Brussels, Aachen, and more Fall Break

I've been on the road a little bit since the last entry. Mainly I didn't update at the beginning of the week because I was kind of busy being in Brussels. The trip was great, even though the weather didn't quite cooperate all the time. We took a road trip from home base in Rheda through Germany into the Netherlands and then down into Belgium all the way to Brussels. The great thing about Europe is that another country is rarely more than a car trip away.

We stayed in my host cousin Sven's apartment in Brussels. He used to work for the European Union Parliament and now he works for the EU Commision. He's also fluent in German, English, French, and Polish. He was nice enough to take us in for a few days and show us around.

First we took the typical touristy path through Brussels, bringing us to all of the most important sights in Brussels, mainly...


...a tiny statue of a peeing man, the origin and meaning of which is contested. There's apparently several legends explaining this one, but for some reason, it's a ridiculously popular landmark.


After that we went to the Atomium (picture here from Wikipedia, I couldn't get a good one myself), which was constructed for the 1958 World Fair and stayed simply because it's awesome. For you TJ kids out there, its shape is that of an iron crystal. The thing is as tall as a football field, and the shafts are filled with escalators and elevators, while the spheres are filled with displays, pictures, and a restaurant.


My host mother, father, and brother in the escalator.


Then it was on to lunch and a tour of the EU complex. It's so huge and has so many different parts for all of the different departments you can't really take a picture of it. This is a picture of just one wing of the EU building. Afterwards we went to some semblance of a "gift shop" where you could really just grab all kinds of EU pamphlets, maps, posters, etc. for free. I have a booklet smaller than my thumb that tells me (in German) what all of my human rights in the EU are.


Me in front of the Royal Palace of Belgium.


After a whirl through the King's Park, we stopped in this cozy little shop for coffee, tee, and chocolate.


The son of the mom-and-pop owners fixes up a box of chocolates wearing a white silk glove.


On the way home we stopped for an afternoon in Aachen, home to fountains, natural spas, and a beautiful cathedral, in which the remains of Charlemagne (Karl der Große, in German) lie.


The tallest stained glass windows in Germany or Europe or maybe the world. I forget. In any case, it was beautiful.


After the tour of the cathedral we went to the Schatzkammer (treasury of the cathedral). Here's me next to the bust of Charlemagne, shortly before being scolded through a loudspeaker for taking a picture. Among other things, there were body parts of saints, relics of Jesus' time (including Jesus' belt), gold chalices, paintings, sketches, and gold everything.


Outside the cathedral on the plaza...

So that's it for my slideshow-like blog posts from fall break. Life goes back to normal next Monday when I start school again. I hope all is well by all of you. As always, comments, emails, love notes, phone calls, and everything are welcome. Take it easy.