After Paris, we spent a few days in Belgium. We have a friend there - Helen, who teaches at the International School. Helen and Devorah taught together at the Manhattan Center for Science and Math back in the day and while I got to see Helen on my last visit here with Batya last year, Devorah hasn't seen her for almost a decade.

This was more of a visiting part of our trip than a run around like chickens without heads touring part but we still got in some good stuff.

Helen lives in the Laeken suberb of Brussels so we spent time just wandering there.

Had dinner at the Atomium - built for the 1958 world's fair. The top sphere houses a restaurant while the others have various exhibits.

The restaurant's way up to so we got some cool views. Not at dinner mind you - we were on the upper level of the top sphere which doesn't have views but we were able to go down to the level with windows and walk around.

The meal was tasty but the restaurant was uncomfortably warm and apparently half the waitstaff called in sick so service wasn't great. There was only one guy handling our entire level and he was running around frantically all evening trying to keep up. Felt bad for him.x

We did also, though go to the inner city and do a walking tour.

Next day we explored Anderlecht, another essentially, borough of Brussels. We went to see the Beguinage there. Basically a housing complex for lay religious women.

The Beguinage was closed but we did get to a library that was exhibiting a local artist's watercolor work and Devorah found a fabric store.

The highlight was the Erasmus house. Completed in 1515, Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, or Erasmus of Rotterdam lived there briefly and the building is now a museum dedicated to his work. Really interesting stuff.

Final day in Belgium was a visit to Brugges.

The reason for the visit was to see the lace center.

Devorah used to make lace - mostly bobbin lace before we had kids but lace making and small children do not mix so she stopped. Now with the kids grown she plans to start again and add to her set of hobbies - sewing, knitting, spinning, and weaving. She's wanted to check out the lace center for years.

Very cool place and far enough outside the touristy areas so that we got a feel for the real town.

Of course, we also did the tour and played tourist as well.

As a bonus, on the tour we went in to the Brugges Beguinage so we got to learn a bit more about that and them.

Between the tour and the lace center we also sat down for waffles.

Savory for lunch and sweet for dessert but the latter vanished before we got pictures.

This was the more relaxed part of our trip - more visiting than touring but still got to see the sights.

We're off to Antwerp today to finish out Belgium and then to the Netherlands.