Belgium

Brussels

Next stop Belgium. Belgium isn’t really a country, its just a suburb of France, a bit like Austria and Germany. Brussels is where they have the parliament of Europe. Imagine Canberra but for three quarters of a billion people. They make a lot of rules about cheese and sausages here. People in Britain hate being ruled by Europe so much that they named the most disgusting vegetable ever invented the Brussel Sprout. Hercule Poirot was Belgium and you know what an annoying little fucker he was so I wasn’t expecting too much.

Anyway here are some architecture pictures for those of you who like buildings.

For this stage of the tour we were joined by my father, his wife Belinda and our daughter Jennie.

Tub was acting like I am a developmentally challenged teenager with hyper activity. On the way to Brussels she was saying things like how nice it will be to have other people around to take over some of the burden of caring for me. I’m sure she doesn’t mean it.

We arrived early in the morning and got a taxi to the hotel. Or at least we tried to. A very nice taxi driver booted us out the cab at the end of a one way street and gestured down the road. I think he must have been pointing out an interesting landmark because we were nowhere near the bloody hotel. If I ever meet a European taxi driver on holiday in a city that I know well and he asks me for directions I will be sure to return the favour.

So off we go again, but this time there are 5 of us. Within 2 minutes of leaving the hotel we came across a bloke taking a piss in the high street. Having confirmed that we were indeed in Europe we continued down the road.

They have the obligatory European square full of ornate buildings and horse shit.

They also have a statue of someone taking a piss in the street. No wonder they have a problem with it here. He has 100 different little uniforms that they dress him up in. When we went he was pretending to be Little Red Riding Hood.

Of course a naked boy attracts a lot of paedophiles. They have formed a little club here and even have a uniform.

We got lost…

Met an angry dog who was keeping people out of his master’s shop…

And were given the finger by a statue.

Oh and we came across this in a shop window which is beyond description.

One minute you are taking magic mushrooms in Amsterdam, the next thing you know you are in Brussels playing a wok.

At least here they take beer seriously.

But they don’t seem to take little wooden models very seriously. We have seen some great toy villages on this trip, but this one was shite.

“Oh no. That’s not it.” said a local. “Head out to Bruparck. We have a whole place called Mini Europe.”

So the next day we did.

We got lost again and ended up on a tram.

It stopped and booted us all out at the side of a motorway. Its the European way. We got on a random bus and ended up by pure luck at exactly the place we were going. Not bad considering that if the tram had kept going we would have had a 20 minute walk at the end.

And we found this. Belgium, what the fuck is this?

So off we went to Bruparck, where among other things, they have a waterslide. Now maybe the coats, hat and scarves that we are all wearing in these pictures are a bit of a clue, but just in case let me be clear: it is fucking freezing in Brussels at this time of year. Why are people using an outdoor water park?

So quick drum roll. We are off to Mini Europe!

“16 Euro? Fuck that.”

No, we aren’t going to Mini Europe we are going to a Mexican restaurant instead where they put us inside a fake wagon.

But as luck would have it that wagon had a great view of Mini Europe.

We watched all of the grumpy people walking around little models of Europe’s finest rubble in the rain while we drank wine for only 16 Euro a litre. Who is a winner now.