This week was much more relaxed than last week. I had a political science midterm on Friday but it was pretty easy and didn't require much preparation at all. I got some of my tests/papers back and I did well on those so I'm happy about that.
On Monday night Hannah and I ate at Pizza Hut with Josh and Luke in the City. Other than having the same name and selling pizza, this Pizza Hut pretty much had nothing in common with the ones at home. It was a really nice sit down restaurant and the food was awesome! It tasted somewhat like Pizza Hut pizza but also different. It was nice to eat there because the pizza Europe has pretty much has no sauce on it and it's really thin, and this actually had sauce and was a lot thicker. It was one of the best meals I've had since being in Europe.
The rest of the week nights, we came back home pretty early and played with the kids. We babysat Sam and Lynn on Tuesday night which was really fun! I love hanging out with them! They've become a lot more comfortable with us and now whenever we come downstairs Lynn stops what she's doing to come over to us and grab our hands and take us to the marbles to play with her. She's adorable. Also, Sam said Hannah and Meredith for the first time. He totally butchered my name but it was really cute. I think he's shy about speaking in English because he definitely knows some words but it's like pulling teeth to get him to say them. He is talking more though. Lynn pretty much shamelessly repeats whatever you ask her to say.
On Wednesday night we had our mandatory orientation meeting and this week it was a lecture from the mayor of Differdange. It was pretty boring and slightly awkward because he threw us all off by asking for suggestions on how to improve relations between Miami and Differdange. No one except a couple teachers said anything .
On Thursday, Hannah and I played in a euchre tournament. We lost in the final four 9-10. I'm convinced the team we were playing was cheating, but I'm over it. I left my cards at the tournament so I hope I can get those back. Also, I annoyingly left my umbrella on the train and realized right when it was too late to go get it. I'm using one of Danie and Carlo's but it's pretty sucky and I want my old one back. Oh well, what can you do?
Friday we left for a trip planned by the school to Reims, France. We first stopped in Verdun, France and went to a WWI battle site. It was a little erie because you could still see the trenches and some of the ground was still considered unsafe. Also, the base of one of the memorial buildings at the cemetery was filled with the bones of over 130,000 unidentified soldiers. It was really sad to see all of them. And yes, we could see the bones. There were windows looking into where the bones were placed. After Verdun we left and went to Reims. Reims is a decently small, cute French town. I really like towns in France. All the ones I've been to have been great. We got to our hotel (yes, I said HOTEL) and settled in and went to dinner. We ate at a really slow italian restaurant but the food was good. After dinner we all went to some French local bar hang out. There really wasn't anything special about it, and there were many creepy French guys, so we turned in kind of early.
In the morning, we all got up and went to a Champagne cave. I forgot to tell you Reims is Champagne Country. Our student activities coordinator couldn't get the tour at a later time, so we had a champagne tasting at 10am. Oh well, it was 5 o'clock somewhere. Actually, in Europe, they don't have a time rule. Everyone pretty much drinks all the time. Most people drink wine with lunch and it's perfectly acceptable. After the champagne tour, we went to the Reims cathedral. It was gorgeous, like most European cathedrals are. We walked around Reims, did some window shopping, ate lunch, and got back on the bus.
We went to Chimay, Belgium for a beer and cheese tasting (the school loves organizing alcohol tastings apparently). All the guys really talked up Chimay beer but I thought a lot of it was pretty gross.
We got back to Lux around dinner time, came home and made food, played some games, did some skyping, and went to bed. Today Danie and Carlo are making us a traditional Luxembourg meal for lunch. This includes Cow Tongue, Blood Sausage, and Kidney. Yikes. I'll let you know how that works out.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Buergbrennen
This past Saturday and Sunday we went to two different Buergbrennen festivals with our host family. Translated into english, Buergbrennen means "castle burning". However, it's not a festival to burn castles, but rather crosses. Sounds sac religious and a little like the KKK, right? That's what I originally thought also. However, it has nothing to do with religion and certainly nothing to do with the KKK. In Luxembourg, Buergbrennen is held during the first Sunday of lent as a symbol of burning away winter and welcoming in spring. Still hung up on the idea of burning crosses? So was I, until I actually saw the festival in action.
Basically what happens is people from each village gather in one location to light their torches. Then, they all walk together to where the fire scene has been built. The fire is build out of brush, and sticks collected from the community, but also from Christmas trees the city has collected after people throw them away when the Christmas season ends. The cross is the biggest part, and it's made of wood and Christmas trees. People throw their torches into the fire when they get there. When everyone has thrown their torch, there is usually some cheering and then people leave the fire to go eat. At the festival, they serve various types of sausages, soup, and drinks. And there is usually a band that plays music- Danie and Carlo played.
You're probably still picturing a large mob of people parading towards a cross, setting it on fire, and then cheering when it's ablaze. Which is kind of what happens, but our American mindset tends to get in the way of what this event is really about. For Luxembourgers, its a tradition that brings the community together, in a fun attempt to make winter go away. I guess it's kind of like their version of Ground Hog's Day (except PETA supports Buergbrennen). And--it's working! It has been sunny several days this week, which is a whole lot of sunshine for Luxembourg.
So, before you start thinking I've gone off the deep end for participating in setting crosses on fire, consider looking at Buergbrennen from a European angle.
Basically what happens is people from each village gather in one location to light their torches. Then, they all walk together to where the fire scene has been built. The fire is build out of brush, and sticks collected from the community, but also from Christmas trees the city has collected after people throw them away when the Christmas season ends. The cross is the biggest part, and it's made of wood and Christmas trees. People throw their torches into the fire when they get there. When everyone has thrown their torch, there is usually some cheering and then people leave the fire to go eat. At the festival, they serve various types of sausages, soup, and drinks. And there is usually a band that plays music- Danie and Carlo played.
You're probably still picturing a large mob of people parading towards a cross, setting it on fire, and then cheering when it's ablaze. Which is kind of what happens, but our American mindset tends to get in the way of what this event is really about. For Luxembourgers, its a tradition that brings the community together, in a fun attempt to make winter go away. I guess it's kind of like their version of Ground Hog's Day (except PETA supports Buergbrennen). And--it's working! It has been sunny several days this week, which is a whole lot of sunshine for Luxembourg.
So, before you start thinking I've gone off the deep end for participating in setting crosses on fire, consider looking at Buergbrennen from a European angle.
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Two weeks of my life. Sorry about the Delay.
Sorry it has taken me so long to post! I've been avoiding it because I figured it would take awhile to catch you up on the past two weeks but now that I'm bored in class, it seems like the perfect time.
After coming back from Italy, I had a week of classes. It was a very crazy week academically because I had a french quiz, an art Midterm, a political science paper, and a History midterm. All of these went seemingly smooth but I'm glad that week is over. Coming up in the next week, I have a political science midterm and an international studies midterm. It's strange that it's nearly the middle of the semester. As far as actual class goes, I think I have like 29 real days of class left. Starting March 12, I no longer have class on Thursday and I have school off from March 27-April 12 for Spring Break and our base course tour, so that's why the number of real classes is so low. For the most part, school isn't very challenging. The only class that could potentially be difficult is my History class, but we can write an optional paper at the end to raise our grade up to 20% so I'm not worried. Actually, all this grade adjusting that goes on here at MUDEC, really suppresses motivation. Oh well.
Ok,I'm sure you're more interested in Spain than my classes. Sorry If I bored you. We left for Spain late Friday night/Saturday Morning. Our flight left at 6am on Saturday and the Airport is a two hour bus ride away, so we took the train into Lux city around 1:30 and got a bus at 2:30. We we stepped off the bus at Frankfurt-Hahn Airport at 4:30am, we were rudely awaken by the coldest weather I have ever experienced. We had to grab our bags and walk about 10 minutes to the airport from the bus station. I was walking as fast as humanly possible (excluding Kelsey Gross pace) and by the time I got inside, there were tears streaming down my face and my whole body stung. Yet another reason Germany isn't exactly my favorite country. By the time our plane took off at 6, I was dead tired. Actually, I was dead asleep. I fell asleep on the runway and don't even remember the plane getting off the ground.
When we landed in Barcelona, our plane was late so we didn't get to hear the celebratory music Ryanair loves to play. Sad day. Also, no one clapped this time. I blame it on tiredness. The whole clapping for a safe landing thing kinda freaks me out. I'm not sure you should fly on an airline that praises landing. Shouldn't that be the norm? Ryanair is a breed of its own.
We got to our hostel a couple hours later. We booked a room for 8 only to find out they split us up 6 and 2 and put us in 8 person rooms with random people. Not a big problem this round, but I'll come back to this later.
We walked to Las Ramblas street where there are street performers and a lot of shopping. The performers pretty much consisted of people decorating themselves to look like statues and then curious people walking by would stare and the performers usually did something funny. Las Ramblas also had several street pet stores. I use the term pet pretty loosely simply because I don't consider a Turkey Vulture to be a pet. They were selling rabbits, ferrets, and other birds also. We ate at a tapas place for lunch which was tasty. Tapas, if you were wondering, is pretty much the Spanish term for small portion. It might mean something more to other people but to me, it's Spain way of tricking you into buying an appetizer for a meal.
Also, we walked to La Sagrada Familia which is a cathedral designed by Gaudi and is still being built today. We took an elevator to the top, took some great pictures, and then walked down. I absolutely hated the walk down because about halfway from the top, the stairs became spiral with a railing on the wall side but no railing or wall or anything on the side that showed to straight down drop to the bottom. I was convinced I was going to trip and fall to my death so I gripped the railing with both hands. I probably looked like an idiot, but 'd rather be safe than dead.
The next day, we took the subway to Park Guell. The weather was nice and sunny which made the park beautiful. It's a large park that highlights awesome views of the city and hosts live music. Also, there are several Gaudi buildings in the park which kind of give it the feel of Willy Wonka. Maybe that's just me? Anyway, the park was one of my highlights of the trip. I put some pictures of the park on facebook, so you can check it out there.
After visiting the park, we took the subway to the Espanyol vs. Deportivo soccer game. It was a ton of fun! The stadium was pretty much packed and the fans were pretty rowdy which was cool to be a part of. Espanyol (home team) won, which apparently doesn't happen too often so I'm glad they brought their A game for us. At the end of the game they played the Espanyol anthem, which we had stuck in our heads the rest of the week and continued to break out in song at random times. It's a very catchy tune. We went to the Dow Jones Bar after the game. It's an interesting bar because it's designed like the stock market and prices go up and down depending on what people buy but the coolest part is when the market crashes and everything is cheap. Well, somewhat cheap. It was a pretty expensive place.
The next day we left for Madrid. We rode the nicest train I've ever been on. Very conducive to sleeping, which I took full advantage of. The weather in Madrid was colder and it rained literally the whole time we were there. I don't have a whole lot to say about Madrid because I liked Barcelona much better but we did spend day at the Prado Museum, which I enjoyed. It's a massive museum with over 100 rooms. It was mentally exhausting, but I saw a lot of paintings that I just learned about in my Art History class, and it was nice to see them somewhere other than in a textbook.
Our hostel in Madrid was very unique. We kept joking that we felt like we were on a reality tv show because it seemed like the Real World or Brother and Sisters or something. It only had a few rooms and everyone hung out together in the common room and some people cooked together. Also, there were two people who were living in the hostel and renting it as an apartment, so that was a bit strange.
We took a day trip to Segovia, which was a cheap hour bur ride away. It's a really old city with a lot of beautiful buildings. Also, there is a first century aqua-duct that went though the city.I don't think I've ever seen anything that old before. It's weird to think that it could have been around when Jesus walked the Earth. Although I'm pretty positive Jesus never came to Spain. Segovia also had a beautiful castle and cathedral. Seems to be the theme of many European cities.
The following day we left Madrid and headed to Toledo. Toledo in Spanish is pronounced TolAdo, sidenote for all you Ohioans out there. It was a small, quaint town. I honestly don't have a lot to say about it.
The last day of our trip we went back to Barcelona and the weather was decent again. It was Hannah's birthday so we went to the beach. It was maybe 60 degrees (and that's a generous guess) and tons of people were surfing. Seems insane to me. I was a little cold on land, I'm sure they were cold in the water. I did however touch the water just to say I've touched the Mediterranean Sea.
After hanging out on the beach, we were all pretty hungry so we walked for 40ish minutes on a wild goose chase for a taco restaurant our hostel worker recommended. We never found it. I'm convinced it doesn't exist. We ended up eating at some random restaurant and I ordered homemade pizza that may or may not have been homemade. My best guess says no. After dinner we just walked around and went into random stores. We found one selling unique art and jewelry that we stayed in for awhile. We wanted to eat gelato for dessert, but Spain's Gelato has nothing on Italy's. I got mint chip and it tasted strangely similar to listerine.
It started to rain a little but we wanted to see the fountain light show so we braved the rain, took the subway, and headed to the fountain. When we got off at the stop, we could see the lit fountain in the distance but because of construction we had to take a round about way to the fountain and by the time we got there it not only started to downpour, but the fountain turned off. We took refuge under a bridge to wait for the rain to subside. It didn't. So after half an hour or so, we walked back to the subway in the rain. Of course, this was the only day I didn't bring my umbrella. If you were wondering, a down jacket soaked from the rain smells a little like cat urine. It has pretty much aired out by now, thankfully.
We went back to our hostel at night, which I forgot to mention, was the same one we stayed at in the beginning of the week, and they split us up again. They split us into groups of 4 and 4 in two 8 person rooms with 4 random people in each. Dear Mediterranean Youth Hostel, the only reason we booked with you was because we thought we were paying for 8 people to stay together. Maybe you're wondering why I'm making such a big deal about being split up? Well, we had to get up at 5am to catch our flight, so we went to be somewhere between 12 and 1. Around 3:30 one of our random roommates came into the room, completely drunk, and thought it would be cool to throw up in our bathroom for 20 minutes with the door open. He also repeatedly turned the sink on and off to wash his pants which he apparently got something on. Maybe vomit? Anyway, no one wants to be woken up to the sound of someone puking. After he finished his charades and climbed into bed around 4, he passed out in 2 minutes top and was snoring ridiculously loud. I've never heard someone snore that loud in my life (and I live with some crazy snorers back at home). When it was time to get up at 5, we were all pretty angry.
We had some minor traveling issues, aka we missed our bus, but it all worked out in the end. When we got back to Lux, we just relaxed at home until it was time to go to the Buergbrennen. I'll blog about that later.
After coming back from Italy, I had a week of classes. It was a very crazy week academically because I had a french quiz, an art Midterm, a political science paper, and a History midterm. All of these went seemingly smooth but I'm glad that week is over. Coming up in the next week, I have a political science midterm and an international studies midterm. It's strange that it's nearly the middle of the semester. As far as actual class goes, I think I have like 29 real days of class left. Starting March 12, I no longer have class on Thursday and I have school off from March 27-April 12 for Spring Break and our base course tour, so that's why the number of real classes is so low. For the most part, school isn't very challenging. The only class that could potentially be difficult is my History class, but we can write an optional paper at the end to raise our grade up to 20% so I'm not worried. Actually, all this grade adjusting that goes on here at MUDEC, really suppresses motivation. Oh well.
Ok,I'm sure you're more interested in Spain than my classes. Sorry If I bored you. We left for Spain late Friday night/Saturday Morning. Our flight left at 6am on Saturday and the Airport is a two hour bus ride away, so we took the train into Lux city around 1:30 and got a bus at 2:30. We we stepped off the bus at Frankfurt-Hahn Airport at 4:30am, we were rudely awaken by the coldest weather I have ever experienced. We had to grab our bags and walk about 10 minutes to the airport from the bus station. I was walking as fast as humanly possible (excluding Kelsey Gross pace) and by the time I got inside, there were tears streaming down my face and my whole body stung. Yet another reason Germany isn't exactly my favorite country. By the time our plane took off at 6, I was dead tired. Actually, I was dead asleep. I fell asleep on the runway and don't even remember the plane getting off the ground.
When we landed in Barcelona, our plane was late so we didn't get to hear the celebratory music Ryanair loves to play. Sad day. Also, no one clapped this time. I blame it on tiredness. The whole clapping for a safe landing thing kinda freaks me out. I'm not sure you should fly on an airline that praises landing. Shouldn't that be the norm? Ryanair is a breed of its own.
We got to our hostel a couple hours later. We booked a room for 8 only to find out they split us up 6 and 2 and put us in 8 person rooms with random people. Not a big problem this round, but I'll come back to this later.
We walked to Las Ramblas street where there are street performers and a lot of shopping. The performers pretty much consisted of people decorating themselves to look like statues and then curious people walking by would stare and the performers usually did something funny. Las Ramblas also had several street pet stores. I use the term pet pretty loosely simply because I don't consider a Turkey Vulture to be a pet. They were selling rabbits, ferrets, and other birds also. We ate at a tapas place for lunch which was tasty. Tapas, if you were wondering, is pretty much the Spanish term for small portion. It might mean something more to other people but to me, it's Spain way of tricking you into buying an appetizer for a meal.
Also, we walked to La Sagrada Familia which is a cathedral designed by Gaudi and is still being built today. We took an elevator to the top, took some great pictures, and then walked down. I absolutely hated the walk down because about halfway from the top, the stairs became spiral with a railing on the wall side but no railing or wall or anything on the side that showed to straight down drop to the bottom. I was convinced I was going to trip and fall to my death so I gripped the railing with both hands. I probably looked like an idiot, but 'd rather be safe than dead.
The next day, we took the subway to Park Guell. The weather was nice and sunny which made the park beautiful. It's a large park that highlights awesome views of the city and hosts live music. Also, there are several Gaudi buildings in the park which kind of give it the feel of Willy Wonka. Maybe that's just me? Anyway, the park was one of my highlights of the trip. I put some pictures of the park on facebook, so you can check it out there.
After visiting the park, we took the subway to the Espanyol vs. Deportivo soccer game. It was a ton of fun! The stadium was pretty much packed and the fans were pretty rowdy which was cool to be a part of. Espanyol (home team) won, which apparently doesn't happen too often so I'm glad they brought their A game for us. At the end of the game they played the Espanyol anthem, which we had stuck in our heads the rest of the week and continued to break out in song at random times. It's a very catchy tune. We went to the Dow Jones Bar after the game. It's an interesting bar because it's designed like the stock market and prices go up and down depending on what people buy but the coolest part is when the market crashes and everything is cheap. Well, somewhat cheap. It was a pretty expensive place.
The next day we left for Madrid. We rode the nicest train I've ever been on. Very conducive to sleeping, which I took full advantage of. The weather in Madrid was colder and it rained literally the whole time we were there. I don't have a whole lot to say about Madrid because I liked Barcelona much better but we did spend day at the Prado Museum, which I enjoyed. It's a massive museum with over 100 rooms. It was mentally exhausting, but I saw a lot of paintings that I just learned about in my Art History class, and it was nice to see them somewhere other than in a textbook.
Our hostel in Madrid was very unique. We kept joking that we felt like we were on a reality tv show because it seemed like the Real World or Brother and Sisters or something. It only had a few rooms and everyone hung out together in the common room and some people cooked together. Also, there were two people who were living in the hostel and renting it as an apartment, so that was a bit strange.
We took a day trip to Segovia, which was a cheap hour bur ride away. It's a really old city with a lot of beautiful buildings. Also, there is a first century aqua-duct that went though the city.I don't think I've ever seen anything that old before. It's weird to think that it could have been around when Jesus walked the Earth. Although I'm pretty positive Jesus never came to Spain. Segovia also had a beautiful castle and cathedral. Seems to be the theme of many European cities.
The following day we left Madrid and headed to Toledo. Toledo in Spanish is pronounced TolAdo, sidenote for all you Ohioans out there. It was a small, quaint town. I honestly don't have a lot to say about it.
The last day of our trip we went back to Barcelona and the weather was decent again. It was Hannah's birthday so we went to the beach. It was maybe 60 degrees (and that's a generous guess) and tons of people were surfing. Seems insane to me. I was a little cold on land, I'm sure they were cold in the water. I did however touch the water just to say I've touched the Mediterranean Sea.
After hanging out on the beach, we were all pretty hungry so we walked for 40ish minutes on a wild goose chase for a taco restaurant our hostel worker recommended. We never found it. I'm convinced it doesn't exist. We ended up eating at some random restaurant and I ordered homemade pizza that may or may not have been homemade. My best guess says no. After dinner we just walked around and went into random stores. We found one selling unique art and jewelry that we stayed in for awhile. We wanted to eat gelato for dessert, but Spain's Gelato has nothing on Italy's. I got mint chip and it tasted strangely similar to listerine.
It started to rain a little but we wanted to see the fountain light show so we braved the rain, took the subway, and headed to the fountain. When we got off at the stop, we could see the lit fountain in the distance but because of construction we had to take a round about way to the fountain and by the time we got there it not only started to downpour, but the fountain turned off. We took refuge under a bridge to wait for the rain to subside. It didn't. So after half an hour or so, we walked back to the subway in the rain. Of course, this was the only day I didn't bring my umbrella. If you were wondering, a down jacket soaked from the rain smells a little like cat urine. It has pretty much aired out by now, thankfully.
We went back to our hostel at night, which I forgot to mention, was the same one we stayed at in the beginning of the week, and they split us up again. They split us into groups of 4 and 4 in two 8 person rooms with 4 random people in each. Dear Mediterranean Youth Hostel, the only reason we booked with you was because we thought we were paying for 8 people to stay together. Maybe you're wondering why I'm making such a big deal about being split up? Well, we had to get up at 5am to catch our flight, so we went to be somewhere between 12 and 1. Around 3:30 one of our random roommates came into the room, completely drunk, and thought it would be cool to throw up in our bathroom for 20 minutes with the door open. He also repeatedly turned the sink on and off to wash his pants which he apparently got something on. Maybe vomit? Anyway, no one wants to be woken up to the sound of someone puking. After he finished his charades and climbed into bed around 4, he passed out in 2 minutes top and was snoring ridiculously loud. I've never heard someone snore that loud in my life (and I live with some crazy snorers back at home). When it was time to get up at 5, we were all pretty angry.
We had some minor traveling issues, aka we missed our bus, but it all worked out in the end. When we got back to Lux, we just relaxed at home until it was time to go to the Buergbrennen. I'll blog about that later.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Italia!
Danie made ma a journal for my birthday. I like it a lot! I woke up and came downstairs and she had pancakes made and she and the kids and Hannah and Jenn sang happy birthday to me. I even had a candle in my pancakes. The rest of the day was spent traveling to Florence. I had my first Ryanair experience which was pretty much like any other airline except they attempted to sell us tons of stuff including but not limited to food and drinks, perfume, cologne, lottery tickets, and cigarettes which were not to be smoked on the plane so they sold nicotine patches as well. Also, when the plane landed they played celebratory music which really can't be a positive sign. I don't think you should be celebrating the fact that you landed. Makes me wonder how often their planes don't land.
When we got to Italy we checked into our hostel which was awesome by the way, and we went to get gelato. I got half dark chocolate and half milk chocolate. It was amazing. Embarrassing fact- from wednesday to sunday Hannah and I got gelato 6 times...
On Thursday morning we got up early and went to museums. It was cool to actually see what we have been learning about in class. We got lunch on our own at a small cafe and I got pizza. After lunch we met back with the group and we went to two beautiful churches. Then we got free time and Lauren, Hannah, and I went shopping. I bought black boots from a flee market. It was kind of a sketchy operation...the man who sold them to me disappeared to some secret location to get my size and the shoes he gave me are a different size than the ones I tried on even though they're both labeled the same. Oh well, they were cheap and I like them a lot.
Later we climbed 463 stairs to the top of the Duomo ad the views were absolutely breathtaking. It was totally worth the hike up. We met these asian guys who took our picture and wanted pictures with us. I guess the whole American girls thing excited them. It sounds like they were creepy people but I didn't really get that vibe. The view from the top of the Duomo was so gorgeous and I must have taken over 50 pictures from the top.
The whole group ate dinner together and then we went to a bar. The whole drinking wine provided by your professors thing still feels like a strange concept. Some of us walked back to the hostel early and got more gelato and we stopped to listen to live music along the way. The musician was singing Beatles songs.
On Friday we woke up really early to go to a few museums and churches. We went to a monastery to see Fra Angelico's Frescoes. They told different bible stories and it was interesting to look at them and interpret them. All of the churches we saw were beautiful, especially the Santa Maria Novella. Most of them don't allow you to take pictures though so that's kind of a bummer. I obviously took a few illegal shots so I could remember what they looked like when I'm old and gray. When we went into the churches, I really liked looking at the ceilings because they're so detailed and I know they must have been incredibly hard to make back in the day.
For lunch we went to some lame Italian restaurant owned by Portuguese men. The food and service both sucked. After lunch, Hannah, Lauren, and I explored by walking up some steep, narrow road for about half an hour, hoping we'd get to the top and find a good view of the city. We ended up at some gardens you needed to pay 7 euro to see so instead we turned around and found a path leading to a stone wall. We climbed the wall and sat on top and looked at an amazing city scene. The wall had barbed wire so we we were careful but I'm thinking we weren't supposed to be up there. I got my jeans really dirty and it looked like someone puked on them so I guess that's what you get for not paying.
We all ate dinner together again and then came back to the hostel and played euchre. Hannah and I were partners and dominated as usual.
On Saturday we went on a tour of tuscany. First we went to Siena then San Gimignano and finally Pisa. For lunch we stopped at an organic farm and winery just outside of San Gimignano. The food was delicious and the views of tuscany were incredible! We saw the leaning tower in Pisa as well as a Cathedral and Baptistry. The weather in Pisa was perfect. It was actually pretty warm (probably upper 50's) and the sun came out! We got to see a beautiful Italian sunset.
On the flight home, we flew over the Swiss Alps. It was so pretty it looked fake. It made me really want to go to Switzerland, but I think we're going there in May. I have a really busy week with school (2 midterms, a paper, and a quiz) but Friday starts Carnival break and we have a week off. I'm going to Spain! We just booked tickets for a soccer game which should be really fun since soccer is so big in Europe especially in Spain. I don't have class until 2pm tomorrow but I'm exhausted so I'm going to bed.
When we got to Italy we checked into our hostel which was awesome by the way, and we went to get gelato. I got half dark chocolate and half milk chocolate. It was amazing. Embarrassing fact- from wednesday to sunday Hannah and I got gelato 6 times...
On Thursday morning we got up early and went to museums. It was cool to actually see what we have been learning about in class. We got lunch on our own at a small cafe and I got pizza. After lunch we met back with the group and we went to two beautiful churches. Then we got free time and Lauren, Hannah, and I went shopping. I bought black boots from a flee market. It was kind of a sketchy operation...the man who sold them to me disappeared to some secret location to get my size and the shoes he gave me are a different size than the ones I tried on even though they're both labeled the same. Oh well, they were cheap and I like them a lot.
Later we climbed 463 stairs to the top of the Duomo ad the views were absolutely breathtaking. It was totally worth the hike up. We met these asian guys who took our picture and wanted pictures with us. I guess the whole American girls thing excited them. It sounds like they were creepy people but I didn't really get that vibe. The view from the top of the Duomo was so gorgeous and I must have taken over 50 pictures from the top.
The whole group ate dinner together and then we went to a bar. The whole drinking wine provided by your professors thing still feels like a strange concept. Some of us walked back to the hostel early and got more gelato and we stopped to listen to live music along the way. The musician was singing Beatles songs.
On Friday we woke up really early to go to a few museums and churches. We went to a monastery to see Fra Angelico's Frescoes. They told different bible stories and it was interesting to look at them and interpret them. All of the churches we saw were beautiful, especially the Santa Maria Novella. Most of them don't allow you to take pictures though so that's kind of a bummer. I obviously took a few illegal shots so I could remember what they looked like when I'm old and gray. When we went into the churches, I really liked looking at the ceilings because they're so detailed and I know they must have been incredibly hard to make back in the day.
For lunch we went to some lame Italian restaurant owned by Portuguese men. The food and service both sucked. After lunch, Hannah, Lauren, and I explored by walking up some steep, narrow road for about half an hour, hoping we'd get to the top and find a good view of the city. We ended up at some gardens you needed to pay 7 euro to see so instead we turned around and found a path leading to a stone wall. We climbed the wall and sat on top and looked at an amazing city scene. The wall had barbed wire so we we were careful but I'm thinking we weren't supposed to be up there. I got my jeans really dirty and it looked like someone puked on them so I guess that's what you get for not paying.
We all ate dinner together again and then came back to the hostel and played euchre. Hannah and I were partners and dominated as usual.
On Saturday we went on a tour of tuscany. First we went to Siena then San Gimignano and finally Pisa. For lunch we stopped at an organic farm and winery just outside of San Gimignano. The food was delicious and the views of tuscany were incredible! We saw the leaning tower in Pisa as well as a Cathedral and Baptistry. The weather in Pisa was perfect. It was actually pretty warm (probably upper 50's) and the sun came out! We got to see a beautiful Italian sunset.
On the flight home, we flew over the Swiss Alps. It was so pretty it looked fake. It made me really want to go to Switzerland, but I think we're going there in May. I have a really busy week with school (2 midterms, a paper, and a quiz) but Friday starts Carnival break and we have a week off. I'm going to Spain! We just booked tickets for a soccer game which should be really fun since soccer is so big in Europe especially in Spain. I don't have class until 2pm tomorrow but I'm exhausted so I'm going to bed.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
An Update
Sorry that it has been so long since I've updated. I'll try to catch you up on what i've been doing.
After getting back from Strasbourg, I had a full week of classes. They went by pretty quick but I did have a quiz in French and Art. Neither test was hard though. I have another French quiz today, actually.
On Wednesday nights everyone in the MUDEC program is required to attend an orientation session. Each week the session is different but in the past they have had a bunch of lectures. We played large group Spoons which was really fun. It got pretty competitive and maybe a little dangerous but no one got seriously injured. Afterward we got dinner at Fast Food Diff, which was delicious. It's one of only a few places where you can get chicken in Luxembourg.
Over the weekend I went to Cologne, Germany with seven other people. We decided to only spend one night there to try to save money so we took the train right after school on Friday, stayed the night, and then same back to Lux Saturday afternoon. Our hostel was the shadiest I have stayed in so far. They didn't provide sheets, and no one wanted to pay for them, so we all ended up sleeping straight on a mattress. I was grossed out so I laid down my coat and slept on that instead. Also, the walls had weird stains on them. I tried not to investigate those too close.
We ate dinner in some cheap steak house that was pretty good except for the water. They only had mineral water which pretty much tasted like dirt. It was cold though, so that's a plus. Carnival festivities are starting so the restaurant had clowns all over it. Carnival is the festival that starts before lent and it's basically just like a really extended Mardi Gras. I think the point of it is to get all the "sin" out of your system so you can be holy during lent. Seems like a pretty strange concept to me. Most cities get really into it- they all have festivals and take on a certain theme and the people dress up in costumes and paint their faces. Although I think it's weird, I'm not complaining because we get a full week off of school. We're going to Spain, so that will be awesome!
On Saturday morning, we went to a chocolate museum. It was really neat to see the evolution of chocolate and how it's made. Also, the samples were great as well. We got their early because we were told if you arrive early there is a chance they'll pick you to help make chocolate and you get to keep all your "mistakes", unfortunately we weren't chosen. Some little girl was having a birthday party so they got to help, lame.
For lunch we went to a German restaurant. I ordered Weinersnitchel. Much more authentic than my usually hamburger with ketchup only. Weinersnitchel is just breaded pork with a cool name. But I'd never eaten it before, so I'm proud of myself for trying something new. It also came with delicious potatoes. This time, I stayed on the safe side and ordered a coke. I'm not taking anymore chances with German water. If you were wondering, the coke in Europe is pretty much the same as the coke in the US except is has a little less flavor and a little less carbonation. It basically tastes like coke in a 2 liter bottle that has been left open for a few hours. Yum....
After lunch we walked to the Dom, which is really a cathedral. It was beautiful and huge. We didn't get to climb to the top because we planned our time horribly and had to catch a train. Four of us made it on one train and the other three had to catch a later train. It was a bit stressful, but we all made it home eventually.
It was nice to be home all day Sunday. Hannah, Jenn, and I went to the grocery with Danie and she helped us find things and read us the Luxembourgish labels. We bought a few essentials and the materials to make chocolate chip cookies. By the way, they don't have chocolate chips in Europe...or baking soda, or vanilla. We had to improvise but they turned out tasting pretty good. For the chips, we just chopped up a block of chocolate. I don't think our host family had ever eaten chocolate chip cookies before, but as far as I can tell, they liked them. We also got our laundry done and cleaned our room and just hung out with our family. At night I skyped with family and friends from home which was really fun just to catch up.
It has been snowing like crazy here. I feel like I'm living in a snow globe. It's not that there is a ton of snow on the ground (probably 5 inches), but the flakes are really big and so they're pretty and all the snow has been sticking to the trees. It looks like a winter wonderland. However, I am flying to Florence, Italy with my class tomorrow so I hope our flight doesn't get delayed or cancelled. Because of the snow, my professor is late to class. It was supposed to start ten minutes ago. It's a great day!
After getting back from Strasbourg, I had a full week of classes. They went by pretty quick but I did have a quiz in French and Art. Neither test was hard though. I have another French quiz today, actually.
On Wednesday nights everyone in the MUDEC program is required to attend an orientation session. Each week the session is different but in the past they have had a bunch of lectures. We played large group Spoons which was really fun. It got pretty competitive and maybe a little dangerous but no one got seriously injured. Afterward we got dinner at Fast Food Diff, which was delicious. It's one of only a few places where you can get chicken in Luxembourg.
Over the weekend I went to Cologne, Germany with seven other people. We decided to only spend one night there to try to save money so we took the train right after school on Friday, stayed the night, and then same back to Lux Saturday afternoon. Our hostel was the shadiest I have stayed in so far. They didn't provide sheets, and no one wanted to pay for them, so we all ended up sleeping straight on a mattress. I was grossed out so I laid down my coat and slept on that instead. Also, the walls had weird stains on them. I tried not to investigate those too close.
We ate dinner in some cheap steak house that was pretty good except for the water. They only had mineral water which pretty much tasted like dirt. It was cold though, so that's a plus. Carnival festivities are starting so the restaurant had clowns all over it. Carnival is the festival that starts before lent and it's basically just like a really extended Mardi Gras. I think the point of it is to get all the "sin" out of your system so you can be holy during lent. Seems like a pretty strange concept to me. Most cities get really into it- they all have festivals and take on a certain theme and the people dress up in costumes and paint their faces. Although I think it's weird, I'm not complaining because we get a full week off of school. We're going to Spain, so that will be awesome!
On Saturday morning, we went to a chocolate museum. It was really neat to see the evolution of chocolate and how it's made. Also, the samples were great as well. We got their early because we were told if you arrive early there is a chance they'll pick you to help make chocolate and you get to keep all your "mistakes", unfortunately we weren't chosen. Some little girl was having a birthday party so they got to help, lame.
For lunch we went to a German restaurant. I ordered Weinersnitchel. Much more authentic than my usually hamburger with ketchup only. Weinersnitchel is just breaded pork with a cool name. But I'd never eaten it before, so I'm proud of myself for trying something new. It also came with delicious potatoes. This time, I stayed on the safe side and ordered a coke. I'm not taking anymore chances with German water. If you were wondering, the coke in Europe is pretty much the same as the coke in the US except is has a little less flavor and a little less carbonation. It basically tastes like coke in a 2 liter bottle that has been left open for a few hours. Yum....
After lunch we walked to the Dom, which is really a cathedral. It was beautiful and huge. We didn't get to climb to the top because we planned our time horribly and had to catch a train. Four of us made it on one train and the other three had to catch a later train. It was a bit stressful, but we all made it home eventually.
It was nice to be home all day Sunday. Hannah, Jenn, and I went to the grocery with Danie and she helped us find things and read us the Luxembourgish labels. We bought a few essentials and the materials to make chocolate chip cookies. By the way, they don't have chocolate chips in Europe...or baking soda, or vanilla. We had to improvise but they turned out tasting pretty good. For the chips, we just chopped up a block of chocolate. I don't think our host family had ever eaten chocolate chip cookies before, but as far as I can tell, they liked them. We also got our laundry done and cleaned our room and just hung out with our family. At night I skyped with family and friends from home which was really fun just to catch up.
It has been snowing like crazy here. I feel like I'm living in a snow globe. It's not that there is a ton of snow on the ground (probably 5 inches), but the flakes are really big and so they're pretty and all the snow has been sticking to the trees. It looks like a winter wonderland. However, I am flying to Florence, Italy with my class tomorrow so I hope our flight doesn't get delayed or cancelled. Because of the snow, my professor is late to class. It was supposed to start ten minutes ago. It's a great day!
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