I made it out alive from the greenhouses and exited his property, noting the lovely sky his home faces.

...and others stretched on for 15-25 minutes at a time, through crowded alleys like this. Note to self: use toilet before entering king's greenhouses.

Inside the greenhouses...

Some of them were open and comfortable, like this...

Who is this gorgeous person in front of the King's greenhouses?! And is she wearing sweatpants? You can take the girl out of the country but it doesn't always work the other way...

The King's greenhouses are pretty cool - long hallways of glass intercepted by domed rooms like these filled with exotic trees and flowers. A botanist's dream, no doubt...I enjoyed the fragrant smells but was otherwise bothered by the stream of tourists pushing one another around.

This is the King's home. His other "home", the Royal Palace, is located downtown is sort of just his "show home" where official business is conducted. It was pretty cool to be trolling around on his front lawn! His greenhouses fill the property to the left and behind.

Last Sunday was a gorgeous sunny day and while walking around downtown I stumbled into the tourist information office. They mentioned that the King (Leopold is his name, I believe) opens his gardens up for the public a couple rare times each year and that day happened to be one of them. I got directions to the park to the north in which his palace is found (Laeken Park) and hopped on the metro. The Park is quite big and contains not only his palace, his enormous garden with endless greenhouses, but also this Chinese Pavillion. Aparently the first king to reside in this property wanted most of the structures to be Asian-influenced, but the motivation only lasted long enough to build this Pavillion and a Japanese garden, if I remember correctly.

Another view from Justice Hall, showing the Bascilica.

View of Brussels from the hill on which the Justice Hall sits. The gothic-style gable on the right is where the Grand Place is located, famous for it's lovely bronze-guilded architecture.

Palais de Justice from down the road. It's GIGANTIC and it is tough to comprehend its size even up close.

So some may argue that I have a bit too much time on my hands here in Brussels. To that I say, you're so right! But I really don't think you can argue that this bar of soap in my soapdish isn't silly, in a monkey-face-ish way. This one goes out to you, Margo!

Ok, last park picture, I swear! I'm really just trying to give you a feel for how nice this area is.

A view from the same park toward more parliamentary district below

The park Ambiorix, located a block or two down the hill from my studio. Ahhh it felt good to be surrounded by green...

Another stretch of street

My neighborhood, a few blocks from home, on a calm and sunny Friday evening

rue Neuve, a nice shopping district.

A view of a long stretch of road, from the rond-point, that bridges our government part of the city with the downtown.

I'm told this building is an icon of the EU Parliament. It's opposite our office on the traffic circle.

That's her up close: Schuman #6. Ok, enough office pictures...

There's our office building from another angle. We've got two small ajoining offices on the fourth foor with windows facing the street between the two buildings.

The Rond-point at Schuman metro stop -- our office building is on the far side of the traffic circle with the glassy-black windows.

David pretending to work in one of our two rented office spaces

Rachel and Laurent, very cute. Rachel defended her doctoral thesis (in English!) just the day prior. She was very tired, but super happy. She's going to be a consultant to medical clinics, or something. Her thesis related to cervical cancer. That's about all I could deduce from what she told me in French!

They have a little 17-month year old cutie girl named Clara.

Loulou has grown about 8 feet since I last saw him.

Natacha and Jean - very happy together. And very comfortable making out in public. Just kidding Natacha! :)

My second host family also came!

The Stassen Family:

Baby, Rhianna (wife of Ludovic, far right), Delphine (a great friend!), her boyfriend Daniel, Guy (my host-dad), me, Claudine (host-mom), and the Ludovic.

It was so good to see them, they were a really great family to stay with.

The only member missing is Dorian, their adopted son from Brasil.

The Henkens family.

The celebration took place at a little community center with a nice pastoral backdrop. The family members (left to right): Natacha and her boyfriend of 9-months Jean, Laurent ("Loulou"), Philippe ("Host-papa"), Nicole ("Host-maman"), Michael ("Mickey"), Rachel, and her husband of several years, Laurent.

It was great to spend time with them again! It turns out this party wasn't just for Mickey, though. It was a birthday party for 5 of the young men in Henri-Chapelle, and most of the community had been invited! I had no idea!

A view of Liege train station from inside the train. Ah, memories.

Yesterday (Friday, 5/1) I hoped on the train that runs straight from the west-end of Belgium (Oostend, on the North Sea) to the east-end (Eupen, by the German border). I was on my way to visit the Henkens family for a nice little celebration of my host brother Michael's 25th birthday. It was so exciting to be back on the train, seeing the same countryside that I had passed so frequently back in 2000/2001 as an exchange student.

Liege is the halfway point between Brussels and Welkenraedt, where they live.

A random Brussels building, at night. My attempt at capturing ambiance.

This is a lovely venue called le Botanique. It's a glass dome with a botanical garden that hosts speakers and shows. I'm going to see the Great Lake Swimmers perform there on the 16th, and am thrilled.

A gorgeous view from Stephanie's part of town.

Brussels is really lovely...

This is Mike. Rebecca, my direct supervisor from Lexington who now lives in Sweden with her boyfriend, took this picture at Mike's house when she visited him last month. The T-shirt reads:

I can only please one person each day.
TODAY IS NOT YOUR DAY.
Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.

I'm excited to be able to work directly with this human being.

His wife seems great, too.

They took David and me to a lovely restaurant called La Terrace on the outskirts of Brussels. I stupidly ordered a hamburger that had sauce spilling out over the sides and wound up wearing most of it. Luckily for me, Mike had ordered spare ribs or something even messier and put me right at ease. David and Sue just looked on in horror at the two of us, I have no doubt.

On my way to a restaurant to meet my colleague David (from ICF's Fairfax office) as well as our British client (Mike Penman) and his wife (Sue), I got a little snap-happy and cought some trams going by.

I got excited by this PolTurist bus.

Tuesday, I took a stroll through the Parc du Cinquantenaire, a beautiful park located just a couple blocks from my place. This park used to be a military performance/parading spot, and after that was moved to Etterbeek (somewhere else around Brussels), this became the grounds to commemorate 50 years of Belgium's independance. Let's see...they gained independance in 1831, and so the 50 year anniversary must have been 1881. Anyway, they went ahead and got a fancy architect to build those fancy arches and now the structure houses a war museum and an art museum.

View of the place, from the terrace. Bedroom is in its own little room that you can access directly at left, or from past the kitchen to the left. Bathroom is straight ahead.

The view of the living room (couch covered by my comforter), the terrace, and the kitchen (to the right). It's lovely!

This is the street view from the terrace.

And then, at long last, last Thursday, April 30, I visited the studio that I'd reserved for May 1. It's on the bottom floor of this building, to the right (blocked by a car).

When I arrived for the tour, the woman said I could take that studio, or one upstairs, right above the red awning. Before seeing it, I knew I wanted it!

Brussels, as a city, appreciates its crazy artists. It even allows its crazy artists make crazy bright-orange canopies in the middle of the city. This lovely oeuvre d'art is located right along my walk from Stephanie's to the nearest metro (Madou).

There's my work set-up at Stephanie's.

This is Stephanie's apartment. I stayed in the bedroom downstairs, straight ahead. Her room is upstairs, the kitchen is to the left and the table and terrace are behind.

....and got a little distracted by the waffle (le gaufre) truck.

I looked closer to see the students in action...

One afternoon while working away at Stephanie's on my computer, loud whistles, chants, and trumpeting pulled my attention to the streets. Here, looking in the other direction, was a bunch of students on strike - going on about something related to unions and fees and whatnot.

The view from Stephanie's terrace, looking in the direction of the small square in the previous photo.

The little square a few meters away from Stephanie's apartment, where I crashed the first few days. So cute!