A Collision of Events

Apparently there was a horrendous car crash right outside our house a few nights ago! I didn’t find out until someone told me the next day because I slept right through it! But Mechthild is on the ground floor and it was right outside her window. She said she and Jerri (the cat that sleeps with her at night) shot out of bed as fast as an arrow from a bow. She said they thought the world was ending and that they weren’t going to be in bed when that happened!

So a guy was driving down the street at 4am (nobody has figured out why exactly) and they are guessing he fell asleep at the wheel. He somehow managed to twist the car so hard that he ran into the neighbor’s car, denting it and pushing two of its wheels onto the sidewalk and flipping his own car! There is also a chunk of the sidewalk that came off and flew into Mechthild’s window! So she ran outside and helped the guy out of his upside down car, yelled for Sam to come downstairs and called the police. In the meantime, I was sleeping soundly. The neighbor’s car was totaled, but thankfully nobody was seriously injured.

The other morning, I made a crepe with speculoos spread on it. There are these delicious speculoos cookies here and someone decided to make a spread from the cookies, which is delicious as well! It was my first taste of the spread, and my first time making a crepe, too. I also tried the speculoos on apple slices and they go together quite well.

Last week Mechthild invited me to a concert at the Bozar music hall. It was about a 10-piece orchestra with a small group of tenors singing the book of John chapter 5 from the Bible from the beginning until Christ’s death all in Latin. Some of the tenors had roles- one was the narrator, one was Jesus, one Judas, one Mary Magdalene and we weren’t really sure who the others were since we didn’t speak Latin. It was beautiful music, though.

This weekend I went with three girlfriends to the Cantillon brewery, the only brewery in Brussels. It’s also unique in that it only brews during the winter months because the humidity in the air ferments the ingredients better or something. Also, the brewery makes cherry and raspberry beer and it is the only brewery I think that actually uses real fruit as opposed to syrups. We had a free tasting afterwards and it was pretty good.

On our way to the brewery we kept hearing loud music coming from somewhere. As we got closer we became more curious. We eventually stumbled upon the loud music and found a band performing in the middle of this large parking lot and people doing the same dance and waving flags with some guy's face on it. We were so confused and curious as to what was happening and why! We finally asked someone and they said there is a conflict right now in Kurdistan and they were protesting it. Interesting… We happened to come upon another protest later on in the day. It was more of a stand and shout while holding bright posters with bold words on them type protest. But we didn’t know what that one was about at all. Lots to protest, I suppose.

We soaked up as much warm sun as we could the rest of the day by sitting in a park for a couple hours by the blooming daffodils. We walked around Brussels some and then went to our very first movie theatre since being abroad. It was big and loud and great. We watched the Adjustment Bureau, which was pretty good. There were both French and Dutch subtitles throughout the movie.

This week is the final week before spring break starts and it looks like it’ll great weather! I hope to spend lots of time outside helping Mechthild garden and exploring more of Brussels. For spring break, some girls and I are going to go to Italy – Venice, Cinque Terre and Rome, and then to Greece – Athens, the island of Santorini (where the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was filmed) and Crete. (My ticket home was cancelled unexpectedly and so as of now I'm not coming home from Greece. I'm sure that'll change soon, though.) I am really looking forward to it all! It’s going to be chaos because we’re cramming so much into a short amount of time, but it’s going to be a very beautiful chaos.

Ireland

A few words you should know before I begin my blog post:

Rubbish – nonsense or trash; it depends

Fancy – what you say when you like something

Spit and saw dust – authentic

Q – a line

Okay, now that you’re all caught up on the special Irish terms, we’ll get to the trip. So first of all, getting to Ireland wasn’t easy. Ryan Air, one of the cheapest airlines in Europe, says it flies out of “Brussels”. What it means by that is that it flies out of Charleroi, which is nearly an hour outside of Brussels. For me to get to Charleroi, I had to take a tram, a metro, another metro, walk a couple blocks and take a shuttle (that you have to pay for) that takes an hour to get to the airport. It’s rubbish! So When Alison and I finally made it to the airport and got all checked in we celebrated.

On the flight with Ryan Air they attempted to sell us lottery tickets, perfume, cigarettes and other things, which was kind of amusing. This was also the first place I heard rubbish. The flight attendant came down the aisle and asked, “Does anyone have any rubbish? Any empties?”

We ended up staying with the perfect hostel in Dublin, Paddy’s Palace. They had reasonably priced, clean rooms, provided a free shuttle to and from the airport, provided a free breakfast, were in a great location and if you stayed for at least 2 nights then you get a free bus tour to Glendalough and Kilkenny, which are just south of Dublin in the Wicklow Hills and beyond. It was great!

The first night we were there, Alison and I went to the well-known Temple Bar area. We tried our first Guinness that night! It looked so good and after the first sip we were like, oh, this isn’t too bad! But after the third sip, we were wondering how we were going to be able to finish the entire pint! Luckily someone told us to get a snakebite. You just ask the bar tender to put in some black currant, which is like a raspberry syrup type thing,. It was much easier to drink after that.

We were excited to talk to some Irish people our first night in Dublin as I was planning on getting really good at the Irish accent throughout this trip! Unfortunately the Temple Bar area was mostly well known by other tourists. We didn’t fancy that. We met some people from London, Germany and even Miami. We ended up going with some people we met to another place that happened to be more of a dressy dance club and not at all like the place we pictured ourselves to be at the first night in Ireland! We did meet a guy who owned a pub outside of Ireland that he said was a spit and saw dust kind of place. We never made it to his pub though. Maybe next time.

The next morning Kelly arrived. She had a test and had to come later on. We then set off to explore Dublin! We walked all the way to the other side of Dublin and back. Fortunately, we had the most amazing weather! I think that so far, it was probably their best weekend of the year weather wise. Dublin has double-decker busses for public transportation. People in Dublin, unlike in Brussels, are very good at waiting in very straight, well-organized Q's. Also, at every crosswalk they have and arrow and “look left” or “look right” written on the street. It was helpful. I just ended up looking both ways before I crossed every street, though. Multiple times I caught myself looking up at a car to find that a 7-year-old was driving it, or a sleeping woman or a guy with no hands on the wheel. Then I would remember that they drove on the opposite side of the road and that those people weren’t actually driving the car.

As far as the city of Dublin goes, it’s not that unique from other cities. There aren’t many “tourist attractions” or beautiful sights or anything. We got a tour in an old jail, Kilmainham Gaol, and heard more about Ireland’s history, we then walked by the Guinness Storehouse but didn’t really care to see how it was made. We saw the St. Patrick’s Cathedral, but you had to pay to go inside and we are cheap so we didn’t go inside. We somehow stumbled upon a small fish and chips place where a lot of famous people have eaten (or so this board outside their restaurant says). I had never had fish and chips and we decided this was the place to do it at! It was so much food! But oh, so delicious. We then found the Dublin Castle. I was very unimpressed. It was pretty small as far as castles go and in the middle of all these other buildings in the city. We walked to Trinity College (ISU is prettier) but didn’t see the book of Kells, because, like I said before, we’re cheap and it was 8 euro.

We wandered through this beautiful and huge park and found a nice grassy place to sit and rest from all our walking. On our flight to Dublin, Alison and I had seen this group of free spirited people that all had strange clothes and unique hats. After we sat down in the park, we looked up and saw the same group of people juggling and doing crazy hula-hoop tricks! It was so ironic! They were still wearing their unique hats, by the way. Also, while in the airport to fly to Dublin, we met some Americans who were studying in the Netherlands. We talked with them briefly (because we were both excited to speak English with someone else) and headed to our separate flights, Dublin and Madrid. When we landed in Dublin, we met another group of Americans who were studying in the Netherlands. Alison asked if they had friends going to Madrid. They did! We had somehow met both friend groups. Ironic, again!

At first, being able to hear English all around us was weird because we are so used to not hearing English and not being able to eavesdrop on conversations and understand what’s going on. For the first day I kept saying bonjour and merci to people just out of habit. But we quickly got used to hearing and speaking English again.

Katie arrived that night because she had a class she didn’t want to skip. We all got ready and went out. We first found ourselves in a pub with live music. It was a guy on guitar and a girl who played the fiddle and the recorder (not at once time) I think. They both sang as well and it was really great! There was a little bit of Irish dancing going on there, too. When that band was done we went to a couple other pubs and found some Irish people to talk to, which was fun. To our disbelief though, lots of Irish people wondered why we wanted to visit Ireland. They would then tell us they didn’t like it that much (I think mostly because of the not so great weather). I was always under the impression that Irish people loved their country! But apparently I’m wrong.

Our day trip to Glendalough and Kilkenny left the next morning. We all hopped on the Paddy Wagon (oh, yes) and headed south. We saw so many adorable baby sheep in the rolling hills! We all wanted to stop and hold them, but we never did. Our first stop was the ruins of an old monastery in the Wicklow Hills.

We were given over an hour to explore the hills around the area. We started hiking as fast as we could so we could get as far as possible into the big hills/small mountains. It was all so beautiful with the lakes at the bottom of the hills. We stood in awe for too long and realized we were going to be late if we didn’t hurry back! We took a loop around the area and came across a couple sheep and their babies along the way back! We of course had to stop and take some pictures. The closer we got to them the farther they went away from the fence. I tried many things to get them to come back. I called them like I do my dogs with a “baby voice”, I baaed at them, and I told them to sternly come. But in the end, I think they didn’t come to me because they didn’t understand my accent. They all baaed with an Irish accent and so when I baaed at them in my American accent they looked confused and didn’t know how to respond. By now we were really running late and so we began to run the rest of the mile back to the Paddy Wagon. We made it! But one lady did not, and we drove off without her.

We drove through some more beautiful scenery, apparently through parts of where Braveheart was filmed, and ended up by Ireland’s Stonehenge. It was an old burial tomb that consisted of giant rocks on top of one another. Must have taken quite some time to put together. We then went to Kilkenny where we ate, saw the longest cathedral in Ireland and saw the Kilkenny castle. The lovely weather continued.

We arrived at the hostel, made some pasta and bread and then went to a near-by pub to watch Ireland play in a football (soccer) game. We were anticipating a full pub with crazy fans all wearing green! What we found were people casually eating dinner and a few randoms actually watching the game. We grabbed a cider beer, that’s actually quite tasty, and decided to be the dedicated fans Ireland needed. They won in the end (mostly because of our intense focus on the game) and we enjoyed watching the game.

It was there that we decided we were sick of being American. When you say you’re from America people hope you’re from New York and when they find out you’re from Iowa they are disappointed and sometimes uncertain of what that means. Then it’s a series of questions like why are you in Dublin? They find out we’re studying in Belgium. Why Belgium? What are you studying? What does a Communications major mean? What do you want to do with that major? (I specifically hate this question because I have no idea). Etc. Essentially it’s the same questions/conversation topics with everyone you talk to. I decided I wanted to be from Iceland. What do people from Iceland look like? What do they speak? What do they sound like? What’s the capital? I don’t know. And I hoped nobody else knew either. Alison decided on being Columbian, Kelly, who was losing her voice at this point and has red hair, went for being Irish and Katie was from the Netherlands.

We were very anxious to meet people with our new identities and see how it would all play out. Our first chance came on the way out of this pub. We started talking to a group of guys and, naturally, they asked us where we were from. I proudly announced that I was from Iceland! And then I asked where they were from. One of them said they were visiting from Wales because their friend was getting married. The rest began to giggle in the background. After talking with them a bit more and hearing what sounded like Irish accents I realized they, too, knew how to come up with a story on the spot. It was no bachelor party (or stag party as they call it here). They could somehow tell I was not from Iceland right away (odd, right?) and decided to make up a story, too. We moved on to try our newfound identities elsewhere. Unfortunately, we had about the same luck with everyone else. One guy, however, was pretty excited about meeting someone from Iceland! So I fooled at least one person… I think…. It’s just easier to be American though. So I guess I’ll stick with that story from now on.

So our final day was spent sleeping in, then shopping at this wonderfully cute and cheap department type store, Penny’s, and then taking the train to some towns a bit north of Dublin along the coast. Howth was first, and it was a cute coastal fishing village. We walked around their Sunday market for a bit and then walked to the end of the pier where we saw seals along the way! They were so cute! People were throwing fish to them and they started to clap at us when they wanted more! We walked along the shoreline and enjoyed the beauty for a couple hours.

We then headed farther north to Malahide where there was a huge castle. We walked through trails to reach the massive open field surrounding the castle. We took pictures and did cartwheels in the field for a while and then wandered back to Malahide to explore a little. We found out there wasn’t much else to explore. So we went back to Howth to eat a seafood dinner (I had calamari and seafood soup, which were delicious) and then hike up this trail to the lighthouse, which we had found out about as we were leaving Howth the first time. We started hiking in the pitch black and kept assuming we would just come upon a huge light from the lighthouse. We could hear the waves crashing against the cliffs as we walked and knew we were missing out on some gorgeous scenery. We never ended up finding the lighthouse or any resemblance of a huge light for that matter. So our nearly hour-long walk in the dark was purely for exercise in the end.

We were up at 4:30 the next morning and on the Paddy Wagon back to the airport. I came back to town just in time to go straight to my internship and then to a group presentation meeting that night. I spent the rest of the week catching up on sleep, working and planning spring break, which is coming up soon!

I really really wish I could have made it to the west coast or the northern part of Ireland because I hear great things about both! But it just didn't happen this time. I guess I'll just have to go back someday!

New Hair, New Hat, New Tram, New Taste

In other news, I finally ate the infamous mussels in Brussels! My friend, Janie, and I were exploring Brussels and had both never had mussels before so we decided to share a bucket. They were weird looking, but pretty good. That same day I had my first Manneken Pis and Janneken Pis sightings. For some reason Belgians like statues of peeing children. There is also a peeing dog somewhere, Zenneken Pis. I’ll have to find him before I leave.

Mechthild, my host mom, knit me a lovely blue hat! I love it! And it goes well with my new hair cut I think. Yes, I got a Belgian haircut. I had been debating for a long time whether to do it or not. I was like I’ll just get a trim, but instead a got a whole new do! It’s much shorter, much less hair, much less tangliness, much less conditioner used, much less time spent brushing it (it only takes like 4 seconds as opposed to the previous 10 minutes). I think I like it.

Spring has arrived here. Over the last few days warmth has come and flowers have bloomed. I know it’s only going to get better! Also, throughout our time here, along the tram 44 line workers have been putting in a new tramline. Since the beginning of the poject we’ve had glimpses of the progress as we drive by to and from the city, work and class. It’s been interesting and, at times, frustrating because the tram would be slower in that area. But it’s exciting to see the finished product!

The tram today, however is not very exciting. There is what the call “heavy disturbances” because massive amount of people from all over Belgium met in the streets early this morning for a demonstation because the government (oh wait, we don't have one) wants to cut costs or something. Due to the people in the streets, pretty much all the buses weren’t working (which doesn’t really affect me) and many of the trams were much slower (this does affect me). So it took me a while longer to get to class but because I’m just SO dedicated I didn’t skip (and I didn't know it would be that bad. But mostly because I'm a good student).

It seems that at some point every night the two cats, Blair and Jerry, decide to get in a catfight. They growl and attack each other. Blair, always feeling the need to be superior, jumps on top of counters, chairs, anything he can find, so that he can be taller than Jerry and thus appear to have more power. There is never really a winner because before they can get too into it Mechthild shoos one of them into another room or outside. They get along at all other times of the day, though.

One of my classes has about 15 people in it. Of these 15 people, there are about 7 or 8 different nationalities, including German, French, American and Dutch, among others. It’s a class about language use, so it’s interesting to get perspectives from so many backgrounds.

I would also like to say that I am not the least punctual person in the household, believe it or not.

Paris, France

This song was stuck in my head a lot throughout the weekend because I think it’s the only song I know that’s about Paris…

Paris was amazing and cliché and just what I expected, yet so much more. Pretty much wherever you go you’ll find a tourist, people walk around with giant baguettes all the time, there’s plenty of people watching taking place, wine is their favorite and most popular drink, the Eiffel Tower is beautiful.

My friend, Kelly, and I ventured off by bus to Paris with high expectations! This city was definitely the most surreal of all my travels thus far. When we finally exited the metro and got our first glance at one of Paris’s masterpieces–the Arc de Triomphe, it hit us; we were in Paris! It was big a beautiful and I loved it right away. We took lots of pictures at the Arc, as we did with nearly everything we saw, and then realized we weren’t really sure why the Arc was built. I had brought along a handy book about Paris that my host mom had. We opened it up and read a paragraph about the Arc de Triomphe, felt much more knowledgeable, and decided we were now prepared to climb the steps to the top.

The climb was long and we were out of breath due to the drastic change in sea level (at least that’s what we blamed it on), but the view was worth it. This is where we had our first sighting of the Eiffel Tower.

When we got back down we decided to walk down the infamous Champs Elysees. Unfortunately, we realized that it would be more difficult than we thought. The Arc de Triomphe is located in the middle of this giant turn about where traffic never ceases and crosswalks don’t exist. We had followed a group of people through the traffic on the way over but going back across the road we were on our own. We ended up playing a little frogger and made it without being smashed.

We enjoyed a delicious sandwich at a random café and people watched for a little bit. We then set off in the direction the Eiffel Tower! Or so we thought… We decided that of all the things to find in Paris, the Eiffel Tower (ET) would be the easiest, for obvious reasons. This was our one chance to not look like a tourist with our maps out and our mouths open trying to figure out where we were and where we should go. We started walking and walking and walking and then after we had walked for quite some time without seeing the ET we decided it was time to stop trying to be someone we weren’t, embrace our true tourist self, and whip out a map. So we did, we had two, in fact. We assumed we were somewhere near the ET so we started looking for street signs somewhere along there. No luck. We then looked in another area where we were sure we had actually, accidentally wandered off to. No luck. After about a half hour of this confusion, I asked a man with a massive mustache, “Where are we?” (In French of course) and he pointed to the far north of the map- just the opposite place we needed to be. Fail. We couldn’t even find the ET on our own! From then on, the map became our best friend.

We took a metro to the ET and when we finally came upon it we were in awe. It was so big and so wonderful. The only thing we didn’t expect was that it was painted a flat brown color and we both had remembered the ET having a much nicer, brozeish color to it. But we weren’t complaining. We spent a good chunk of time in the area taking lots of pictures of each other and for other people because everyone wants an ET picture! We were pro photographers by the end of it all; we knew all the good angles. For some reason, some people just don’t understand that when we ask them to take a picture of us that we don’t mean just us. We mean mostly get that giant tower in the background and then get us in the bottom corner. But no, some people thought our shoes were the most important part of the picture. Luckily, not everyone thought this way.

Everywhere around the ET there were guys selling mini ET, flying things that light up, and little toy puppy dogs that walk around and bark. Typical ET souvenirs, of course. There were hoards of them, though! They were set up right next to each other, so I don’t really understand their logic. But oh well. The people trying to sell us stuff go rather annoying throughout our stay in Paris because they were at every tourist attraction, and so were we, and so we saw them a lot.

We then walked along the Seine River for a bit, were able to get pictures of the ET from another angle, and went to a contemporary art museum called Musee de Tokyo. It was very… interesting… We tried to interpret it all but I think we just didn’t fully understand it. We walked by the Grand Palace on our way to the metro to Kelly’s friend’s apartment where we stayed for the weekend.

I thought the apartment would be small. But small would’ve been much better than the size of this apartment. You walk in the door and there’s a little bathroom to your right. You go down this tiny hallway, oh, and the tiny hallways is also the kitchen with a sink, a stove top, two cupboards and a mini fridge. It's like 1/3 the size of my kitchen last semester. Then you enter the bedroom that has a single bed for her and her husband. The room is also the dining room, the office, the living room and whatever else. I was amazed. The location wasn’t even near anything touristy and yet it was still so tiny for the whopping price of 850 euro a month! Ridiculous! Kelly and I were curious as to where we would sleep, but they pulled out two mattresses from underneath the bed when the time came. So we all slept right in a row and nearly filled up the room.

Before bedtime though, Kelly and I went to the St. Michael area and ate dinner. There was a giant fountain in the area that was pretty. We had had our backpacks with us up to this point and it felt nice to not have the extra weight. We walked down a restaurant-filled street and a waiter offered us a free cocktail if we ate at his place, so we agreed and sat down. We ate cheese fondue (three kinds of cheese) and potatoes and played the guessing game, “Who’s the Tourist?” It was a fun and pretty easy game and the food was great. We walked around there for a bit longer and headed home for some rest, as we were getting up early to get to the Louvre right when it opened so we didn’t have to wait in line.

We were a little late because sleep was nice and we grabbed a couple baked goods along the way, but we still didn’t have to wait in line. We headed straight for the Mona Lisa, once we bought our ticket! She was nice. Small, protected by bulletproof glass, but nice. We didn’t really know what else we wanted to see and so we went to the starred items on our Louvre map and saw lots of things along the way. Lots of paintings, sculptures, items from long ago. I think things in museums seem to blend together after a while. But it was still a sweet museum! And massive, too! One of the cooler things was the Napoleon Apartments. It was set up like his house (was or was guessed to be) and it was beautiful and luxurious. The colors were rich, the decorations were refined, the wallpaper was cloth and the chandeliers were the biggest I’ve ever seen.

We spent nearly two hours in there and found that the hardest part was trying to get out of the Louvre! We walked around it and saw the glass pyramid and it felt surreal all over again. The pyramid has been in so many movies and it made me feel like I was, too. We then headed towards the Notre Dame via St. Germain Boulevard, which is supposed to be known for it’s cafés and people watching. It’s also supposedly the best place to spot a celebrity (that’s what my book said at least). We didn’t find one though. We stopped at a café and enjoyed our first croque madame, which is the Parisian way of doing a grilled cheese sandwich. It’s meat and cheese in the middle with melted cheese on top and a fried egg on top of that. I loved every bite. I made one for myself a couple days after I got home, too. Another thing I really liked about Paris was that they gave us a giant pitcher of water with every meal we had – for free! I’ve missed free water.

We left the café and headed for the Notre Dame. We followed our usual patter of lots of pictures and then sit in awe for a bit. The Notre Dame was cool, but I felt like the church in saw in Cologne, Germany was much more amazing. The only unique thing about the inside was the intricate and extensive stained glass throughout the cathedral. Otherwise it was just like any other European cathedral, which is still great. We got in line to head to the top to be with the gargoyles. There was a crepe stand nearby (how convenient) and so we got a hot crepe with Nutella on the inside. So delicious! My purse was feeling left out at first, but after a dollop of Nutella fell into it, it was much happier.

It started to get overcast and sprinkle and so we decided that it wouldn’t be the best day for a view from the top of something. Aside from the little bit of rain, we had pretty good weather. It wasn’t always sunny skies, but it was a good temperature and not too overcast. We stopped at a café for some hot chocolate, went home for a couple hours rest, grabbed a cheap bottle of wine and were off to visit the ET at nighttime!

The ET was great during the day, but it was amazing at night! It’s lit up with a golden glow and sparkles every hour on the hour. We thought we had taken a lot of pictures of attractions up to this point, but we went crazy here! We tried every setting on our camera and every angle we could think of. We saw it sparkle twice. I loved it.

After enjoying the radiance of the ET and the wine, we went to the Bastille area. We found a nice looking bar, grabbed a beer and sat down. We were there for a while watching this foursome interact and coming up with dialogue for them. Our version was probably more amusing than what they were actually talking about. We went home relatively early again in preparation for our final day in Paris.

Our first destination of the day was the Catacombs. They are these underground tunnels all throughout Paris. One section is closed off for this tour. Apparently, back in the day the cemetery in Paris filled up and they didn’t know what to do with the bodies. So naturally they took the bones and lined the walls of these underground tunnels with them. It was crazy and creepy but quite interesting. There were so many bones! It was unreal.

After that we went to an outdoor market with Kelly’s friend and husband. They had scarves (I bought one), fresh food, shoes, jewelry, art, random nick-knacks and lots of other things. We decided to buy three kinds of fresh cheese- goat, brei and something else, and a fresh baguette and head for Montmartre. We got there, and ate our delicious cheese and bread and then hung out there for a couple hours. There was a guy who was doing crazy juggling for like an hour! He was so amazing! After he finished Kelly and I went and told him he was really, really good. We chatted for a bit and he gave us his card. You should watch him by either Googleing him or going to his website: http://www.iya.fr/en/iya_traore.php

There was also a guy who was playing guitar and singing and so we sat, along with over 200 other people, and enjoyed his show for a while. Because there were so many people there, some guys decided to buy a couple 6-packs of Heineken and sell them to the crowd! So funny! We then saw the inside of the church briefly and walked down this street that had a bunch of artists working on and selling their art. It was so cute.

We took the metro back home (we became quite familiar with Paris’s metro system in the short time we were there) to grab our stuff and then went to the bus stop to head home. The weekend was wonderful but I was quickly forced back into reality when I got home as I had a test and a 3,000-word paper due along with many hours at the internship. All is peaceful for the moment as I’m outside enjoying the warmth of the sunshine and I head for Dublin tomorrow!

Incomparable

Tonight we had Chinese food from the place across the street. Let's just say it was no Chuong... 

Seeing the Sights

This past week was the dreaded mid-term week. It’s especially awful here because most of the classes consist of a mid-term, a large paper and a final exam. So you pretty much have to do well in everything. Hopefully the tests went well!

Mechthild and I took the afternoon on Friday to go to Leuven, the next town over, and walk around, eat crepes (mine had ice cream and chocolate sauce on it!) and get lost in the city (this part wasn’t planned into our day). The trams were on strike and so I wasn’t able to go into my internship. This time the metro announced that they were going to be on strike so we could be prepared. I think the fact that they announce when they will strike is kind of an oxymoron. The point of a strike is to kind of say that the workers have the power to be in control if they don’t change what the workers want. I think it’s meant to be unexpected and be a nuisance so they have no choice but to agree to your demands. The metro not running is a nuisance, but the fact that they alerted us prior to the strike makes it far less a nuisance because there is time to plan ahead. Also, they are allowed to strike, but only for one day. This, too, coincides with the whole oxymoronness of it all.

I finally made it to the Atomium! It’s one of Brussels main tourist sights. It is an impressive and unique structure. It’s way far away from anything else in Brussels and it’s pretty much the only thing out there worth seeing. My friend, Kelly and I went, took pictures, sat in the warmth of the restaurant and left. We can now check it off the list though.

We then went to the Museum of Music, which was really cool. You get headphones and when you step in front of an instrument in the museum then the music that it makes plays through the headphones. There were so many different kinds of instruments- most of which I have never seen before. They usually resembled something that I was familiar with, such as a guitar or a trumpet but there were so many different variations from different people groups and time periods. I was amazed at some of the instrumental creations! I don’t know how people came up with some of them! I realized how limited my knowledge of instruments is. When I think of instruments I usually think of the basics- the ones I’m familiar with, but there are so many other things that make music! All shapes and sizes and sounds. After my eyes were opened to the various types of instruments that I never knew existed I was briefly inspired to create a unique instrument of my own. That inspiration has faded now...

Mechthild is in Berlin for the week visiting a friend. We’re on our own! She cooked and froze a bunch of food so I think we’ll survive! 

Verbier, Switzerland

I skied in the Swiss Alps!!!! …In jeans… It was so amazing though! I’m really glad I was able to take that trip.  We flew into Geneva, Switzerland last Friday night and rented a car. Sam drove (in a manual car), Ryan worked the GPS (it was in German) and I sat in the back (with all the coats and such). We drove through the mountains and tunnels and were always in awe when we would unexpectedly come across a city’s lights in the valley.

We reached our hostel, which was an old bomb shelter in the early hours. There was nobody else there when we arrived so we were alone in the hostel for the first night, which was a bit creepy. There was also a distinct smell about the hostel that wasn’t exactly pleasing. But it was a bed to sleep in and we all wanted sleep! Sam unfortunately realized when we got there that he forgot to pack his sleeping bag. We found some sheets, hoped they were clean and fell asleep.

The next morning Ryan realized he forgot his gloves. I was feeling good about not forgetting anything too important at that point. We rented boots and skis (with Franks- the Switzerland currency) and walked a couple minutes down the rode to where a there was a gondola lift that took us to the top of the mountain! As we were putting boots/hats/gloves/etc. before getting on the gondola I realized that my gloves had fallen out of my boots at some point. So I ended up being in the same boat as Ryan- no gloves.

At the bottom when we looked up at the mountain we couldn’t see the top, partway through the ride up we were in fog, and once at the top we could see many mountain peaks, a line of clouds and the valley below. It was a beautiful sight! Unfortunately my camera died halfway through the first day, but I still got a lot of great pictures, as did Sam and Ryan.

Sam and Ryan are both great skiers! Before Verbier I hadn’t skied in a couple of years. My family and I have been to Montana and Colorado before on ski trips and so I figured that after a couple times down the mountain then I would be used to skiing again and be able to keep up with the guys. I was mistaken. The slopes seemed steeper and icier than what I remembered past slopes being like. I think that in places in America the slopes are groomed so that they’re mostly flat and even. In Verbier there was powder right next to a patch of icy snow right next to a bump of snow and so it was difficult for me to find a good rhythm of skiing. Sam and Ryan were doing great and I didn’t want to slow them down so I told them to go wherever they wanted to go and we picked a place to meet up later on.

The rest of that day I’m pretty sure I fell at least once every time I went down a slope. Fortunately none of my falls were painful nor did a break anything- bone or ski. I would usually just slide for a really long time until I stopped and then people would look at me and think, “Oh, she’s in jeans. That explains everything.” And they would help me get my skis back on and stand up and such. More people than I expected spoke English, which was good! Thanks to the amazingly nice weather I was never cold! Even though I fell multiple times and didn’t have gloves the sun and adrenaline kept me warm!

We were all exhausted after day one. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant in Verbier, which was tasty and went to bed fairly early and were up again the next morning for some more skiing. I stayed with the guys throughout day two. I was slower than them, and as the runs were all quite lengthy with many forks in the road, they had to wait for me at different points but it was fine I think. Many of the trails we were on were wide enough for twoish skiers and then it would just drop off on the side. I was always extra cautious on these trails for obvious reasons. There was one gondola lift that we took which held over 100 people! It was a little scary.

Our flight left for home at 6am on Sunday. We drove back to the airport Saturday night and attempted (and kind of succeeded) to sleep in our car for a few hours. We then hung out in the airport for a while longer and came home extremely exhausted, but it was well worth the exhaustion.