Brussels: the last days

With Sunday being my last day in Brussels, I decided to spend it in town instead of going somewhere else like I did with Gent. I started off by going to Parc du Cinquantenaire. I thought the Institut Des Sciences Naturelles (the natural sciences museum) was there, but it turns out I was wrong. Park was still pretty, though.

After taking the metro back to my hotel and realizing where I had made my mistake, I managed to get my way to the museum. The dinosaur exhibit was great, albeit small. The rest of the museum was not really entertaining as none of it was in English (the dinosaur exhibit was in four different languages, including English).

It must also be the worst laid out museum in the world! There are a total of six floors, from -2 to 4 (yes, that is a negative number). Floors -1 and -2 house the dinosaur exhibit. Floor -1 also has minerals and some mammals stuff. Floor 2, 3, and 4 each house other things. But the joke of it all is that floor 2 can only be reached from floor 0.  That means that you go from floor 0 to floors 3 and 4, go back down to 0 and then do floor 2 in order to do all the above-ground floors! And this is all having to be figured out without any English signs or helpers who speak native English.

Once I was finished with the museum I decided to take a look at the Atomium. While the building is rather funky (photos are coming for the entire trip), the entire areas is just a tourist trap. So I walked around and then just went back to my hotel room.

Monday I woke up at 3:45 AM to catch my 7:00 AM flight to Heathrow. I actually managed to get to the airport so early that the checkin counter for my flight had not even opened up yet! And once I got through it customs was severely backed up. But otherwise getting to Heathrow was fine.

Heathrow itself was also okay. The waiting area in Terminal 3 is like terminal 1; a small shopping centre. And I still hate how they don't tell you your departure gate until 20-4o minutes before you are meant to leave. They didn't announce the gate for my flight until it was time to board.

The flight itself was no big deal. Had an aisle seat this time which helped. Otherwise I read a lot and watched "Batman Begins" on my iPod touch.

And now I am home. I am so jet lagged right now that I am going to bed at 22:00 and waking up at around 5:00. While I plan to try to make my wake-up time to be 8:00, it is going to take a while to get readjusted.