Atomium - Belgium

So I decided that I have way too many great pictures to chose from. Between my pictures and Kellie's I decided to break this up a little bit so I don't completely overwhelm you guys. :-) So the Atomium was built for the 1958 world expo. Each world expo had a theme and the one for 1958 was science. An engineer figured out the iron atom makes a cube and could be easily reproduced. It has a total height of 335 feet tall, diameter of spheres 59 feet and the total weight of it is 2400 tons on construction and 2500 tons after construction. They have one that is for all the items from the 1958 worlds expo and then two that switch out exhibitions. There is also a meeting room you can rent out.

The boys as we were headed towards the Atomium. This actually looked like a really cool park that went a long ways! We saw many with sleds headed up there.

Pretty amazing site - it also has some give, when the winds are high you can feel it move under your feet.

Michael on the L

AJ chilling on the C

The four of us in front of the welcome sign

This is the fastest lift in Europe with a speed of 18 kph (11mphs,) at the time, in the world but many have been built that are much faster now. You can see how far up we had to go, we all had to pop our ears as we went up.

A view from the top

This is called mini-Europe and something that we are going to go back and see, it is only open during spring and summer.

Poelaert Square and Brussels Law Courts

Headed up the escalator to see the exhibits

So Steve had to point this out to all of the beer drinkers out there - that was in one day at one café - unbelievable!

Not sure if you can see this, but here are some interesting facts in it - one of them being 8 babies were born in the expo, they didn't quite make it to the hospital.

The boys going up another escalator

They have different exhibits in two of the balls, this exhibit was all about recycling and going green, I was on a cardboard couch - it actually wasn't too bad, wouldn't want to be on it after the boys spilt their drinks though :-)

Aren't I strong - holding up one of the balls?!?

Michael was excited - can you tell? Not sure if it was the picture or that we were going to head to the van where it was warm and going to get something to eat

The boys on the M

The four boys - we read the sign after this picture that told us not to climb on the letters - oops!

David and Steve heading up for more fun!!!

The boys on the cardboard couch.

These are cool, they are beds, you can have your birthday party sleep over in the Atomium!! I think that would be pretty fun!!!

Down one of the escalators they had all sorts of colors going around it like you were in some space tunnel - it was pretty cool!!!

Okay so David is stronger - he can hold up two of them!!!

Our welcome to Belgium!!!