Oh, Thumper!
Get your minds out of the gutter. Hahaha. The Dutch accents are cute, but I am behaving. Really. ...Well, as much as I ever behave, but that's not the point.
On Sunday, I took the full bus tour around the town and watched every stop. I took quite a few pictures, so hopefully the dirty windows don't trouble them too badly. It didn't look like it was a problem from the small image window, but I shall see when I get them up on the Mac at home. Then, hopped off the bus at the Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis (an art and history museum) and got to see lots of neat things while practicing my parsing of Dutch via German.
[Apologies in advance to zeroband, as I didn't go into Autoworld Museum to take pictures. However, I have a few pictures of some cars that were on display at Atomium. I also found a special parcel that screamed at me that it was perfect for you, which I hope makes up for the lack of car-sightseeing that I did.]
Unfortunately, the museum didn't allow picture taking, but I it was understandable given the antiquities that were found there. 500 year old tapestries don't need flash photography making them more delicate. I also saw some absolutely gorgeous Gothic and Rennaisance woodworking. I saw a lot of stuff from Mexico, as well, but that just didn't thrill me the same way. Sure, it was old and amazingly in good shape, but I'm definitely more of a European culture fanatic. The Gothic cathedrals are just incredible -- dark and foreboding, they look so much better when they aren't polished clean. (Some of them seem to be getting treatments to keep the statues free of the aging problems.) The art found in the museum matched it, with these huge wooden wardrobes with ornate carvings and inlays. The wealthy may have been the only ones with such nice things, but oh, are they nice.
Tried another restaurant last night that wasn't really worth it; the food was mostly edible, but I figure I was bound to come to a place where even the food wasn't that great. I'm glad that I didn't bother with a beer, there. Tonight, I had a Chimay before going out to dinner (not bad; not as good as the Leffe Brune, though)... and then at dinner, the place we went to had a house cordial of white beer and cherry liquor. (We went to In't Spinnekopke.) That was okay, but I prefer the Kriek. I then had a dark beer there, which I believe was Maredsous. It was tasty, but I think the Leffe still wins out. For dinner, there, I had Thumper -- a bunny rabbit stew. Mmm. I can say that I do like the bunny. I don't know which beer or the type of sauce that they made for the stew, aside from the fact that it had onions in it.
Thus... you see why I titled this one as I did. It just took me a while to get there. While I miss people back in the States, my tummy is going to miss Brussels a lot.
On Sunday, I took the full bus tour around the town and watched every stop. I took quite a few pictures, so hopefully the dirty windows don't trouble them too badly. It didn't look like it was a problem from the small image window, but I shall see when I get them up on the Mac at home. Then, hopped off the bus at the Koninklijke Musea voor Kunst en Geschiedenis (an art and history museum) and got to see lots of neat things while practicing my parsing of Dutch via German.
[Apologies in advance to zeroband, as I didn't go into Autoworld Museum to take pictures. However, I have a few pictures of some cars that were on display at Atomium. I also found a special parcel that screamed at me that it was perfect for you, which I hope makes up for the lack of car-sightseeing that I did.]
Unfortunately, the museum didn't allow picture taking, but I it was understandable given the antiquities that were found there. 500 year old tapestries don't need flash photography making them more delicate. I also saw some absolutely gorgeous Gothic and Rennaisance woodworking. I saw a lot of stuff from Mexico, as well, but that just didn't thrill me the same way. Sure, it was old and amazingly in good shape, but I'm definitely more of a European culture fanatic. The Gothic cathedrals are just incredible -- dark and foreboding, they look so much better when they aren't polished clean. (Some of them seem to be getting treatments to keep the statues free of the aging problems.) The art found in the museum matched it, with these huge wooden wardrobes with ornate carvings and inlays. The wealthy may have been the only ones with such nice things, but oh, are they nice.
Tried another restaurant last night that wasn't really worth it; the food was mostly edible, but I figure I was bound to come to a place where even the food wasn't that great. I'm glad that I didn't bother with a beer, there. Tonight, I had a Chimay before going out to dinner (not bad; not as good as the Leffe Brune, though)... and then at dinner, the place we went to had a house cordial of white beer and cherry liquor. (We went to In't Spinnekopke.) That was okay, but I prefer the Kriek. I then had a dark beer there, which I believe was Maredsous. It was tasty, but I think the Leffe still wins out. For dinner, there, I had Thumper -- a bunny rabbit stew. Mmm. I can say that I do like the bunny. I don't know which beer or the type of sauce that they made for the stew, aside from the fact that it had onions in it.
Thus... you see why I titled this one as I did. It just took me a while to get there. While I miss people back in the States, my tummy is going to miss Brussels a lot.