This past week I traveled to various areas in France as a class trip and then went on to Barcelona, Spain for the Thanksgiving Holiday! It was quite a whirlwind as my trip began last Friday and I just got back today (Sunday). The France trip was for my European Tourist Encounters base course trip in which we applied what we have learned to our travels. This one was particularly interesting because it directly applied to our traveling. For this trip, we traveled all day on Friday and ended in a very small French town just outside of Normandy. There, we only had a time to eat dinner and have locals pretty much just stare at us as tourists were extremely rare there apparently. We woke early the next morning to go to the Normandy beaches. This began at Pont du Hoc, in which we saw the cliffs and the former German bunkers. I found this area very interesting, particularly because I read up on it beforehand. From there, we went to Omaha beach. To be honest, I wasn't sure how much I would learn from simply visiting the beach. After reading about the invasion and visiting the Normandy museum, I felt a much greater interest in seeing the beach in which this great historical event occurred. Seeing the beaches really brought home the intensity of such an invasion, particularly to us Americans who have seen few, if any, WWI or WWII battlefields. It was even more meaningful after learning so much about the politics behind these wars in my Poly Sci class here. I really felt I realized the importance of the invasion and our part in WWII. My classmates and I talked a lot about how actually being in Normandy really influenced our perceptions.
We spent much of the afternoon there, leaving around 5 for Mont St. Michel. We arrived at our hotel in the city's outskirt around 8, just in time for a late dinner.
The next morning we traveled (by bus!) to the actual Mont St. Michel. The actual Mont St. Michel is this city that is literally an island and used to only be reachable by foot at low tide. This served as a protection for the city, which is largely built around its abbey. Now, however, it is reachable by car (or bus in our case) due to a man made bridge-type thing. It is very strange to come upon the city in this way as you really feel you are in the middle of some large body of water. I felt I was to be swept up in the current at any moment. Also, because of it's "sea-side" location, it is incredibly windy and rainy. Once we arrived at the base of the city, we had a major uphill walk to the abbey as it was at the top of the city. We were rather overwhelmed by the grandeur of this church, as it is pretty much a labyrinth of rooms and chapels. It was originally a large monastery as well as a church.
We tried exploring the city after seeing the abbey, but soon realized that the city is mostly restaurants and souvenir shops. My friends and I tried a "gaufre complet" which is the specialty of Mont St. Michel. Essentially, it's a crepe filled with cheese, egg and ham (I gave that part to my friends). I found it rather good but with a slightly strange texture.
From there, we traveled on to Paris! We arrived in Paris around 7 and found our hotel in the Montmartre area of the city of Paris. After a quick dinner of pizza and salad (yes, I know we were in Paris and should have gotten a real Parisian meal, but we are hungry, cheap college kids), we traveled to Saint-Coeur, the highest point geographically in all of Paris. From there, we saw the entire city and a beautiful church. Also, because of some anniversary, the Eiffel Tower lights up in sparkles every hour for about 5 minutes!
The next morning, we woke to see the Louvre! I must say, before my Art History class here, I would have been less than thrilled to spend the morning in a huge art museum. Now, however, I couldn't wait! I was so excited to see so many of the Renaissance paintings that I'd studied much of the semester! I saw many of these, as well as learned a lot about the building and history of the Louvre! Following that, we had lunch in the Latin Quarter and went to the Opera Garnier house. No, we did not actually see an opera but we did see the beautiful auditorium! After that, we were supposed to go to the Pompidou center but were unable to as its workers are on strike. We thus decided to go to the Paris Christmas market and rode its awesome ferris wheel. The ferris wheel was both really cool and really scary. It was cool as we could see so much of Paris on it; it was uncool because our door operator guy forgot to let us off after going around it like 10 times!! After finally getting off the ferris wheel, we ventured through the market. We ate nutella crepes and drank hot chocolate, not the most traditional Christmas food but we thought it was a fine dinner! After our adventures there, we went to the Eiffel Tower. As it was pouring and extremely windy, the tower and surrounding areas were pretty much empty. This, my friends and I thought, was perfect and we went to the top anyways!! We got to the top rather quickly (thankfully!) and saw the ridiculously large city at its finest: night time! Because the Eiffel Tower is so tall, the very top of it was actually swaying! This, surprisingly, only scared me when I went to the open-air part. I really enjoyed the view and just the idea that I was at the top of the Eiffel Tower! We spent about 30 minutes up there and then went back to our hotel after an extremely long day.
The next day was spent at Versailles, which was mostly a blur of artwork, architecture and just ridiculous opulence. After our tiring day the day before, my friends and I decided to just have dinner and relax at night.
The next morning, we went on a walking tour of the city as a class and then were free to leave for each of our Thanksgiving holiday trips. I was the only one in my class going to Barcelona and thus traveled all by myself from Paris to Barcelona! This was actually quite scary as I was flying, but I felt rather proud of myself for navigating the airports with my rather minimal foreign language skills. I arrived in Barcelona around 4 and finally found my hostal at like 7:30. Needless to say, I felt less proud of myself as I got rather lost in the city.
That night, my friends and I ate a very late dinner by American standards (like midnight) as they all got in late. This, we learned, was the exactly right time for dinner by Spanish standards! We woke up the next day to the realization that we were in Spain for Thanksgiving. Fortunately, my four friends and I managed to stay extremely upbeat and only slightly homesick throughout the day. The next morning, we took a walking tour of the Gothic part of the city, shopped in the markets, went to the top of the Barcelona Cathedral and took a Spanish cooking class of sangria, tapas and paella. We have found that walking tours are essential to learning about each city, and are most often free! The Barcelona Cathedral is actually my second-favorite cathedral in Europe, it simply can't beat the Florence cathedral! Our cooking class was extremely interesting, and I found out that I love paella as long as I'm not the one making it! We sat with some Americans at dinner and all of us couldn't believe that we were having seafood with rice for Thanksgiving dinner! Our dinner ended around midnight, at which point we were extremely exhausted! The next morning was a whirlwind of the Picasso museum, the Chocolate museum (where the ticket for entry was a chocolate bar!), the beach, the park, and a cable car ride up to the Montjuic castle! The Picasso museum not only gave me a better idea of Picasso's early years, but also of my Spanish skills as the museum used only Spanish and Catalan to label his paintings. This actually made the experience even more interesting! We ended the day with dinner at my friend's cousin's apartment. Her cousin was studying abroad in Barcelona, offered to make us a Thanksgiving dinner that Friday and just happened to have studied at a culinary school for a few years! Our dinner consisted of chicken, corn pudding, green beans, stuffing (sort of) and sweet potatos! Yum!
The next day, we decided to try to throw ourselves into the Spanish lifestyle! We tried to wake late (around 9), ate a late breakfast, shopped the market, ate a late lunch (around 3), siesta-d, went sight seeing to the Sangrada Familia church, saw the fountain lights and ate dinner around 11! I think we did a pretty good job! I must say, I really enjoyed this timetable the most of all of my travels. I do believe that I will incorporate this "siesta" into my daily life as much as possible now!
Although we did not see everything in Barcelona, I felt very pleased with all that we did see. We left this morning extremely tired and very sad to be leaving such a beautiful country. I definitely want to return.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Interlaken, Switzerland
Last weekend I travelled to Interlaken in Switzerland. I went with 7 other friends and had an absolute blast there. We decided on Interlaken because it was the closest city that we could travel to from Luxembourg that also had hostels for less than 30 euro! We ended up staying at the "Happy Inn Lodge" which was a really cool and friendly hostel. We arrived about midnight on Friday night due to a late train causing us to miss our connection :( Obviously, we pretty much got into our hostel and went straight to bed in our lovely bunk beds.
The girls in my group and I woke up early on Saturday morning to get some delicious Swiss breakfast. After eating a breakfast of quiche and apple cider (really good actually), we went back to our hostel. Unfortunately, it had started raining during our breakfast and was actually raining really hard on our way back to the hostel. We resigned ourselves to viewing the Alps from our hostel's window and had a pretty leisiurely morning. The rain stopped around 2 p.m. and, after eating a hearty lunch from a grocery store, half of our group went to go canyoning. Canyoning pretty much means climbing a mountain and then falling, repelling, sliding and jumping down it. If you know me at all, the whole jumping off 30-40 foot cliffs is not really my cup of tea, so myself and three others stayed back and explored Interlaken. We spent the day hiking around the city and shopping for some souvenirs (my last name is Switzer, after all!). I got my biggest purchase of the semester, a Swatch, which was very exciting (and much cheaper than the rest of Europe). We completed the day with a dinner of fondue and potatoes at our hostel's restaurant. Funny enough, we actually spent the rest of the night there, talking to some US soldiers who were visiting Switzerland as they were stationed in Italy.
The next morning we got up very early to hike "an Alp" as my friend Kristen liked to say. We hiked up the mountain, Harder Kulm and got some seriously amazing views of the city and the Alps. The hike was pretty rough as it was really steep and quite slippery with all the wet leaves on the ground. For some reason, I did not expect Interlaken, or the Alps for that matter, to have so many trees! I just pictured entirely snow covered mountains. We saw a few of those, but mostly they were all quite green! After hiking, we caught our one o'clock train home. After our 3 hour hike, I don't think I have ever appreciated a train ride more!
The girls in my group and I woke up early on Saturday morning to get some delicious Swiss breakfast. After eating a breakfast of quiche and apple cider (really good actually), we went back to our hostel. Unfortunately, it had started raining during our breakfast and was actually raining really hard on our way back to the hostel. We resigned ourselves to viewing the Alps from our hostel's window and had a pretty leisiurely morning. The rain stopped around 2 p.m. and, after eating a hearty lunch from a grocery store, half of our group went to go canyoning. Canyoning pretty much means climbing a mountain and then falling, repelling, sliding and jumping down it. If you know me at all, the whole jumping off 30-40 foot cliffs is not really my cup of tea, so myself and three others stayed back and explored Interlaken. We spent the day hiking around the city and shopping for some souvenirs (my last name is Switzer, after all!). I got my biggest purchase of the semester, a Swatch, which was very exciting (and much cheaper than the rest of Europe). We completed the day with a dinner of fondue and potatoes at our hostel's restaurant. Funny enough, we actually spent the rest of the night there, talking to some US soldiers who were visiting Switzerland as they were stationed in Italy.
The next morning we got up very early to hike "an Alp" as my friend Kristen liked to say. We hiked up the mountain, Harder Kulm and got some seriously amazing views of the city and the Alps. The hike was pretty rough as it was really steep and quite slippery with all the wet leaves on the ground. For some reason, I did not expect Interlaken, or the Alps for that matter, to have so many trees! I just pictured entirely snow covered mountains. We saw a few of those, but mostly they were all quite green! After hiking, we caught our one o'clock train home. After our 3 hour hike, I don't think I have ever appreciated a train ride more!
Monday, October 5, 2009
Florence!!!!!
I love Italy! I already knew that, but I love it even more now! Especially Florence! A few weeks ago(I know I'm way behind!) I traveled to Florence with my Art History class as part of our Field Study Tour! We left Wednesday afternoon and came back on Sunday. The trips there and back were a mix of bus rides and plane rides, making for a very exhausting journey. Upon arriving in Florence on Wednesday, we went to a really cute Italian restaurant. We got in pretty late so we really only had time for dinner, but my friend Lisa (yes, that did get really confusing!) and I managed to learn a language lesson at dinner. We found that the restaurant had a deal for a drink and a salad for 6 euro, an incredible deal especially for Italy! Our salad's description said, Big salad, lettuga, pomodoro, mozzarella and tonna. We were quite excited about that and figured the tonna was just some sort of lettuce or something as what else could you put on a tomato mozzarella salad. Turns out that, in Italy, they often put TUNA on their caprese salads! We were not exactly pleased as it really isn't the best combo, particularly with the tuna that they used. But, we figured that we had to have one language snafu and that one was certainly better than cow tongue or something!
After our first night, we woke up early (about 6:30 am) on Thursday morning to see the Uffizi Gallery. My entire 30 person class, professor and I travelled the 4 stories of the Uffizi within about 4 hours that morning. We saw a ton of paintings that we had studied the past month which really made the whole study abroad thing seem even more valuable than it had before. For me, it was just really incredible to see the actual “Birth of Venus” by Boticelli after learning all about it just a few weeks prior to the trip. Following that, we were allowed to get lunch on our own and were expected to meet in front of the Church Santa Maria del Carmine at 2 p.m. For lunch, my friends and I had some pretty incredible paninis from a random restaurant and had our first gelato of the trip! We learned that gelatos can be more expensive than the actual meal and I learned that “rockets” on my panini are not a fun name for lettuce but actually a rather bitter leaf. At the Church Santa Maria (aka the Brancacci chapel), we saw many frescos by Masaccio! He was also one of our artists of study in the past month so, again, seeing his works right there in front of us was pretty incredible. I believe one of his most well known is the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden but I could be wrong about that. From there, we went onto “discover” the outsides of the Palazzo Medici Ricardi and the Palazzo Rucelli. We had learned about these in our class as well, mostly from a historical viewpoint. After this discovery, we convinced our professor to let us look around at a market of random shops as we were all pretty excited about souvenir shopping. My friend and I bartered for a few scarves, which was super exciting, and just walked around. It was there that we completely randomly stumbled upon the Boar’s Head that you’re supposed to rub its nose for good luck. I remembered this vaguely from my last trip to Florence about 8 years ago, but couldn’t remember why we were supposed to rub its nose. No one else seemed to know the legend, but were easily convinced and we ended up with several pictures in front of the statue! From there we went onto the town square to see the David by Michelangelo, then ended with a class dinner at the Pizzeria Cellini. The pizzeria was supposed to have some of the best cheap pizza in Florence, and I found that to be very true!
We woke up early again on Friday morning to visit the San Marco museum. Following that, we went on to see the insides of the chapel of the Palazzo Medici Ricardi where we saw several frescos by Gonzolli. After that, we were to get lunch on our own. It was then that my friends and I had a pretty epic gastronomical experience. I feel I must explain how I tired we were by that point. We had literally been on our feet for 4 hours without sitting and had gotten up much earlier than we all felt we should. So, when a nice Italian baker lady was handing out pizza frites (fried pizza), we literally jumped at the chance for an Ahthentic (get it anyone?) Italian meal. Our new friend offered us each a meal of pasta, bread, salad and a half liter of water for 5 euro! This is huge deal in Florence, but would even be considered a great deal in Luxembourg where food is much cheaper than these tourist cities. It is even cheaper if you consider that there was no “cover charge” or a “service charge.” Many restaurants would charge you a cover charge for eating at their establishment and a service charge for table service. After this awesome lunch, we met our class at the Santa Maria Novella church. This church was again, part of our studies but mostly due to Alberti, its architect. We finished touring this church around 4 and were free for the rest of the day. My friends and I realized that gave us just enough time to get to the Duomo, the Florence cathedral, and climb it before it closed! We pretty much raced across a very unfamiliar city and climbed the 466 steps to the top. Our teacher had been very emphatic about the Duomo throughout the past month, so we were extremely excited to see both the inside and the beautiful view from the top. I honestly don’t know if I can even describe the view from the top, it was just incredible. We felt like we could see all of Tuscany from it. We also felt like we could easily fall as the guardrail hardly went about my waist! That was certainly a difference from the high walls of pretty much every skyscraper in the United States. After about 20 minutes up there, we reluctantly trudged the 466 steps down. Following that, my friends and I got dinner at an incredibly delicious restaurant called Dante’s. I don’t think I have ever had a more delicious pesto. We then travelled to the steps of the Uffizi and listened to a random musician named Ken Mercer. He turned out to be really good and myself and my friends have a copy of his CD!
The next morning (Saturday), we travelled by bus to Siena. The trip was only about an hour and the scenery, as you might imagine, was just beautiful. There, we visited the Palazzo Publico for about 3 hours. I really only knew the Publico because Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Peaceful City/Peaceful Country were there. We had learned a great deal about these two as they’re the famous “effects of good/bad government” paintings. After that, we went to the Duomo of Siena. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be climbed like the Duomo of Florence (we asked), but the interior was definitely much more impressive and ornate than that of Florence. We followed that up with a late lunch and gelato and left Siena around 4. Our last night in Florence was spent eating at a pizzeria, drinking espresso at a café, eating gelato at a gelaterie and listening to our new friend, Ken Mercer on the steps of the Uffizi.
We woke, you guessed it, early on Sunday morning as we only had until 12:15 before our bus departed for the airport. My friends and I went to the Academia as it was extremely close to our hostel to see the real David by Michelangelo (the David in the square is actually a fake due to the fear of the effects of pollution on the read David). Unfortunately, the line was already extremely long so we just ended up walking around Florence the rest of the morning. This turned out to be a great idea, as we got one last glimpse into our new favorite city! My friend Chris and I actually rode a merry-go-round! We ate our last pizzas/pastas at a really cute restaurant and ended up having the best gelato of our trip that morning. I had many chances to hone my favorite combination and found that straciatella and dark chocolate is the best! We left around 12:30 for the airport that afternoon, tired but extremely happy to have had such an incredible adventure. I was actually really sad to leave Florence, I gained a much deeper appreciation for the city that week/weekend and can’t wait to return someday!
After our first night, we woke up early (about 6:30 am) on Thursday morning to see the Uffizi Gallery. My entire 30 person class, professor and I travelled the 4 stories of the Uffizi within about 4 hours that morning. We saw a ton of paintings that we had studied the past month which really made the whole study abroad thing seem even more valuable than it had before. For me, it was just really incredible to see the actual “Birth of Venus” by Boticelli after learning all about it just a few weeks prior to the trip. Following that, we were allowed to get lunch on our own and were expected to meet in front of the Church Santa Maria del Carmine at 2 p.m. For lunch, my friends and I had some pretty incredible paninis from a random restaurant and had our first gelato of the trip! We learned that gelatos can be more expensive than the actual meal and I learned that “rockets” on my panini are not a fun name for lettuce but actually a rather bitter leaf. At the Church Santa Maria (aka the Brancacci chapel), we saw many frescos by Masaccio! He was also one of our artists of study in the past month so, again, seeing his works right there in front of us was pretty incredible. I believe one of his most well known is the Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden but I could be wrong about that. From there, we went onto “discover” the outsides of the Palazzo Medici Ricardi and the Palazzo Rucelli. We had learned about these in our class as well, mostly from a historical viewpoint. After this discovery, we convinced our professor to let us look around at a market of random shops as we were all pretty excited about souvenir shopping. My friend and I bartered for a few scarves, which was super exciting, and just walked around. It was there that we completely randomly stumbled upon the Boar’s Head that you’re supposed to rub its nose for good luck. I remembered this vaguely from my last trip to Florence about 8 years ago, but couldn’t remember why we were supposed to rub its nose. No one else seemed to know the legend, but were easily convinced and we ended up with several pictures in front of the statue! From there we went onto the town square to see the David by Michelangelo, then ended with a class dinner at the Pizzeria Cellini. The pizzeria was supposed to have some of the best cheap pizza in Florence, and I found that to be very true!
We woke up early again on Friday morning to visit the San Marco museum. Following that, we went on to see the insides of the chapel of the Palazzo Medici Ricardi where we saw several frescos by Gonzolli. After that, we were to get lunch on our own. It was then that my friends and I had a pretty epic gastronomical experience. I feel I must explain how I tired we were by that point. We had literally been on our feet for 4 hours without sitting and had gotten up much earlier than we all felt we should. So, when a nice Italian baker lady was handing out pizza frites (fried pizza), we literally jumped at the chance for an Ahthentic (get it anyone?) Italian meal. Our new friend offered us each a meal of pasta, bread, salad and a half liter of water for 5 euro! This is huge deal in Florence, but would even be considered a great deal in Luxembourg where food is much cheaper than these tourist cities. It is even cheaper if you consider that there was no “cover charge” or a “service charge.” Many restaurants would charge you a cover charge for eating at their establishment and a service charge for table service. After this awesome lunch, we met our class at the Santa Maria Novella church. This church was again, part of our studies but mostly due to Alberti, its architect. We finished touring this church around 4 and were free for the rest of the day. My friends and I realized that gave us just enough time to get to the Duomo, the Florence cathedral, and climb it before it closed! We pretty much raced across a very unfamiliar city and climbed the 466 steps to the top. Our teacher had been very emphatic about the Duomo throughout the past month, so we were extremely excited to see both the inside and the beautiful view from the top. I honestly don’t know if I can even describe the view from the top, it was just incredible. We felt like we could see all of Tuscany from it. We also felt like we could easily fall as the guardrail hardly went about my waist! That was certainly a difference from the high walls of pretty much every skyscraper in the United States. After about 20 minutes up there, we reluctantly trudged the 466 steps down. Following that, my friends and I got dinner at an incredibly delicious restaurant called Dante’s. I don’t think I have ever had a more delicious pesto. We then travelled to the steps of the Uffizi and listened to a random musician named Ken Mercer. He turned out to be really good and myself and my friends have a copy of his CD!
The next morning (Saturday), we travelled by bus to Siena. The trip was only about an hour and the scenery, as you might imagine, was just beautiful. There, we visited the Palazzo Publico for about 3 hours. I really only knew the Publico because Ambrogio Lorenzetti’s Peaceful City/Peaceful Country were there. We had learned a great deal about these two as they’re the famous “effects of good/bad government” paintings. After that, we went to the Duomo of Siena. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be climbed like the Duomo of Florence (we asked), but the interior was definitely much more impressive and ornate than that of Florence. We followed that up with a late lunch and gelato and left Siena around 4. Our last night in Florence was spent eating at a pizzeria, drinking espresso at a café, eating gelato at a gelaterie and listening to our new friend, Ken Mercer on the steps of the Uffizi.
We woke, you guessed it, early on Sunday morning as we only had until 12:15 before our bus departed for the airport. My friends and I went to the Academia as it was extremely close to our hostel to see the real David by Michelangelo (the David in the square is actually a fake due to the fear of the effects of pollution on the read David). Unfortunately, the line was already extremely long so we just ended up walking around Florence the rest of the morning. This turned out to be a great idea, as we got one last glimpse into our new favorite city! My friend Chris and I actually rode a merry-go-round! We ate our last pizzas/pastas at a really cute restaurant and ended up having the best gelato of our trip that morning. I had many chances to hone my favorite combination and found that straciatella and dark chocolate is the best! We left around 12:30 for the airport that afternoon, tired but extremely happy to have had such an incredible adventure. I was actually really sad to leave Florence, I gained a much deeper appreciation for the city that week/weekend and can’t wait to return someday!
Monday, September 28, 2009
Reims!
Bonjour! This weekend I travelled to Reims, France, among other places. Well, actually I travelled to Verdun, France first to see the fort and battlefield from World War I. This site, I can honestly say, was the first time that I really felt the impact of studying AND travelling abroad. The first few two weekends I saw some incredible sites and had truly unique/unusual experiences, but didn’t really feel like I had learned a lot from the actual location. I certainly learned a lot about being in a foreign country and all that goes along with that, but didn’t really feel too impacted from where I was. At Verdun, however, I felt I had a better understanding of what WWI really was, especially for those living in France. For instance, the landscape of the battlefield is completely different from that of the city because of all the shelling. I learned a good deal about living conditions of the Verdun fort as well, and that completely changed any romanticized feelings I had about living a fort. I always pictured the fort as being the safe haven for war-ridden soldiers, but our tour guide informed us otherwise. She told us that some soldiers actually left the fort and entered the battlefield, because the conditions (constant noise, little food/water, extremely low hygiene and disease) were so bad. We also learned that there were about 9 villages in the battlefield areas of Verdun, but those areas haven’t been inhabited since the battle in WWI. This really made me understand the impact of having a war in your home country. I suppose I never really realized that the war impacts the soldiers, the soldiers’ families, and those living in the country of the battle. Quite obviously, this was a big learning experience for me, particularly since it was all in the span of 3 hours.
After Verdun, we travelled to Reims in the Champagne region of France. I learned that you actually cannot call sparkling wine champagne unless it’s from the Champagne region of France. I believe that it is actually illegal. Before getting to our hotel, we went to the Pommery champagne cellar. To get to the cellar, we had to go down 136 stairs. Our guide told us that, at that level, the temperature is always 55 degrees and the champagne needs to have a constant cool temperature. The tour was really interesting, particularly as the cellar is divided into areas named for cities in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and other areas of Western Europe. A lot of the rooms also had pieces of modern art in them. One room, for example, had a palette full of Nutella just sitting there and our guide told us it was modern art. Many in our group, myself included, considered taking a piece of that modern art for ourselves. At the end of the tour, a friend of ours got to open a Champagne bottle with a sword (so cool!) and we all got a flute of Pommery champagne (with three different kinds of grapes) for ourselves.
Following the tour, we checked into our hotel and had some authentic Mexican cuisine at Le Latina! I know it sounds awful having Mexican food in France, but French food is pretty expensive here and it had been a long time since I had guacamole, yum! The next morning we visited the Reims cathedral. I found it to be an absolutely breathtaking place. The outside is huge, and is almost difficult to fit into one picture. I had never seen so many statues on one building before! The inside is also gorgeous, with lots of intricate stained glass everywhere. I’ve found that the advice of my Grandmother and Grandad has been incredibly useful in cathedrals, among other places of course! They told me to always consider the actual work that went into making it, which I took to heart when I saw the very top of the massive church and realized that someone must have had to go up there to work on it (I’m guessing cherry pickers were a lot harder to come by back then). Their second piece of advice was to “look up” which caused me to see some amazing statues that I never would have seen had I not remembered to look up! All in all, I was incredibly impressed by the cathedral and am very excited to see more like it in Florence next week!
We left the cathedral around noon and headed to a monastery in Belgium where they brew their own beer and make their own cheese. The monastery was, in accordance with the rest of the sites of the trip, beautiful. We got to taste the beer and cheese and I discovered a love for celery salt! Now, I know you’re thinking “Lisa, isn’t the cheese/beer a little more important than celery salt?” I answer this, no. Beer seems to be everywhere in Europe and, although the cheese was delicious, cheese is also everywhere. Celery salt is not! It was amazing, it really tasted like celery but in salt form! And put together with the cheese, it was so good! I need to know if they have celery salt in the States, because if not, I am going to bring some home! Thus, I had a very good time at the monastery.
After the monastery, we traveled to a citadel in France. The citadel was cool because it reminded me of my days in history class learning about city-states. I always wondered what one would be like and if it would really make me feel safe, as some of the wars back then did not seem like experiences I wanted to have. The fortress was really interesting and I definitely felt safe, however, the town with the citadel is so obscure now that I never really felt unsafe. Maybe put it in some inner city area of Atlanta or something and then I could really put that safeness thing to the test! We then travelled from the citadel back to Luxembourg, making my Saturday a tri-country day!
After Verdun, we travelled to Reims in the Champagne region of France. I learned that you actually cannot call sparkling wine champagne unless it’s from the Champagne region of France. I believe that it is actually illegal. Before getting to our hotel, we went to the Pommery champagne cellar. To get to the cellar, we had to go down 136 stairs. Our guide told us that, at that level, the temperature is always 55 degrees and the champagne needs to have a constant cool temperature. The tour was really interesting, particularly as the cellar is divided into areas named for cities in Belgium, Luxembourg, France and other areas of Western Europe. A lot of the rooms also had pieces of modern art in them. One room, for example, had a palette full of Nutella just sitting there and our guide told us it was modern art. Many in our group, myself included, considered taking a piece of that modern art for ourselves. At the end of the tour, a friend of ours got to open a Champagne bottle with a sword (so cool!) and we all got a flute of Pommery champagne (with three different kinds of grapes) for ourselves.
Following the tour, we checked into our hotel and had some authentic Mexican cuisine at Le Latina! I know it sounds awful having Mexican food in France, but French food is pretty expensive here and it had been a long time since I had guacamole, yum! The next morning we visited the Reims cathedral. I found it to be an absolutely breathtaking place. The outside is huge, and is almost difficult to fit into one picture. I had never seen so many statues on one building before! The inside is also gorgeous, with lots of intricate stained glass everywhere. I’ve found that the advice of my Grandmother and Grandad has been incredibly useful in cathedrals, among other places of course! They told me to always consider the actual work that went into making it, which I took to heart when I saw the very top of the massive church and realized that someone must have had to go up there to work on it (I’m guessing cherry pickers were a lot harder to come by back then). Their second piece of advice was to “look up” which caused me to see some amazing statues that I never would have seen had I not remembered to look up! All in all, I was incredibly impressed by the cathedral and am very excited to see more like it in Florence next week!
We left the cathedral around noon and headed to a monastery in Belgium where they brew their own beer and make their own cheese. The monastery was, in accordance with the rest of the sites of the trip, beautiful. We got to taste the beer and cheese and I discovered a love for celery salt! Now, I know you’re thinking “Lisa, isn’t the cheese/beer a little more important than celery salt?” I answer this, no. Beer seems to be everywhere in Europe and, although the cheese was delicious, cheese is also everywhere. Celery salt is not! It was amazing, it really tasted like celery but in salt form! And put together with the cheese, it was so good! I need to know if they have celery salt in the States, because if not, I am going to bring some home! Thus, I had a very good time at the monastery.
After the monastery, we traveled to a citadel in France. The citadel was cool because it reminded me of my days in history class learning about city-states. I always wondered what one would be like and if it would really make me feel safe, as some of the wars back then did not seem like experiences I wanted to have. The fortress was really interesting and I definitely felt safe, however, the town with the citadel is so obscure now that I never really felt unsafe. Maybe put it in some inner city area of Atlanta or something and then I could really put that safeness thing to the test! We then travelled from the citadel back to Luxembourg, making my Saturday a tri-country day!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Oktoberfest and Salzburg!
Whew! This past week/weekend has seriously flown by! Classes have been going very well at the Chateau, and my professors are all extremely interesting. More than once, my professors have stopped the class to discuss Luxembourg culture or answer a question about European customs. I must admit that I find those times a little more interesting than learning about pronouns in my French class, though the lessons I have learned in French have come in handy more than once here. While at a supermarket the other day, I actually used a new French phrase to explain that I speak Spanish! My classmates and I have noticed that one of the biggest differences between Americans and Europeans is the degree of modesty with languages. For instance, my host mom says that she only speaks a little English while she is largely fluent and has been learning it since primary school! I have learned that I should say “Je parle un peu espanol” as I really only speak a little Spanish compared to most people here.
Anyways, I traveled to Munich and Salzburg, Austria this weekend and it truly was an adventure! A friend of mine, Ben, my boyfriend Dan and I took an overnight train to Munich from Luxembourg in which I slept in my first couchette, or sleeper car. Though those things might look super glamorous in the movies (I kept imagining that scene from White Christmas), they are cramped and slightly awkward as you’re basically sharing a closet with 5 strangers. Despite that, it was still one of the coolest parts of the trip! We got to Munich around 7 and headed straight to Oktoberfest after meeting up with some other Miami kids.
Oktoberfest was an extremely cool but almost surreal experience. The festival reminded me a bit of a Cedar Point-type place except with much more Bavarian food and, obviously, lots more beer. Since we got there on opening day, the festivities were quite intense. Here’s an Oktoberfest fun fact: no one is allowed to drink until the mayor ceremoniously opens the keg at noon, certainly a cultural difference from the States! Although, the thought of Mr. Finkbeiner doing that does bring a smile to my face. All of the beer halls were described to me as tents but they certainly didn’t look like tents! The halls are huge and look like any other building, except with a ton of traditional Bavarian decoration. One of the ones that we explored was the Spaten tent and it had an entire ox roasting on a stick. Needless to say, I did not partake. I am, however, proud to say that I had my first Bavarian pretzel which was about twice the size of the biggest ones in the States! There were some chocolate covered ones too, but I resisted those! We left the festivities around 3 as many in our group wanted to see the rest of Munich. We explored the huge city, going into various churches and exploring some really cool shops. After our Bavarian cuisine for lunch, we decided on a very non-traditional restaurant for dinner: McDonalds! It was there I discovered that European McDonalds has something that American McDonalds do not, and that is SOUR CREAM! I have searched every grocery store in Luxembourg for sour cream and have not found any but McDonalds has it! That was quite a high point for me.
After a little more exploring, Dan, Ben and I traveled to Salzburg around 9 that night. We got into our hostel, the Yoho International Youth Hostel, and fell right asleep. We woke up around 7 and spent the morning exploring the city. Most of our time was spent in the old part of the city, where most the churches and beautiful buildings are. I found the cathedral to be absolutely breathtaking, with one of the most beautiful domes I’ve ever seen. My favorite part, however, was the garden. It was just so well maintained with so many different flowers and statues, I didn’t want to leave! Sadly, however, we had a 9 hour train to catch and left the city around 1.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Bruges!
Well, after an orientation weekend and a week of classes at the Chateau, a group of friends and I went to Bruges this weekend! Bruges was about 4 hours away by train and we got a pretty good price for the ticket/hostels there so I felt we were off to a good start. We left Friday pretty much right after our classes ended at noon. We got to Bruges right around dinner time, but had to check into our hostel before dinner (our backpacks were heavy!). This being my first hostel experience, I would say it was a pretty good one. Our rooms were huge, with about 8 people to a room, but very clean. We met several Australians in the hostel on Friday night and that was definitely a cool multicultural experience. That night we really experienced the whole European dining scene as our Irish dinner took about an hour and a half to come out after we ordered it! Other than that, it was a fun night just getting to know the city!
Saturday we got up pretty early and headed to the town’s square. The square was absolutely beautiful, with a church stretching across one side and buildings/shops on the others. We started with a canal ride that lasted about a half hour with a guide who told me he has a chocolate lab like Coco!! The canal ride was a really cool way to see the city from a different point of view. We then went to Church of our Lady to see Michelangelo’s Madonna & Child, which is one of the only Michelangelo’s works to be outside of Italy. The entire church was beautiful, but the Madonna & Child was really amazing. After a quick lunch of one Belgian waffle with chocolate sauce and whipped cream from a street vendor (don’t worry Mom, I did eat a pretty healthy breakfast earlier!), we went to this massive church in the square to climb to the Belfort. To get to the top of the church’s belltower, we had to climb about 360 steps! I definitely felt a little better about eating that waffle after climbing all those steps! The view from the top was seriously breathtaking and definitely worth climbing up to. We then had a day of shopping around the square, pretty much scoping out the best chocolate stands. Although we probably went in like 10-15 shops, each one was different from the other but all smelled delicious! I tried to resist buying some chocolate, but eventually gave in after sighting some amazing looking truffles. Yum! After shopping, we went to our second hostel which had smaller rooms and a very American-y restaurant attached. The restaurant had all kinds of posters from some U.S. cities and I was happy to see some signs from Chicago and Ohio! We ate a quick dinner in the square and spent the rest of the night wandering around the small city. Although we did reference our map several times, we discovered that Bruges is very small and pretty much all streets lead to the town’s square.
Sunday morning we had a breakfast of Belgian waffles (delicious again!) and left for the train station. I was pretty excited to get back to my comfort zone of Luxembourg, but was really sad to leave the city. Bruges was definitely an amazing and beautiful city and if you’re ever in Belgium, I highly recommend visiting! We got home around 7:30 (or 19:30 here), very tired and very eager for any food that wasn’t covered in chocolate!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Pre-Departure to Luxembourg
I'm creating this blog to keep in touch with everyone during my semester studying abroad. I will be living in Luxembourg with a host family until December 18.
I will be a part of Miami's MUDEC program and will be taking French, Art History, European Economics, Political Science and a Field study course revolving around Modern Europe. I hope to learn about the culture in Luxembourg as well as around Europe!
I know I will be traveling to the U.K.; Florence, Italy and Normandy, France but not sure of everything else. If anyone has any other location suggestions, please comment!
I'll write more when I get there! :)
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