Day 4

Another day gone! This one was a long one, a very long one. We started the morning right with a nice breakfast at our hostel. I never knew that butter, jam and bread could be so filling. And the brownie was a nice addition as well. We made sure to take our gloves with us today because 45 degrees is just too cold. As we started walking towards our first destination, I was happy to see that Mannekin Pis had on some clothes today (even though he was still peeing). We stopped by Grand Place again and noticed some very yummy waffles being made. Sadly, I had already had my jam and bread. We stopped by the Bourse stock exchange building which was pretty cool. There were so many detailed carvings on it! Next stop was St. Catherine's Church and the Black Tower. I wasn't sure what to expect when we were walking over there, but both were so neat looking. The Black Tower is one of the last remaining structures from the old city walls. And it was stuck right in the middle of the city with modern buildings built round it. St. Catherine's was really cool as well. In addition to being a really old church, there was a public urinal built along the one of its outside walls. We started walking towards the Place des Martyrs and saw a decent sized grocery store along the way. We made a mental note to stop back and look for that alarm clock. The Place des Martyrs was an empty square, but right in the middle stood this huge monument. Unfortunately, I couldn't translate why the monument was there, but I can only assume that a lot of people died for something... We walked over the the Monnaie Theater and took a little pit stop outside of it. At this point, my feet were good and the rest of the day looked promising. We hadn't seen a single cloud all day and the sun had started to warm everything up. We took the metro over to a different section of the city and located the Notre Dame de Laeken, probably the biggest church I've seen so far. Sadly it was under construction on the sides, but the front had already been completed. It was really cool seeing the differences in the sections. Unfortunately we were unable to go inside because of a service, but instead we got to see the huge cemetery behind the church and the Royal Crypt underneath. Apparently in Europe they don't quite bury the bodies underneath the ground and they like to add pictures to each grave. The crypt was really neat as well. I got to see the graves of King Leopold I, II, III and the Queen that the church was named after/for. I was in the presence of royalty. We continued our journey to the Palace of Laeken, but could only see it from a distance behind a gate. Next stop was the Atomium!! I had seen it from a distance several times and was excited to see it up close. We paid our 8 euro to go inside of it, and took several elevators and stairs to get to the middle and surrounding sections. The inside had a lot of different art and architecture displays. Apparently the Atomuim was the thing to visit that Saturday because the line to go to the top was ridiculous. Even though I paid 8 euro for it, we decided to pass on the hour line and started heading over to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart. I had started to feel a little pain in my feet but I figured it was manageable and kept on going. Even in the distance, the Basilica was HUGE! When we finally made it inside we knew we had to go to the top somehow. There were a bunch of stairs leading somewhere and I grew very concerned that I was going to have to climb all the way up. Luckily, for a small fee, there is a glass elevator that does all of the work for you. The view was breathtaking. We could see the entire city! I don't remember how many pictures I took, but it was alot! We made our way down to the bottom and walked back tot he metro station for our last few stops. We had missed the Brussels Palace the previous day, and we had to make a pit stop there before we left. By this point, the pain in my feet had increased to a level 8 out of 10. The palace was beautiful (and again, was behind a fence). We stopped by the grocery store on our way back and grabbed some salami, edem cheese and a nice baguette for dinner. The last stop of the night was the St. Hubert galleries, which is a glass roofed mall area. It was pretty neat, but my feet started controlling my thoughts and all I wanted to do was get back to the hostel. On our way back we encountered several different parades of sorts including one that was firing off guns or shooting pigeons (I'm not entirely sure). After making it back to the hostel, we ate our nice dinner and now, even though it's only 8:45, I am about to head to bed. Our train leaves at 5:57 tomorrow, so we will be in route to Maastricht bright and early. That's all for today!