Braine-l'Alleud

We were up from about 3 - 6:30am with an alarm set for 8. Both crashed and ended up waking at 11:30 🥴🥴 glad we’re not wasting our time here.
Never have I had such a hard time adjusting as I have this trip in Vegas and now here.
We got on the go by 12 and walked to the station. I had our map preloaded so we were ready to go. Their ticket buying system is very simple. Bless them. Found our platform immediately and ran for the train because it was departing.
Arrived at Braine L- Alleud and walked 2.5km to the 1815 museum.
Love the suburbs. All the houses were beautiful and quaint.
I said to Will “i like all the whom.. weeping Willows” and he said “you were about to saying whomping willows weren’t you” 😅
Mebbe.
Walk walk walk. Overcast day but ok.
Arrived and went straight to the restaurant.
I feel like less people speak English than last time. Maybe they all had a break with Covid? Idk. But young people always can and a few haven’t been able to.
Paid €3.5 for a coke and it was a 200ml bottle. Half a can. Excuse me where is the rest of my drink 😆
Food was nice, I got pasta, Will had a burger.
It started to rain of course so we went to the museum and bought our tickets.
Don’t think I mentioned above - 1815 museum is on the battle site of Napoleon’s battle at Waterloo.
Museum was excellent. The front lady thought she could speak English but couldn’t. No annunciation so I only got half of what she said. Had an electronic card for something. Still not entirely sure for what.
Museum starts with background about the start of the revolution.
I really enjoyed an animated guillotine where it projected a head and then it got chopped and would land in the basket with a thump sound. 😆
I think it was brilliant. Each display was a sentence or 2. A paragraph max. Some museums are walls and walls and walls of writing.
It had all the outfits on display, and loads of weapons too.
We went into a digital movie thing. Half was french half was English. It was good only I was annoyed because one side of my 4D glasses wasn’t working so I had to close one of my eyes the whole time so I couldn’t actually see half the screen cause it was a wrap around the room one.
Who knew having to close one eye was such a bother lol.
Outside was a skeleton they found 7 years ago when they did an archaeological dig and the stuff the found with him. I like that he had a iron ball in his ribs.
188,000 men fought but only 10,000 died which doesn’t seem like a lot to me because the animation was very lord of the rings - just run into each other and see what happens. I’d have approached with no hope. Absolute kuddos to the men at the front. I couldn’t do that. My legs wouldn’t cooperate.
Big timeline on the wall. I wish I had a more organized brain. I know facts about lots of things but combining them in any sort of order just doesn’t work out for me. I don’t know how to mush my knowledge together which is annoying because I find history so interesting.
This person was doing this, this person was doing that which caused this is about as complicated as i can get. More than 2 stories and I’m a goner.

We then walked to the next exhibit which was a panorama painting which was HUGE. The whole building in a circle. Very cool. Must have taken a loooooooong time. There was a display in the foyer of that battle that took someone 30 years.
This was a bigger feat.
I find it amazing they are able to break down the day down to the hour. The painting was at 4pm or something.
Can’t remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday but everyone’s accounts were so detailed you could piece this together?? Okkkk.

Next was the lions mound. Brilliant. Loads of stairs to get to the top but the view was worth it to see the battlefield.
Back down and our legs are jello.
There is another museum 4 km away which has napoleons stuff from the night before I believe bur no Wi-Fi so don’t know which direction to walk so we skipped. Happy with what we have seen today. Very very cool.
Walked back to the station in the rain. We are clever chooks and brought our rain jackets though so we are all good. Longer wait this time. It feels much later than it is. Very dark and gloomy.
Got home safe and sound. Currently in the bath as I write this. Must stay awake until reasonable hour!!

Struggling.

Could not muster energy to leave hotel. Eating Doritos and jam sandwiches for dinner.

We may have bed bugs. Will has 3 bites. I felt itchy last night but he boils so we will await results tomorrow morning.Read more