Brussels, Belgium

Lukasz was going to a concert in Dusseldorf this weekend so I figured it was a good weekend to travel again. Mimi had soccer, and didn’t have any Eurail days left, so she could not join me. I initially planned to go to Luxembourg and Brussels, but there doesn’t seem to be much going on in Luxembourg and it’s a five hour train ride away, so I decided against doing that trip. Instead, I decided to do a day trip to Brussels. Fortunately, I actually got up in time to catch a 9:05 train, getting me there by noon. Anyways, once in Brussels, I immediately got on a hop-on/hop-off tour bus. I was pretty beat from staying up late last night so I wasn’t in the mood to walk around too much. Besides, I had no idea where anything was, or what there was to even see. The tour was pretty good. It was an open top and the weather cooperated, so I got to take whole bunch of pictures from the bus. Half-way through the tour, a family came on, and the one woman who sat next to me was actually from Williamsburg! I hardly see Americans as it is, but what are the odds of the rare American sitting next to me and being from my area. I didn’t chat with her too long though as the tour ended shortly afterwards. She continued on to the rest of the tour, and I headed over to the center area – the Grand-Place Grote Market. There is a nice gothic cathedral here. There was a band playing today in the plaza, and there was some sort of a parade in the streets. Many many tourists too. I also managed to find the peeing-boy by accident, and it turned out there was some special ceremony going on there at 4 today. Many tourists were there waiting for the pee boy to be revealed. I don’t understand why this little peeing statue is so famous. I guess they change the statue’s dressing/clothes every now and then. When the statue was finally revealed, everyone got all happy. All it did was pee, and squirt people once in a while. How silly. Reminds me of the massive number of observers that the clock in Munich gathered. At the end of the day, I picked up a box of chocolates for people at work, and headed home.