In Belgium, or rather, we got to Brussels myself under the most Catholic Christmas. The weather was groaning, with a strong wind and some kind of incredibly cold for +5 degrees. With railway and airfares, there was a tension, since most European citizens go on these days to their relatives, to visit or just travel. We took with great difficulty, taking almost the last car at the box office drove into the country of the "Pissing Boy." A few hours of auto fairy tales and now we are already folding on the signs from the motorway towards the city, the name of which is translated as "in the swamp". The first impression is a beautiful modern European city with well-preserved old quarters.
On the streets a little deserted, in the sense of few people, but there were no free places for parking. Parking the car in the underground pay parking of some hotel, we first decided to dine in a new country. Those who were in Paris, I have nothing to surprise. Absolutely french style and kitchen. Can only slightly less than those open by foreigners, at least in the central part of the city. Incredibly slow maintenance of our company in a restaurant and a lightning flow of dishes to two neighboring German families, we attributed to a banal chance, and not to the manifestation of some discrimination. Let us leave this on the conscience of the owners, especially since the members of this wonderful family were immediately and chefs, and the waiters and cashiers of this institution. Then we went to the downtown town hall decorated with lights - one of the most beautiful places in the city.
On the square, a highly policeman was indifferent to the walking townspeople under the cover of the armored personnel carrier, which the city authorities were not ashamed to drive into the very center. To dine in the restaurant "Molecule", consisting of gigantic metal balls, we were not destined, for some reason the restaurant was closed.
Then we sent our feet to the exposition called "mini-Europe", where there are copies of the main buildings and structures in Europe: Eiffel Tower, Triumphal Arch, Reichstag, Building in Switzerland, where they are awarded the Nobel Prize, etc. Many Installations are made with sound and even mechanized movement, however, most of these firstranges are quite naive and not spectacles. Then we visited the notorious "pissing boy", which in fact, from the strength of 40 cm in height, rightly, along the way, we listened to the 5 most realistic versions of why he was immortalized.
We did not leave without attention and the monument to the "Sleeping Knight", more similar to the statue of a lying woman. Tourists believing that touching him would bring good luck, polished his body to shine. We also touched the eternal asking for the cost of happiness.
