January 18, 2009: Atomium, Manneken Pis and Riot Practice

Today was great. I got up early, 7:30, and headed down for a fairly good free continental breakfast. I packed up the little stuff that I had, threw my sheets in the hamper and went down to the main lobby to meet Richard. After a couple minutes he came down and we were off. It took two metros to get to the fair grounds but man was it worth it. We got out of the station and saw it, the Atomium. It is a 100m tall replica of an iron molecule magnified 165 billion times. The Atomium was made for the 1958 world fair and me being an engineer and Richard being a chemist we took particular interest in it. 6 Euro got us in and we piled into the elevator along with a bunch of other tourists. The elevator in the Atomium is the fastest in Europe at 5m/s. We shot up to the top of the molecule and got off for a sweet panoramic view of the city. Then we took the elevator back down and hopped on the escalators that ascended the angled bonds of the structure. It was really neat seeing all the exhibits on the 1958 world fair and exchanging talk of Canada vs. Australia. Our visit was soon over and we headed out through the rain to take some pictures and head back into the city. We shook hands and parted ways.

 

I then headed out to see my final two objectives: Mannekin Pis and the Parc du Cinquantenaire. The later of the two is a big park with huge stone arches and a massive parabolic wall. This was the setting for my favorite part of the day. On my way there I was approached by a police officer who asked me something in French and when I responded that I did not speak the language he flagged me on. It turned out that there was going to be a riot control practice for the EU riot squad. This was hella-bad-ass. There was this massive police tank with turret mounted machine guns, bulletproof glass and massive tires; the horse division of the police; a ton of 4x4 police trucks and loads of Mercedes Benz Sprinter Vans filled with dudes holding plastic shields. Wow, this rocks I thought to myself and carried on. The gates and the Mannekin Pis were sweet too. My day was nearing an end and I headed back to the train station to rest my feet and read some Jurassic Park. Four trains and five hours later I was home and I collapsed on my bed.