[Photos taken 15 March 2024, posted online 30 July 2024. The rain continues… at least the plants are happy?]
It was the day of The Smile concert, but I still needed to pass the time somehow, and hanging out on the computer all day wouldn’t do. After some perusing of options, I decided to walk to the Natural Sciences Museum, to check out some impressive dinosaur-fossils.
I got to the concert venue a bit later than I’d planned to, but got a decent spot on the floor (probably about optimal sound quality wise, but I find I’ve been spoiled by the lovely acoustics of our local Harpa venue), and thoroughly enjoyed the concert.
(However, one lesson learnt: Perhaps next time that I plan on standing for a concert, don’t go on a 3 hour walking tour beforehand…)
The hip wall decorations extended to the mirrors in the elevator.
I camped out in the hotel restaurant/cafe with my computer for a bit. It became obvious that my cacao-plus-expresso habit (also known as mocha) isn’t a common one in Brussels.
Noon-ish I went walking towards the Natural Sciences Museum.
Strava recording of that day’s walk.
Aside from a tree here and there, vegetation was mostly hidden behind building facades.
The rest of the museum buildings are actually quite pretty.
The fossil-hall is big!
Timeline of earliest fossil-finds.
This one used to be big!
Surprisingly expressive?!
Two seen from the back. The animation going between them indicated that nowadays it is believed they held their body more horizontally, but I guess these fossils were arranged when they were assumed to hang out vertically. Also, the vertical displays save on floor-space.
Just massive.
Some people for scale.
Impressive fossil-drawing from 1882.
It wasn’t all just huge fossils, there were also a lot of smaller ones for context.
Something that flew.
Meteor layer, used for dating.
One of the newer displays, with a model-guess of the fully fleshed being.
Dinner was an uncomplicated affair at 17:30, but I arrived so early that they had to fire up the grill, and it took a bit longer to get the food than I anticipated.
Waiting for the bus at 17:50. It would take me straight to the venue, but it was still a long ways away.
Half an hour later, I exited the bus, along with almost everybody else on board. Thankfully, for my already tired feet, I’d scored a seat at some point.
I’m not a fan of unisex t-shirts, sadly.
The warmup act was James Holden, doing electronica along with a dude on percussion.
Two dudes vibing. It was fine, albeit not very interesting (to me), stuff.
Animated gif of the auditorium. Somewhat remarkably there was just one ticket price, and free seating, so people could decide where they wanted to be. Two guys standing next to me got tired of people passing by, and relocated up to the seats.
The Smile came on a few minutes early!
Animated gif of the lights going. Phone audio recordings always suck, but the happy folks at the Internet Archive often host live versions of shows, such as this one.
They had a fourth person on stage, Robert Stillman, mostly on sax, but they also grabbed a clarinet at one point, and I had to document it for a friend!
Phones going a little ways past the midpoint.
At 21:45 it was all over, and the scramble to get out, and onto a bus began.
It felt longer, but it only took about five minutes to exit, and to find the bus line. Sensibly, they had a stash of buses waiting for the crowd, and as one filled up and drove away, another with the same number pulled up. Very nicely executed.
Exactly half an hour later I was back at my hotel, grinning loonily.
Got the bartender to ditch the Pepsi in favor of 7up in my drink.
The hip and cool hotel-tv-screen, hanging out with a “Restart to Install Windows 11” notice…
