Luxembourg, Trier and the Alsace

Well I'm finally back from another long and grueling class field trip. Oh joy. This time we went to Luxembourg, Trier Germany and the Alsace region in France including Strausbourg.
Wednesday night we got into Luxembourg pretty late, and we had a really early start in the morning so I just went to bed. In the A.M. we had "classes". First we went to the European Court of Justice and sat in on a trial....I have to admit, it was a pretty funny trial considering it was about the "vaginal injection of progesterone into German cows." Not something you hear about everyday... After lunch, we went to the European Investment Bank--an institution that invests in structural and scientific things to improve Europe. After a bit of a rest, we took a walking tour of Luxembourg. The city is SO beautiful. It is built into mountains so there are all these really deep gorges and valley that looked really nice with all the fall colors. We saw all the historical sights to see and then had to evening free to ourselves.
The next day we left to go to Trier in Germany. It is the old capital of Gaul and so it was full of really cool Roman ruins. Throughout the day we got to see Roman baths, an old city gate called the Porta Nigra, the oldest remaining Imperial Palace from the Roman days and an old gladiator ampitheater. It is also where Constatine (the "father" of Christianity in Europe) had alot of influence. There was a beautiful cathedral there which housed a holy relic: The Tunic of Jesus Christ. The story goes that Constantine's mother Helena went on a mission and found the relic. It is actually believable considering she would have done it only maybe 100 years after his death. The church was beautiful and although you could only see where the relic was held it was still a very awe-inspiring place.

We spent the night in a French town called Niederbrann in the Alsace region. The town was a ghost town baisically (except for a casino) so there wasnt really much to do that night. The next day we headed to Strausbourg where we stayed for the remainder of the trip. On our way there we stopped at a few places including one of the Maginot Line bunkers. We also went to the Struthof concentration camp---the only one ever built in France---which was mostly used for French P.O.W's and resistance fighters but which still caused alot of death and suffereing. It was a very haunting and moving place to be. Lastly we went to the Saint. Odille Convent which had beautiful views of the Alsacian plains you could even see as far as the Black Forest in Germany.
We arrive in Strausbourg later in the evening and I went out with a view people for dinner. I had a traditional Alsacian dish called "Choucroute" which is baisically a big pile of sauerkraut topped with every pork product you could ever imagine. While it was delicious, i think i am done with pig for a long time.
The next day we went to the Haut-Koenigsbourg castle, it also had really nice views but it was a bitter cold day so I wasnt really enjoying it too much. We also went to the town of Riquewihr...an Alsacian wine village which, although commercial, was really really cute. We walked around the town, which was surrounded by miles and miles of vineyards and in the afternoon we did a wine tasting which was really nice. The region is famous for Riesling, Pinot Gris, and a wine called Gewerstraminer which is a special grape not found anywhere else and it is a sweet aperetif with kind of a spicy kick to it. It was all a nice way to end the day.
On Monday morning we went to the Council of Europe, a human rights policing body in Europe, before heading back to Brussels. It was another draining and exhausting week which makes me want to be antisocial for a little bit. Luckily I don't have to work at my internship this week. Once a month the parliament goes to Strausbourg, and so the building in Brussels isnt open to limited passes which is what I have. It is perfect timing for me to have these days off because i am leaving for my fall break on Thursday! AHHH! SO SOON! I am going to Spain, Portugal and Italy and I will be gone until November 3rd. I am really excited!!! But the travel plans are a bit shaky so that is my only concern....wish me luck!

Love
Cristen

Prague

This past weekend I went to Prague---not only to visit the city---but also to visit some of my best friends from AU who are studying there. I left late Friday night after an AWFUL experience in the Brussels airport. I thought it would be a good idea not to check any luggage (I was afterall going to an Eastern European country plus I didnt want the hassle of waiting for it), but silly me forgot about the whole liquid thing. Unfortunately and surprisingly, Europe is even more strict about their liquid policy than America. I wasnt allowed to bring anything bigger than 100 ml (baisically the size of a hotel shampoo bottle) and so the security guard proceeded to throw out ALL of my cosmetics in front of me and the rest of the airport. THEN my bag goes through the x-ray and i am greeted on the other side by a sour looking Belgian who is insisting that i have a pair of scissors in my bag. After almost being late and then having all my things thrown out i was NOT in the mood to be accused of terrorism so I was not very pleasant about the fact that i DID NOT have scissors in my bag. So the stupid lady said "Fine, then I am going to take everything out of your bag." Which she proceeded to do....including underwear.....AGAIN in front of the whole airport. Turns out it was my eyelash curler. No apologies. And then i was patted down and wanded TWICE. I was shocked they didnt ask me to strip down. I mean I am all for security, but jesus...
SO ANYWAYS. I arrived Friday night and my friends Alli and Kristie picked me up at the airport and brought me back to Alli's apartment, which is where i stayed for the weekend. My other friend Brandon came over to meet us and then we went out to a Czech club called "Futurum" where it was an 80's night....complete with cheesy music and a big screen with music videos! Yay! We didnt get home until 5:30 am because it was so much fun, so Alli and i slept in pretty late the next day.
Saturday Alli took me to see some of the sights...we went to the Charles Bridge, probably the most touristy attraction in Prague, and had lunch. I ate beef goulash with potato dumplings which was delicious, but very heavy. Brandon met up with us and we walked around "old town", the Jewish quater and we saw the Tyn church where the famous "Astronomy clock" is. We went out to dinner and spent another night on the town with all their friends from their program.
Sunday we decided to be a bit more productive, so Alli and I got up early in the morning--and by early i mean 10 am--and went to Prague Castle. It was more of a palace than a castle, but there were beautiful views of the city since it was on a hill. We also went to St. Vitus church which was so old and beautiful. It was huge and had lots of dead people in it, but all the signs were in Czech so it was a little difficult to understand. The cool thing about St. Vitus, is that there is a statue of him in Brugge Belgium AND one on the Charles Bridge in Prague that face eachother in terms of direction which i think is pretty cool. We also went to the Senate Gardens which were really nice, they are probably beautiful in the spring and summer. There was this really cool man-made wall there that was made to look like the inside of a grotto, but the cool part was that the artist carved things into certain spots so it was neat to stare at it and try to find the hidden faces (i found a face of Satan...strange...).


We went out to lunch where I ate some more ethnic food...including this cheese that Brandon made me try that was PICKLED! It was actually really good though. We also went to "Petrin" which is a really big mountain that overlooks the whole city. It was really beautiful up there, and the fall colors were really nice. We did a mirror maze which was really hilarious and saw the "Prague Eiffel Tower" (not very original is it?).
That night we went to a Black Light Show...these things were all over Prague and we figured we would try it. It was called "Cabinet" and was a vocal-less show about this crazy inventor who has this cabinet that transfers you to an alternate reality of BLACK LIGHTS. There were all these strange dance performances where the people glowed. It was cool the way they did it because things would look like they were moving on their own....it is SO hard to explain (visit the link to get SOME idea of what i am talking about). http://golem.gringo.cz/subdom/3dom/palace/main My favorite scene was where this alien creature was having an epic battle with a piece of cloth that looked like swiss cheese. It was all very trippy and confusing and we just stared at eachother afterwards trying to figure out what the hell we just saw. As Brandon so aptly put it...."those were the things that nightmares are made of."
Alli and I went to bed relatively early, because i had a flight at 7 a.m. monday morning (UGH)....so i got a solid 4 hours sleep before i had to get up to go to the airport.
It was SO nice getting to be with my friends though and it was a nice break from Brussels. I was DEAD on Monday though, but it was more than worth to get to spend time with my best friends in such a cool city! Tonight we are leaving to go to Luxembourg, Germany and France for the rest of the week! More to come....

Love,
Cristen

Last week

Sorry it has taken me so long to write anything...this week has been pretty crazy.
Last week took our first trip as a group to the Netherlands. We started in Den haag (the Hague...but den haag sounds much cooler so i will never call it the hague again). We went to the criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia which was really interesting for me because i have had to study the Balkans in so many classes. We even got to sit in on part of the joint trial against Milutinovic (former president of Serbia), Sainovic (former prime minister of FRY) and Ojdanic (cheif of staff of the army for yugoslavia). It was a defense portion, so some former army guy was trying to defend them. The craziest part was that Milutinovic kept falling asleep. Can you imagine being on trial for GENOCIDE and falling asleep? I guess it just goes to show that he doesnt really care about what he did, even now.
We also went to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) and Eurojust, which is baisically like the EU's FBI. It was all interesting...i guess we had to have some sort of educational reason to go on the trip.
The next day we did a tour de Holland. We went to Delft in the morning and toured the famous pottery factory. I had wanted to get something for my mom...but little did i know i would have to drop atleast 150 euro (i.e. ALOT more USDs) to get anything. We also went to this town on the North Sea that i can never remember the name of, but is reminiscent of the word "shenanigans". It was chilly but it was still cool to go down on the beach and get in the water. We found this really cool jetty that went out pretty far and just chilled out in the middle of the ocean for a little bit. Lastly we went to Leiden which is an old college town in the Netherlands. It is also apparently where the first pilgrims lived between fleeing England and claiming America.
The next day we went to Maastricht----all these places honestly began to blur together. Every Dutch city looks the same. Cobblestones. A big church in the center square. Windmills. But there was a carnival in Maastricht! So i rode this sweet ride that was really high and flipped in every direction. Best way to see a city is definitley upside down.
That night we stayed in Aachen Germany. We were literally there for less than 12 hours, but I got to have some bratwurst and sauerkraut which was fabulous.
In the morning we did a tour of the Battle of the Bulge, we followed Pieper's trail from Germany all along the Belgian border and into Belgium. This was definitley my favorite part of the trip. We started in the Ardennes in Germany, right on the Belgian border (in fact in the woods was this concrete slab that said D[Deutschland] on one side and B [belgium] on the other). This was so haunting...walking around in the woods where dozens of people died. There was still a few remnants of the war...an old telephone line, barbed wire and some post-war memorials. All through the German countryside was remnants of the german Seigfried line---concrete teeth that were put up to stop allied tanks from getting through.
It was weird seeing such an interesting piece of history in the middle of farms. Next we stopped in Werweth, which is where a division of african american soldiers were massacred by the Germans....an event that most history books skip over. We also went to Malmedy, another site of a massacre of American soldiers. All through these towns on the border were tons of monuments to WWII...it was stranage to see American flags flying in the middle of Europe. We also went to the Henri-Chappelle American War cemetery where more than 8,000 american soldiers from WWII were buried in perfect lines with identical cross headstones. It was a really beautiful, and incredibly sad sight to see. Lastly we went to the "Remember Museum". It was a private museum owned by an older couple. The husband was a young boy during the occupation of Belgium and the germans came into his village and annexed half of it to germany. Suddenly this guy was told he was a german, had to speak german and saw alot of really gruesome things. There were American soldiers staying in his family's barn and when the battle of the bulge started they just got up and left, leaving behind tons of stuff. He kept it all, and started his museum with it and now they have an AMAZING amount of stuff from veterans and donations. it was really fantastic. They had a story for every single item. The best part about it was that these people LOVED Americans. They baisically opened the museum in honor of America and attribute the freedom Belgians enjoy today to the sacrifices we made. It was just a really good feeling to actually hear Europeans say they loved us and appreciate everything we did for them----definitley a rareity to hear pro-American things over hear these days. So it was a really wonderful feeling and filled me personally with alot of pride for my country, and everything that my dad's father and uncles fought for.

SO that was last week. This week was busy, mostly because we had a big test today that I was freaking out about all week. In about a half hour I am jet setting off to Prague. I am SO excited, mostly because that is where three of my best friends from school are studying, so I am staying with them---PLUS it is a cool city (and DIRT cheap compared to the stupid euro). I love everyone here and have made some really good friends, but it is just gonna be really nice to be with people who really know me and understand me.

Miss you all!
-Cristen

Oooh La La, Paris

This weekend was honestly the best trip I have ever taken! Thursday evening Tayler, Rachel and I left for Paris. Tayler and I were on the same train so we bought a lovely little French feast of cheese and bread for the journey. The Thayls high speed train had us there in an hour and a half, so we had the whole rest of the evening. We found out hostel really easily---we stayed in Montmatre, the famous village where artists like Degas, Picasso, Dali, Van Gogh and so many others lived. It is also where the Moulin Rouge is at which was the first thing we went to go see!

Friday morning we got up to find that the weather SUCKED. It was raining, and apparently when it rains in Paris it POURS in Paris. But we had already planned on just doing museums that day so it worked out well that we were indoors. First we went to the isle de Citie which is the oldest part of Paris, and is where Notre Dame is. We just looked at the outside before walking across the Seine to the Louvre. The museum is absolutely phenomenal. Just the building itself is so decadent and old world that there is nothing that isnt interesting to look at. We were there for 3 hours and got to see all the good stuff...Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, Madonna of the Rock. In all the time we were there though we only got to see the galleries of Italian and French painters...the museum is just SO massive that it was impossible to see any more. After some lunch we went to the Musee d'Orsay, which is the impressionism museum. The building is an old central train station so the layout of the exhibits were very strange but really neat. There was so much amazing art there...Degas, Seurat, Van Gough, Monet, Manet, Toulousse-Latrec and tons more. After the museums we really needed to head back to the hostel to dry off and rest for a while. On the way back we stopped back at Notre Dame so that we could go inside...it was absolutely overwhelming. The church was so beautiful and there was a service going on inside which just really made the experience worth while. I wish we had been able to go to the top of the tower or see the crypt but we got there JUST after they both closed :( On the way back to the hostel, we found this fresh food market in Montmatre, so we picked up a huge loaf of bread, cheese, roasted potatoes, and a small roast chicken and had a wonderful french feast in our hostel room all for like 15 euro! Deeeeeliiicious! (Below: pictures of Notre Dame, front and back and of the Louvre)




On Saturday we took the train out to Versailles. Luckily the weather was much better so we were really able to enjoy it. The palace is so decadent and beautiful. Unfortunately they were doing reconstruction on alot of the building so we were only able to see the royal apartments, but it was still really cool. We also took a tram around the gardens and out to Marie Antoinettes "Petite Trianon" which was baisically her little escape from the main palace. The grounds are so expansive and there was so much more to see, but it would have taken much more than the 1/2 day that we spent there! On our way back we stopped at the Eiffel Tower...it was so cool being underneath it! We started to wait in line to buy tickets to get to the top, but the line was so ridiculously long and we had plans for 7:00 so we had to get out of line. We went and got some crepes, mine was chocolate with bannana yummo! Then at 7 we did something we had been looking forward to the whole time...a bike tour of Paris. It was AMAZING. The first 3 hours we biked around the city like any Parisian would. I was definitley wobbly when i first got on...it has been years since i rode a bike, but it was SO MUCH FUN!!!! It is just such a different way to see a city, and you really felt like you were a part of it. We bike near Notre Dame, passed the Arc du Triumph, biked THROUGH THE LOUVRE COURTYARD (with the pyramid etc...that was my favorite part), went to "the best glacier (ice cream) in Paris", saw the Place de Concorde (where everyone was killed during the French Revolution). Plus just all the cool stuff we passed along the way. The last hour was a boat tour on the Seine with free wine. It was FREEZING, but so cool! Just another way to look at the city and all the monuments. It was the most fun I think I have ever had in a city...totally worth it. We didnt get done with the tour until after midnight so we just called it a night. (Below: Me at Versailles, a garden at Versailles, Le Petit Trianon, garden at Le Petit Trianon)




On Sunday, I was scheduled to leave at 2:30, but there was still so much more to do! So i got my ticket changed...but all that was left was first class. It only cost me ten euro (and i got a free meal and wine on the way home!). So we headed back to the Eiffel Tower to go to the top. We waited in line for a HOUR just to get our TICKET. Then it was another hour to get to the top, see the view and come back down. But it was definitley worth the wait. Not only was it a beautiful view, but i dont feel like my trip would have been complete without it. Then we went to see the Arc du Triumph. We only biked past it from far away the night before, so we went and look at it up close this time. Then we walked down the Avenue Champs d'Elysee---the fashion center of Paris. We had a lovely little lunch at a cafe...some cheese, wine and sandwiches, before doing a little bit of shopping ( i mean, come on...it's PARIS i had to do it ). After an exhausting day....i finally got the train back to Brussels. But I really sad to leave...i mean i was excited for Paris but i didnt think i would fall in love with it the way that i did. It is definitely somewhere i want to go back to because there was SO much we didnt get to do. It was overall just a really satisfying trip though...getting to see and do so much that I have wanted to do my whole life all in three days! YAY ME!

This week we take our first class trip. We leave on Wednesday and come back Sunday and are going to The Hague, Leiden, and Aachen to do some WWII tours that i am REALLY excited about. So i wont be here for a while, but send me emails etc and I promise I will get back!!! I also have alot more pictures of Paris, but my camera died half way through so i am waiting for the other girls to send me the pictures they took for me!

P.S....my parents have discovered that i actually get mail relatively quickly! So if anyone is bored.... :) :)
MISS AND LOVE YOU ALL!