Atomium, Mini-Europe, and the creepster

Finally, on Sunday, I spent the afternoon in Brussels, the original destination of travel for the weekend. The first touristy thing I did was go to see the Atomium. It's a monument of the unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. It's pretty cool to look at; the spheres representing the atoms are made of steel. It's huge, and you can go inside. The Atomium was built for the 1958 World's Fair. That means it's been around for fifty years. They have escalators going through the connecting tubes; some of the longest in Europe, back in 1958. I thought it was funny; every claim to fame the Atomium had--longest escalators, fastest elevator in Europe, etc.--had to have the phrase "in 1958" added. So, back in 1958 it would have been very impressive. Big deal; I was the youngest person in the world one trillionth of a second after being born, back in 1987.

If you wanted to go to the very top sphere for a panoramic view, you had to take the elevator. I waited in line half an hour just to go up there. And people kept cutting in front of me. When I was almost to the front and probably would be on board the elevator the next trip up, something went wrong. It stopped running; they made everyone step back out. All of us groaned--all that waiting. But within minutes, they had it working again. Then, when you got to the top, you had to wait in line to come back down again. I don't think it was worth it; the Atomium is cooler from outside than in.
Next, I went to Mini-Europe. It's a park with several models of different European locations, on a 1:25 scale. It was amazing to see all the detail in each model. The Eiffel Tower was still quite tall; I tried to imagine something 25 times taller. Next weekend I'll be seeing the real thing. They had the belfry from Bruges as well; "I was there!" I thought. And they had Burg Eltz and the Brandenburger Tor, two other buildings I'd seen already. After looking at the models, I now know a lot more places I want to visit.

I made my way to the south rail station after that, from which my train back to Aachen would leave. I got there about an hour early, so I went to the food court area and got another one of those amazing Belgian waffles. They're seriously so delicious. As I was sitting there, this guy came and started talking to me. He spoke completely in French; I didn't have a clue what he was saying. I tried communicating, but he just kept speaking French. I'm not sure he realized I couldn't understand. Then I walked away, and he followed. I went to a shop and zigzagged through the aisles, and he was always right behind me. And he just kept talking in French. "I don't understand you. Why are you following me?" I kept saying. But he just wouldn't leave. I was getting desperate; finally, I saw two men wearing shirts that said "SECURAIL" on the back. They asked if there was a problem, and I just started crying. "Is he following you?" they asked and I nodded my head. They got rid of him and then stayed with me until my train came and I could board. I was very glad for their help. Thankfully the situation wasn't anything worse; he didn't try to touch me or anything. I heard the security guys call the police and give them his description. They told me "He'll be behind bars tonight" and I actually felt kinda bad.

But anyway, so I went back to Aachen. Getting off the train, I saw another American student I'd met before. He'd also been on my train leaving Aachen the previous Friday. It's just, he went a little further, all the way to Paris. But it was funny that we were on the same train both to and from.