Brussels, Belgium (July 22 - July 24)

From Paris, I went on to spend 2 nights in Brussels.  This was my very first time in Belgium, so I was looking forward to the new adventure.  I booked a room at a hostel, so I was set to travel around.  Unfortunately, the hostel was not everything I was expecting.  It was more of a dorm-type atmosphere with communal bathrooms and showers.  The crazy thing was that everyone needed to pack up their things during the day and store them in lockers and they close access to the rooms for the middle part of the day.

For my three days, I just bummed around the town.  One of the biggest draws in Brussels is this little statue of a little boy peeing.  Seriously, he is on t-shirts, magnets and tons of other souvenirs.  Who would really want him as their "mascot"?  Once I did find the statue, I stayed just long enough to take a picture and leave.

I also went to see the other sights of Brussels.  The Atomium was built for the World Fair in 1958.  You could go up in it, but I just chose to sit under it for a little while.


Another interesting site to see was the Africa Museum.  This day started off really rainy and I didn't have an umbrella.  The museum is mainly about the Belgian rule in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).  It was here, that I really felt a longing to return to Kenya.  Back in May, I was ready for the First World and to be in order and peace, but this museum really made me think about what I was missing in Kenya.  The museum showed the progress of the colonization of the DRC and then relinquishing it back to the Congolese.  There were many displays about the different tribes and the different customs that they all had.  It is really hard to take in the huge influence that the Western world had on Africa.  Below is a picture of the wooden elephants in front of the museum.

  

I was glad to have only spent 2 nights in Brussels.  It really was not my type of city.  It seemed disjointed and there was not much to see like in Paris or other large European cities.  I ate at Subway many times and walked all over.  Not really too much else to highlight about Brussels, except that I was ready and glad to be moving onto Wiesbaden, Germany, my last stop before going "home".