Before I met Natalie for brunch, I decided to walk to the Sablons area and see what there was to see. As soon as I hit the Grand Place, I noticed all sorts of little booths and stages…a street fair! The city of Brussels was running what they called the “Fete d’Iris,” a daylong festival, mostly for kids, but I’m a kid too. I totally got suckered in. As I was walking past everything, there was an amazing eight-piece wandering jazz/funk band. They had amassed quite a crowd, and we followed them to the place de Petit Sablons, where a jazz tent had been set up. I listened to music for a while; it was surprisingly really good, but then had to interrupt the fun for brunch and some museum time. After a great tour of the Horta Museum (http://www.hortamuseum.be), I couldn’t resist walking back to the fair. By late afternoon, it was really in full swing, and unlike American carnivals, there were no cheesy rides or games for kids. Instead, there were interactive street performers, photo ops (little scenes set up where kids could get into costumes and act like they were a garbage man riding on the back of a truck, or a sailor on a life raft, or a bellhop in a hotel), and hourly masked parades. All in all, these things were kind of weird to me: the “parade” that I caught was 8 people dressed up like giant insects in very elaborate costumes, pulling their “insect king” in a bug-chariot, juggling sparklers and lighting flares. I’ve never seen anything like it, but hey, there were plenty of “cornets des frites” (massive cones of french fries covered in any one of many sauces) to go around, so I just took it all in.