Prowling my world, camera in hand

13 October 2013

Week 40: more Brussels

Filed under: — Administrator @ 21:56

Another week spent partly in Brussels. On Monday we had an important press conference at the Commission, and the next day I made a presentation at the European Parliament. The latter event, in particular, was nice as it provided me the opportunity to explore a place I do not visit often.

40_1
The area around Schuman is a perpetual construction zone. On the left the new seat of the Council is being built:
DSF4174

40_2
New and old. I actually find the architecture of the European quarter quite striking and attractive:
DSF4178

40_3
When you visit one of the EU institutions, you get a stick-on visitor’s badge. Evidently, this is where many of those badges end up:
DSF4182

40_4
EU Parliament as seen from Rue Belliard:
DSF4181

40_5
EU Parliament façade:
DSF4196

40_6
Each year, the EU Parliament awards the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Past recipients are honoured in this little courtyard:
DSF4186

40_7
The visitors’ entrance:
DSF4192

40_8
I have photographed this particular piece of graffiti before. Here it is as seen from the EU Parliament:
DSF4188

40_9
Behind the parliament building there is a small park with a piece of the Berlin Wall. Very appropriate:
DSF4202

40_10
One of my colleagues on this trip, Carolina, had never been to Brussels before, so we had to show her Grand’ Place. This is Brussels city hall at dusk:
DSF4204

40_11
…and at night. I have seen this sight so many times, but I never get tired of it:
DSF4216

40_12
I had the pleasure of having dinner at ‘t Kelderke on Grand’ Place with two lovely ladies; Carolina:
DSF4214

40_13
…and Stephanie:
DSF4215

40_14
I flew home from Brussels early Wednesday morning and went straight to the office. But in the afternoon, when I came home, my sister and brother-in-law, who had arrived from Poland during the day, were there already. My brother-in-law had immediately taken possession of the pool:
DSF4218

40_15
Friday I took my team for lunch at Capricho de Raquel. Here is the head waiter preparing a dish, with an interested onlooker in the background:
DSF4220

40_16
Seafood at its best:
DSF4223

40_17
On Saturday I took a drive in the mountains with my sister and brother-in-law to show them some of my cycling roads. Here is the road from Busot to Jijona:
L1009971

40_18
The highest point in Busot is the cemetery. It certainly never gets flooded:
L1009974

40_19
And to finish off the week, a grasshopper on our banister, right at home:
DSF4228

1 Comment »

  1. Not writing this to LUG as a courtesy, being partly very critical. For most of the architectural pics, they are the best I’ve ever seen with uncorrected perspective distortion. Probably they are a lot better than they would have been with correction, but I’d have to be able to make a comparison to be sure. The exception is number 10. That, I would have corrected or junked.

    Comment by Herb Kanner — 14 October 2013 @ 01:35

RSS feed for comments on this post.

Leave a comment

Powered by WordPress