Day 3 - Happy Belgian National Day!

Yesterday evening was fairly quiet - a stroll to see Jeanneke Pis, all in the name of gender equality.... and then an ice-cream and soaking up some of the holiday vibes. 


Today, in case you did not know, is Belgium's national day. I had read a bit about some celebration events, some of which I am hoping to see this evening, but I did not know that as I walked to find some breakfast this morning, within 100m of my hotel I would stumble upon the whole Belgian royal family arriving for the Te Deum mass at the St Michael and St Gudula Cathedral. Having previously sat opposite the Swedish royal family at a concert in Stockholm when visiting with Lizzy, I am starting to appreciate European royal families turning out for my visits.... Apparently it was King Philippe, Queen Mathilde, and their four children (Elisabeth, Eleonore, Gabriel and Emmanuel) who were there. You can read all about their outfits on the Daily Fail Online, if that's your thing. 


Anyway, I enjoyed the experience, especially how everyone got to hang out with impressive horses (and their riders!) on ceremonial duties for the day.


 Having eventually found some breakfast at the station (and yes, once more, somewhat struggled to find platforms for the metro), I headed to the north of the city to the Atomium - a pretty impressive structure that was built for the 1958 World's Fair. It was a slightly bizarre experience, going up and down various stairs, escalators and lifts through the various 'pods' of the building, but enjoyable, and I did learn quite a lot about architechture and the World's Fair of 1958. 


As I had some lunch, I learned EVEN more about Belgium and the 1958 World's Fair, courtesy of the 'GeoArt' AdLabs there. Given that there were literally about 200 AdLab series, with many of the questions in Dutch or French, I did not answer them all, but it was a nice activity to go alongside lunch!

After lunch was the short walk to the Design Museum, which is part of a package deal with the Atomium. Whilst I would not put it in a list of my top 10 favourite museums, I did enjoy learning about skateboard design, seeing the 'Plastic Design Collection', as well as both Belgian and Polish designers. With my politics geek hat on, my personal highlight was learning about an NGO called 'Skateistan', which offers skateboarding and education programmes to children in Kabul. My most confusing discovery of the day was the cereal brand pictured below...... I have a lot of questions (not least why it was in the skateboarding exhibit at a design museum, what actually was involved in the ‘magazine and assorted goodies’, and what that poor young man on the box is doing now..)


With rain and thunderstorms (some pretty impressive thunder) around, I decided to then head back to my hotel for a little bit of downtime, before hopefully some festivities this evening. 

Happy Belgian National Day to all celebrating! 🇧🇪

Geocaching update: 5 virtuals, 2 traditionals and a lot (erm… 112) AdLabs!

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