Atomium

In all of the pre-reading I did of Brussels (consisting of a few guide books and whatever I could get from the internet bible Wikipedia) one monument kept on reappearing that made less sense than Manniquin Pis. Atomium. Hard to pronounce and even harder to understand was originally built for the 1958 World Fair and still remains on the site of said Fair, which is actually about 100 percent out of the way and I struggled to believe that I was still in Brussels when I got there.

Other ideas for a monumet to mark the Fair included creating an inverted Eiffel Tower (um how was this idea turned down?) but Atomium was choosen as a better reflection of the global centiment of the time, pressumbally when everyone did more acid than Lindsay Lohan at a Betty Ford open bar. Today it is meant to stand as a testament of how advanced architecture had become at that time (?) and more widely a testament to Brussels and Belgium.....of course.

One highlight however was seeing a hot school teacher with a gaggle of children which counteracted his attractiveness to me and stopped me from launching myself on him. Anyway seeing the monument in person is quite something even if you are not quite sure what that something is.