Is This Real Life?

Another painless flight later, Cally and I arrived in Brussels. We slept off the exhaustion caused by the pub-crawl and awoke the next day fresh and ready to see the sights. During the day, we visited the chocolate museum and the Mannekin Pis, a statue about 2 feet high that pees into a fountain. It is for some reason wildly famous in Brussels; I’m still not quite sure why. That evening we bought a cone of Belgian French fries from a cart and then headed off to a bar called Delirium, which is famous for offering 2,004 different kinds of beer. Overwhelmed, I requested the cheapest one, which was still good.

More highlights of Brussels include a few more markets, a really beautiful church, and the EU Parliament. But perhaps the most interesting discovery we made was just beside the Atomium – a large metal structure that was built for the World’s Fair and is located on the very outskirts of the city. While searching for the best way to approach the monument, we stumbled upon an area that somewhat resembled EPCOT but was about 1/100th of the size. There was a street filled with all different kinds of restaurants and two themed cocktail bars. There weren’t many people there, but they ranged from young couples to dirty old men to leering guido types. Nearby was the entrance to “Mini-Europe,” which we didn’t go in to in light of the fact that the admission fee was 12 euro. According to a brightly colored sign, the area was called BRUPARCK! It remains the most ridiculous waste of money I’ve ever seen.