This weekend Chris and I took an adventure to Brussels, Belgium. Starting off, it took us over half an hour to find the hotel, with the GPS. Then it took us an hour to find a parking space. We finally got oriented and found the Grand-Place/Grote Markt, the main square in town.
We started with the Brussels Brewery Museum, which was small but nice. We walked into the original old part displaying wooden barrels and old brewing tools. The new part displayed stainless steel brewing devices, a video, and a wall description. We went back to the old part and were served Belgian beer!
Our next stop was the Comic Strip Art Museum, which I read to display Tintin, the Smurfs, Charlie Brown, Batman, and more. We were quite disappointed by finding one Smurfs display amongst lots of unfamiliar comics.
Our next museum was a surprise Chris found for me on the map, the Frommer's guide I read mentioned nothing of it! Chris took me to an instrument museum! It was great! The first floor explored different sounds that different instruments make, and it had a hands-on room where we played piano, trumpet, clarinet, and bass. The second floor showed native instruments from all over Europe as well as the Middle East, the Far East, and Africa. The third floor chronicled the development of today's instruments. My favorite finds were bassoons, the coolest ones I found had serpent/monster mouths for the bell joint, I wish I could have taken a photo!
We wandered around the Grand-Place and stepped in and out of shops. Belgium is known for handmade lace, and after several lace shops I finally found a Q monogram hand lace handkerchief! We went to the Manneken-Pis, which we found tributes to all over town. Walking along the seafood street, a waiter caught our attention and whisked us in for dinner. My meal was great, but Chris was not terribly impressed. We were completely exhausted by this time so we walked back to the hotel and watched movies till we fell asleep.
Sunday we woke up and headed for the Atomium, a structure 65 million times the size of an actual atom. It was neat to look at, and we decided it was too expensive to wander inside the spheres and learn about atom stuff I already knew and could explain to Chris myself. We tried to find the Grand and Petit Sablons, but didn't have much luck. We went back to the Grand-Place and ate Belgian waffles for lunch, I bought some Belgian chocolate, and we hit the road.
On the way home we stopped in St. Vith, Belgium and explored two large furniture shops filled with gorgeous and outrageously expensive Belgian furniture. I've decided it's time to start browsing antique stores.
Very relieved to be back in Germany, we decided Germany was the prettiest country! It's hilly and the rolling hills are covered with pine forests. Back home we decided we needed something familiar after such an unfamiliar weekend so we ate dinner at Chilis, which promptly made my stomach upset :( so I went to bed.
We weren't terribly impressed with Brussels, but we're not giving up on Belgium. There's still other cities to visit, which will hopefully be more fun. But we're glad we went, otherwise we wouldn't know if we liked it or not.
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