City of chocolate, prostitutes, and peeing children

Later in the summer I took a long weekend in Brussles.  I kinda just flipped a coin between that and Amsterdam.  But Brussels it was.  From the train, I remember Belgium being so green, yet modern.  This was really the only city where I saw real American sky-scrapers.  Walking from the train station to my hotel, I did cross the red-light district of the city, which was a little sketch.  So was the hotel.  But the old square in Brussles is authentic, and so are the chocolates you can buy there in little stores.  And walking the streets there, I found the little peeing boy of the city - an old fountain at a random street corner.  I also took long walks (okay, my existence in Europe was long walks) through the gardens near the palace and parlaiment, and a really long walk to see Hortia House (a cool art nouveau home designed by Henry Hortia).  In Brussles I found my favorite non-Berliner art museum - the State Museum of Belgium.  I also found that they don't really speak English or German there - who know the Belgians spoke primarily French and Flemmish?  Well, when you go to a restaurant a vegetarian and leave having eaten a full steak, you learn.  (I thought I was ordering cheese pasta).

OH!  And the skies over the Low Countries.  Now that's memorable!

On the way back to Berlin I changed trains in Cologne, Germany, and got a chance to walk around.  I was struck by the cathedral there.  It's the subject of lore on German nationalism and pride.  You should go see it.  It's huge.