Goodbye Belgium

Our last day in Brussels was a short one, but still had a few sights to see.

First was the Jubilee Park and the Triumphal Arch. Created to celebrate 50 years of Belgian independence in 1880.

Next we went to Brussels only remaining family brewery. Personally I would have expected in a country famous for beer there would have been much more but I guess it all comes down to the mighty InBev pushing all the local brewerys out. Anyway, we went to the Cantillon brewery. http://www.cantillon.be/br/3_1. Which only brews Lambic beer. Essentially, all of the CO2 escapes because it is aged in barrels, so it is a still beer. Think of beer wine and you would be pretty close to what it tasted like. Personally I was a fan, not sure how the rest of the crowd found it.

We made one last trip to the Grande Place for lunch and were off to the airport. As a final farewell to the city I polished off the last of my chocolate waffles while we were waiting for the bus.

I am not sure I got a good feel for Brussels while we were there, seemed to be one both ends of the spectrum for size a people all the time. While we got checked in and through security in about 10 minutes it took us 45 minutes to get through traffic to get to the airport. It was this type of small town/big city that kept throwing me off the whole trip.

Mini Europe

Today we managed to see all the sights of Europe at once, all at 1/25th scale!! Kristen found a place called Mini Europe, which was close to our real destination so we decided to visit and check it out. Honestly it was alot like the Lego Land cities that we saw before, but when you got up close and really looked at the details it was pretty impressive. Even down to the fat men sun bathing in their speedos.

Mini Europe from the air

Nicole made friends with the mascot



The Grande Place in Brussels in miniature and in real life

 

I took one for the team and posed in all
of the costumes

After our whirl wind tour of Europe, we made a quick trip half way around the world, and found a little slice of heaven. Wouldn't have guessed that we would find good Mexican (or at least better than that in London) in Belgium, but surprises everyday!!

From there we were on to the days highlight. The Atomium, was originally built for the 1958 World's Fair. Originally designed to stand for 6 months, clearly made an impression as its been 50+ years since originally built. Clearly they hadn't planned for the future, as there was no air conditioning, and was super hot inside.

Inside one of the escalators between pods

Riding the fastest elevator in Europe to the top pod

Taking a self portrait in my reflection.

Check out the statistics from the '58 World's Fair. (double click to enlarge) The one's at the bottom are the really interesting ones. Not sure why there were so many people giving birth there! And what is up with the suicides? Even if the 5 deaths were all successful suicides, that is a pretty sad success rate, 5 for 32, just sad!

Turns out that the creator of the Smurfs is Belgian. So with the movie coming out soon, there is smurf stuff everywhere. Wouldn't have thought that 'Smurf' was an American word, but clearly it translates differently in French and Dutch. 



Gummy Smurfs

To finish the day we visited the 'famous' frites restaurant the 'Maison Antione'. The key to frites is to fry the fries twice, and damn they were good. I couldn't bring myself to eat them with mayo but still they were great. Not sure how often I could eat them, as I nearly passed out trying to finish off my giant cone of fried goodness, but I can say that they lived up to their famous billing.

and Chocolate!!

We arrived in Brussels late on Friday, and after a unsuccessful attempt at catching a train, took a rather expensive taxi ride to our hotel. We are staying right next to the EU Parliament, which my guess is that during the week will be super busy, but on the weekend is a bit of a ghost town. Since I really hadn't had much to eat for dinner, and the guy at reception hadn't been the nicest or most helpful, I decided to really stick it to the hotel, and take it out on their free chocolates. Not so sure who the winner of that little battle was.

Saturday morning we stopped downstairs for breakfast before we started exploring, and again I made it a personal mission to get my money's worth from the hotel. I was probably the only person during the day where they lost $ on the 20 euro breakfast.

This was plate 1 of 4

Kristen and Nicole had a plan for the day, which I was completely unaware of and we started walking. Brussels is a pretty nice city, and was a welcome change from the hustle and bustle of London. We stumbled across the Royal Palace, on our way to the Grande Place, and were pleasantly surprised with our visit.

Grand Ballroom - possibly the coolest room I have ever seen.

Back to walking again, and I just couldn't pass up making jokes every time this bus passed us.

Our first planned stop of the day was the Cathedrale Sts Michel et Gudule, which dates from 1225. Impressively it still contained the stained glass panels from 1527 and 1538. Before going inside I had made a comment that I had seen enough churches and didn't need to go into another, but can say that I was very pleasantly surprised.

We had been walking now for awhile and I was beginning to burn off breakfast, and the sights and smells coming from the little waffle shops got me in f tizzy. I was really feeling the urge!!

Standing in the rain in the Grande Place

It had started to rain a bit, so we stopped for a drink. Not sure what has come over Kristen, but she is a bit of a beer drinker now. Hate to say it but i think London may be rubbing off on her.

Not sure why Belgium has fallen in love with this, but we saw the original Mannenken Pis statue just off of the Grande Place. I was surprised how small the statue was, maybe only 18 inches or so. Apparently they dress him up in costumes all during the year, for different occasions. Not real sad I missed out on that.

We then proceeded to get lost. Well I guess it really wasn't lost, we ended up seeing all of the old buildings and sights that we planned on seeing, but it turned out in the end, that they were really all within about 4 blocks of each other, and since we couldn't really read the map well, we walked in big circles for about 4 hours trying to find them all. Good news is that I can give anyone good directions around the touristy part of Brussels now. On the advise of one of Nicole's friends we found a nice restaurant to have dinner at, and on the advise of one of my friends we found cherry beer.

I got the three course dinner which I specifically picked because I thought the portions might be a bit smaller and I wouldn't get so full. Still wheezing a bit at this point from breakfast. I was completely wrong about the portions!!

Now good and full, pickles had thrown off my center of gravity and I almost fell over on at least 3 different occasions walking home. Stumbled on this garden and a statue to the age of bad fashion. Like a said before Brussels is a nice place, super clean and lots of parks and greenery.

A bunch of pieces of the Berlin Wall were scattered around the city. Seems a bit of a strange thing to have in Belgium, but the idea of the Wall really makes you thankful for living in the U.S. I am sure that wasn't a fun time to be living in Europe.

That was pretty much our day, a whole lot of walking and a whole lot of old buildings. And I had bought a whole lot of chocolate waffles during the day. Had a few more as a night cap, and Pickles and I went to bed. Still wheezing from breakfast.

We got an email from Hampton saying she was having fun making new friends and playing ball. She seems to be making quite a impression on the internet ..... http://instagr.am/p/KJtjb/