Day 3: Brussels, City of Good Gastronomy and Big Physics

Belgium is, as my grandfather has put it, a "gastronomical city," meaning, of course, that there is good food here. Besides the chocolate and the waffles and the frites, there is a legitimately tasteful (haha) food scene. My meals today are definitely worth mentioning.

Breakfast: (at the hotel) chocolate croissant, pineapple, and fresh French sourdough bread with strawberry jam. Also, some damn good scrambled eggs.

Lunch: French bread straight out of a local patisserie and fresh homemade Brie (which would definitely have been illegal in the US) out of the cheese shop next door. Then, best waffle ever - even better than the one I had yesterday!

Dinner: (restaurant called Ricotta & Parmesan) Super-fancy salade folle (crazy salade) with baked chèvre cheese, olives, smoked ham, grilled zucchini, and many more surprising vegetables. Then just a little spinach and ricotta cannelloni followed by chocolates from that same little shop.

Other than stuffing ourselves, today we visited the Atomium, which is a bajillion-times-life-size model of an iron atom or something that was built for the World's Fair in the 50s and never taken down. You can go up to the top, and like the Eiffel Tower, Empire State Building, or Seattle Space Needle, look out on a panorama of the city below. Very lovely to go there again. The place is so weird, sometimes I think I just made it up in my head, but it's really there. :)

After that we returned to the Grand Place to eat (see above), took a rest at the hotel for a few hours, then went to dinner (yeah, yeah, I know, I'm a fattie) and came home.

But WAIT! What did I find when I got to my room? The sweet concierge who helped me with the hot water problem yesterday bearing two boxes of Neuhaus chocolate truffles for the inconvenience. Uh, yeah. I will take a shower in the room across the hall any day if it means free Fancypants chocolate. Thanks, Monsieur le Consierge. Talk about excellent service!

Oh, I also bought the sixth Harry Potter book in Dutch to add to my collection (I already had the seventh one in French - I'm working backwards). The Dutch covers are really simple and pretty. I approve! :)