I'm a TOURIST! pt. 1

While I'm in Brussels I will attempt to be a tourist on as many occasions as possible (which I am now learning could be very few and far between).  In addition to being a tourist in Brussels I would like to see Antwerp, Bruges, Rotterdam and Paris.  The first two cities are local... half an hour to 45 minutes on the train.  Rotterdam and Paris require a little more than a day, with probably one over night.  Both of those train rides are still under 2 hours on the High Speeds.

OK... So my first few days I did light tourism because I was trying to get acquainted with the city and know what was around.  I avoided public transportation for a day or two and just walked everywhere, only learning that my apartment isn't very close to the center of the city.  I needed a Duvet cover and had to go to the Centre Deux, a department store.  I knew approximately where it was, looked in the direction and just walked.  I found this cool orange wood sculpture down a street entirely by accident, the thing was massive, extremely dense and towered over the street like a cloud.  

Another day I got the chance to meet up with someone who lives in my building and works at the EU.  He got me into the EU Parliament which is a massive network of structures that is for all intents and purposes a miniature city.  I saw the main meeting rooms with all the different language translation boxes.  It was a fun experience, I imagine similar to getting to see the inner workings of the UN in NYC or Geneva.  The image is of the unnecessarily foreboding entrance.  

That afternoon I wanted to measure how far a walk it is from my apartment to my office.  I would like to walk it every day, but the time involved was a little much.  That night I found the huge pedestrian district with the "restaurant alley" that I wrote about in a previous post.

  The overall district is pretty lame; most of the restaurants, chocolate shops and retail spaces were boring chains.  It was mostly tourists, as I wasn't the only one taking photos but it was fun to people watch.  I also found "Chinatown" which is comprised of one street with about 3 Asian grocery stores and a few Chinese restaurants.  Its the only place I'll find Jasmine rice, soy sauce or sesame oil so that's where I'll have to go.

My final tourist day was Sunday.  I took the metro out to my office for a real estimate on my daily commute and found a cool little chocolate shop with some good prices.  I'll talk more about it, but the short of it: Basil Truffle... delicious.  My second and major stop for the day was THE ATOMIUM!  The Eiffel Tower of Brussels... and vastly underwhelming.  

Basically it is a big ugly set of spheres that you can occupy, and they're tall or something.  Oh, I thought the only real way to represent this place was with a Waffle.  You guys read the post about waffles right?  Anyway, I'm gonna go and get some sleep... Three 12 hour days in a row are taking their toll.