This past weekend I met Uncle Art in Brussels. He was in town on business, so I took the three hour train ride to meet him after work on Friday. When I arrived, after being let in by the housekeeping staff, he was asleep due to jet lag. We went out to eat at a nice Italian restaurant called Ciao and then talked to Ben on the phone before walking back to the hotel.
I woke up early the next morning and did some of my Geography homework before Uncle Art woke up at 11:30. Talk about jet lag. We got waffles from a street vendor before exploring an antique market. We headed towards the town square, followed by a couple on their wedding day going to take pictures in front of the chapel. The bride was wearing a pink and purple dress that barely resembled what most people would call a wedding dress. After strolling through parts of Brussels that most tourists don't get to see, we headed towards the Grand Musee des Beaux Arts a Bruxelles (otherwise known as the Fine Arts Museum). We had lunch at the museum cafe and then explored the museum for about an hour and a half. Some notable things about our time spent at the museum are the huge cargo elevator with chairs (it felt like we should have been in a Disneyland ride) that we took from eight floors below the ground and the French tour group that Uncle Art latched onto for a couple minutes, even though he couldn't understand a word that was said. We went back to the hotel after our afternoon excursion and watched the Maryland vs. Duke basketball game, a little surreal and slightly typical at the same time to be watching it with Uncle Art in Belgium. If you didn't watch or hear about the game, it was humiliating. We also watched a couple of Australian soap operas before going out again for dinner. We ate at a waffle shop for dinner, so we got sandwiches and then waffles with delicious toppings for dessert. We went back to the hotel for the night and watched Air Force One in English on TV before falling asleep.
The next morning we were awoken by the alarm which rang on the TV and then both headed out to the train station around 9:30. I was home a little after Uncle Art's flight was due to take off and had another fabulously awkward afternoon with my host parents before Sally got home from Amsterdam around 8:30.
Pictures from this weekend and my visit to the Philharmonic Orchestra!
Monday, January 26, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
In Bruges...Sadly Without Colin Farrell
Thursday we had a mandatory field trip (not that anyone objected…) in our orientation groups to one of three locations. My group rode a bus to Nancy, France for the afternoon. This town is just large enough to be worth the trip but not large enough that an afternoon felt like too brief a time spent there. There are also two different architectural styles present. The older Romanesque style from the reigns of two King Louis is in the main square called Stanislas Place. The other more prominent style is art-nouveau that was erected in the late 60s. Unfortunately, the majority of this floral style was destroyed in the 80s before it became protected under French law. We walked from one end of the city to the other with a verbose guide and then had about 25 minutes at the end to run back to the waffle stand and get some of those for dinner.
For the weekend my friends and I decided to visit the semi nearby town of Bruges in Belgium. It’s important to have seen the movie In Bruges with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson to appreciate a few of our decisions on the trip. We visited the bar that Colin Farrell drank at with a mean dwarf, climbed to the top of the Belfry, paid our respects to the vile of dried blood of Jesus, and fortunately no one jumped from the top of the tower while we were there (which by the way would be impossible in real life). We arrived Friday night and at dinner at the hostel before heading out to look at the sights illuminated in the night. We stopped in at an American-style bar and an Irish pub before heading back to the hostel for the night. The hostel was nice considering we paid a mere 14 euro a night for our stay. We enjoyed our free breakfast the next morning before visiting five museums and eating a lunch of cheese, chocolate, and a baguette. The highlight of the museum tour was without a doubt the Museum of Archaeology, which had a dress-up area meant for children but well utilized by my friends and I. In the other museums we visited we saw one of the only Michelangelos outside of Italy, the tomb of Charles the Bold, a bizarre lace exhibit, and a very stately room used to conduct city government business (Aunt Julie, it’s too bad you never got to be Mayor I such a room, in included a photo of it in my albums for this week). Saturday night we went back to the hostel for dinner and went out to the Druid Cellar (the Colin Farrell bar) to check out the atmosphere afterwards. We headed back to the hostel for some live music before being literally rocked to sleep two floors above the DJ. We headed out early on Sunday but only after purchasing some Belgian chocolate for the road.
Check out the pictures and let me know how you’re doing! I’m going to Brussels this coming weekend to meet my Uncle Art, so it’s Belgium for the first two weekends. xoxo, Grace
Nancy Pictures! and Bruges Pictures!
For the weekend my friends and I decided to visit the semi nearby town of Bruges in Belgium. It’s important to have seen the movie In Bruges with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson to appreciate a few of our decisions on the trip. We visited the bar that Colin Farrell drank at with a mean dwarf, climbed to the top of the Belfry, paid our respects to the vile of dried blood of Jesus, and fortunately no one jumped from the top of the tower while we were there (which by the way would be impossible in real life). We arrived Friday night and at dinner at the hostel before heading out to look at the sights illuminated in the night. We stopped in at an American-style bar and an Irish pub before heading back to the hostel for the night. The hostel was nice considering we paid a mere 14 euro a night for our stay. We enjoyed our free breakfast the next morning before visiting five museums and eating a lunch of cheese, chocolate, and a baguette. The highlight of the museum tour was without a doubt the Museum of Archaeology, which had a dress-up area meant for children but well utilized by my friends and I. In the other museums we visited we saw one of the only Michelangelos outside of Italy, the tomb of Charles the Bold, a bizarre lace exhibit, and a very stately room used to conduct city government business (Aunt Julie, it’s too bad you never got to be Mayor I such a room, in included a photo of it in my albums for this week). Saturday night we went back to the hostel for dinner and went out to the Druid Cellar (the Colin Farrell bar) to check out the atmosphere afterwards. We headed back to the hostel for some live music before being literally rocked to sleep two floors above the DJ. We headed out early on Sunday but only after purchasing some Belgian chocolate for the road.
Check out the pictures and let me know how you’re doing! I’m going to Brussels this coming weekend to meet my Uncle Art, so it’s Belgium for the first two weekends. xoxo, Grace
Nancy Pictures! and Bruges Pictures!
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Moien!
Oh hey! Welcome to my blog and the first slightly awkward posting. I'll try to do some highlights of the past week and then update from here on out as I go.
I arrived on Wednesday around noon and my host mother was waiting for me at the arrivals (which I was not expecting, considering I had zero return contact from her beforehand) and greeted me with the typical three cheek kisses. She speaks very little English and my host father speaks even less, in addition to having poor French speaking skills. I suffered through the rest of the day until 6 pm with no sleep. By the time I went to bed I had been awake for around 32 hours straight.
Thursday we had orientation activities and we mainly spent the day getting lectured. My groups had the afternoon off, so I journeyed to the BiergerCenter in Luxembourg City to become a registered occupant of the city. My new friends and I met up with the full-year students and went to the Grunde (the lower section of the city in the bottom of the valley/fortress). Once there, we ate dinner of kebabs (called SNACKS here and which are essentially chicken versions of gyros) and went to the English Pub followed by a shots bar called Fire & Ice. We still managed to make it to bed around 9:30 and completely exhausted.
On Friday, we toured Luxembourg City with a guide and I learned everything you would never want to know about the banks, which are abundant in this country. Luxembourg, by the way, is about 999 square miles, a little smaller than Rhode Island. After touring the city we were transported to the WWII military cemeteries outside of town. There we saw the American and German graves. It was interesting to see the two and compare them. For instance, the American cemetery was much more grand and each soldier had his own marble gravestone. The German cemetery, on the hand, had four soldiers for each grave and a massive grave for 4,000 unknown soldiers at the center. After traversing the graveyards in the bitter cold we found the absolute best chocolaterie in Luxembourg across from the Grand Ducal Palace. We got hot chocolate that was to die for!
Saturday we woke up for more orientation activities and lectures. We ate lunch at an IB Luxembourgish High School in the town of Diekirch. Afterwards we went to a WWII museum and a Vesper service conducted by monks at a monastery on the top of a hillside in rural Luxembourg. Sunday was pretty lame because we were supposed to hang out with our host families but ours evacuated the house early in the day and left us there on our own. My housemate Sally and I ate brie and bread for two meals that day. Safe to say, we're pretty sick of it now.
We started classes yesterday and I still have two more this afternoon. So far so good, but we shall see what happens. On Thursday afternoon we have a field trip to Nancy, France. My friends and I are headed to Brugge, Belgium this weekend. I would love to hear from all of you who suffered through reading the entirety of this not so brief posting. I miss you and check out the pictures!
I arrived on Wednesday around noon and my host mother was waiting for me at the arrivals (which I was not expecting, considering I had zero return contact from her beforehand) and greeted me with the typical three cheek kisses. She speaks very little English and my host father speaks even less, in addition to having poor French speaking skills. I suffered through the rest of the day until 6 pm with no sleep. By the time I went to bed I had been awake for around 32 hours straight.
Thursday we had orientation activities and we mainly spent the day getting lectured. My groups had the afternoon off, so I journeyed to the BiergerCenter in Luxembourg City to become a registered occupant of the city. My new friends and I met up with the full-year students and went to the Grunde (the lower section of the city in the bottom of the valley/fortress). Once there, we ate dinner of kebabs (called SNACKS here and which are essentially chicken versions of gyros) and went to the English Pub followed by a shots bar called Fire & Ice. We still managed to make it to bed around 9:30 and completely exhausted.
On Friday, we toured Luxembourg City with a guide and I learned everything you would never want to know about the banks, which are abundant in this country. Luxembourg, by the way, is about 999 square miles, a little smaller than Rhode Island. After touring the city we were transported to the WWII military cemeteries outside of town. There we saw the American and German graves. It was interesting to see the two and compare them. For instance, the American cemetery was much more grand and each soldier had his own marble gravestone. The German cemetery, on the hand, had four soldiers for each grave and a massive grave for 4,000 unknown soldiers at the center. After traversing the graveyards in the bitter cold we found the absolute best chocolaterie in Luxembourg across from the Grand Ducal Palace. We got hot chocolate that was to die for!
Saturday we woke up for more orientation activities and lectures. We ate lunch at an IB Luxembourgish High School in the town of Diekirch. Afterwards we went to a WWII museum and a Vesper service conducted by monks at a monastery on the top of a hillside in rural Luxembourg. Sunday was pretty lame because we were supposed to hang out with our host families but ours evacuated the house early in the day and left us there on our own. My housemate Sally and I ate brie and bread for two meals that day. Safe to say, we're pretty sick of it now.
We started classes yesterday and I still have two more this afternoon. So far so good, but we shall see what happens. On Thursday afternoon we have a field trip to Nancy, France. My friends and I are headed to Brugge, Belgium this weekend. I would love to hear from all of you who suffered through reading the entirety of this not so brief posting. I miss you and check out the pictures!
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