Our first weekend adventure...part 1

Well, today was another early day, but for an especially exciting reason!!! We are headed to PARIS this weekend!

Rose early to make sure I was all ready to go. Angelina had to head out earlier but I had some extra time so I ran around on the hills in our neighborhood. Preferred to do loops than venture into the nearby trails, because they seemed too creepy in the dark (the sun rises very late here). Afterwards I was SO glad I made this decision because Alex told me that his host family told him that he can go in the trails in the dark “if he wants to die.” I’m sure that at dawn there are a lot less serial killers out there than in the Luxembourgish forests than there might be in late evening, but I am glad I didn’t risk it!

A weekend in Paris takes a surprising amount of baggage (when travelling to a hostel one must bring shower shoes and a towel which both take up a lot of room).

Here’s what our itinerary for the weekend is looking like…

Depart: Friday 31 January at 1:11PM.

Arrive: @ 3:20PM.

Staying at: Montmartre Hostel (close to Sacré Coeur)

Friday evening: Drop things off at the hostel, see Montmartre!

Saturday morning: Explore the Louvre

Saturday afternoon/evening: Go to the Catacombs!

Sunday morning: 9AM – time to go see Versailles!

Sunday afternoon: 2PM – tickets to ascend the Tour d’Eiffel.

Sunday evening: Arrive back home in Luxembourg City.

Let’s just say this morning of travel got off to a bit of a bumpy start for us…  we didn’t have to leave terribly early (class was at 10:45AM and we hoped to catch a 9:50 train there, but were taking an 8:53AM bus to the station to validate our Eurail passes for the train ride to Paris) but somehow chaos ensued.

We knew this afternoon would be a rush, because our class ended at 12:00PM and we needed to catch a 12:18 train to be back in Luxembourg for our 1:11 train to Paris. We asked our student advisor (who not only attended Miami, but did this program herself a few years ago!), and she said it would be more than fine to plan on this. Since the weekend is so short, it’s important to us to maximize our time (and the cost we’re paying for back-and-forth tickets with our Eurail). Anyways, timing would be essential.

Everything was going smoothly until we arrived at the train station when Alex asked, “Did you fill out your Eurail Pass?”

My answer was something like, “EURAIL PASS?!?!?!?! $&^%*&#”

Needless to say, I’d forgotten it. I was so wrapped up in making sure I had enough weather-appropriate clothing, my passport, and cash from the ATM that I forgot the whole purpose of going to the train station early. I remember last night having gone over and over in my head about remembering my passport, and I completely forgot my ever-important (and expensive) Eurail pass – the whole way we are getting to Paris!

So, we hopped back on the train (the 15, which is ours, pulled up about 3 minutes after this little crisis was realized). It took about 5 minutes to get back home and I hoped to catch the 9:23 bus BACK to the station. It was already 9:16. If we didn’t validate our tickets and make the 9:50 bus, we’d be late to class and lose points to our grades. When we pulled to my stop, I about FLEW off the bus and ran to my house, leaving Alex with all of our bags. I skittered all the way to our 3^rd floor apartment and grabbed the pass, and ran all the way back down. I don’t think I took a single breath this whole time. I looked at my watch: 9:25. Yet I wondered if there still might be a chance…

I crossed the road back to the bus stop, and like a shining beacon of salvation, the number 15 rounded the corner. It was 2 minutes late – all the better for us (otherwise we’d have to wait another 15 minutes and certainly not get on the ever-important 9:50 train!).

Finally we arrived to the train station with about 13 minutes to spare. This should’ve been enough to validate the pass, and get on our train to the Chateau for class. We gathered our things to get off the bus and as soon as we approached the door, it SLAMMED ON US. No one reacted – neither driver nor by-standing passengers. I had put my hand in the door thinking it would have a sensor and open like on an elevator – but no. Squished fingers.

The next stop was a 3-minute bus ride away. Seething, we finally debarked the bus and RAN back to the train station. Good thing we’re both athletic. That was tricky with heavy backpacks!

At 9:41 we entered the train station at last. We validated our tickets quickly but still didn’t know if we could make it…it was 9:46 by the time we could go and we realized the entrance to the main platform was (of course) under construction. Again, we ran through the station and towards our platform.

Low and behold, our train was still there and we made it on time to class. The morning was a bit too exciting for my liking though.

Our experience getting on the International Train involved far less excitement. All we had to do was get off our train arriving from the school and walk through to the proper platform. We did so with several minutes to spare – no problem. We found ourselves sitting across from an older Frenchman. He was very friendly and spoke English very well (we spoke to him in French and he responded in English).

Like many French people, this gentleman works during the week in Luxembourg and comes home for the weekend in Paris. He was very kind and interested in our studies and our university. As we passed through French cities (it took only 10 minutes before we were in France!) he pointed out the old architecture. He suggested some things to do in Metz, which we passed through as well. It’s so amazing to have a whole new country at our fingertips.

I pulled out my computer (to write this entry in fact!), our new friend saw my “US ROWING” bumper sticker. As it turns out, he is a rower too, and he is planning to row on the Seine with his wife in the morning! Imagine that! I’m glad we had the pleasure of meeting him – I love that about trains!

This is my first time on the TGV. So far, I really enjoy it. These trains are incredibly fast – reaching 300km/hour, or about 180 miles. We ventured to the dining car to check it out and I was really surprised how nice it is! Sort of like an actual restaurant! It’s a bit “chèr” but I like knowing it’s there. Didn’t get anything this time but maybe next time for a treat.

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Goodness, this post has so many parts! It's been quite a long day! Now I'm writing from the hostel in Montmartre! When we got off the metro (which we took from the TGV) we were a bit lost for awhile but after asking about 98734892 moms with children for direction we finally found our way to our hostel. I'll have to add some more photos of that tomorrow but it's not bad. It's not terribly clean seeming but for just two nights and such great experiences it's more than worth it.

View from the hostel

We dropped off our stuff and left the hostel after about 20 minutes. We wanted to adventure! By that time it was already about 5:30. The first thing we did was something we'd spotted when we were lost... Crèpes from a street vendor! He was also running a carousel for the local school children. It was adorable!

I made Alex document this cool car we saw as we were walking up to the Cathedral.

We finally got up to Sacré Coeur and saw the beautiful cathedral and the breathtaking view from the city. Quite literally - I could not breathe!

Founiculaire (we walked)

The view

View inside the cathedral 

Trying to find a better view of the Eiffel Tower we wandered into a touristy little part of Montemartre and ended up making a few purchases (a scarf for Alex and a hat for me) and then stopped at a little bistro where we sat outside (under a heated lamp!!!) and people watched.

Kitty wanted to eat with us at the restaurant.

Walking back to the hostel was a little scary. Two scary (male) street vendors literally cornered us and wrapped a string around Alex finger (though we were yelling "no" and walking briskly away). There were lots of people on the street but these two started making a simple string bracelet on Alex's wrist and talking to us. They gave me one too, and of course kept asking for more and more $. Eventually we both made it clear that we had NOTHING (though it was just hidden elsewhere) and only lost a few euros. It was really frightening being cornered though. We both expected stuff like this but it's hard to react when it happens to you.

This is how food delivery works here! All on bikes with boxes. Same in Luxembourg!

We ended our evening by getting some pasta for Alex and trying to use the wifi in the hostel! Tomorrow should be quite a packed day, and an adventure as well!

Life Abroad.

With all of my commuting, courses, and adjustment, I haven’t yet had much time to do a decent post about the basics here in Luxembourg. Mostly they’ve been shorter in word content and full of pictures! I will try to do at least one “wordy” post per week and keep the rest of the days coming with pictures and shorter anecdotes.

So, to start off I will cover the basics of my daily existence here in Luxembourg – who I live with, how I eat, courses, and how I communicate.

Host family: I live with a “host-mother” called Monique, who lives alone except for her dog Kalinka, and is divorced. She has a son, Alex, slightly older than me, who’s attending school in London (and whom I will probably never meet). There's another son, who has a local hotel called Hotel Carlton, which is right across from the train station. She works there 1-2 mornings per week. She also has a daughter, Barbara, who is 30-something and has a 5-year old daughter of her own. So, Monique is on her own and has been hosting students with the Miami Luxembourg Exchange program for 8 years. She does every fall and spring, so that really adds up! She’s really great though – extremely accommodating and present when you need her to be, but also leaves us alone when we need to be. Sometimes a couple days pass without seeing her at all, simply because our schedules conflict, which is completely fine!

Living situation: I live with 1 roommate – Angelina - in Monique’s home, which is located in Luxembourg City. As I mentioned, this is a hustling and bustling city center; maybe not as intense as America’s NYC or DC, but a busy city all the same. We are a bus ride and a train ride away from the Chateau, which is in Differdange and is where all of the courses are taught. All together, the commute takes about an hour. Now that we’ve been here for a week, we’re realizing that we need to work on our assigned reading during this time – otherwise it’s 2 useful hours per day that gets sucked away! Luckily, now we’re comfortable enough to sit down and get into an assignment during this time.

I get around on train and bus for free in all of Luxembourg by using this Jumbo Pass, which was distributed to me through the school.

Eating: My eating here is essentially the same as at home – I eat the same things! Not really because of being narrow-minded and not wanting to branch out, but because it’s basically the same as what is offered at home. Normally at home, I abstain from large quantities of dairy and bread, do not eat red meat, and only occasionally eat fish or poultry, and eat a lot of eggs and chocolate. The only thing that’s been a little bit culturally “unusual” here is my lack of bread consumption – it’s definitely a very important breakfast food. When I told Monique that I wouldn’t normally eat bread, she ran around the city trying to find all sorts of gluten- free alternatives. She presented me with a gluten-free loaf, which I do nibble on a bit everyday. Even still, I normally start the day here with a banana and peanut butter (which I brought from home) and a small cup of coffee (which Angelina is sweet enough to brew every morning). I even found my almond milk and rice milk available here, which I wasn’t sure about!

Monique provides breakfast and we are given lunch at the Chateau four days a week. Sometimes the food is very good there, and sometimes it’s questionable. I always bring lots of fruit to snack on in case it’s the latter. We’ve also begun cooking at home and saving money by going to the Supermarché rather than restaurants.

Courses: For the most part, I am studying French, business, and history here. Some of my courses are from Miami teachers from Oxford, and others of the professors have only ever taught here. All of my professors are highly educated, male, and very passionate about their work. One difference from Oxford is that there will be A LOT of reading of history books – not textbooks, but memoir sort of books that one might be inclined to read on their own. Some of them are very dense, others are more interesting. I think the schoolwork will take longer to get done than in Oxford, because it does include heavy reading and essay writing, true to European educational form.

We get home everyday between 8:00 and 10:00PM. I did not expect this… they really keep us busy at the Chateau. On Monday and Tuesday evenings, we had supplementary lectures to attend, which is why we had to stick around. By the time we get home, we’re exhausted, since most mornings we are awake at some point between 5:30 and 7:00AM. I’m hoping that within the next few weeks, things settle down a bit.

On the bright side, Angelina, Alex, and I all have only 1 class on Wednesdays, which doesn’t meet until 3:30PM. Even now, this is marvelous, but in 8 weeks this class will be over – it’s a sprint course! That will leave Wednesdays completely free for us to explore Luxembourg. Since many of our weekends will be spent traveling – either on our own accord or with Study Tours – I’m glad to know that we have this day free to keep learning about this wonderful place that we get to live. Most evenings when we get home, it’s dark and everything is closed. It will be great to get to spend time during the day taking our own “field trips.” I really look forward to this.

We may return to the Luxembourg American Memorial Cemetery for one of our "field trips."

Communication and Language: I’ve always been a bit baffled by the language set-up in Luxembourg…should you address someone in French? English? German? Or Luxembourgish? Obviously I only am able to attempt two of the above, but in Luxembourg everyone is educated in all of those languages. It seems that you can address anyone in English and they will respond accordingly, but for the most part I’ve been using French, which is fine too. Sometimes someone will begin speaking to us in Luxembourgish, and I have to ask for “Français.” In the past week, I know that my language skill has developed already, simply because I’ve been forced to use it practically. I hope that I’ll be very confident in my French when I return home at the end of the program in May.

To communicate locally, I use this tiny (and fossil-like) cell-phone, which all students paid for and were given by the school, and when I have Wifi I can FaceTime and Skype at home. Mostly (because of the time difference), I email. Of course, the blog helps too =]

Cooking at home and some running!!!

I thought the train station looked so pretty at night...

Our host-mom gave us so much orange juice!! 

Yesterday Alex kept saying he "needed to eat some meat" so I found this chicken recipe and whipped it up. My first time making chicken came out pretty well! 

This morning was the first really sunny day, and we squeezed a run in! YAYYYY made my day. It was my first run here and after 1 week off I was excited to get the air pumping through my lungs again! If I keep running with Alex I sure will have to get speedy! The hills here were rough but it was so beautiful it didn't matter. I did 4.98 miles with Alex and finished the final .2 on my way home. 5 total miles in Luxembourg felt really good :)

The pathways we ran on were so pretty!

Blue shoe twins

Fly-fishing, Dad??

Not sure what this is but it's p. cool.

Behold! The Luxembourg ish palm tree!

I am continuing my chocolate-after-every-run tradition while I'm here...

After our run, Alex, me, and my roommate Angelina made brunch! We didn't have class until 3:30PM so we whipped up some scrambled eggs with mixed veggies, muffin, and fruit (and mushrooms of course). This was the result!!! (This was all of the food, not just one person's plate!)

Forgotten pants and Alex's Movie Digest.

MOIEN everybody! Today started at 5:45AM (I was talking to my friends in the United States when I woke up...they had not gone to bed yet!) and we hopped on the train to get to the Chateau for our first day of classes. Somehow waking up early doesn't feel too bad...I remember the dread of waking up for 6AM rowing, but this is not the same at all!

Last week on the plane Alex discovered the "movie digest" feature on my camera... in this setting it takes a few seconds of video before you snap each photo! Loved how it turned out, hopefully we can get memorable clips like this for all of our little trips!

On Mondays I don't have a class until 1:45 after lunch, but part of my reason for coming so early to the Chateau was so I could run around while I'm here! I really want to do a run to familiarize with Differdange, which is where the Chateau is. I live in the city and am getting well-acclimated there but here is a little more unfamiliar still.

I lugged everything here to run and was really looking forward to it... but realized when I got here that I forgot PANTS! I nearly cried, especially after dragging my running shoes and warm clothes here for running. I briefly contemplated running in my jeans but that was going to be a bit much, even for me. I'm still bummed. :( Thanks for listening to my venting.

On the bright side, I got to leave my bulky running shoes in a locker and convinced Alex to run with me between classes tomorrow. YAYAYAYAYAY. We are going to try to search for the local hiking trails.

When we went to Cactus last week I picked up a boca prize for today... they sell my fave Starbucks treat on the shelf here! Coffee here is MUCH smaller...this is probably ½ - ¾ of the size of a tall Starbucks drink. The coffee cups in cafés here are half the size of ones in America. People here value taking their time and their rest - and end up needing way less caffeine! 

My special "first day" treat :)

On my walk today I found a gnome. 

Hanging in the garden

I've given up on waiting for light to take a good picture of the castle. I've pretty much accepted that it's always going to be dark here.

Castle picture (not the best photography).

Another random tangent...the clementines here are DELICIOUS!!! So fresh and sweet tasting, yum.

Did I mention before that this speculoos>Nutella??? LOVE THIS STUFF (but not as much as PB). When thinking of little things I'll want to bring back the the US, this makes the list.

Castles and Wineries and "Grunde."

Yesterday was yet another jam-packed day in our Integration process. We started out by having a morning lecture at the Chateau, and then headed to a local school to learn about the local school systems. Afterwards came the fun part… we each split off into a few different groups and went to different sights. 

My group went to the Chateau de Vianden, which has been standing since something like 900AD. I LOVED it. Not only did it have beautiful old architecture, but it was also built into a mountain and looks down onto the city around it. It was breathtaking. Seeing such old structures is really amazing…and I can’t help but wonder how long building such a castle would’ve taken during those times.

I also saw a beautiful lamppost… I like lampposts a lot :)

Also saw a cool log cabin!

I kept wondering about things like how people could ever stay warm in such a castle and how they would manage not to get lost (like we did…).

Later on we went on a tour of a winery called Domaines Moselles . Apparently it’s the oldest winery in Luxembourg. The man who must own it (or at least runs it) gave us the tour, and was very funny. Though this winery mostly makes white wine, he told us that actually ALL grapes make white wine. For red, you have to use the skins. Back when the winery first was started up (he said something about 2000 years ago???) they could only make white but later got the means to make some reds. 

Finally we headed back home and made a little dinner in our apartment.

This morning our host-mom took us all around Luxembourg City to show us her favorite super markets. She showed me one “bio” market that sells alternative health-foods like gluten-free foods and things like that. Another was more like your classic American grocery store.

As we were driving around it struck me today that I’m living in a big, hustling-bustling city. It might not quite be on the same level as some place like NYC but it sure has that fast-paced, intense feel to it. After living in Oxford for the better part of the last year and a half, this is quite different! I love it though. Good vibes. I love the public transportation and the fact that it can get you EVERYWHERE. I’ve used the train quite a bit now and I really love the long train-ride to the Chateau. There’s something really pleasant about riding around and not worrying about anything. I like the rapids in Cleveland, but this is so much better without scary people and crazy bumps during the ride. A lot of people here do use the public transportation, but surprisingly it’s only about 20% who use it consistently! Gas is so cheap here that many people prefer to use cars.

Speaking of which, being a pedestrian is DANGEROUS! Alex almost got run over by a bus the other day. A group of students crossed just as the light was changing and the driver actually accelerated INTO the group of students when his light turned green! He was making eye-contact with them and they were NOT going to stop him from being punctual, apparently! I’d heard about it being dangerous on the roads but I didn’t think that public transportation drivers would intentionally want to run us over…

Later this afternoon our host-mother showed us the "Grunde." Little did I know, Luxembourg is built on a whole other part of the city, which is mostly ruins! There's lots of other cool things down there to see, and lots of businesses and shops and homes and very old structures. Our host-mom has lived here her whole life (except for 15 years in the United States).

Looking down into the ruins.

Going down into the Grunde/ruins.

Looking up into the city.

(looks like a nice place to row... ;).

It was nice to see this aspect of this city because the majority of it down there is non-touristy and inhabited by locals. I felt lucky to get to see all of that stuff with someone so familiar to it! This is somewhere that I would definitely want to show my family when they visit.