16.3.09

BRUSSLES, BELGIUM, 1979

I traveled with a group of college students to three countries during the summer of 1979: Holland, Belgium and France. Belgium was the second country we visited.

On the road in to Brussels, our motor coach passed by the Atomium. Built in 1958, the Atomium is a giant nine-sphere replica of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. Back in 1979, the Atomium had its original aluminum face (in 2006 it was refinished in a glossy stainless steel). To this day, I've never seen anything quite like it.

Within the city limits, the first sight we passed was the impish Manneken Pis (pee boy) fountain. There are several stories associated with the fountain. The one we heard was of a merchant father who had lost his son while visiting the city. The father searched frantically for his son. At the end of a long search, the boy was found relieving himself in a garden. As a remembrance, the happy father had a fountain built on the very spot his son was found. Nowadays, the Manneken Pis is dressed up in costumes to mark different occasions; and sometimes, a beer keg is attached......

The place my friends and I spent most of our time exploring was The Grand Place. The Grand Place is Brussels' central market square. Most European cities have a square, but The Grand Place is by far the most beautiful. The town hall and guild houses of different architectural styles encircle the square. Each seventeenth century guild house is topped by a gilded statue or ornament. A myriad of colorful banners were displayed at equal spacings adding more drama and appeal to the house fronts. Here, in a shop by an open air cafe, I bought my first box of Godiva hazel nut cream chocolates. No small wonder I discovered the most gorgeous chocolates in the world in such an amazing place.

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