DAY 4 
BRUXELLES

Somewhere on the big board is my train.
There it is. Time to board.
It was a nice train. Quite comfortable.
The Belgian countryside. Or perhaps the French countryside. It's hard to tell.
After hustling to the ticket office before they closed, I took a snap of the Anderlecht stadium. It's at one end of a park.
A neighborhood near the stadium.
My hotel in Brussels, the Royal Embassy.
It was a great room. Very new and modern.
The Boulevard Anspach. It's a main drag in the city.
City Hall on the Grand Place or Grote Markt (Market Square). This has been a market since the Middle Ages. They started building stone buildings in the 14th century. The City Hall was completed around 1455. But don't get the idea that this is that hall. The square was bombed flat in 1695 by the French. This was rebuilt shortly afterward and it has undergone restorations in the 1840's and 1990's.
The King's House. It was originally a broodhuis where bakers sold bread. It was later used as the administrative center for Hapsburg kings. It was rebuilt in the 1890's. There is a City Museum in there now. On display were various costumes worn by the Manneken Pis over the years. They include Mickey Mouse (1969), John Bull (1972), a Sioux Indian (1932), Elvis Presley (1978), a Montreal Canadien (1958), a Union soldier from the Civil War or as it was called on the marker the Secession War (1968) and various national costumes.
Guild houses. These were the home offices for the various professions and they too had to be rebuilt after being leveled in 1695.
These building all look old (and they are), but not as old as you might think with all the rebuilding and restoration. It's still a beautiful square and a very popular tourist spot.
The first house to the left of that alley is the Swan House. I sat on its steps when I read in the guide book that it was once a pub where Karl Marx and Frederick Engels met in February to write the Communist Manifesto. I knew you'd have to be drunk to come up with nonsense like that. Next door to it is a brewery museum.
House of the Dukes of Brabant. Just more guild houses.
It may be hard to believe, but probably the most known tourist attraction in Brussels is this little statue/fountain of a boy urinating. It is Manneken Pis. He's been pissing since 1619. He must have drunk a awful lot of coffee that morning.
There were several building walls decorated with cartoons. This one is features Belgium's own Tintin. There is a comic strip museum in Brussels but I didn't get a chance to get there.
A different kind of cartoon. These poster, as well as t-shirts, were sold in a shop. You can't really see it too well, but the panels depict the various ways Europeans "do it". It is fairly stereotypical. The Irish do it drunk. The Germans do it rough. And the Greeks do it, well you know where.
The good news is that I got a ticket to the Anderlecht-Charleroi match. The bad news is that it was in the terrace. For those unfamiliar, that means standing. No seats. And I got there an hour early, so I stood for three hours on two bum legs. Ah, what I go through to see soccer. You can't really tell from this photo, but Charleroi is wearing pink jerseys. Anderlecht won 3-1. That pushes my record for European soccer to two wins (Hearts and Anderlecht), one draw (Brentford) and no losses with an aggregate goals advantage of 9-3. Clubs should be paying me to come to their matches as a lucky charm.
The St. Guido station after the match. Look at all the happy Anderlecht fans. Well there was a few (not pictured here).

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