Whirlwind Trip to Brussels, Day 1

During that first exam week when I did little but study, I decided I needed to go on one last adventure and it didn't take much to convince Molly to join me on a trip to Brussels. We bought the tickets wedneday, took the last of our lecture class finals friday, and left saturday morning. Early saturday morning. We got there sometime around 10, got ourselves a free map before leaving the train station,and headed into the city. It's officially bilingual but luck for us, has a preference for French over Dutch (which is really just random strings of consonants put together). Our first destination was the Grand Place to go to the tourist office and find a hop on hop off style bus tour because we knew almost nothing about the city and only did a little research the night before. While waiting for the bus, we dined on some waffles.


Belgian waffles are amazing and I will be insulted if I see something in the US called a Belgian waffle that is not dense with clumps of sugar in it. The batter is more like dough, sort of like a sugar cookie but into a waffle iron. We ate three over the course of two days and I don't regret it at all. I liked them plain, but here's Molly eating her preferred chocolate variety.


Getting on the bus was really nice at fist because it was cold and rainy and the bus was heated, so we decided to listen to the tour and wait out the rain. But then we had to change to a nasty cold bus with decals blocking the view from some of the windows. We got out at the Antomium, a ginormous iron molecule made for the 1958 world fair. The tour on the bus made us laugh when it stated that the 9 atoms represent the provinces of Belgium, which made it hard to catch the rest of the reasoning behind this random monument, but it also had something to do with nuclear energy and/or the general industrial nature of the era.


Expo '58 brought nations together to restore faith in technical progress despite fears of the atom bomb.


View from the top. They're pretty proud of their elevator which goes at approximately the speed of light (about 22 seconds to get to the top).

After touring the city and the Atomium, we had a late (and long) lunch, after which it started to get dark. Because these adventures are fueled by coffee, we went to one of the Christmas stands near the Grand Place to refuel and checked out the decorations in that area. This pink building served as a pretty good landmark, and sometimes the lights were green instead. I think it was the Hotel de Ville.

Then we stumbled upon the most amazing thing ever - a light show on a building from around the 17th century in the Grand Place. It did a slow songs like Silent Night, and here's a more upbeat one with Pacman. Who thinks of this stuff?

The building on the left is the one with the light show.

You would think all other discoveries that night would be pale in comparison, but we managed to find the city's Christmas monster, "The Beast," right by Saint Catherine's Church. We didn't go in because we were en route to the Christmas village!

It was a bit like the one in Paris with lots of lights and decorated stands, just not as big. Here we are ice skating!

After a long, cold, rainy day, we decided that although we wanted to try Belgian beer, we didn't want to go to a bar and instead stopped in a grocery store and sampled some beer in the comfort of our hotel room after locking the door, getting into our pajamas, and then watching V for Vendetta in bed. Party animals, I know.

Massive Nights

So, I'm a little behind on the blogging. I had two exams this week and went into study mode, barely even leaving my room for a few days. It paid off on the literature exam, but the art history one today was harsh - the material started in the 12th century and ended in the 19th, but the exam seemed a little heavy on a shorter time span and seemed to leave out some important paintings while including some unexpected ones. I usually strive for A's but am content to just settle for passing this (good thing my grades won't transfer-this is the only one for the semester!). Enough of that though, here's a blog to catch up on some fun nights out before I became a hermit.

One of my good friends from school is in Aix en Provence for the semester studying art (I'm a non-French major studying french, he's a non-art major studying art). He came to Paris right before I got here and recently came back with his class of 12, which I got to join for a visit to L'Orangerie, which houses Monet's water lilies and other works.


After the museum, Nick, his friend from high school (his roommate in Aix), and I walked to the Eiffel Tower for some photos. We sent this one of us to our music committee back at school.


Then, it started to rain. His friend left while the two of us walked from the Eiffel Tower to Chatelet, where we got some dinner and ate in front of the Centre Pompidou, then moved on to the Latin Quarter. That's quite a walk, but it was great catching up and luckily the rain didn't last long.

We went to St. Michel, shown here, which has a lot of bars, takeout places for crepes or kebabs, and a few junky tourist shops.

We found a piano bar and sat down just in time to order some beer before the happy hour ended. The background is a bit blurry, but behind Nick, there's a man playing the piano and a woman sitting on it singing. It was fitting of us to choose this place because we work concerts together at school (not so sure we would have booked the evening's performers, but it made for a fun atmosphere). We walked back towards his hotel and parted ways at a metro station - it was a short visit but I'm so glad we got to hang out while we're both over here.

And now for the next night out...Molly's birthday! I already told my parents about where we went and they haven't kicked me out of the house yet, so here we go. There's a bar in the St. Michel area called the Latin Corner. It has mostly female patrons. The servers are male. They wear underwear. Only underwear. Unless sneakers count, because they wear those too. Bras hang from the chandeliers. Leaving your bra = free champagne, but don't worry, we're not that wild!

We had to wait a few minutes before we could get in, then we were lead to the back, where fog and sporadic lighting made sitting down a challenge. Then come the menus, oh boy. Drinks were generally about 12 euro, but we dealt with it because when are we ever going to be in a place like this again? And when we finished, they let us stay a bit longer, rather than some bars that make you feel unwelcome as soon as you finish your drink.

Here's a group shot, minus Kate, who took the picture.

Some of the girls went to dance while others of us stayed with the purses. Here we are trying to embody Beyonce's "Single Ladies"...but then we realized we were all wearing rings. The songs were pretty good (even one from Grease!) and considering some of the creep-tastic male interactions we've had over here, it was fun to be in a mostly female atmosphere, of course with the exception of half naked men carrying drinks around.

And then I was creepy and took photos of my friends on the dance floor from the table.

Christmas in Paris

Last monday, after our literature exam, one of my friends suggested we walk down the Champs Elysees (by the way, this website doesn't let me write accents on things) because it was the first night the Christmas lights would be lit. Of course I was up for that.


I took this near the Arc de Triumphe, right outside the metro stop.


And there it is in all its glory.

Never passing an opportunity for an interactive photo, here I am getting a Christmas present from Mickey. And yes, we did make a stop in the Disney store.

As we got closer to the Place de la Concorde, there were Christmas-y stands with the usual crepes etc and hot wine, candy apples, and some like this with chocolate. No one knew what those blob things were, except me because I am part Danish (on Elisabeth's mother's side of course). I immediately recognized the delectable flodeboller. I love eating these with the Danes and apparently other European countries enjoy them around Christmas, so we each had to get one.

The Christmas village is topped off with a ferris wheel in the Place de la Concorde. It fits in with the historic monuments, right?

And another shot of all the lights, from the other end.

The Eiffel Tower was looking particularly blue that evening.

Adventures in London

Since we had no class on wednesday, Nov 11 (Armistice Day/Veterans Day), a couple friends and I left for London that tuesday after class and came back at the crack of dawn on friday. We had all traveled together in smaller groups, but this time all five of us were together. We wandered around a bit on tuesday night but were upset to find that things were pretty quiet. Except at the hostel, where we checked out the bar downstairs and met one of our roommates, a French guy who enjoyed hearing himself talk. We bailed on that as quickly as possible and went to bed so we could wake up bright and early.
We woke up at 7 and left at 8 each day, starting wednesday with a walk to the Tower of London. Liz, Kate, and Jill went on the tour while Molly and I crossed the Tower Bridge and walked up river a bit. She stopped for a tour of the Globe and I went next door to check out the Tate Modern. Of course, they had some bizarre modern art, but the collection also includes pieces by Monet, Picasso, Matisse, Lichtenstein, and quite a few by Andy Warhol, who I like a lot. I met Molly after her tour and we did some exploring as we made our way back to the Tower.


Recognize this from Harry Potter? The Millennium Bridge is right by the Tate Modern, so this is where we crossed back to the other side.


We were on a mission to find Indian food and passed a place just as it started to rain!


Next on our schedule was hiking it over to Piccadilly Square for a walking tour. The ground we covered in the walk over there alone could have made a good tour!

The parks were amazing.

We couldn't find the tour, which might have been cancelled to to rain or the holiday, but went again the next morning and found the group. Buckingham Palace was on the tour, but here's a photo from when we walked by wednesday night. The queen's flag was flying, meaning that she was home.

London is soooo ready for Christmas. All the restaurants had signs in the window about making Christmas reservations, a lot of places had decorations up, and we even heard Christmas music during one of our many coffee stops. Molly and I got a little excited and the server said we were the happiest people she'd seen all day.

After dinner at a pub, Molly and I headed next door for some cider while the others went to find Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross. I wish I'd gotten some Harry Potter style photos with them! We met back up at the hostel and prepared for another early morning, which started with a walk to Westminster Abbey. Then we went to Harrods, which was extravagance as I'd never seen it before. A guard told us we couldn't come in as a group of 5 and tried to make 2 or 3 of us go in a different entrance, but settled for letting us walk in different directions. We reconvened outside 20 minutes later to catch the walking tour.

Our tour guide, Smith, took us to "play with the guards." Molly and I got so excited about Kate posing for a photo that we each took several shots and she called us creepy.

After the tour, Molly, Liz, and I joined the tour guides and some other tourists for lunch because you get a discount after the tour and Molly and I were able to buy discounted tickets to the Grim Reaper tour of London later that evening. Between lunch and the tour, the three of us had time to walk to the British Museum. Liz left to meet the others at Westminster for a service or something (at which time it was free, rather than an expensive tour) but Molly and I had about an hour to look around and really liked their Egyptian collection. As well as seeing mummys and cool exhibits on how they were preserved, we also saw the Rosetta Stone, no big deal or anything.

The evening tour, on a dark rainy night, included executions gone wrong, ghosts in the Tower (here's the Tower Bridge, from the Tower of London), the plague, and an emphasis on the story of Jack the Ripper, including stops at where his victims were found.

London by night. After the eerie tour, we had an equally scary meal at an Indian restaurant. My vegetable curry was too spicy to even touch, not to mention was nothing like a curry dish I've ever seen and Molly's was on the other end of the spectrum, which she compared to baby food. We were exhausted by this point, so we asked for the check and left onto the cold, rainy streets, where a woman outside of a pub yelled something at us. We knew the direction of the closest metro station (pardon me, the tube) and hightailed it over there before anything crazier happened. I'm pretty sure the guy in the bunk above me actually had the plague, so between that and chatty/unthoughtful roommates, I barely slept before waking up at 4 to get to King's Cross. Despite our zombie-like demeanor and one skipped class, Molly and I still aced our tests that afternoon, proving there's nothing wrong with skipping class in the name of adventuring every now and then!

Chateau de Malmaison

In 1799 while Napoleon was off fighting the Egyptians, his wife Josephine thought it would be nice to buy a new house, which she continued to live in after he divorced her and it is now a national museum. It's not very far from Paris, but visitation doesn't seem to be very high; even though my friends and I went on a Saturday, there were hardly any other visitors there. Regardless, the interior was well-preserved and the museum as a whole was put together nicely, making it a fun afternoon excursion.

I think this photo pretty well-captures the bleak weather we have a lot. I'm not sure if the weather has killed the plants or if maybe they haven't been taken care of as of late, but the once impressive gardens weren't looking so hot.

Of course, there were glorious portraits of Napoleon all over the place.

This was Josephine's bedroom...but not quite. There was another less fancy and more comfortable one for her to really use. The furnishings were interesting to see because a lot of them were very modern looking. Definitely more so than at Versailles or the rooms in Carnavalet.

We walked around the surrounding area, Rueil-Malmaison, but didn't really see much else of interest. At least the colors of fall made everything a little prettier! It was nice to get out of the city, even if only to the suburbs.

When we went back to Paris, everyone else went to see Saw VI, to which I said no thank you. Philippe texted me when the movie ended so I could meet back up with them, but then the other three decided not to do anything afterwards. Standing there in the St. Michel area, not wanting to spend money but not wanting to go home, Philippe and I started to walk. Like many an evening walk before, this one led to the Louvre. I don't think I could ever get bored with seeing this building at night, I love it.

We then walked to the edge of the Tulleries to watch the Eiffel Tower sparkling (which it does on the hour) then see a colorful new light show that lasted a few minutes. Since the Tulleries are locked at night, we walked around the side then towards La Place de la Concorde.

Ever wonder why it's called the city of lights?

We were a little confused about what was going on here, but Philippe realized that the thing on the right is the rock that the character Obelix carries in the French cartoon Asterix and Obelix. There's a display in the Latin Quarter of famous paintings in original format next to ones including Asterix and Obelix characters to celebrate the series' 50th anniversary. So this must be something along those lines, mimicking the obelisk with Obelix's rock on its own pedestal. I'm not sure why the obelisk has that thing around it.

Viaje a Madrid

All of Madrid in one post, I hope you're comfortable.

Friday, like total badasses, Molly, our friend Kate, and I skipped our afternoon grammar class and hopped on a bus to the Paris-Beauvais airport for a flight to Madrid.
Getting to the hostel wasn't too hard, but we were a little worried about what we would find. It was just about the only hostel we could find with three availabilities and there were some pretty terrible reviews of it online. It being Halloween weekend and all, we kind of hoped it would at least be something like a haunted house. Around 9 pm...we approached the building, rang the bell, and I explained in Spanish to the cold voice on the other end that we had a reservation for three. It wasn't as nice as the hostel in Amsterdam, but I don't think it warranted all those bad comments. Although the ones about the gross showers was true, but who has time for that anyway? (I did figure out before this flight, though, that solid deodorant is, in fact, allowed on flights...don't worry about that one)

After dropping off our bags, we hit the town. We picked up a card from a tapas bar at the hostel but didn't like the looks of it and carried on with our search for food. We didn't really figure out the whole tapas thing that night because at the bars we checked out, it looked like you had to order them rather than get them with drinks. Finally, we settled for a kebab place, much like those in Paris, but it was really good and they used a different type of sauce. We considered continuing our bar search after dinner, but opted for ice cream instead. Not only did the waiter let us get ice cream after telling us they were only selling drinks for the rest of the night, but when Molly and I tried to get a photo with their jack o lantern, they let us pick it up and then the waiter even got in the photo. I'm so glad I study Spanish, or this trip would have been a lot more confusing!

Saturday we took Madrid by storm. Those m&m's our roommates gave us on their way out the door in the morning might have helped. Breakfast of champions. We tried to validate it by reasoning that it was Halloween, not to mention all our walking that day.

Molly and Kate, digging in. This was 8 am, but just as well could have been 8 pm...

We started the day with a walking tour from a guide book Kate brought and took lots of photos along the way.

Those shrubs are on the roof of part of the Museo del Prado building. We passed here on the tour and returned at 6 pm for free entrance!

After the tour, we went into the royal botanical gardens and crossed the city to get to the Palacio Real.

We passed through the Plaza Mayor a couple of times during the trip.

Our next goal was paella. We decided to get it for lunch, regardless of price, in order to have a filling and authentic meal. Kate doesn't let us take photos of her, so she became mine and Molly's official photographer. We'll count her fork at the bottom of the vegetable paella pan as her representation here.

Next up, the Reina Sophia, Madrid's modern art museum. For free, I might add (we looked up museums' free times in advance). My friend Laura and I absolutely loved it when we went in high school, so I was really excited to come back. Since we only had one full day, we didn't linger but made sure to see Picasso's Guernica and all of the studies he did in preparation, such as this one.

Then we hit the weird stuff. I like modern art, but not the abstract and out there kind of work, such as this Crystal Times reflexion sin sol/projecciones sin objeto. As far as we could tell, it was a finished exhibit and pretty much a series of empty rooms. We were alone and took some silly pictures to make it more interesting.

Since we still had time before the Prado would be free (heaven forbid we pay), I suggested we check out Atocha because it has a cool rain forest in it. I did not remember turtles, but there were a ton of them too. This is also the station that was attacked in 2004.

After getting jealous of the Madrid railway/metro station with a freaking forest in it, things got worse when we visited the Parque del Retiro. So many French gardens are mega-manicured; you can't walk on the grass and shrubs are shaped like boxes. The Spanish, on the other hand, embrace the whole "natural" aspect of nature and just leave it at that. That waterfall is likely man-made, but look at those nice and normal trees around it!

There were a lot of performance artists around the lake (with boats!) and people selling balloons, like this terribly sad Spiderman. The suit didn't fit him too well, but it looked better than the one with a beer gut we saw the next day in the Plaza Mayor! Kate and I then proceeded to find a nice spot in the grass to crash for about 30 minutes. Afterwards, we got into a huge line for the Prado's free entry, but it went by pretty quickly and we got to see some incridable artwork.

We went for tapas attempt round two in the evening...which sort of worked, but I don't think we got the full effect of going out for Spanish tapas. I think that, however, would have required much more beer consumption. Instead of drinking copious amounts of alcohol, we went to another bar with a stranger! The lesser of two evils, right? We chose the first bar because of its wonderful Halloween decorations and after not getting service at a table and wondering if you have to go to the bar to order, we just found some seats at the bar. Our neighbor over there heard us speaking English and when the game he was watching ended, he joined our conversation - he's a Swede working in Madrid. We haven't been too impressed with young Parisian males, so we were quite pleased to meet someone friendly who didn't say a single creepy comment to us. He showed us another bar nearby that serves a typical local drink consisting of wine with sugar water - he didn't call it sangria, but it had two orange slices in it and I imagine is pretty similar. Walking back to the hostel, the streets were packed! Definitely more crowded than during the day. We could hear people on the streets outside until wayyy into the morning hours. Oh, and there were ladies of the night, if you will, a few streets down too. Kind of like that time I stayed in the red light district in Amsterdam...

We woke up again at 8 on Sunday, checked out of the hostel, and started another day in this beautiful city, absolutely loving the weather. On our way to a market, we kept an eye out for another tradition spanish dish, tortilla espanola (spanish omelet - egg, potato, cheese) for breakfast.

This meal at a little diner was only 3.30 euro! It completely made our day in so many ways - delicious, cheap, the wonderful atmosphere...

We spent the rest of the morning at a market where we each grabbed some good finds before it got uncomfortably crowded. We got lost making our way back to the Plaza Mayor, but everything was okay when we found the bakery at which we drooled while looking at the window display hours earlier. As students in France aka baked goods connoisseurs in training, we had to give the Spanish bakers a chance before we got on the metro and headed back to the airport. We were in such a good mood from the lovely Spanish climate, friendly locals, and vibrant culture that we chatted and laughed our way through the airport downtime and bus ride back to the city (I may or may not have pretty much passed out on the plane).

Paris greeted us with cold weather and rain, but we had expected nothing less.