while waiting for check-in time, we walked over to a quarter of the city that was rife with landmarks and fairly close. the entire area smelled like marseilles. that is, it smelled like dog crap. all the buildings were dilapidated-looking and the water in all the pools was green with islands of garbage. we were already beginning to get a bad impression of brussels, and it was still before noon.
after having not great paninis at a street cafe, we did some more walking:
we went to the park that the european parliament building is in and tried to find this tyrannosaurus rex that was marked on cindy's map. we wandered for a very long time without finding either a dinosaur or parliament. we finally found the parliament just as the last guided tour was starting and ran over to sign up. unfortunately, no t-rex.
it was really cool to see the inside of the building. we had a headset telling us all about the parliament as we sat in the main chamber where mps debate things. we were about ready to continue on the tour, but it turned out that it was confined to that one chamber. meanwhile, the ambitious tour guide continued with anecdotes and direct quotes in different languages. exhausted as we were, the three of us started nodding off halfway through, and at a certain point i just turned my headset off and slept. some kids next to us thought it was funny that cindy was nodding while she fought sleep and filmed her.
we were finally released from the tour and found a shady spot in the park outside to crash. hunter and i got some good nap time in while cindy wandered around for an hour or two. then we got up and continued walking. brussels may have been the most walking we did on any one day in the trip, so definitely the most walking i've ever done in my life.
we randomly walked into a little medieval fair-esque festival in the streets. it wasn't terribly popular with the locals, but the knights were some of the fiercest i've seen. the big one, below on the right, kept beating the crap out of everyone he fought. he caught one guy's sword by the blade, picked the guy up by his head and threw him down. no joke.
we went to see the manneken pis, a famous sculpture of a little boy peeing. i expected it to be much larger, but it's tiny. and it's tucked into a corner in some random city street. the good news was that there was a good bar across the street where we could rest.
we got some delicious belgian waffles, then walked around the old city center. it was nice, but there were huge bleachers set up all over the place like an event had just taken place. that took away some from the overall aesthetic quality of the area.
afterwards, cindy got some frites. this was our first experience with french fry stands in europe, but definitely not our last. hunter and i got kebabs at a greek restaurant that smelled like the strongest, most pungent armpit you've ever smelled. we soon called it a night and collapsed at the hotel.
next: amsterdam. this here is 'magic jack.' he will perform miracles to please you. this poster was on the side of a building and about four stories tall.
