Brussels -Round 2 with an extra !

Here’s life is funny item:  On our second trip to Europe, I changed my mind about having children.  It was really Ireland that did it, but we went to Brussels for 26 hours on that trip as well.   So due to cheaper airfare, we were back in Brussels for a second time with an extra person in tow.

We decided to consider this the “new” first day of the trip after our worst travel day ever. We woke in a huge room overlooking the Bourse square with my first child in Brussels and smiled. We then went to the best breakfast buffet at the hotel.  This buffet is courtesy of my new hotel status and we are happy for nice change of pace for us.   We joke a lot has changed in 15 years of travelling.

His first day in Europe was great.  We visited the European Union.  D learned about the Union before we left for the trip and I was frustrated that he did not already understand the EU. Jordan reminded me I did not understand it until college - which is right. He now knows all about it, ask about the Euro, Brexit and why certain countries haven't joined yet. And we recreated my famous elevator photo from 2011, spent time in the Hemisphere and saw pieces of the Berlin wall that are purposely at the entrance of the tour.

As it would have Jordan’s second visit to the EU, he declined and so I sent him to Autoworld.  Autoworld is an automotive museum focusing primarily on European cars from the area in and nearby to Belgium but also including cars from around the world. There is a large collection, including some pre-automobile items.

We met back-up at the main square of Brussels, the Parc du Cinquantenaire.  (This was built for a world’s fair - like most amazing places.)   

We walked around the city for the rest of the day.   The main purpose of the walk was to see the three statues that Brussels is famous for:  Mannekan Piss (male), Jeanneke-Pis (female) and Het Zinneke (dog).  To ensure he visited a church, we visited the Saint Michael Cathedral which is the Belgium national church where their royal family, Prime Minster and President all attend and have major events.

I strongly believe that food/drink in a place is part of learning the culture so we ate all day long so we could partake in this culture. Belgium is known for five foods items: chocolate, mussels, beer, waffles and they invented fries. We drank and ate the finest chocolate - and we don’t even like chocolate.   We ate waffles multiple times, including going to a gluten free waffle restaurant that I wanted to move to NC.   We drank many belgium beers and ate “frites” as well.  It made the day so amazing and definitely was part of the cultural experience we wanted to show our son ;)

We woke up the next day to an amazing breakfast buffet and went to the upgraded train station for the ride to Paris.