Brussels - New Years Eve 2009

Brussels was the last stop on our journey. We just planned one day and would then grab the Eurostar home for the 1st. The building behind us is the Town Hall and they had a spectacular music and light show with all the lights flashing and the colors changing. Dinner was comprised of Belgium waffles from the Christmas market just off the square. While they were not quite on the diet list, they were good.

We made our way towards one of the more famous tourist sites: the Manneken-Pis. It is quite funny the sense of humor here as you would imagine.

We walked past many restaurants and there were multiple displays like this one. Just teasing you to come inside and dig in. From there, we made our way to a festival area where there was a Ferris wheel, ice skating, and all the trappings of a proper Christmas Market.

The most unusual find was one particular street performer that is shown here mid-trick while MJ and John watch. John helped him with some tricks during the show and he struck up a conversation with us as the crowd broke. The funny part was that he was from all the way across the pond in Kentucky. He was an hour and a half from where we lived in Indiana. My how small the world was.

As we tend to be a family that rocks and rolls harder than most on New Years Eve, we figured we would stay up till breakfast and would dine on some most excellent Belgium Waffles. Instead, we were home by 10:00 and Maggie was the only one that actually saw a firework at midnight. She tried to get Vivian up to see them but mom decided she would just stay in her warm bed and could watch the lights reflect off the ceiling. This lasted about thirty seconds and she was back in dream land.

The waffles did get dominated by the Skelton family but it was not after a wild all-nighter in Brussels...