Brussels has three train stations, and many trains stop at all three stations. We wanted to get off at Central, but missed the stop and got off at Midi instead. Luckily the train stations are rather close to each other, so we just had to walk a little extra to get to our apartment.
Since there were four of us, we decided to rent an apartment for the time we'd be in Brussels instead of finding a hotel. That way we'd have a kitchen available to us and be able to eat breakfast before leaving for the day.
Here is Brian lounging in the apartment soon after we arrived:
Here is the view out our apartment window: a gay bar called Homo Erectus. We fell asleep to Celine Dion and Cher but were so exhausted by the end of the day that the loud club music did not interfere with our sleep!
After dropping our luggage off in the apartment, we decided to explore Brussels. However, we realized we were famished and first stopped at a pizza restaurant for lunch. This photo isn't good -- the lighting is horrible -- but you can get an idea of the kind of restaurant we were at. The food was good and filling.
We decided that we were going to go on a brewery tour and started heading that way after lunch. Unfortunately, Brussels is a very confusing city to navigate. Almost all of the roads curve and they seem to change names every two blocks or so. Additionally, street names are given in French and Flemish. Finally, not all streets were named on our map!
We had to stop and have another beer along the way, but we finally made it to a small family brewery that has been brewing a special kind of beer called gueze for generations.
After a brief introduction by a woman working at the brewery, we were given booklets and set out on a self-guided tour:
In Brussels, which is officially bilingual French and Flemish, most signs were in both languages. This hand-written sign also was in English.
After the tour, we were given tastes of two types of beer brewed there:
We walked around the city some more, heading towards the cathedral but in no real hurry:
We found a beautiful park with a fountain:
We finally made our way to the cathedral. There are some peregrine falcons nesting in the left tower, and we saw an adult falcon leaving and entering the area where the nest is said to be (it was too high up for us to see the nest):
Here's Brian in front of a display in the cathedral:
There was a display of cathedral artifacts including some interesting relics. Gloria and Claire saw this; however, Brian and I started looking at other parts of the cathedral and by the time we made it over there, it was closed. In fact, Claire and Gloria were almost locked inside!While out walking, we saw this art painted on a garage door:
This is the Mannekin Pis, which is one of Brussels's most famous attractions. Despite knowing ahead of time that it was very small, I was still shocked by exactly how tiny he was! He is often dressed in outfits that are given to him by visiting celebrities and dignitaries, and there is a museum you can visit to see some of his costumes. There is also a female statue and a dog statue, but we didn't see those until later in our trip. 
We had dinner in a restaurant, of course:
Here's Brian with his dessert: a $10 waffle. He declared that, with the exception of the food we received at Gloria's host families, it was the best thing he'd eaten in Belgium and definitely worth $10. He shared a bite with all of us.
After another long day of sightseeing, we returned to the apartment.
Tomorrow is Bruges, so we have another full day ahead of us!
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