Brussels Break, Part Two

One of the coolest things about living in London is that you're so close to so much. You're around two hours from Paris, Dublin, Brussels and short plane trips away from a host of other wonderful cities.
Imagine taking weekend trips to see the iconic sites of Europe: the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the Brandenburg Gate, the Acropolis, the Temple of Mnajdra?
Well, we did it - in one afternoon. No kidding.
We went to Mini-Europe.
Mini-Europe is a hoot. It's part of the Bruparck just outside Brussels, and it's just as cheesy as you think it would be, but we had a great time. I highly recommend it.

Everything in Mini-Europe is 1/25th the size of the actual landmark, making for some interesting photo opportunities. There's a lot to see, as even going at a pretty fast pace, we spent at least 90 minutes there.
It was fun to see people of different nationalities finding the landmarks of their home country. We asked a nice English family to take our picture in front of the Big Ben replica. Look at our new picture for the result.
The park, sponsored by the European Union, promotes the vision of a united Europe. But we mostly enjoyed the campiness of it all, highlighted by a walk through a cheesy gift shop on the way out.
The Bruparck is located on the site of the 1958 Brussels World's Fair, the first one held after the end of World War II and the first one since the 1939 fair in New York. Like most of the Worlds Fairs in history, most of it is gone now, but the one thing that's left of the Brussels Expo is its most famous symbol.
It's called the Atomium and it's a representation of an iron crystal, magnified 165 billion times. Don't ask me how they know that.
It's always interesting to look at how people in the past thought the future was going to be. (Think "The Jetsons" here -- flying cars and people dressed in space suits).

We're both interested in the history of the Fifties, which both of us lived in, but don't remember much about. There seemed to be a lot of faith in science and progress in making a better world. But it was also the time of the Cold War, and the U.S. and the Soviet Union used the fair to present their competing vision of progress to the world.
You can walk inside the Atomium -- 86 stairs and a couple of escalators to get to the top, 335 feet off the ground. Along the way there are lots of mementos, exhibits and artifacts from the World's Fair. There's a display with facts about the fair. Some of the most interesting:
More than 41 million people visited the Expo, and 30 million of them visited the U.S. and Soviet pavilions. Five people died and eight babies were born at the fair. Twenty-seven people tried to commit suicide. Some 52,000 pints of beer were sold in one day at one of the cafes.
Liz Taylor and Frank Sinatra were among the visitors seen in photos displayed at the Atomium, along with heads of state and just plain folks. Quite a blast from the past...
We made our way back down -- 186 more stairs -- and through another gift shop. Then we found our way back to the Metro, to the city center to shop for chocolate and eat waffles one more time, then off to the train after picking up our suitcase at the hotel.
One more thing: as we were walking down the street in Brussels, we noticed a familiar logo - the one we see on Food Lion stores back home. Food Lion is owned by a company called Delhaize, which is headquartered in Belgium. So it was oddly familiar to see that lion logo under the words "Supermarche." We peeked inside to find some funny food products and we spotted the logo on a bottle of lemon drink. Probably won't find this at home.
The trip back on the Eurostar was a dream. It was nice, comfortable ride back to London. It took us about 20 minutes from the time we got off the train at St. Pancras and onto the bus until we arrived at the flat. There's nothing like coming back home from a foreign country, right?