Brussels, Belgium

Belgian Flag (backwards, I know)

After stopping in at my second AirBnB lodging (another awesome one, I'm SOLD), I headed over to this location.  Being the geek that I am, these buildings are the European Parliament buildings.

The reason for the visit was to see the new European Parliament Visitors Center, the Parliamentarium.  It's free and a good history of the genesis of the EU and the many functions it plays.  What is most interesting is I call it the first "iPhone" museum.  The visitor guide was like an iPhone where there was lots of scrolling and flipping through screens.  The coolest gadget (although not necessarily coolest information) were these carts, that you rolled around a giant map and everytime found a sensor, it told you a story.

Grote Markt, the heart of Brussels.

Brussels....with Anch!  He invited me to join him for the weekend of Christmas Market Shopping!  And, to boot, he won us VIP tickets to Carmina Burana.

Turns out it was Carmen, as a ballet and then Carmina Burana, with ballet.  I liked the former better.

Belgium is the home of TinTin.  Throughout Brussels, on the sides of buildings are large cartoon murals.  There is also a cartoon museum, but I didn't make it.

I particularly liked the self-reference of this mural!

Yes, Belgian Waffles were consumed.  AND fries, with MAYO.

The culinary highlight, as suggested by my awesome host, was at a food market.  She called it a Moroccan pancake.  It was a crepe, filled with goat cheese, olives, figs, peppers and then drizzled with honey.

YUM!

Final stop, the Atomium which was built for the 1958 World's Fair.

View from the base, looking up.

After a 45 minute wait for the elevator, Anch and I were at the observation level in the top atom.  At this point, I wasn't so impressed with the experience and certainly expected MUCH more talk about chemistry.

But then came this cool part, where we got to take the stairs down from one "atom" to another through a "bond"

In one of the atoms, apparently, you can get into another "atom" pod and lounge around, maybe even sleep for the night?  Plus, the pods can be suspended in the air.

Going down....

Ok, so the Belgians are STILL all about the 1958 World's Fair.  The VERY cute guy with glasses in the picture with Sinatra is King Baudoin (in 1958) of Belgium.  I'm strategically blocking on the woman in the picture, who must be his wife.  Thanks Anch for playing along to get this photo!