I'm sorry...are you peeing?

Saturday, November 8

So we slept in until just after 9 and finally got our lazy butts out of bed and started out exploring for the day around 10. We walked through these beautiful gardens by a palace and then decided to head back into the old city…until we ran looked left and right to cross a street and saw a BEAUTIFUL church about 10 blocks away. Was is on the map? No. Did we know what is was? No. But will we ever be back in Brussels to see it? No, so we went. It was a great walk with wonderful conversation but when we got there we realized that we couldn’t go inside which was kind of a bummer.

But, as we looked left and right to cross the street to go back we saw another really beautiful building. Was is on the map? No. Did we know what is was? No. But will we ever be back in Brussels to see it? No, so we went. It was this ornate building that kind of reminded me of a smaller version of the Congress Building in Budapest but had no signs, no opening hours, and nobody around to tell us what to do. So, we decided to wander inside. Worse case scenario we go inside and they tell us we can’t go any further. Well, we get up the first set of stairs into the building and look around, nothing but a beautiful staircase in front of us, so what the heck we walk up. The stairs led us to this beautifully ornate hallway with tons of room off of it. But still nobody in sight. So we wander into the only room with an open door to find this congress/court room which was so beautiful. Realizing we were FOR SURE not allowed to be in there we took some pictures to prove it to all of you back home and then RAN out of there!

We started the hike back to the old city (ie, our original plan) and went to St. Michael’s Cathedral which is absolutely gorgeous! I got a brief lecture from Katie on architecture and art history. So in an effort to make her proud…St. Michael’s is designed in Gothic architecture but decorated with Baroque statues. The ceilings of the naive are groin vaults while the ceilings of the side aisles are sail vaults. Look at me! I’m so smart! On a serious not it was really fun to learn about the different architecture and stuff because I have been to SO SO SO many stunning churches and its fun to know a little bit about what I’m seeing.

Anyway, we grabbed a quick latte and then set out to find a little boy peeing. That’s right. Back in …I don’t know, a long time ago, they built this fountain to bring water to the town and in their excellent humor they made the fountain so that it looks as if he’s peeing. So being immature, like every other tourist there we took some funny pictures and then went to lunch at a restaurant not far away where we had Jupiler beer (which apparently is one of the more popular beers of Belgium).

We started our journey back to the hotel around 3 with a quick detour to see the Notre Dame church and the Palace of Justice. After taking the lift to the Palace of Justice we had an incredible view of the whole city which was a wonderful way to end out weekend. We finally made it back to the hotel where we watched last weeks Grey’s on my laptop before heading out for dinner. We came back shortly there after and got in bed. After watching some more American television we headed to bed knowing Sunday was going to be an early morning!

Side note: I freaked out all day because I was so curious about the Tri-Delt slate coming out that afternoon, only to get back from dinner to find out that it wasn’t coming out until Sunday….drive me nuts!!!