Le Grande Place and it's GAMEDAY!!!!!!

Oh boy!  Today is college football day!  I know for most of you this is happening like right as you get up, but for me I am anxiously waiting for 9:30 PM where I get to look at my tiny little cell phone screen and watch Michigan play :-)  

Seriously, I have it all planned out where I'm going to sit and everything, because my Internet is spotty to say the least. :-)  In honor of this day, I wore my Michigan shirt, and slept in Michigan basketball shorts.  









I LOVE college football, it's seriously the best.  It's sort of clouding my judgment, as evidenced by the fact that this is one of the first pictures that I took today.  It doesn't matter what color they are in, I only noticed one thing.  

Anyone who wants to take a stab at it, just post a comment below!

But anyways, moving on.  So Le Grande Place is the main market in Brussels, and I have to say that it is probably the most touristy part of the city that I have seen.  I guess it makes sense if you think about it.  In the medieval era, the buildings would have been covered by

stalls that were selling their wares and this place was a bustle of activity.  With the development of modern economies, we moved away from plazas like this one where all of the trading was done, but now we want to commemorate those markets by putting up stalls and stuff and making them shopping areas :-)

It was fun to go down there though, because they have some legit stuff down there like this building which I like.  I also couldn't help but notice that my favorite place to eat was centrally located--SUBWAY!!  As I walked past, there were quite a few American accents in the area.  Oh American consumerism, you have to love it :-)

 
I, on the other hand, was in no way eating down there with all of the expensive stuff.  No sir, I headed back to the place where I am staying to get lunch.  Well, actually get lunch close by, for an iconic European food.  Has anyone ever tried ordering a kebab when you don't speak French?

While I sort of know how to speak French, there's something about telling them that you want the white sauce instead of the spicy sauce and the pita instead of the tortilla that got lost in translation. :-)  However, it was still amazingly delicious.  :-)  Oh, how I love Europe!




Here's to Kebabs and Gameday!

Finding my way to work via landmarks

So, I walk to work every morning, which is really nice.  I get the feel of the city as I'm walking, I see interesting things, and more importantly I start to find stuff that I am pretty excited about.
 
The first two days (days one and two of me being in Brussels), I got slightly lost every time I headed to work.  I would follow the map that I had on my phone, but I would get into this park and then everything would go to pieces and I would basically stumble across the EP just in time to get to work
 promptly :-)

Yesterday walking home I finally finalized the route that I need

 to take that gets me there in twenty five minutes, and I thought I would share with you the landmarks that I follow :-)
 
The first major one where I know I need to turn is this store,which up to this point is my favorite store in Brussels.  Can you figure out why?  That's right, it's a Polish store.  I have walked in two days out of the three I have been here, just to speak Polish with the people in there.  All of the food is from Polish companies that you would find in any store in Poland, and I really feel completely comfortable there.

The next one is this bridge. I'm pretty sure that it's really close to a major railway station in Brussels (just having looked on maps and stuff).  This is also where there is a metro stop that I will probably use to get to church or to get to the train station.

This is probably the most iconic landmark (and I apologize for the poor quality of the picture).  It's this hotel called "aloft", and the thing that makes it cool to me is the way that the clock is the "O" in hotel, and the slightly odd architecture.  I always know that I need to turn right when I reach the intersection where this hotel is, which leads me to...

...this plaza.  I like this place because is looks SO European.  For all y'all who have been in Europe, how many of you have seen a plaza like this somewhere in other cities?  I know I have seen one similar in Spain, Poland, and Germany, to name but a few.  I go across this plaza to a cross walk and turn right, heading towards yet another bridge!  I don't know anything about it, except that it's cool and that I turn left at it :-)

 


Finally, I'm on the street where the Parliament is!  I head under this last bridge right here, and then finally reach the Parliamentary building.

Like I said before, there is more than one building, so I go in the right-side one, show my badge, send my stuff through security, and then head up to work!  It's a nice walk, and honestly reminds me of being a missionary!  Walking a significant distance that you have walked over and over again in nice clothes?  Yep, totally a missionary thing :-)  Some of you should visit me, and we will walk it together!  Cheers!

First day of work and the enormity of the Parliament!

Well, I'm here in Brussels!  I must say that I am thoroughly enjoying it.  I like being in a real city again with lots of people and the hustle and bustle of things.  Now granted, I'm not driving in it, so I might be singing a different tune if I was :-)

It's beautiful here.  It feels like any city in Germany but taken to the extreme with a myriad of cultures crashing together.  It makes sense what with the European Union being here.  As I walk down the street, I hear all sorts of languages being spoken; there have even been some that I don't recognize, which is saying something :-)

Within the Parliament itself, there are people there in some sort of official status for the EP (European Parliament), but there are also staff.  Apparently, the majority of them are NOT from EU countries.  There are quite a few from Morocco (like the repairman who fixed the door to our office this morning), with some from other countries like Columbia (the woman who works at the coffee shop) or Ukraine (a woman I met in the elevator) thrown in the mix.  It really is fascinating.

The Parliament building is enormous in and of itself.  First off, there are like four massive buildings in the complex.  Most of those buildings are some of the highest buildings in the city.  Here's a picture of what I saw when I went to the 15th floor this morning:


This was a pretty cool view.  But how we got there is even more amazing.  First off, we need to take the correct elevator, and not the F elevator which will take you to the offices that we have on the third floor, or the offices on the sixth floor that are next to the German Communist party (don't even get me started on the posters they have hanging up on all of the walls!).  Take the E elevator, which leads all the way to the top at the 15th floor.

Or, I can also go down into the basement to send a letter on floor -2 in the Carrefour (supermarket).

If I want to file a petition, I need to go to the third floor of L, take an elevator to the first floor of L, walk down a couple of hallways which then become J, which then become the fourth floor of another building, go through a couple more hallways, and then take another elevator to the fifth floor of that building.  Woot!  It's a party getting around there, let me tell you!  However, the enormity of it all does sort of speak to me, because it shows all of the people that are (hopefully) committed to making the European Union a better place.
 
Those are my thoughts of the adventures that I had for today.  Hope you enjoyed them!