The Atomium

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Biking Through Town on a Winter's Night

Riding the Escalators

When we last reported we were "freezing in Florence". We are now nice and warm and a lot has happened. We found celebrating Christmas in Belgium to be an inspired experience for the whole family. We were able to invent new traditions that will hopefully stay with us for years to come and additionally we were able to escape a lot of the harried chaos that usually accompanies holidays in the States. Perhaps it was the lack of pre holiday parties or the lack of travel over the actual few days but it was such a relaxing time for all of us. The girls are thoroughly enjoying their new gifts and we all enjoyed celebrating Christmas dinner with our friends in traditional German fashion.

Now that the holidays are over we are hosting our last guests (!), packing and re-packing and doing a few last trips. On Friday we met Christian and Henry in Brussels and we all went to the Atomium. The Atomium is a space age leftover from the 1958 World Fair. It was built by the powerful Belgian metal industry as a model of an iron molecule - enlarged 165 billion times! The structure is 102 meters high and consists of balls linked by columns. It is a fantastic sight, but, unfortunately, that is all it is.

The rides up the escalators and stairs were very cool and you really did feel like you were in a space ship of sorts (Jonathan took a shaky video you can watch below). However, once inside each of the balls there were only lame pictures without even any captions. They really could do so much more with the space and turn it into a science museum, or something! After exploring four of the balls we returned to the base and got in line to ride the elevator to the top. And we waited. And we waited. We didn't even wait this long at the Eiffel Tower! Finally we gave up and decided to leave; the view of Brussels was something we could live without.

Despite our disappointment the day was not a total bust. We had a fun little trip somewhere new and the best part of the trip was either getting to take the subway in Brussels the for the first (and possibly last) time, but more likely it was biking home from the train station and stopping at one of our favorite eateries on the way home: GreenWay. We are going to miss that place. For a look at a typical bike ride through the city lights at night see the video I attached.

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Photos

Look, There's the Atomium!
Here Abigail is sporting her knight costume which she has insisted on wearing almost every day since Christmas.

Cute Girls Waiting for the Elevator...
...that would never come....