Brussels

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Brussels was a unique city in that the French and Flemish cultures were melded together and infused with a fair amount of British and American culture as well. Most of the people we met in Brussels spoke a minimum of three languages (English, Flemish, and French). Many also spoke German. The people of Brussels were proud of their main attractions, which we visited, including Grand Place, and the infamous Mannekin-Pis (a small bronze statue of a urinating child dating back to the 8th century and exemplifying some of the unique Belgium humor). The Grand Place was hosting an interesting Lavender Fair, teaching the residents and tourists all about how lavender is grown and processed throughout areas of Belgium and what an industry it has become. The Belgium lace shops, of course, abounded, along with many street-side Belgium waffle vendors and gourmet Belgium chocolate shops.

Our trip to the Belgium Science Policy, the ESA space agency for Belgium, was our most informative visit of our trip. The space agency personnel we spoke with were incredibly helpful and eager to work with us in making contact with educators throughout Belgium. They put our contact information on their email lists and websites, provided us with interactive media designed for their students which we can adapt and use within our space program as well, and gave us contact information for many potential partnerships within the ESA in our area of education. We are very optimistic about developing some of these partnerships and expanding our space program to include peer-to-peer communication and information-sharing between our students and theirs.

An exciting, and culminating event given that Brussels was our last city on our FFT adventure, we took a trip through MiniEurope. MiniEurope is a tour of the European Union, with all models built down to the finest detail at a scale of 1:25. Not only did we get to see many of the monuments and important buildings from cities and countries we have never been to, but we also got to revisit some we had seen and compare them in contrast to each other. It was a really cool experience, and we took so many pictures we plan to use with our students in our extended learning class.

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