A groggy 10 a.m start. A finicky water heater. A walk in the rain followed by a culturally tardy breakfast. Thursday's open was perhaps less than auspicious. However, determined to fight through those early doldrums, we set sail for Beersel -- roughly 30 minutes south of Brussels proper -- which serves as home to some highly regarded, smaller scale brewers.
Unfortunately, our early struggles were to continue. Drie Fonteinen, the primary travel objective? Closed. Oud Beersel, another regional favorite? Also closed. Undeterred -- indeed, inspired to press forward -- we wandered over to Brasserie Kasteel Beersel, a small, old restaurant situated next to a small, old castle. And there, soaked in Isaac Hayes, soft candlelight and bottles of Oud Beersel, Tim and I achieved new levels of greatness: we made complete strangers, some of which may not have even spoken English, 78% certain we were a gay couple.
Victory.
Riding the success of an improvised field trip, we blew clean past our central Brussels stop and plowed an equal distance north of the city to visit the Atomium. And while there is limited cause to offset the sense that you're standing in a Cold War time capsule when you finally arrive, that sense does little to undermine the singular nature of the architecture. Six to ten enormous balls -- I didn't count, we had a lot of Oud Beersel -- float at imposing angles that would almost certainly trigger vertigo had we arrived in time to actually enter the facility. All the same, I think we're pretty confident most of the splendor was in viewing the building from the outside.
The linchpin of our final full day in Brussels was owed to Tim's suggestion that we snag a couple of city bikes and cruise downtown for some closing beers and eats. Seeing no reason to decline, we hopped on a couple Panzers masquerading as bicycles -- only with shittier braking -- and set off on the 10 km city sprint back to the Grand Place. Cruising through the twilight hours on the least rainy portion of our brief time in Belgium was freaking spectacular and commanded our full attention in lieu of copious photography.
Also, a broadside crash on these bikes could rend a fucking city bus in half.
Closing at Delirium Cafe for a second time -- Pops, we actually swung through the very same night you mentioned it -- we enjoyed the quieter upstairs space and a crazy good barrel-aged brew. Then, seeing no other clear opportunity to tackle a famed Belgian delight, Tim and I dug deep and snagged a couple french fry cones covered in baby shit.
Or Samurai Sauce.
Which is basically baby shit.
Also: Tom and Crew found and murdered the Predator in Bruges while he carelessly posed for photos, so Tim and I are going to have to come up with a new line of cinematic adventures. Keep you posted...