Trip Day 5 The Capital of Europe

Belgium has many more surprises than just Brugge. We spent the 5th day of our trip in Brussels, the "Capital" of Europe. In Brussels they have a deal that on the first Wednesday afternoon of each month, all of the federal museums are free. How convenient that we were in Brussels on the first Wednesday of the month. But of course we had to wait until afternoon. So to start the day we got up, had legitimate Belgian waffles, and visited a local brewery. Unfortunately we were not able to take a tour because the Brewery was hosting a party upstair for the Prince of Belgium, but we could look around a bit and see the entrance of the tour. After that we went to see the Mannekin Pis, or the peeing boy statue. While we were there we found out there was apparently an entire order of the Mannekin Pis, where people who live in Brussels for a sufficient amount of time can receive an invitation from someone within the order to join. The order supports the statue and all it stands for, and puts funny costumes on it, as can be seen in the pictures. Once the afternoon came around we made our way to the museum quarter, visiting first the Musical Instrument Museum. While there we were treated to a live performance by a local guitarist, which was pretty cool. David and I then stopped by some 12th century ruins, the Coudenberg. Those were pretty cool, but we could not stay long because it was starting to get late. We decided we had time for one more stop, the Atomium. The Atomium was a structure built for the World Fair in Brussels. We could see it in the distance and we only expected it to be a relatively small structure. How mistaken we were. It turns out that each of the balls in the Atomium is a room that people can go in. Because we misjudged the distance, we foolishly made an attempt to walk there. It turns out that it was actually constructed about 5 km out of town. By the time we would have gotten there it would have been closed, so we decided to let it go and move on. That night we partook in another Belgian meal, eating Belgian fries. Following that, a few drinks in the hostel and then bed. Another good day in Europe.