We had a pretty slow week which allowed us to recover from jet lag and fight our colds. Summer also finally decided to make an appearance. One day was in the high 80's! With all the moving, holidays, and travel, Tyler had yet to work his first 5 full day week here....until last week. The move back to full time work was a tough adjustment for him!
This week a beautiful flower 'carpet' was installed in the Grote Markt for the month. Brussels has a similar (and fairly famous) tradition, where they create a HUGE flower carpet every other year (next year) in the town square that lasts for a couple days. The Antwerp version is using potted plants, not fresh cut flowers, so it will be there all month. In fact, it will be here until they have to clean it up so that the Grote Markt can be the starting line for the 3rd stage of the Tour de France!!! Molly is beyond excited for this, and so is Antwerp. There is already a countdown clock in the square that currently reads 28 days.
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| The Town Hall has flags to match the flower carpet |
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| Flower Carpet |
We spent Friday night with some new friends, and Saturday was devoted to various shopping excursions, including our first visit to the European version of Dick's Sporting Goods, but if you can imagine, bigger!
On Sunday, we headed down to the outskirts of Brussels to see the Atomium and Mini-Europe. We could not miss the Atomium, as we are proud of our own odd World's Fair structure in Tennessee (google: "the Sunsphere" for you non-Tennesseans). The Atomium was built for the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels and was recently renovated. You can ride the elevator to the top sphere for a great panoramic view of Brussels and beyond. Other spheres hold exhibits about the World's Fair and the building of the Atomium.
Mini-Europe is an odd tourist attraction full of miniature versions of famous buildings and sites in Europe. It is right next to the Atomium, so we couldn't not go! We now know all of the places we want to see in full size while we are living here.
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| The Atomium! |
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| Brussels from the top |
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| Psychedelic escalator from one sphere to the next |
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| Mini Europe with full size Atomium in the background |
So the flower carpet is really beautiful, the Atomium is much cooler than the Sunsphere and the Tour de France in your back or front door is even cooler than that. I'm so jealous!
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