Fall Break '10: Luxembourg

Hello everyone! I should be better at updating, but alas, I'm lazy. I also just came back from Belfast, which was a very boring trip. But more on that later.

So, anyway, on the 19th Anna, Stephanie, and I took a train to Luxembourg City. It was cold and rainy there, but luckily the hotel was right across the street from the station. Also, French and German are spoken in Luxembourg, so once again I could get by very easily. We checked into our hotel, which was the nicest we've been in so far, and set out sight seeing.

First picture in Luxembourg!

We walked around for a bit, and decided to go into a museum because it had started raining hard. It was a museum on the history of Luxembourg, which wasn't that interesting. The most interesting exhibit was about teenagers and their culture. They focused on the music, clothing, sex, personal identity, language, etc. of adolescents.

Afterwards we set out again to explore the outside. There's a very scenic area with castle ruins and cliff over looking parts of the city. The buildings were so classical European, yet in the background you could see modern skyscrapers.

Luckily it got sunny out, but not for long. We had a map that had all the places we could visit. What we really wanted to find was The Three Towers, which at the time I had no idea what they were, I just followed Stephanie and Anna. There were some places we didn't know how to get to and when we tried to find a path it would just lead us into private property. Then it started hailing, then raining. I pointed out a random path and we just took it to see where it lead us.

=)

Consulting a map

Hail!

Eventually we walked into a forest, which lead us to a museum of modern art, which lead us to what we assumed were the three towers. It looked like it was part of castle, but they had built classrooms or something on the inside. Really, all we did was walk around, but there was so much to see as well.

Three Towers?

We started heading back to our hotel because it was getting dark. For dinner we stopped at Quick Burger, which is a European fast food chain, and went back to our hotel. Watching TV was amusing. Only CNN was in English, but everything else was in German and French.

The next day we were woken up to sounds of construction. It wasn't that bad because we were waking up early anyway, but the hotel manager apologized and said he'd leave us something. We walked around in the city centre looking for souvenirs. We went into a bookstore and I bought the first book in the Tin Tin series. Tin Tin is a  comic book series from Belgium about a reporter named Tin Tin and his dog snowy who go all over the world. It's in French, but I found it in the young adult section so I should be able to handle the reading level. Before we left France a I bought a volume of Dragon Ball Z in French :)

I also bought a pretty glass necklace in a German store. While we were walking we saw the Royal Family in their car pass by. The palace is right in the city centre. There were a bunch of tourists outside the palace, waiting to get a picture of the prince or king. Stephanie bought a postcard of his face because they had postcards of the royal family.

The Royal Palace

We stopped for hot chocolate and cake in a little cafe. You choose the type of chocolate you want; it's attached to a wooden spoon, and they give you hot milk. All you do it put the chocolate in the milk and it melts, giving you extremely delicious hot chocolate. The servings of cake were huge, so we were all sugared out. Once it stopped raining we went exploring in the areas we haven't been to. There wasn't much left to see. We did found the Three Towers, because what we saw the day before wasn't. The real ones...not as great.

Apparently these were the Three Towers...

By 4 or 5 pm we had seen everything there was to see. So we went back to city centre. All the shops close pretty early, like 5 or 6 PM. Anna and Stephanie wanted to try the local beer, so we went to a pub. It was 2 euro a pint, which is waaaaaay cheaper than any pint you can buy in Dublin. For dinner we ate at Pizza Hut, which was more like an Italian restaurant than the normal take-out place in the States. We all went to bed because we were catching a train to Amsterdam the next day!

Remember, check out the full album on Facebook to see all the pictures!

Fall Break '10: Paris: Effiel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Pére Lachaise Cemetery

Hello everyone. So continuing my post from before: after leaving the Louvre we walked around the area, getting lunch and exploring the Louvre gardens. The Obelisk and Arc de Triomphe was a good distance away, but we actually walked towards the Effiel Tower instead.

The Obelisk

Kasey took this. The Effiel Tower is in the background!

This was built as a hospital for wounded soldiers during the reign of King Louis

The Effiel Tower is so beautiful, yet seeing it was so surreal. It's such an Paris icon, and there I was right in front of it. When we got close by it was just starting to light up. And every hour, it sparkles! It was so amazing.

Sparkle!

Before going to the Effiel Tower we went for dinner at a pretty pricey restaurant. I tried steak tartare for the first time. It's literally raw meat stuffed with all sorts of onions and seasonings. It kind of freaked me out eating raw meat, but apparently only the outside of meat is unhealthy to eat. It ever occured to me, because you could totally eat a hamburger that's bloody on the insides. Also, I wanted to try something new. After dinner we walked back to the Effiel Tower. You can pay to go up to the top and see all of Paris at night. It was amazing.

On the elevator to the top

After the Effiel Tower we called it a day. The next day, Monday, was our last full day in Paris. I spent the day with my friends Anthony and Paulo. That morning Paulo and Anthony needed to buy train tickets to Amsterdam, and I also needed to find where the train station was, so we asked for directions and walked to one of the stations. There were two: Gare du Nord and Gare du l'Est.

By the way, did I mention Paris has awesome graffiti?

Space Invader! This should look familiar if you've seen the documentary Exit Through The Gift Shop

After discovering train tickets to Amsterdam would be twice as much the next day because the Monday trains were canceled, Paulo and Anthony had to resort to taking the bus. So they bought their bus tickets, and we took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe! The arch is huge. Think of the Washington Square Arch, but bigger. Actually, the Washington Square Arch is based on the Arc de Triomphe. The resemblance is obvious.

Anthony, Me, and Paulo

We didn't stay there long. I would've loved to walk down the avenue Champ-Élsyéés, but the three of us really wanted to visit the cemetery Pére Lachaise, which was going to close at 5 pm. So we took the metro there. Pére Lachaise is a famous cemetery because there lots of famous people buried there, notably Oscar Wilde, the painter Eugene Delacroix, the composer Chopin, singer Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison. The cemetery is huge and probably one of the most beautiful cemeteries I've been to, as morbid as that sounds. We visited Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaf, and Jim Morrison

Oscar Wilde's tomb, covered in messages and quotes by fans.

It's traditional for girls to kiss his grave with lipstick on.

Edith Piaf's grave

The last grave we visited was Jim Morrison's grave. I'm a little of a Doors fan, and so this was the highlight of my day. His grave is barricaded off because so many people have defaced is and stolen headstones.

This nearby tree was covered in quotes and lyrics

Morrison's grave

Me, Anthony, and Paulo

Those were the last of the pictures I took. That night Paulo and I went back to Notre Dame so Paulo could see it. We had dinner with Anthony and Paulo's friend Jill at a restaurant. I splurged on a 16 euro three course meal and tried duck in orange sauce for the first time. So yummy! I also had crême brulé for dessert and it was yummy. The last highlight of the night was meeting with my French friend Francine. We went to an Irish pub (still very French though haha) and got drinks with her.

I was very sad to leave Paris. On the morning of the 19th Stephanie, Anna, and I took a train to Luxembourg. But if I ever were to become an ex-patriot, I'd totally move to Paris.

To see all my photos from Paris check out my Facebook =)

Fall Break '10: Paris: Notre Dame, Sacré Coeur, Louvre

Hello everyone! Sorry I haven't updated sooner. I was busy with a paper and just generally tired. But, I will update as much as I can. This weekend everyone is going on a day trip to Belfast in Northern Ireland. Should be interesting...

Anyway, so on the 16th I left for Paris at 6:30 AM. We arrived at the airport around 9 AM-ish (Paris and the other cities were 1 hour ahead of Dublin) and took a bus from the airport to the city, then took the metro to our hotel. Thankfully Kasey knew where we were going. Lemme just say that Paris is beautiful and my new favorite city. It reminded me so much of New York. And the metro makes life so much easier, I don't have to walk 30 minutes just to get some where like in Dublin. And it's so much more diverse than Dublin.

 The first place we went to was Notre Dame. It's one of the well-known cathedrals in Paris, and it's where the movie The Hunchback of Nore Dame takes place. It's one of the most beautiful churches I've ever been to. I went to a Notre Dame in Montreal, I think that was a smaller version compared to this. You can pay 5 euro to go to the top where the bells are.

Notre Dame

There were beautiful stained-glass windows. Too bad my camera didn't take good interior pictures...

Luckily for me I know French pretty well. It was exciting to test my French out and I managed to do very well. I can understand and read pretty well too. That's why I would love to live in France. My French would get better! The next place we went to was jardin du Luxembourg. There was a huge palace surrounded by a beautiful garden.

Luxembourg Palace

After walking around the garden for awhile we decided to head out for dinner while looking in various book stores (le librarie in French). We reached this very touristy street filled with restaurants and souvenir shops. I bought The Little Prince postcards to mail back to my friends and family. We ate at a restaurant which we paid 10 euro for a 3 course meal. I tried French onion soup for the first time, followed by steak and fries (fries come with almost anything) and a dessert. After that we called it a day and went back to our hotel.

The next day we went to another cathedral named Sacré Coeur (Sacred Heart). In was right in Montmartre where the movie Amelié takes place. It was another beautiful church, but we weren't allowed to take pictures inside.

Sacré Coeur

Montmartre

So, after all that our friend Paulo met up with us and we all took the metro to the Louvre! It's always been my dream to go there ever since reading the Da Vinci Code haha. The Louvre is like the Metropolitan Museum of Art in Manhattan. Lots of classical paintings and sculptures. And, of course, it has the Mona Lisa and other Da Vinci paintings. When we got there we had to wait on a long line in the cold and go through security before actually getting in. We only had 2 hours to walk around, which rally isn't enough to explore more than one wing in that huge museum. Normally classical art bores me, but the huge paintings and sculptures amazed me.

Entrance to the Louvre

 

 

Isn't it amazing that someone painted this???

The Mona Lisa! Isn't she tiny?

Another Da Vinci painting

Winged Victory

Venus De Milo

After our two hours Paulo and I went into the museum gift shop. I bought a little notebook with the Winged Victory on the cover as well as The Little Prince from the children's bookstore. I love The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince en français), it's one of my favorite French stories. Since my reading level isn't too advanced, I read children's books in French. Hopefully I can improve my reading comprehension as well!

I have lots more pictures and things to share. Just so I don't spam so many pictures in one post, I'll split my Paris travels in two posts :)