Brussels!

And we aren't talking about the sprouts that few people like.

This morning we got up early (rough after the Kylie concert!) to catch a plane from Manchester to Brussels on none other but Brussels Airlines (who knew?). They have an interesting theme that plays on the letter 'B'. For example, their lunch boxes say (yes, they gave us a light lunch on a 1 hour flight!): And the drinks say: The barf bag says "b. tidy". As I said, it's an interesting theme. Anyway, they got us safely to Brussels, where we whizzed through customs and immigration. We're staying at a nice hotel, Hotel Bloom!. It's in a businessey area more than a going-out area, but that's fine, since it's quiet. The view isn't particularly exciting, but we're on the 8th floor, so we can see pretty clearly out over other buildings. Much of Brussels is exactly the kind of classic European city I just love, with outdoor cafes open until late, and pedestrians meandering the streets at all hours. There's a chocolate store every ten feet in this city, and you can imagine how Jerry feels about that! Also some beer stores: Anyway, the big thing we did today was to find the Atomium, built originally for the 1958 world's fair, the first world's fair held after the second world war, according to them. (The wikipedia entry disagrees...) It's big. Bigger than you think, at over 330 ft tall (102 meters, they said).


Six of the eight vertices (or "globes") were accessible from the inside. Each one has two floors. Two of them have restaurants, including the top one with the nice view. The connecting pipes are a bit claustrophobic, and I had to duck repeatedly (maybe nobody was tall in the fifties).


Also, as insane as it seemed to us, people were riding down from the top on a zip line.


We also visited the land of miniature Europe, nearby. I think it exists to showcase every member country from the EU. Everything is built to a 1/25 scale. It's the best place to see the Eiffel tower and Big Ben at the same time.


I believe they did a particularly good job of capturing Copenhagen:


(All the miniatures were amazing and, as far as I can tell, highly accurate.) Anyway, despite feeling under the weather, we had a nice first day here. Good night!