That's their motto, up there. Absolutely ridiculous.
Brussels was the most modern city we visited, I'd say. And by modern, I really mean most American city in appearance. A lot of new structures. There were the old structures, too, but definitely a lot of new construction, whereas things in Paris seemed old.
I adored Belgium. I don't know if I adored it in the sense that I could vacation there, but there was a definite feeling of livability there. And the food. Oh gosh. Delish.
We got there and wandered around - our usual new city ritual. We came upon this square, which I'm sure has a name... somewhere.
It was pretty at night. A whole bunch of gothic style buildings on this square, and when they were lit up at night, it was a nice sight to see. We had plans to get some beers one of the nights we were there, and sit in the square, and be Belgian. But it rained, so that didn't work out.
And then some more wandering happened, which led us to Manneken Pis. Which is kind of what Brussels is know for, apparently. It's a small statue. Very small. Of a little boy, you know... peeing. Apparently these things were all over the place, back in the day. They were fountain toppers. At least, that's something I heard. Accuracy is entirely disputable.
But, not for nothing, finding him was how we found our favorite waffle place :)
These waffle were so delicious. I rocked the sugared waffle and the chocolate one. Carolyn went for the fancier ones with fruit and chocolate. Mine were soooooooo good though. Part of it is just the deliciousness of the waffle. And nearby our waffle place was Kebab Street. Let me tell you about my newfound love of Kebabs. I'm addicted. It's taking all of my energy to not go out searching for kebabs in Rome. I had this one called the Pita Hawaii which is a pita with kebab, melted cheese, and pineapple chunks. And I think I could live off of it. I mean it has all of the major food groups in it. And also, since we're on the subject of foods, fries and mayonnaise. That might be a Brugges thing, though. But I liked it. I enjoy ranch and fries, so it wasn't an impossible jump for me to make.
But anyway, later that first night we went up on top of this parking garage, Park 58, for some views of Brussels. It was pretty pretty.
On our second day in Brussels (first full day) it rained. So we went to the Musical Instrument Museum and the Cantillon Brewery Museum. It was a good day for museums. Except Carolyn's umbrella got mauled by the wind and rain...
The Musical Instrument Museum was really interesting (and good for my book). They give you headphones, but you don't listen to any boring descriptions. It's the music that the instruments create. Woodwinds, pipes, violins, etc etc. Music from all over the world.
Yeah, Chinese gong thingy and of course, antiqued violin :) There were violas too, and exciting was being able to look at one and say, with certainty, yeah, that's a viola ;)
And the brewery. They make Gueuze beers. Which is a bitter/sour flat beer. And I really liked it. A lot. We got to sample the regular type, and the fruit flavor-y ones. And I liked them both. I had raspberry Gueuze. Carolyn had cherry. Cherry always tastes like cough medicine to me.
The next day we took our day trip to Brugges. Adorable. That's Brugges in a word.
It had canals and little churches and was just out and out cute. We enjoyed our day there, I'd say. It was a nice excursion.
And there were windmills! Real old-school working windmills! Not like windfarm windmills (they did exist there, though) but adorable windmills that say "yeah, we used to crush grain... not so much anymore, now we're just adorable decoration."
And that night we saw the Atomium
Which is probably my favorite thing of all time and ever. It was made for the 1958 World's Fair, and referred to as Expo 58. It's an iron atom magnified 165 billion times. You can walk in between through the steel beams. We didn't. These things cost money. Plus, I think it was closed by the time we got there. But, this leads me to my World's Fair talk. The Eiffel Tower was designed by Gustave Eiffel in a competition (as countries sure love to do - France in particular: the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower among two of the more famous architectural competitions) for the 1889 World's Fair. As per how these things usually go, after 20 years, World's Fair iconography tends to be removed. And the Parisians haaaaated the Eiffel Tower when it was first constructed. And so they go to tear it down. But Gustave, crafty man that he is, has installed a radio antenna atop the Eiffel Tower. Crap! He's made it useful. Now this landmark that the Parisians find hideous can't be torn down, because it's too fricken useful. However, the Parisians have come to love this, and do you know why? Because in 2007, 6.8 million people visited the Eiffel Tower. Because who doesn't love tourism? It's great for the economy. All those tourists are good for business. The Atomium though, it doesn't seem to have suffered the same disrespect as the Eiffel Tower. In fact, parts of the old aluminum structure were auctioned off to raise money to make it jazzier.
Little known fact, apparently every so many years, they repaint the Eiffel Tower, and they paint it three different browns to achieve the Eiffel Tower brown.
But this isn't about Paris. This is about Brussels/Brugges. And it's random. And I loved it.
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