Long day today, starting out with a 6:30am Metro ride to the train station, then a 1 1/2 hour ride to Brussels to visit the EU parliament. We took the TGV, the Europe high-speed train cutting through the country side at ungodly speeds. I guess I’m used to these high speed trains now after spending time on the Japanese shinkansen, so it wasn’t that big of a treat, but I still like the convenience of taking trains instead of planes.
We all brought our passports, thinking that we’d need them for entry into the EU parliament building, or simply into Belgium since that is another country, but to our surprise, we ended up in Belgium without crossing any visible border, just showing up in the middle of Brussels when our train arrived. I guess the borders in the EU really have been torn down!
The morning started with two lectures on the layout of the EU government, the parliament, commissioners and role everyone plays. The bad news with starting at 6:30am in the morning is that virtually everyone was half asleep. During the lecture after lunch, I had to dig up some caffeine stimulation in order to stay awake, bad combination. I’m also getting completely overwhelmed by the amount of drinking going on here, wine, rum, beer, all in the middle of the day. I got overwhelmed by the little bit of wine I drank at the hosted lunch and started to feel dizzy by 1pm 🙁
In the afternoon, we got a rare chance to see the EU parliament in action. They actually let us into the parliament’s debating chamber when the session was going. We got to see the German chancellor giving her speech, and the signing of a new agreement to eliminate cell phone roaming between EU members. (At least, I’m pretty sure this is what it was. Need to double check). Here’s a photo of the chamber just before they signed the agreement. You can see the reporters all lining up in front of the table preparing to take photos.
What’s also neat is that they have translators for all languages of the EU working behind the glass windows surrounding the chamber, with headsets available for everyone to listen in their preferred language. It’s incredible how a union of this many different countries, cultures, languages can work together so well.
In late afternoon, we had some time to roam around historic Brussels. Having no clue 
as to what to do or where to go, we followed our guide through the city until we arrived at what was obviously a tourist region. This surprisingly church-like and old building turns out to be the city hall.
The only other "tourist" thing we did was to visit… erm… this statue of a boy pissing… yup, this is apparently one of the major tourist attractions in Brussels. Don’t ask me why, I’ll probably go figure it out sometime when my brain actually works. 
Interestingly, every French person who we told about our short trip to Brussels knows about this statue, so there must be some sort of story behind it. Directly next to this statue is a store that sells… chocolate versions of this statue. Almost feels a little surreal.
There wasn’t that much time left after arriving at the historic downtown region, so after eating some Belgium waffles, drinking Belgium beer, and buying some Belgium chocolate, it was back on the train to return to Paris. Slept the whole way back…
Just two more days in Paris, then it’s off to London for different adventures!