After a few late trains (it’s a long story!) and many, many, many Hoegaarden Weissbier (the best beer in the world!) I have become an international criminal, for defiling a national monument!
At about 3am local time saterday morning in Brussels, C██████ and myself undertook and completed the covert mission we were assigned by Elliot from DC101. Here is how it went down:
2:00am—Scout the scene. A few cars passing and one or two pedestrians in the street. Off the a pub to aquire courage (for C██████). Notice that a nearby tavern keeper has left broom outside next to trash can.
2:48am—Leave pub and return to future scene of crime. Only see one car pass, but decide to take walk around the block to calm C██████’s nerves, and plan out attack.
3:00am—Return to the target, procede to scale concret fence post at corner of fountain/fence/building.
3:02am—On top of back wall of fountain, Manneken Pis still 4 feet away, he is still pissing oblivious to the whole operation (this is good!). Now how the hell to get the shirt( in back pocket!) onto the little squirt (pun intended!) Idea: the broom spoted earlier outside nearby tavern! C██████ runs off the retrieve said broom.
3:04am—Caroyln returns with broom, place tee-shirt on broom handle (broom handle through neck). Using broom to reach across the last 4 feet, (while holding on for dear life!) snag the little bugger!
3:05am—C██████ takes picture of Manneken Pis waring DC101 – “Elliot in the Morning” tee-shirt!
3:06am—Return to street level in rather ungracefull manner, celebrate with a kiss and return to hotel.
11:14am—Return to scene of crime; Manneken Pis is not dressed in a Trogen Soldure costume, apparently the Brussels athorities don’t like Elliot!
It was actually fairly easy to do, the only problem was we had C██████s camera which does not have a zoom on it, so the pictures are not close ups. And when we went back in the morning with the big camera they had already removed the evidence!
I will post the pictures asap!
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As for the rest of the trip… It could only have been beter if it could have been longer. I had a wonderful time sitting in pubs till all hours of the morning talking about everything with C██████ over many classes of Hoegaarden beer (and it comes in a half litre glass!).
We also went to Ghent to see a friend of C██████’s; Jurgen, who is a composer. We had a good time talking with him and seeing Ghent, I wish I could have seen more of it, but since it was raining we went to see a movie. The coolest thing is that J?rgen is playing piano and telling jokes in a Caberet that is touring Belgium, so if you happen to be planning to go to Belgium soon check out “Een mens sniidt aan twee kanten” (go here to find out more, click on the mask then the name of the show for more info!)
Other than that we ate a lot of falafal pitas and walked around a lot! It was a glorious weekend.
p.s. The missed trains where all on C██████s side, but because here train was late she missed the last connection to Brussels so she had to go to another city and then take a cab to Brussels on DeutscheBahn’s money. The only problem was she had no way of getting ahold of me and I was waiting for her to show up at 11pm at Gare du Nord. The cab dropped her at Gare Central at about 12am. But to make a long story short we finally met up and made it to the hotel. But I just got a message from her that her train back to Jena was late and she missed a connection, so is spending the night in some random German town and will go on to Jena in the morning. Jesus, and I expected that the Germans would be all about on-time trains!
