrilled at the bandwidth -- the teenage boy regulars and I shared a T1 link between us and all of us seemed satisfied with the response time. In fact, the response time was better by far than my dedicated ISDN line at home. I was in bandwidth heaven as I surfed, checked email and listened to Metallica playing loudly over the sound system. The only improvement I can imagine would be a more ergonomically friendly sitting arrangement. But hey, they were certainly way ahead of the pack as far as European internet cafes are concerned. That Cyber Cafe in Antwerp gets my vote for the best internet cafe in all of Europe. I've seen over a dozen in Europe in my travels...perhaps my sample size isn't sufficiently large. But from what I've seen, Antwerp gets the trophy. And they don't even advertise.
If you're even in Antwerp and find yourself with a bandwidth monkey on your back, go to the Gamecenter Outpost Antwerp, Stoofstraat 6, 2000 Antwerp, tel.: 03/231.54.56.