Brussels and Bruges: Belgium in a Blur - part 1

Did I try to hard on the title? sorry.

So this weekend (June 26-28) I went on a trip to Belgium. I spent Friday night and most of Saturday in Brussels, then stayed Saturday night in Bruges and spent as much of Sunday there as I could.

A lot of delicious things from Belgium. Beer. Chocolate. French fries actually came from Belgium, not France. And they are super proud of that. There are fry stands everywhere. They are tasty, but not much different from other fries. Except that some places have numerous different dipping sauces you can choose from. Unfortunately I was too full to try any of the dipping sauces. and the mussels. Delicious. Oh, and how could I forget the waffles?! They are more of a dessert than a breakfast. And they get topped with all sorts of stuff. I had one drenched in chocolate. Because that's how I roll.

Anyway, enough about the food, I'll get on to the sights now.

This was the view from my room. The Cathedral. 

Town Hall. 

Grand Place (big square in city center)

I ended up on the street with all the gay bars and felt I had to take a picture in honor of the SCOTUS decision. What a happy coincidence! (and no, I didn't intend to go there, it is pretty easy to get lost in the city center there. What is it with French speaking countries and putting up tiny street signs on the other side of the road where you can't see them - when they even put up street signs)

La Bourse

The Comic Strip Museum is somewhere in this city, but I didn't have time to find it.

Ok, I saw the statue of the little boy peeing, I can go home now.

Then down the road, there was this. 

Then I went to my new favorite place. The Museum of Cocoa and Chocolate. All my dreams.

The Aztecs believed Quetzalcoatl brought them the cocoa plant. My new favorite Aztec god.

A chocolate featuring my favorite Roman goddess. Awesome.

I want a chocolator!

 And then I got to see a demonstration of how to make chocolate treats like truffles and hollow chocolate teddy bears and stuff like that. And a sample!

 After that I was feeling a little sweet sick (too much waffles and chocolate) so I got lunch at a French restaurant. I had vol au vent, aka chicken stew. And fries. Then I went to Delirium to sample their beers. Apparently their blonde, Delirium Tremens, was voted best beer in the world. To be honest, I've had better blondes than that. But their cherry beer was super tasty.

Saint Catherine's

 Square across from the church.

Then I went to see what is kind of like the Belgian Eiffel Tower, the Atomium. It was built for the 1958 World Fair, and people liked it so much, they kept it around. and even did some restoration in the early 2000s. I thought it was pretty cool.

From a distance - it's supposed to resemble an iron molecule (except it was made mostly of aluminum, but whatver)

A little closer...

Too close!

Stairway to one of the "atoms"

Fastest elevator in Europe - I think they said it goes 5 m/s?

A view of Brussels.

I didn't get to go to Mini Europe, but at least I got a picture of it.

Look, they made a dolphin! I later found out it was an animal rights group protesting the Dolphinaria (not sure where that is)

Dem solar panels though. 

And that was my very quick trip to Brussels! Then I left for my very quick trip to Bruges!