Brussels

Last week we went to Brussels with our family friends, the Days. Brussels is the capital of Belgium. We got to go under the North Sea on a train to get there. The underground tunnel is called the Chunnel. The first thing we wanted to see was the Grand Place. Grand Place is a big square in the middle of Brussels. On our way there we passed the famous statue of a peeing boy called the Menneken Pis. It was funny. After stopping there we continued toward Grand Place. When we got there we were met with a beautiful group of buildings. One was extra tall. All of the buildings had lots of ornate statues and carvings on them. We stopped in a small restaurant and had croissants and hot chocolate and steamed milk. Then we headed toward the Metro to go to the Atomium. The Atomium was built for the 1958 World’s Fair. It is a huge and amazing design that looks just like an atom chain of an iron crystal with 9 atoms of iron and 165 billion times larger. The bottom is a regular shape. As you look up you can see all of the giant spheres. There are nine of them. When we went inside we got on an elevator that would take us to the top sphere. The elevator used to be the fastest elevator in the world. When we got to the top we could see miles. You could see all the way to the edge of Brussels. After getting lots of pictures we had lunch in the sphere. It might have been the coolest place I have ever eaten at. After eating we went to four other spheres. After that we took a train to the other end of Brussels. We went to a comic museum. A lot of famous cartoons were made in the Brussels area. Two of them are the Smurfs and Tin-Tin. Both are movies that have come out fairly recently but they started as comic strips. We got to see lots of comics. We also got to see Smurf houses and lots of cool statues of comic book people. It was great! The other thing we did in Brussels was go to the European Union Parliament. The European Union is a big financial and law part of Europe. Twenty-seven countries in Europe are part of the Union. Brussels was fantastic!