Happy World Nutella Day!

Bonjour, everyone! It's officially World Nutella Day - get excited! This morning instead of just PB on my banana, I celebrated by putting Nutella on half of it instead.

I'm thrilled that the dreaded Monday/Tuesday are over this week... Those are tough days. Like I mentioned last week, Wednesdays are great because we don't have to go into the school until after lunch. I made more eggs, like I did last week, and I tried my hand at baking in the oven. 

I found this recipe last week for a healthy "breakfast cake" and saved it for this week. It's similar to a banana bread or coffee cake. The recipe called for Greek yogurt, butter, flour, sugar, etc. Our kitchen in our apartment had some sugar, salt, baking soda, flour, and vanilla (which I didn't find until AFTER I put the bread in the oven) but I still needed to find Greek yogurt and chocolate chips and baking powder at the grocery store. I only found the Greek yogurt, so I had to improvise. 

I bought this chocolate and chopped it up into fine pieces. If I do this recipe again, I think I'll find something less dark. It's hard to find many varieties of cooking chocolate here - no semi-sweet chocolate chips, that's for sure! It's either extremely dark, or candy bars chocolate.

We didn't have measuring cups, so I gauged everything by eye and put in what I thought seemed normal. I used a pot to bake it in because we didn't have a bread or cake pan. The recipe was in Fahrenheit so I had to convert it to Celsius (350F=175C). 

I added some of my own things to this recipe since I couldn't find the baking powder. We had the baking soda so I just needed a "base." I added mashed banana and a diced apple, and some apple sauce and a splash of milk. Looking back, I guess I created an entirely different recipe! I'm not sure I could replicate it exactly if I wanted to do it again.

It came out better than I expected. It was light, fluffy, and delightful to eat warm. Angelina and Alex gobbled it right up so I take that as a good sign too. Now, I'm not going to hesitate to use the oven here - it worked out fine! Maybe I'll try something similar next Wednesday. I'm very pleased with how it turned out!

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Today marks the official two weeks since I've been here. Yesterday I did all of my laundry...I was starting to run out! The washing machines worked great (much better than the awful ones at Miami), and I had some trouble with the dryers but laid clothes out to dry and it was fine. 

The tricky part about laundry is that you have to lug it to the Chateau to get it done. This meant it had to come on my one-hour commute with me...and back! Some people use suitcases but I chose to use my boat bag and take it in two trips...this was WAY easier to manage. 

Note to everyone, this is the best chocolate I've had so far. Maybe in my whole life. I will bring some back for you all.

One of my favorite assignments is to keep a journal and write a letter each week. I write each one in this journal (tangent: this is a "Clairfontaine" notebook and I remember seeing a really cute Clairefontaine commercial in French class in high school... I just thought that it was cool that years later I've ended up using the product!) and then hand it into the professor every week. The great thing is that it gets returned to us and I can take it home and use it both as a memento and to share my thoughts of each day with my family and friends when I'm back. I think it's a great idea.

This weekend we're planning 2 days and 1 night in Bruges, Belgium. I think this will be a really neat place. It's about 4-5 hours from Luxembourg City, and we plan to leave early on Saturday morning to get there and come back to Luxembourg mid-Sunday. Right now our loose itinerary includes: 

• Going to Markt Square. This is located in the center of Bruges and has lots of tourist-geared attractions and shopping, and is home to some of the oldest historical buildings of the city. 
• Seeing the Belfry. This is a medieval tower in the middle of Bruges. We plan to climb to the top!
• See Michelangelo's Madonna and Child in the Church of Our Lady. This will be AMAZING. It's Michelangelo - need I say more? I love getting to see all of these works that I learned about in Art History last year.
• Go to the Choco-Story and/or go on a chocolate crawl. The Choco-Story is a Chocolate Museum! It sounds really neat, and Belgium is said to have the best chocolate in the world so I think it would be neat to see a museum and learn about it.
• Eat Belgian fries at Chez Vincent. This is one of Alex's picks. This restaurant is said to have the best French fries in all of Belgium. French fries were, in fact, created in Belgium. So this will be important. I'm glad we're both so active - makes it easier to enjoy these special (but indulgent!) foods :)
• Go on a canal boat ride. We're not sure where or how to find one of these yet, but we're told it's one of the best things to do in Bruges, and is also a good way to see the city, so we're trying to figure this out too!

The nice thing about Bruges is that all of our destinations are about 5-10 minutes of each other! Paris included A LOT more moving around. This time we'll be able to walk everywhere! Should be a nice, short trip.

Paris, Part II

Back to where I left off... Wanted to include some thoughts from yesterday that I didn't get to add! 

Like I said yesterday, we saw rowers at the pond at Versailles. This made my day!

Marie Antoinette's bedchamber!

Here's the giant lunch salad I was talking about...I picked around quite a lot of it. Lettuce here is different.

Note the foie gras I mentioned... (it did not get eaten).

My first time up the Eiffel Tower...AMAZING.

Our picture from the bottom...we really lucked out with the weather, as you can see!

At the very tippy-top!

True to French style, as we were looking down from the very top of the Tour d'Eiffel, we saw a huge rally - manifestations! We didn't ever find out what they were marching for but we heard the president's name dropped several times...

Clouds over the city!

All in all - what a spectacular birthday. I owe so much credit to Alex, who made sure all of my Paris dreams came true and I saw what I wanted to see. He put an incredible amount of time into planning the trip and did great! A big thank you to him!

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We hit the train last night at 8:40PM and were home by about 11:30. We got into Luxembourg at 10:45 but had to wait for a bus for quite awhile. It wasn't really terrible at all, but since we have 5:40AM wake-ups on Monday we might try to cut our trips a little shorter in the future so we aren't completely zombies the next day.

Remembered our tickets and Eurail for the way back...thank goodness!

Especially for our first trip, I think we had a HUGE success. I doubt that things will always go so smoothly as they did this time - especially if we're in a country where we don't know the language at all and are less comfortable. 

Back in Differdange for school, the environment seems so quiet and friendly! It's quite a contrast to the atmosphere in Paris, which constantly keeps your sensations alert. I was grateful today to say the familiar "Moien," to the man who waits with us at the bus stop - something friendly and routine! Having been to Paris makes me see Luxembourg and Differdange differently - they seem more accommodating, easy to navigate, and even almost "homey" in comparison. The little sleepy farm town here is quite a difference from the amazing, hustling and bustling Paris!

For next weekend, we're starting to formulate plans to go to Belgium - maybe Brussels and Bruges. There's been talk of a possible chocolate crawl, which would be amazing! Our plans for that should develop over the next few days.

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I've been trying to run most mornings during the week here. I think most weekends are going to be out of the question for running, which is fine. It's still hard to get very far - especially because I have to go so early and it's still dark (and possibly unsafe). My favorite runs are ones when I can have Alex with me! Not only do I appreciate the company but we can also get farther, explore, and I feel better knowing that I'll have help if I get lost. Hopefully this week we find the hiking trails in Differdange - apparently there are up to 50 miles of trails right at our fingertips! It's been really quite strange to go from centering every single day around a run (usually of an hour or more!) to it being more of a small priority and less important part of my day. I'm not running significantly less, but it's just not the thing which my days or weeks revolve around. It's been an interesting transition. I still don't have my routine here, and I cling to running to try to feel some sort of normalcy but I haven't quite figured it out yet! I know I'm getting used to things though, and I think soon this place will feel as homey as Oxford or Cleveland.

Paris, Je t'aime - our weekend in a nutshell.

Yikes - how do I put into words these last two amazing days?? It's quite a strange experience to go from never having travelled to beginning to do lots of travel in a short amount of time (I know this is only my second place - first not including Luxembourg - but it's such a whirlwind!).

Over the course of the past couple of days I kept thinking about things to write on the blog but so much has happened that I'm afraid I'll forget the good details.

I think we left off after Sacre Coeur, which was Friday night. On Saturday (yesterday), I got to sleep in a little and then it was time to embark on our adventures for the day. We planned to go to the Louvre and the Catacombs.

We first ventured out to Coffea - a chocolate shop around the corner that I wanted to investigate. As I'd hoped, I found some special surprises to bring back for all my loves at home! What exactly that was will have to remain a secret until you all get some :)

Ah - first a picture of our hostel!

Then we made our way to the Louvre. When we came out from the underground, we could see it but were distracted by the gorgeous SEINE! We passed the museum and ran across the street to see the river. As we were walking I said, "Hm, I wish we could find that famous lock bridge!" A few moments later we looked up...and it was RIGHT above our heads! Of all of the parts of the Seine we could've found, we found the right bridge. We didn't hesitate to get a lock and put it on the bridge (then throwing the key into the river for our "loves"). 

Finally we entered the museum! We stayed just outside for awhile, and even wandered off the grounds and walked along some of the nearby shops, where we saw a beautiful patisserie. I had to go in and take pictures...

Eventually we actually went INSIDE the museum. It appeared that there would be a lot of line-waiting... but then we showed them our Luxembourg ish residency papers and... VOILA! It was FREE!!! We saved 24 euros.

Of course had to see La Joconde.

Afterwards we decided to make a little switch instead of going to the Catacombs. I can't remember how we decided this but we chose to go to the Champs Elysées instead! We walked all around for a few hours, slowly making our way to L'arc de Triomphe but also enjoying the French fashion and shops. We actually went into a GAP there...and were shocked at how much more clothing and better fashions there were there! I loved the French GAP so much more than the one in Cleveland... there happened to be a huge sale and I bought a birthday present for myself - this chunky wooly scarf (a big French fashion).

At one point we were walking along and I said, "Wow - what is that beautiful palace?!" People were lined up out the door and down the street waiting to get inside. We searched for a sign...it was an Abercrombie & Fitch! WHAT!?

By the time we reached L'Arc, it was bright and sunny outside!

We ended the day famished - so we went BACK to the Seine for a lovely dinner. 

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Today was another packed day planned out. We headed out at about 7:30AM to try to get to Versailles by it's opening at 9AM. Versailles is far from the city center and we made the GREAT decision of buying day passes - or Mobilis - at the Metro. These passes got A LOT of use today. We had many exchanges and a good several minutes of walking to get to the Chateau. 

Woke up this morning and got to open a nice card from the family :)

I've been wanting to go here forever and have to credit Alex with having done all of the logistical work and investigating to make sure this happened for my birthday. I couldn't think of a more spectacular way to spend my birthday. 

Luckily, we got another FREE entry here - the first Sunday of the Month from November to April is free entry! 

We toured all around and were getting pushed and shoved a lot by other tourists. The manners of people from some countries are very different than how most people I know behave! Of course...maybe the manners of most families - regardless of culture - are different than what I'm used to...

We went through all of the normal exhibits - Hall of Mirrors, Royal Bedchamber, and the King and Queen's suites. It was all even grander than I'd imagined from the pictures I've pored over. Seeing it in real life, I realized how excessive the whole structure is. Very lavishly excessive.

I loved the grounds even more. We were blessed with more great weather and it was breathtaking. One of the most exciting things was watching a crew practice on one of the ponds! Didn't know you could row there??? This made me very homesick for rowing.

Following Versailles we stopped for lunch. I ordered a "Southwest Salad," which didn't have a description... I did NOT get what I expected! There was a piece of toast with foie gras on top! Something that is very French for sure, but not something I eat! I did eat around it and the rest was interesting, but good.

The one thing we did pay for was tickets to quickly ascend the Tour Eiffel. I'm going to have to post pictures of that one tomorrow because I think I'm slowing down the blog with all of the pictures from today. Frankly, this weekend deserves another post, so stay tuned! 

We were glad, however, that we had paid for these reservations. We cut right through the crazy tourists and got to the top relatively quickly. It was wonderful to see the whole city from so high up. I kept thinking how lucky I was to have a birthday here - and how I could never forget it! It almost didn't seem real...going from a small-town girl to a world-traveler in just two weeks is quite a shock! I'm glad I have many pictures to look back on for when it sinks in though. 

Stay tuned for Part II tomorrow!!! Love you all :)