Who has seen it live, the Atomium is imprinted with the grandeur. Built for the World Expo in 1958 just outside Brussels, this monument depicting a crystal of iron is 103 meters high and consists of nine spheres with a diameter of 18 meters each.
were two weeks ago, I had just returned from Palestine, were with Negin in the Belgian capital to celebrate a birthday in just a delay, but together.
And, without knowing that some day the Holy Land would sadly regained the front pages of newspapers around the world, in front of the Atomium pondered secession. Two peoples, two states, was the leitmotif of the Palestinian experience.
Yet, at the very center of our continent of cotton, chanted the same slogan was not too far from the City of Lights. Walloons and Flemings, a Belgium does not exist.
A country left in 2009 for ten months without a government, arguing on economic issues processed via the political struggles in language problems.
And I was there, in front of a massive steel structure, which was thinking about how, in its simplicity, this monument was giving us wrong: it is true that in every sphere of metal has its characteristics to be recognized, without the huge branches that connect to each other they would not support it and smash to the ground.
Any human community is not so different from an iron crystal magnified trillions of times it is done in the name of the Northern League, the Flemish Nationalist Party or Likud Israeli divide is not a complete solution for any type of problem. We remain, as suggested by a bearded anzianotto greek, however social animals, so interdependent other.
no coincidence Brussels, while not knowing whether or not to be the capital of the whole of Belgium, the European Union is for sure, and its streets where houses are flanked by art nouveau and modern apartment blocks is shown with Meltin 'pot color and people you meet.
The new Magritte Museum, the architectural inventions of Victor Horta, the Union pullalante white-collar neighborhood, the beautiful Grand Place medieval flavor, the urinal built on the side wall of the church of St.Katelijne: Brussels is a city anarchist without meaning to, but knows and is proud of it.
Bruges instead is the pearl waiting, wrapped in fog and I remembered that we rediscover luxuriantly green, and 25 degrees. It offers enchanting canals and streets, but also reveals the hidden beauty crowds of tourists are limited to standard circuits. It 'a city to enjoy tasting the Trappist beers (sorry for Bavaria, but the Belgian beers are the best in the world) and the fantasies of buying chocolate in Brussels, treating it as a wonderful interlude of relaxation in a setting like a medieval tale strummed the last minstrel.
Bruges is, therefore, take a breath before returning to the athletics track for the last 100 meters.
The project to prepare the Palestinian and discuss at the end of June, the Turin meeting on open space methodology, the wait for the response from the EU delegation in Lebanon, the last bloody months in Milan: June is expected to be particularly intense.
But very stimulating starting the World Cup (international festival more than football competition), it is to prepare for the summer and will be (back to the Middle East, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon and then with the 2010 Persian girl to Cyclades) , there is a future question yet to delineate.
After restoration was completed in 2006, the Atomium shines like new, and every ball reflects all that is beneath her. And 'quite interesting: Eyes the sky and see you.
Big hugs molecular
Tommy
