Brussels Part Deux

Not sure why but this reminds me of the Emerald City. 
In case anyone was wondering where the European Unions tax dollars are going, I have located them. That's right, the European Union quarter of Brussels has them, all of them. I visited this quarter today, early this morning, so I could watch all of the parliament members rush to their offices to do exactly what our politicians do, have coffee. There is an area of about 6 or so brand spanking new EU buildings. The Parliament complex being the most impressive glass construction. They are each architecturally the same style but each has its own flair. I wandered into a few and then back out once I saw the security. I had heard that you can go on a tour of Parliament or sit in on a session, so I tried to get in with this Spanish group, which I totally could have done, but my honesty got the best of me and the lady told me that it was a closed session for the next two days. Booo. But the good news is that there is two seats of the EU parliament, one here and one in Strasbourg, France, thank you Spanish EU class, you were so helpful....


Parc du Cinquantenaire Jubelpark



So as it turns out I am heading to Strasbourg because there are no rooms in Luxembourg. Just a slight change of plan, well that and I am going to Switzerland after that. To anyone following the itinerary, we are now way off of it.

Anywho, I had a day of government and law, as I hit the Palace of Justice. It is one of the most impressive buildings I have been in in a while. It puts all the building is Washington DC to shame. It's just a court, and it runs competition with the US Capitol building. I strolled around where I shouldn't have, and then walked out, but not before snapping some illegal photos.

Palace of Justice
Some other interesting stops for the day include the Fine Arts Museum, and the Atomium. The Atomium is kind of like the space ships built for the worlds fair in New York, except it is an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Quite the sight. You can actually go up into each one of the circular pieces of it, but they wanted a fortune, so I took some photos and went on my merry way.

Atomium
Atomium
Atomium
I purchased a ticket from the French border to Strasbourg, and then went in search of one of Brussels most laughed at sites, the mannekin pis. I had considered not going, but since it was basically on the way back to the hostel I decided to check it out. Now I had had a preview of this sight when I went to the city museum, and that was pretty much enough for me, but I went. The mannekin pis, is literally a little boy statue that looks like a devilish cherub peeing. That's right, peeing. They locals dress it up, and it has so many costumes that some of them are on display at the city museum while others are in storage. At the city museum there is a computer log of all of the costumes. There are so many they have a database! You can type in a country and then it will give you a listing of all of all of the outfits gifted by that country. I really don't have any words for that. I topped off the day with a trip to the grocery store to get provisions for my five hour train ride tomorrow. It always cracks me up to see what people refrigerate and what they don't. Makes me think twice about what food goes bad and doesn't. I don't know who has it wrong. Maybe neither Continent.
Kind of ridiculous right? I guess national treasure means a different thing in each country. 
And then there was this gem I saw while wandering. I laughed a lot at its awesomeness. 

Sawrah

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