Dag! ~ Thats Hello in Dutch...

So we arrived in Brussels not knowing what language they spoke...I had brought the French and German Phrase books...They speak Dutch...

At the world’s first World’s Fair in 1851, London gave us the Legendary Crystal Palace…Several years later, the Eiffel Tower marked the coming of the new century at the 1900 Paris World’s Fair, and in 1982 the World’s Fair came to Knoxville, Tennessee and allowed us to grace our beautiful Smokey Mountain studded skyline with the eyesore lovingly referred to as the Sunsphere – which I can safely say is defiantly NOT a great thing from Tennessee. The same architect or engineer who thought the Sunsphere was a good idea, had obviously also won the bid for the Brussels 1958 World’s Fair construction - the Atomium. Since I am on this trip with one of the world’s biggest science and technology nerds, the idea of a thirty story accurate representation of an Iron atom was simply irresistible, a landmark not to be missed…and so I was forced to go.
On Sunday Morning we took the Metro 15 stops west of our hotel…through the city center…and to the outskirts of the city to the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair site. And there it was, the Atomium, a stick and ball stainless steel and mirrored representation of an Iron molecule. And I had thought the Sunsphere was bad. After convincing Zach we shouldn’t pay the 8 euro to ascend the structure in its elevator, and stating frankly that I would not walk up the 600-ish stairs to the highest electron, “we” were content to stand at its base and marvel at the sheer size and tackiness of the structure. Whipping out my Belgium tour book I was shocked to see that the city had just recently spent more than 30 million dollars having the Atomium restored…really?!? God forbid we let the Atomium fall into disrepair and have its electrons clouded with rust so it can no longer be used as a signaling tower to Outer space? Brussels has decided to at least capitalize on the Atomium as a tourist trap by laying at its base the source of nearly 3 hours of hilarity for Zach and I : Mini Europe.
As the guide book at the entrance to Mini Europe simply states, “Mini Europe is essential to your understanding and enjoyment of the European Union.” And I wonder how we have waited 6 weeks to come…why were we not informed of the necessity of a visit to Mini Europe at the onset of our time here in France? But now I can return to the States fulfilled, in three hours I toured the entirety of the European Union. Each of the nearly 100 miniature sites was built with extreme respect for detail at 1/25th the original size. Of coarse there were the obvious sites like the Eiffel Tower, the Acropolis, Leaning Tower of Pisa and Big Ben, but since the EU stands on “a foundation of equality for all member states,” sites like the Mnajdra in the never heard of country of Malta, which was nothing more than a pile of rocks in the sand, were also included in this tour of the European Union. While every country was included at least once, it was interesting to note that Belgium had the most monuments of any other country, 11 total, one of which was the central square in Brussels, the Grand Place, whose model cost nearly 500,000 dollars and took 19,000 hours of work to build…I again would like to note how horribly the Belgian government chooses to budget its money, is their economy based on suckering tourists into tourist traps?…Interesting inclusions of note were the scaled working model of Mount Vesuvius, which every child and Zach got the chance to force out plumes of smoke every two minutes, a model of the Chunnel complete with a train set running through it, and a resurrection of the graffiti laden Berlin Wall complete with mini people sitting on top holding hands...My favorite site would have to be the Mini Chenonceaux Chateau, whose resemblance to the actual thing we saw not but three weeks ago was uncanny.
It was our 3 hours spent at Mini Europe which forced us to take the last train leaving Brussels for Metz, putting us back at the not surprisingly cold and rainy Technopole a little after 10…Too late to run to the Cora to grab a frozen pizza to warm up for dinner…Too late for the nasty Kebab stand on the corner…and after trekking up the hill in the pouring rain to the McDonald’s we sadly were too late to eat in McDonald’s…I sat down on the wet outdoor benches in front of McDonald’s nearly in tears out of worry of potentially starving to death from missing dinner, wondering if I had a bit Vietnamese in me as I starred down the cats scavenging for rain sodden French fries on the floor outside the Play~Place. It was in that moment that a car drove out from around the side of the McDonalds, and in there hands they held a steaming bag full of Mickey D’s goodness…The Drive Thru was open! While this is all fine and dandy, the sad story is that Zach and I, as college students studying abroad in a foreign country, we have no car…so the concept of a Drive Thru is quite a challenging one. Luckily instead of having to try to trip a weight gauging car sensor to place our order (which I feel confident that Zach and I could have successfully done) there was simply a drive thru window to place our order and a window to collect our food. While this may sound like a blessing, it was in reality a source of even more embarrassment, because as we waited, standing, in the rain, among a line of cars who got to have wind shield wipers, we had to confront not just one but two McDonald’s workers, and there condescending stares as we both ordered and collected our Gastronomic cuisine.
I now officially know what it feels like to be a homeless person: I have walked in the pouring rain to eat at McDonald’s only to stand in the drive through line and be looked down upon by fast food employees…and all because we had to go see the Atomium…My pictures are up on Webshots, so check them out… http://community.webshots.com/user/HillHerb…and yes, Zach was able to capture me standing in the drive thru at McDonald’s on his camera phone…
This upcoming weekend is our second four day weekend, and we are headed for Madrid…flying…I couldn’t bear being on the train for 17 hours... Spain should be another culture shock for us…but I have my Spanish phrase book handy and am pumped about the potential for Margaritas and Sangria….

Lots of Love,

Hillary Herbert