my semester abroad

The Building Blocks of my Days

2008-05-30T16:03:00.010+02:00

So, I was thinking; I blog a lot about the places I go and things I see, but never as much about my day-to-day. The daily routine stuff is mostly over now, but one day I decided to try to take pictures of my normal stuff. I didn't take as many as I would have wanted to to best illustrate a day, but hopefully you will get the idea.

First, I wake up. It's pretty bright in my room and sometimes I go on the Internet for a few minutes before I actually get moving. Then I take a shower and get dressed.

By the time I'm pretty much ready to go I have breakfast. I usually have a bowl of cereal and some water. Depending on what I have for groceries there might also be juice, yogurt, and or toast. Sometimes I get a pastry by where my class is.

My class starts at noon, so around 11:15 I'm out my door. The view is pretty nice.

My first stop is the métro. I get on the line 6 at the station Trocadéro.

I take the 6 to Denfert-Rochereau. There I head through the station past the gypsie woman begging for money. She sits in a wheelchair, I've seen her walking. There I get on the RER B for two stops to Luxembourg.

Next, I get off the RER and head back into the daylight. I head down the road towards class. It's during this walk that I sometimes get a pastry, it's always very good.

Class is two hours long. It's boring. We review homework from the night before for about an hour an a half then do something pointless for the remaining time.

After class I meet Alix in the foyer and we head down rue St. Jacques towards the AIFS office or get food. One day there were burger cars parked on the road, handing out free microwavable burgers. They were bad, but free. Another day we got Moaz which is a vegetarian falafel shop. It's good. We headed to Notre Dame to sit around and eat.

This is generally the time that we meet up with Adam and Cao and do something. We either just get lunch and hang out for a bit, or go see something. Often, these are the smaller things in Paris that I've posted about.

After this I usually head back to my apartment for a while. I hang out in my room for a little, go on the Internet or whatever until dinnertime. If I have dinner at home it is usually pasta. It's the easiest and I don't feel bad about making it. I've always thought I shouldn't monopolize the kitchen making something bigger. Sometimes we meet up for dinner. Some weeks I get fancy about it and get a bottle of wine to go with my dinners. This week I even went as far as getting stuff for salad.

After dinner I either continue hanging out around the apartment or meet back up with everyone to do something. Sometimes we go to a movie, sometimes we meet up for a beer, or hang out outside by the Eiffel Tower (it's the closest for all of us) or on a bridge over the Seine.

Sleep. Repeat. Not too glamorous, but the semester was a ton of fun nonetheless. Plus, it's all in Paris.

Munich, Germany

2008-05-29T19:12:00.005+02:00

I was happy to visit Munich at the end of my journey, but it was really just a lay over between traveling back to Paris. We left Vienna on a night bus to Munich on Sunday night. I expected that we would arrive pretty early, around 7 then spend a bit of time before I had to head to the airport. As it turned out, we got into Munich at 4:30am!

We had to wait for the first metro to show up, then we headed into the city. Cao checked in early to her hostel, and then we hung out there for a little while. Afterwards we headed out to the city to see what we could see. We found a main square with an impressive (church?) and other buildings. We planned on going to a café she had read about that looked out over the square, but it wasn't open. Instead we got coffee and a pastry at another shop. While waiting for Cao to go to the bathroom I started falling asleep in my seat.

After breakfast we headed to a large park in the city. The place is famous for nude sunbathing, but it's mostly just people sunbathing, not nude. It was too early when we got there to get much sun so we walked around like zombies for a while. We found a stone gazaebo type place (I'm sure there's a more Greek word for it, but who knows) and hung out there for a while. We also found two maß (a 1 liter beer mug). We both wanted to take one, but I had no space in my backpack and Cao could only fit one in her bag.

We spent a bit of time sitting around. We were walking (still like zombies) towards one of the only empty benches, and got distracted briefly then someone snuck in under our noses and took it! After laying around for a little while we got lunch in the Beer Garten in the park. I had a bratwurst and some potato salad and a maß.

Afterwards we proceeded to lay in the sun for a few hours.

Around 2 we headed out of the park and I headed to the airport. I didn't have too long to wait and just checked in and killed a bit of time before boarding. The flight was pretty short and they had sandwiches and drinks during the flight. I got home in the evening and concluded my two-week jaunt across Europe. It was great. I was exhausted.

Parents Visit!

2008-05-29T19:02:00.003+02:00

So a brief break from catching up on my travels to let you know that my parents are currently here visiting me and Paris. They arrived Monday morning. I was late picking them up, but we got situated in the hotel and visited Sacré Coeur. So far we've done some good stuff, mostly touristy, but I don't mind being the tour guide in the city.

The semester also finished on Tuesday. I had an Oral Exam to finish everything off with. It was supposed to be at 2, but I didn't get to go until after 3. It went pretty well I think, but it was a huge waste of time really. I'm glad to be done with school and have some totally free time in the city before heading home.

So far it's been nice seeing them and we've had some pretty good meals. We had dinner twice at an Italian restaurant, which was really good. I had Penne Calabrese one night and Pizza another. Tonight we're having dinner at a pretty nice restaurant, I'm hoping it lives up to expectations. We also got lunch at the Bombay Palace, which was good as always. If I haven't mentioned it before, it's an Indian restaurant that we've been to numerous times, very good.

Today my parents spent time at the Louvre while I ran around doing some last minute stuff. I pretty much have everything done, like stuff I need to buy etc. Also, I had to run back to my homestay quickly. I accidentally left with the key, so I had to return that before heading out for good.

Tomorrow we're going to Musée d'Orsay and Saturday to Versailles. The weather has been really rainy so we pushed back Versailles and unless tomorrow is really nice for some reason, skipping Giverny. It will definitely be nice to see Versailles again and the gardens will be much nicer than when I saw them 2 years ago.

Finally, Sunday I'm heading home! My flight leaves just after 9 I believe and I'll be back in the 'States between 3 and 4. I'd be back a lot earlier, but I have to stop over in Hamburg.. thank you Lufthansa. Looking forward to being back!

Vienna, Austria

2008-05-22T16:51:00.003+02:00

Vienna was one of my favorite cities on the trip. The experience was great specifically because of our Couch Surfing hosts. We stayed with a couple Hannah and Flo in their flat just outside of the city center in Vienna.

They were really welcoming and a lot of fun to hang out with. When we arrived they showed us the their flat, which was small, but very very nice. They had decorated it nicely and it was very comfortable and homey. We spent most of the afternoon and evening talking and listening to music, before going out for some food and beer.

We went to a place called the Centimeter where we tried Flo's favorite Austrian beer. We ordered a 3 liter tap for the table. It comes out as a column of beer in a base which has a tap on it so you pour draught your own beer. It was a lot of fun, and a good idea for a group. I think it could be really popular at home, it's a bit of a novelty, but also a lot of fun.

The next day we had a good breakfast at their flat. We even got to try the strawberry jam we brought for them. It was really good, and they liked it. We went out to a coffee shop after breakfast. The place is a historical site where many important artists used to spend time. The coffee was great.

They took us on a tour of some of the city. I didn't take hardly any pictures unfortunately, but it was still fun. We lucked out because that weekend was a festival in the city. There were tons of food stands and some stuff for kids to do like a fair. Cao and I both tried schnitzel, I really liked it.

This huge platform used to hold large flak cannons during World War II. There are several of them in Vienna. Today this one is a climbing wall. Pretty cool I think.

Unfortunately, it started raining, so we headed back to the flat after braving it for a little while. It was okay though, we got to spend more time with them and just relax. The time passed very quickly as we hung out, played Xbox, had tea, and watched videos on YouTube. We ordered pizza for dinner and went on a short walk to pick it up. A personal pie was only 4€ and it was good. It was a nice surprise, because someone had told us that Vienna was one of the most expensive cities in Europe. It is clear that this person had never been to Paris, which is still the most expensive place I've been to.

I can't stress enough how much fun it was to hang out with Hannah and Flo. They were great hosts, and I think we got to know them pretty well. They were a lot of fun, and had good taste in music. Plus they gave a good tour around the city and knew some cool places to check out. I'm looking forward to hearing from them if they visit New York.

After writing in their Couch Surfing guest book we took the metro to the bus station to head to Munich on an overnight bus. That leg of my journey is next, so check back soon!

Budapest, Hungary

2008-05-21T23:18:00.008+02:00

By the time we were getting to Budapest I was starting to get exhausted from traveling. We took it pretty easy in the city, but it definitely deserves a lot more than one day to really get a good feeling for it.

I had a good time, but we ran into some weirdness upon arriving. First I got approached by a guy trying to change money. I was almost going to do it, like an idiot, but didn't. We had some Slovak crowns left over so we wanted to change them into Forint. We just used the Western Union in the train station. After that the British guys, who ended up going to Budapest that day also were having trouble finding a place to stay. Our hostel was booked, or certainly wouldn't have fit them all.

While they were talking to one guy about a place to stay, another guy came up and told me to let my friends know not to stay with him because he was a "gay bastard." It turns out that the second guy just wanted their business instead. They ended up going with the first guy, we never heard from them again.. As ominous as that sounds, I don't think anything bad happened, it was just a strange situation.

After the train station we headed to our hostel. The place was really cool. It was basically just an apartment with lofts built into some of the rooms so they all had about 6 beds in them. The place was just really cool because it wasn't like a normal hostel or hotel.

That night we set out for a restaurant recommended by a travel book. They were full and we had to wait until 11 to eat, but we took a walk across the Danube to the Buda side of the city. It's the more scenic castle side of the city. Pest is the city part, which is where the restaurant and our hostel was.

The dinner was pretty good. I was hoping for a little bit better, but the portions were huge! The thing about Budapest is the currency exchange is ridiculous. I think every Forint is worth about $0.006, which is great. However, everything costs thousands of Forint. In reality the city was actually more expensive than both Prague and Bratislava.

The next day we headed across town to find a flea market we read about. We didn't end up finding it, but there was a small market nonetheless. There were crafts and some food stuffs like jams and cookies. We got some hotdogs from a stand about bought a jam as a gift to our Couch Surfing hosts in Vienna.

On the way across town we ran into a little museum square. If we had more time maybe we would have gone in one of them, but the architecture was still amazing anyways. In the area there was also a castle. We didn't have enough time to go visit it either, unfortunately. I would definitely like to go back at some point and see the city for real and experience everything. It was still nice, but we didn't get to properly appreciate everything.

Before getting on the train we were walking around the area surrounding it and I thought I heard someone say something to me. As we were turning around one of them asked "How's Texas?" (referencing Cao being from Texas) and it was the two Australian guys we met in Krakow! They were in our room at the hostel. We ended up talking to them for a while and they ended up going to Budapest too. A pretty wild coincidence that in all of the city we ran into them.

Vienna is next!

Bratislava, Slovak Republic

2008-05-20T16:22:00.005+02:00

We arrived in Bratislava in the evening. We had a bit of trouble finding the right tram to take at first, but we figured it out after a few minutes, and in the process we ended up getting some really good chicken sandwiches with a spicy sauce and onions.

The hostel was really cool. They had a bar, kitchen, and living room area and the floors were seperated into apartments with 3 dorms each. We were in a room for 6 but there were only the two of us and one other person. The funny part was, the hostel was turning away people the entire time saying they were booked full.

The area we stayed in was only a short walk from the old town, so after we got settled in we headed there to find something to do. At first we found a 3 floor club, which didn't seem too exciting. We just stayed on the main floor and hung out for a little bit before leaving. We walked around for a while not finding anything and figured we might start heading back. On the way back we found a "Rock" Bar. We went in and there was a cover band playing. It was actually a lot of fun. They seemed like the kind of band that would play hard rock, but they covered mostly American pop songs, one of which was by Kelly Clarkson...

After the show ended we started heading back to the hostel again. We were almost inside when we ran into a group of British guys who were also staying at the hostel. They asked us if we knew any good places and we said we couldnt find much. They were disappointed that we were about to call it a night, and convinced us to go with them to another place.

We ended up on a boat bar/club place for a little while. We weren't there for much longer than an hour. It was not really my kind of place, but it was still kinda fun. There was just too much blind strobe light in your eyes while Justin Timberlake songs blast on the speakers.

Afterwards we finally headed back to the hostel for the night. The next day we took another walk through the old town area. The city was pretty quaint, but by day the only people on the streets were basically tourists. After meandering about for a while we headed up to the main castle.

Once at Bratislava Castle, or Bratislavský hrad, we proceeded to be lazy. It was really enjoyable actually. First, we took in the sites from up on the hill. It was a great vantage point. The castle has been mostly rebuilt, but was still cool. From there we could see the main part of the city, across the Danube to the more residential side of the city, and beyond the city into the hills.

The residential side is very strange. Looking at it from a distance it is easy to tell that it is populated by hundreds of nearly identical residential towers. A pretty interesting thing to look at, but very strange all in all.

We spent most of the day relaxing in the sun by the castle before heading back to the train station to move on to Budapest. I enjoyed the time we spent there, but we got the feeling that there really isn't much to do in the city besides clubbing at night.

Check back soon for Budapest!

Prague, Czech Republic

2008-05-17T17:37:00.007+02:00

When we arrived in Prague, the weather was unfortunately a bit crappy. The first day we were there it rained and was kinda cold the whole time. We didn't let it drive us inside though, we did a pretty decent amount of exploring in the rain.

Walking from the train station we saw the city municipal house, which was very impressive. We also got a decent feel for the normal part of the city before getting to the old town area. The architecture in the city was pretty amazing. Our hostel was right in the middle of the old town, and a few minutes walk for the old square. In the square is the Old Town Hall with a huge moving astrological clock and the Tyn Church, both of which are in Gothic style.

In the afternoon to early evening we crossed the Vltava river to visit Prague Castle and cross back over on Charles Bridge. The castle had an amazing view of the city, being on the hill. Inside the walls of the castle there were a few museums and small shops and a huge cathedral of St. Vitus. It is also in the Gothic style and it's construction began in the 14th century.

Charles Bridge was also very impressive. The walk was absolutely packed with tourists, but was well worth the trip. The bridge has dozens of impressive statues lining the walk across the river.

After seeing a ton of sites the first day, we headed to the huge hill back across the river. First we saw a strange warped looking building as we crossed over another one of the city's bridges. I forget the name of it, but it's pretty well known I believe. One of our main goals for the day was at the top of the huge hill, The Petrin Tower, which is like a mini-Eiffel Tower, but not very impressive at all.

After our trip to the tower we went to a mirror maze and fun house mirror place nearby up the hill also. Then headed halfway down the hill again and lounged around in the nice weather. It was a good change from the previous day of rain.

The last day before the train station we ran into an old car show and spent some time in shops at the station. In the bookstore-type-place I saw a ton of copies of Word, Excel and Access 2002, which I thought was pretty funny. We killed a lot of time at the station waiting for our train. Then, about 20 minutes before we were supposed to leave we realized we were at the wrong station!

We had just assumed that the station we came into on an international train would be the same one we left from. However, it wasn't! We started thinking that we would have to run across town or take a taxi, but instead found out that there was a metro that ran to the other station, in only 3 stops. Luckily we arrived with some time to spare and caught our train.

The next stop on the trip was the Slovak Republic, to visit Bratislava. Check back soon for the continuation!

Poland

2008-05-14T17:46:00.007+02:00

After Berlin I took a train to Warsaw, Poland. I was only there overnight before heading to Krakow to meet up with Cao. On the train I talked with a few people in my cabin. One girl was Polish and traveling with her Aunt. She taught me a few Polish phrases, which turned out to be pretty useful. As it turns out, I'm interested in learning more Polish also (add that to the list). I think it's because I really enjoyed my short time there and would like to spend more time there in the future.

Warsaw (pronounced more like Vashavah) is in the middle of a ton of reconstruction. On my way into the old town area to look around and to find dinner I had to dodge and detour a ton of fenced-off areas in the streets and walk around piles of stones and walk on dirt paths. It was harder to appreciate the city unfortunately, because it was night, I was tired, hungry, and got lost looking for the place I was told to eat (which turned out to be closed). I still had a good time, and met some cool people in the Hostel, who were Polish.

The next morning I took an early train to Krakow. After meeting up with Cao and checking into our (extremely nice) hostel, the city proceeded to be awesome! We went to the main tourist destination, the old town, to have a look around. There were certainly plenty of tourists, but it felt more like a functioning city than only a destination to visit and regard.

We had some very good pierogi at a small restuarant for lunch. Back in the main square we were suckered into playing with pigeons, which was hilarious, although kind of dirty.

In the afternoon we spent some time by the old castle, where we saw a huge walking mug of beer and spent some time relaxing by the river. Relaxing came to be one of the main themes of my voyages after that. After seeing tons and tons of monuments, sitting or laying down is always a nice break, plus it's nice to take in a city, not just by seeing it's historical buildings. Plus, the weather in Krakow was amazing!

At night we went to dinner at a restaurant by recommendation of the hostel. The place was awesome! For under $10 I got a soup, kielbasa with potatoes and salad and a beer. On top of being really really affordable, the food was actually very good!

After dinner we meandered through the old square again where we found fire dancing. There was a group of people, playing drums with others dancing with whips, and torches of fire. It was a lot of fun and pretty awesome.

Krakow, was my favorite parts of Poland. I'd really like to go back to spend more time there and give Warsaw another chance. I'm sure I would have appreciated it more under different circumstances. After Krakow, we moved on to Prague. Check back soon for pictures and the synopsis of our time there.

Do widzenia!

Berlin, Germany

2008-05-14T16:53:00.011+02:00

After Amsterdam Austin and I headed to Berlin, where I had a great time. It started off a bit rocky because we were tired and it took hours to find our hostel, which was in the middle of the woods, but by the next day things were going much more smoothly.

The hostel was pretty awesome. It was a bit outside of the city, but the staff (a guy and his wife) were really nice, and the place was comfortable and had free breakfast and a lounge to use the internet and watch TV or movies. Plus, 1€ beers from a vending machine.

We saw quite a few sites during our days in the city. I don't remember the exact order but, I think we started off in Alexander Platz and headed out from there. We saw the huge TV Tower (nearly impossible to miss), the Brandenburg Gates, the Reichstag, and several other sites in the area.

While stopping for a Bratwurst, actually I think it was Currywurst that time, we ran into a squirrel-like creature. It looked a lot like a squirrel, but with a different shade of brown fur and tufts of hair on its ears. I got to feed him a walnut and got him to come over to my hand a few times.

The third day we stumbled upon a soccer field and watched a game for a while. It was also right near the ruins of an old train station that was used to send Jews to Auscwitz during the Holocaust. Then we headed along the Spree River to see one of the famous bridges (I forget the name now) and a strange trip of huge holey men. On the way to seeing the men we came upon a Universal Music office and the Berlin offices of MTV and Nickelodeon. We also visited Check Point Charlie witch was one of the more famous crossings between East and West Berlin.

The last day of site seeing we visited the Gendarmenmarkt, named for the French Gendarmes. In the square are two cathedrals, one French and one German and an Opera. We also visited a memorial to the Berlin Wall and saw some of the pieces of it still standing. Finally we headed to Potsdamer Platz which had some really cool modern architecture.

In our adventures we also stumbled upon a lot of really impressive graffiti. I took some pictures, so I hope you like all of them too.

I had a ton of fun in Berlin. We had tons of wurst and lots of German beer. I would really like to go back to Berlin again in the future and also see more of Germany. I got to see a bit of Munich on my last day on the way back to Paris, but not as much as I would have liked. I'd definitely like to make it back for one of the beer festivals in the future also. Finally, I think German has officially made it onto my list of languages I would like to learn.

Hopefully I'll stay on top of updating about my trips. The next step in my adventure is Poland. I saw a bit of Warsaw at night and spent a day in Krakow, check back soon!

Auf weidersehen!

Amsterdam

2008-05-06T21:59:00.005+02:00

So, my Spring Break voyage began in Amsterdam. Austin and I took a train from Paris to Amsterdam with a short stop in Brussels (see my entry on that from the beginning of the semester if you'd like to see more about that).

We arrived in the city and found out that there was a carnival going on! There were ton's of rides in Dam Square and just hordes of people. We didn't end up going on any of the rides, but it made the city seem like a huge party. We ended up renting bikes for two of the days we were there. Bike's are the main mode of transportation in the city (there's tons!) and they made getting around the city much easier.

The old architecture of the city was pretty cool. Most of the old buildings were made of brick and looked to have held up really well. We ended up spending a lot of time around the castle in one of the main squares and spent some time in a park a bit further with more huge buildings and a sign that said IAMSTERDAM

While we were there we also visited the Van Gogh Museum and the Rembrandt Haus, unfortunately there was no photography in either. The Van Gogh Museum was a bit small for the 10€ price, but it was well worth it. There was one floor dedicated to his work, a few more with similar and influenced artists.

The Rembrandt Haus was also small, but we got a student discount. There were many of his pieces, all amazing. We spent a lot of time in the museum just in awe of the detail of his work. Also in the museum were illustrations and other prints. The illustrations were mainly of insects and plants, like for encyclopedias, but were incredibly detailed.

Our last day was short, we had to get up early, return the bikes, and head to the train station to get on our way to Berlin. Check back soon for more of my adventure!

Post from the Road

2008-04-23T22:48:00.002+02:00

So, I'm a few days into my Spring Break and it's been a lot of fun so far. Currently I'm in my Hostel in Berlin. We arrived today by train and had an interesting time finding the place. However, there's some vacation to catch up on first.

Austin flew in Friday morning. I got him at the airport before class and got him settled in. Friday night and Saturday we stayed in Paris. He got to meet Alix, Cao, and Adam. It was a lot of fun. We saw some of the sites like l'Arc de Triomphe and la Tour Eiffel, plus we spent some time in the Louvre.

Sunday morning we headed to the Netherlands and Amsterdam through Brussels. There was some oversleeping involved and we nearly made our train. However, after some running and cutting in lines we got our tickets sprinted onto the train. Unfortunately, we didn't get the other tickets for the trip and that caused some problems today. It looks like everything is going to be fine, but we had to seek remboursement today.

Amsterdam was a lot of fun. There's a carnaval going on in Dam Square so it felt like the whole place was just one big party. The main mode of transportation in the city seems to be the bike. We each rented one for the two full days we were there and it made getting around much easier. We went by the Anne Frank house, but didn't go in. Most of the museums in the city seemed to be 10 euros, so we only went to the Van Gogh Museum and The Rembrandt House. Both were awesome. The Rembrandt house had many of his works plus those of other artists. There were many different prints, paintings, and illustrations which were all really cool. The detail in the illustrations of insects and flowers was just insane. We found ourselves staring at the works for minutes and minutes because there was just so many small details to look at.

Today we made our way to the train station to come to Berlin. We had trouble with the ticket situation, but made it on the train in the end. The train ride was fairly long and I didn't get to catch up on sleep like I was hoping. However, we made it. The only problem was we are both drained and a little downtrodden because we had to rebuy tickets. On top of it, we spent a bunch of time searching for our hostel so it was mostly a day lost to traveling. However, we're here until Sunday, so there will be plenty of time for sightseeing, and sampling German beers and sausages.

Once I've finished my voyages I'll try to recap some with pictures, to make it more interesting around here. Sunday I head to Warsaw, Poland to kick off the second week of vacation. I believe I mentioned it before, but the second week consists of Eastern Europe: Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and Austria. So, I hope to have plenty of photos to share of all of these places. So, check back to see that. I'm not sure if I'll have any more updates while on my trip, but I hope to get started again shortly after I get back to Paris.

The Loire Valley

2008-04-13T21:16:00.010+02:00

This weekend there was an AIFS trip to The Loire Valley, which is the Château region of the country. There's probably at least a dozen of them scattered along the river. Not all of them are right on the river, but most are very close. It's quite an area. All of the castles are only a few minutes drive away from each other, so we got to visit 4 and see a few others.

We left early on Saturday and the first château we visited was le Château de Blois. There was a lot of history there, but the tour started getting boring just hearing about which Kings decided to build which parts. Although that was the interesting part about the place. The Château was built in several periods by several kings. They'd knock down one of the parts and build their own in a different style. The whole place is a mash-up of different parts and it looks pretty messy. There was one huge open spiral staircase though, which was one of the best parts about it. It was nice, though, because the area was on the Loire River and the view was nice over the city.

There we also first started seeing the emblems of the kings. The emblems are all over all of the châteaux. The porcupine, for Louis XII. The salamander for François I. The hermine (ermine or stoat) for their wives, Anne of Brittany and Claude de France.

Second we visited Château de Chambord. This was the biggest of the châteaux that we visited and the most extravagant. The place was just huge and the roof was incredibly complex. It basically looks like the skyline of a city. The castle also had a double spiral staircase. There were two sets of stairs that never crossed each other going up the center tower. We got to walk around on the roof which was awesome.

To finish the day of touring we stopped at a Vouvray wine cellar for a tour and a wine tasting. It was pretty short, but it was my first wine tasting.

Today we left the hotel in the morning and visited Château d'Azay-le-Rideau. On the way to the castle we ran across a cat who jumped out of a bush. He was very friendly and let me pet him. It was originally a privately owned castle, but was left and became a place where visiting royalty would stay in France. It might have been my favorite. It felt a lot more like a house than the others, and also had a moat haha. It rained a bit while we were there but we had pretty good luck. On the way back to the bus we looked for the cat again, but instead we found a very friendly dog instead.

For lunch we stopped in Amboise. There is a château there, but it was mostly destroyed so we didn't actually visit. We found a really good sandwicherie and had sandwiches and dessert, which was also really good. There was also a very nice view of the river, although it was flooding because of all the rain.

The last visit for the trip was Château de Chenonceau. This was also really cool. The original part was the main castle and a tower built on the River Cher. There was then a bridge added to cross the river, then a two story gallery was built on top of the bridge. There were gardens surrounding the castle, unfortunately the rain made the visit a bit miserable. We still walked through one of them and I'm glad we did, although we got kinda soaked.

The weekend was definitely worth the trip. Next weekend starts my spring break, so I probably won't post for almost two weeks while I'm traveling. But when I'm back there should be a bunch of good stories about the trip to tell.

Great Weather in Paris

2008-04-03T20:56:00.007+02:00

The weather here has been great lately. It's been much warmer the past week than it has been all semester. Plus, we finally sprung ahead over last weekend, so we've had an extra hour of daylight. I've done a few fun things this week that involved being outside. Luckily I had my camera around for some of it, so you can check out a few of the places I've been.

Tuesday (I think) Cao and I went to the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais. We were in search of large silver balls that Cao read about, but it turned out they weren't there. It was okay though, because both were pretty cool. We only got to look at the Grand Palais from the outside because they were setting up for an exhibition or something, but it was okay. There was a huge bronze turtle out front so we checked that out before heading across the street to the Petit Palais.

The Petit Palais is the home of a small museum with a permanent collection that is free to check out, and a temporary one that is not. Anyways, it was definitely worth the no money we paid. There were some interesting artifacts in the museum, from a variety of times. There was a bunch of stuff from the times of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI plus some other interesting artwork. Plus there was a courtyard in the middle that was quite beautiful. They also had paintings of dead animals, which seems to have been popular at one point. I've also seen them in the Louvre and in an apartment here.

Today, Cao and I went to see the Palais Royal, the real home of the silver balls. It wasn't very thrilling at all. They were just in two small fountains. It was a bit of a letdown, but the weather was so nice, we just hung around in the courtyard for a while. The scenery was quite nice, so it wasn't a waste at all.

After the Palais we went and visited Parc de Monceau. It's pretty close to where we live, well at least a short metro ride away. It was also very beautiful and it was bustling with kids running around. One unfortunate part was that all the grass and gardens were fenced off. Kind of a look but don't touch approach to nature. It was still a nice place to hang out for a while, and I could see myself going back.

A panorama from the courtyard of the Palais Royal

Le 15ème Arrondissement et Parc André Citroën

2008-03-30T17:49:00.009+02:00

Yesterday Cao and I made a brief foray into the 15th. We first stopped off to see the creations of Gustav Eiffel. We admired the Tour Eiffel from a distance (90° counterclockwise from the angle I usually see it at) it looks the same. Then we saw a (large) miniature of his (probably) second most famous monument, The Statue of Liberty. As you probably know our statue was a gift from the French after our Revolutionary War. Anyways, there's a shrunken version of it on a small chunk of land in the middle of the Seine between the 15th and 16th. The area is a bit interesting because there were a bunch of tower buildings in the area, which you usually don't associate with Paris. They try pretty hard to keep them out of the city but clearly there are a few. A bunch of them are pretty ugly but there were some cool mirrored glass ones.

After the Statue of Liberty we went to check out the Parc André Citroën. We heard there was some modern stuff going on there. From what I heard I was expecting large contemporary sculptures, there weren't any. However, I really liked the park. There were some paths with trees (starting to bloom) but what I liked the most was a big open field. There are a bunch of parks in Paris to add a bit of green to the city, but most are filled with trees and small paths. There aren't as many wide open spaces, so it was nice to be there for a change. And I guess because of the space there were a bunch of little kids running around or riding bikes and scooters.

It was actually pretty warm yesterday, so a park was a good choice. This week is supposed to be really nice, so I'm excited for the good weather. I also liked seeing some ducks. It was funny because there weren't lakes or ponds around. There were a bunch of fountains, most of them not filled at the time, but there were ducks walking around on the grass and hanging out with pigeons.

This photo came out really cool I think. All the light reflecting off the mirrored glass really blew out the color. It doesn't even look like a photo really.

The French really hate their president. "If it's a joke, it isn't funny" And although it kinda looks like "raton" was drawn in on the computer it was actually written on the wall. I don't exactly get it because raton is a derogatory term for Muslim Algerians. He was born in France of Hungarian descent..who knows?

Kaley Visits Me!

2008-03-26T22:01:00.019+01:00

So as you may know I had a visit last week from my wonderful girlfriend :-)

She came in on two Friday morning's ago and stayed until last Friday. We had a ton of fun, doing both touristy and non-touristy things, plus we had a bunch of good meals.

One of the first things we did was go on a small picnic on a rowboat. We brought some cheese, bread, and strawberries out on the water and had a nice picnic on lac inferior dan le Bois de Bologne. After the picnic we walked back through the bois (wood). I've heard that supposedly the wood becomes a red light district, and we found a tree that might suggest that.

It was fun to go back into tourist mode again too. We saw both l'Arc de Triumph and la Grande Arche, which I think I've posted pictures of before, but just in case here are a few more.

Another day we saw Place de la Concorde, the Tuleries, and the outside of the Louvre. We went back to go inside and see the art a few days later, but by the time we got there the first day it was too late and the museum was closing.

We took a trip up to Montmartre, and saw Sacre Coeur among other things in the area, including a quick visit to Musée de l'Eroticism, where we saw some very interesting things.

When we visited the Louvre, we saw tons of stuff including Greek sculpture and pottery, paintings from several countries, as well as Egyptian and Roman works, among many others. Plus we saw quite a few well known works like the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and Winged Victory.

We saw the Panthéon at day and night and pictures from both times came out good, or really cool at least.

One of the main attractions of the visit was of course, the Eiffel Tower. We took a ton of pictures with the digital camera, plus Kaley took two rolls of film with both of her cameras for her final project for photo class. She also let me borrow one of her cameras and I took a roll of film, which I'm looking forward to seeing when the photos get developed. Among the pictures we took some cute couply and kissy pictures, so be warned, sweetness will occur below!

The final hoorah of the visit was a HUGE (huge) dinner with everyone at Nos Ancestres de Gaulois. The place was fairly expensive, but the food was very good, and in insane quantities. It started off with unlimited wine from a barrel, and an assortment of bread and a HUGE (read: huge) basket of veggies to make salad from. The next part was a buffet of sausages and other meat and grain items. The 'main dish' was a meat kebab skewer. We all shared beef, lamb, and duck, the duck was amazing. Then came the huge cheese plater!

By the time the cheese plater came around everyone was sickeningly full, but we pressed on and ate a ton of the plate. We finished it all with a variety of desserts. One was a lemon chill, chocolate moose, and several others basically all delicious, the flon however, was not my thing.

So all in all, I would say it was one of my favorite weeks that I've been here. We saw a ton of stuff, did a ton of things, and ate lots of good food. The one bad part is now I'm missing home a bit more than I had been, but I'll get back in the swing of things around here. I am however looking forward to Spring Break and my 5-day weekend when I'm going to Italy.

Sorry for the semi-infrequent updates, I'll try to get going with more stuff so I can keep myself busy.

Le 1er Arrondissement

2008-03-12T23:34:00.002+01:00

Yesterday I spent a bit of time in the Premier Arrondissement with Cao then with Adam and her house-mate also. First Cao and I went to the mall at Les Halles and walked around for a bit. We spent a few minutes in FNAC looking around and playing with the computers. They had a MacBook Air, so thin..

Then we spent a few minutes in the area around l'église Saint-Eustache. It's a pretty impressive church and has an interesting fountain in front of it, not to mention a sculpture of a hand and head. I know we visited it when I came my senior year with school, but it was fun to go back again.

Today Cao and I spent some time in the Asian district of the city. We found a ton of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Thai restaurants and a buffet that looks really good, especially for the price. This coming week I think I'll be back there at least once for a meal or two.

Le 19ème Arrondissement

2008-03-10T20:25:00.009+01:00

I know I haven't updated lately, but I've mostly been just doing class, and hanging out. I've been a few places in Paris during the day after I get out of class but I haven't had my camera for much of it.

Last week Cao and I went to the 19th Arrondissement. The reason we went was to see a huge silver ball. We found it. It was huge. And Silver. I think it's a theater that you go inside and the film is projected on the ceiling of the globe, like those dome IMAX theaters. It was pretty cool to behold.

After that we walked around in the area for a while. The area is fairly modern and there were a ton of contemporary structures around. The area is home to Paris' Science museum, so that explains a bit of the weirdness.

One thing I liked the best was a huge sculptured bike partially hidden underground. From a distance we just saw the seat and I thought it was just some stupid abstract weirdness. Once we got up close I noticed the tire then started figuring out that the whole thing was a bike. Pretty cool actually.

The area was also home to "tree houses without the trees." Basically they were big protruding red metal structures. They had stairs and elevators to get up in them and most of them were connected by elevated walkways. The area was definitely interesting. I kind of want to go back once its warmer out. It could be a fun place to hang out and throw a frisbee around or something. That is, if the French have frisbees. Also on one of the "treehouses" we found a potentially offensive sign. I'm not exactly sure what they were going for with it, but my first thought was kicking a person in a wheelchair. Who knows.

Kaley is coming from Friday until the next so we'll end up doing a lot of touring and sight seeing you there should be plenty of photos from that, so it doesn't get too boring around here.

Normandy Excursion

2008-02-24T22:27:00.008+01:00

This weekend was the Normandy Excursion with AIFS. Leading up to it, I wasn't sure how excited I was to go or if it was going to be boring or fun. Plus I haven't been hanging out with most of the people who were going so that added to it a bit. But it turned out to be a ton of fun. Plus when I read the trip itinerary I found out we were spending the night in St. Malo, which I found out is probably where my mom's French side of the family probably came from.

We started off the day early and left Paris for The WWII Museum in Caen. The Museum was really interesting. Not only did they have lots of equipment and stuff from the time period and war, they also had tons of photos and videos, plus a walking timeline of events leading up to the war. It was really interesting to slowly see the peace from after WWI slowly deteriorate and effectively launch the second war.

After the museum we went to see two of the D-Day beaches. The first was just a view of the ocean, another had lots of the remains of the German bunkers along the water. It was pretty chilling and interesting because there were probably hundreds of huge divots in the ground left from the shelling of the invasion as the Allied forces approached. Now they're all covered in grass but there are huge indentations over 10 feet deep.

We also visited the American cemetery, which I'm sure everyone has seen pictures of. None of the picture's that I've ever seen have really done the place justice. It's just an incredible site to behold and to walk around among the thousands of tombstones.

We finished off the night in St. Malo, which I've already mentioned. It was awesome I thought. It's a small town surrounded by walls right along the water. The night we got there I went out to dinner with a few people and had salmon for the first time. I figured I'd like it and it turns out that I did. I also tried a raw oyster. However, unlike the relatively mild salmon, I didn't like it at all. I almost yacked while I was trying to get it down. I don't think I'll be going back for more haha.

The next morning we had time to explore the city some more. It was a beautiful day and we got to walk around the ramparts (the walls) and check out the city and eventually the beaches. It was really cool to get to see the Atlantic again, and touch it. Just a few thousand miles across it is the US, pretty cool to think its the same body of water. The views of the rocks and everything were spectacular.

We walked on the beach a bit and climbed some of the rocks. There's an island off the coast of the city that had a walkway to it, but you can only get to it when its low tide. They also have a pool built in the ocean that holds in water when the tide goes out. It even has a diving board that just looked like a staircase in the middle of the water.

We visited Mont Saint Michel during the day sunday. It's a huge rock in the middle of the water which has a small town built on it and a monastery on the top of it. Its inaccessable at the highest tide (every other week), but we were able to get to it. It's funny because when its not flooded its just a desert of gray clay sand mud, which apparently swallows people on occasion! The whole place was a marvel to look at from a distance, but the city and monastery themselves were pretty bland. I suppose because I've seen a bunch of old castle-like cities already on this trip.

Anyways, for starting off not sure how much fun I would have, this was quite an awesome trip. It was definitely worth the weekend. Plus, I finished reading The Sirens of Titan on the bus ride, I really enjoyed it!

Both from the American Cemetery

Le Centre Pompidou

2008-02-13T23:53:00.006+01:00

Tonight I went to le Centre Pompidou with Adam and Alix. It's so cool. Luckily its free on Wednesday evenings, so I'll be back to continue seeing the rest. We were there for a bit over an hour but didnt come close to seeing everything.

Here are a few of my favorites.

Auf Weiss II - Vassily Kandinsky

Gelb-Rot-Blau - Vassily Kandinsky

Le violoniste à la fenêtre - Henri Matisse

Guillaume Tell - Salvador Dali

Les marches de l'été - René Magritte

L'homme à la guitare - Georges Braque

One last thing, I attempted a panoramic view of a painting. It came out kinda distorted as far as shape goes but other than that everything is fine. So check it out if you want.
Le Bal Bullier by Sonia Delaunay

Belgium: Brussels & Chimay

2008-02-08T12:52:00.000+01:00

Tuesday Cao and I took a train to Brussels. The train station wasn't in the best area, as they never are, but we made the best of it by visiting a brewery in the area. It was the first brewery I've ever visited, and so, it was pretty educational. We got to see all the steps to making beer, and in this particular case Spontaneous Fermentation, the original method of brewing. The factory was the Cantillon Brewery which produces one of the few remaining traditional Lambic beers in the world.

The main beer they produce there is called Gueuze which is a bit sour, but also very sweet and tastes almost like Champagne. They also use their Lambic beers to make Kriek and other fruit beers. They're all really sweet and don't taste like beer at all. Pretty interesting I thought.

I also got to see some fake iPods on our walk to the hostel, which was pretty nice. It was pretty funny, I've seen the knockoff iPods on the Internet plenty of times, but I finally saw them in person. The hostel was good. There was a kitchen and a lounge with a TV, some tables, a cheap vending machine, and a few computers. Our room was as to be expected, large, with lots of bunk beds (for 14 people). It was quite an experience sleeping in a room with that many people. Everyone seemed pretty nice and basically sat around trading stories about their travels, pretty interesting and helpful.

Our first night we did some tourism stuff in the city. We saw the Bourse, the Belgian stock exhange, Manneken Pis, a very small peeing boy statue/fountain and got a waffle, very good, very touristy. After that we checked out the Grand Place and the Cathedral Sainte-Gudule.

On Wednesday morning we took a train from Brussels to Charleroi, where we searched for about 45 minutes to find the one ATM in the city haha. There were plenty of banks but they only accepted to exclusive Belgian cards. Then we took a bus to Chimay in search of my favorite Trappist Beer.

Turns out the Brewery wasn't actually in the town of Chimay but 7Km away. Desperate, we walked. We finally arrived at the Bottling factory. Where we bought some Chimay for very very cheap. We also tried to take a tour, but they weren't offering them at this time of the year. The Abbey and other Trappist related sites were also closed. But it was still worth it, I think. Plus we get to say we walked almost 15Km.

Thursday before the train we hit up a Flea Market in a town square in Brussels. We also went back to the Grand Place during the day and visited the Palace of Justice, which was incomprehensibly large. There was some pretty cool graffiti on some of the buildings in the area too. Finally we took the train back to Paris at around 4.

Brussels was a lot of fun and had a ton of stuff to do. I'd definitely go back to see more of the sites and maybe to go to Chimay again. However, I think I'd want to take a car if that were the case.

Tour Montparnasse, etc.

2008-02-05T02:28:00.000+01:00

Today I woke up to some good news about THE NEW YORK FOOTBALL GIANTS!!!! But I don't want to gloat so much that I lose readership, haha :-p. Anyways, I hung out around the apartment for lunch then met Cao in the Quatier Latin in the afternoon. We looked around for a backpack for her travels and I got a map of Brussels for tomorrow!

We also went to the Tour Montparnasse, which I believe is the tallest building in Paris. That is, however, if you don't count the Tour Eiffel, which is just a big metal structure.

Afterwards we rode the 5 line to Oberkampf and walked around a bit. Supposedly theres some decent cafés and bars there, but we didn't notice too too many. We did see a pretty crazily colored building which is pictured below. We didn't stay too long in that area because we wanted to get food stuffs for dinner at Cao's apartment and meet up with Adam and Alix.

We met up in a Monoprix with Alix and by a miniature Statue of Liberty with Adam. Then we proceeded to take the wrong train and took three more to get to where we were going, no loss tho, just makes the value of our Passe Navigo better! haha We had a pretty serious pasta and zuccini dinner with cheese and wine etc. It was a lot of fun to get to hang out in an apartment instead of a café for once!

Anyways, this post was more like one last one to get rid of some pictures from today and remind everyone that I'm going to Belgium until Thursday as of tomorrow! So I'll hopefully have a ton of pictures of my trip when I get back. One last thing, I have a new street performer video that I was planning on posting yesterday but couldn't!

Some Videos from the Weekend

2008-02-03T19:51:00.000+01:00

I was going to post two videos from yesterday, but YouTube has been taking forever and my battery is almost dead, so I'll have to save one for another day.

Some more of those 'cool' dancing kids.

The Eiffel Tower & The Trocadéro

2008-02-02T22:59:00.000+01:00

Internet access has been fairly scarce the past two days. Yesterday the Internet I was mooching from my apartment died and I haven't been able to get back on, and as a I write this I'm at McDonalds unable to get on. So, we'll see where I am when I get to actually post this.

Aside from lack of Internet the past two days have been fairly slow. Yesterday I hung out around the apartment most of the day, then went to the Louvre for about an hour and a half with Alix. We only checked out the top floor but we'll have plenty of time to go back to see the rest.

On the way back we made a pit-stop at the Franklin D. Roosevelt metro stop. I finally found Fraisoos! I'd been looking for Fraisoos and Pom Pooms (strawberry and Apple flavored candies) since I arrived but wasn't having very good luck. I saw some the night before in a vending machine at another metro stop, but it wouldn't let me buy them! I finally got a pack of Fraisoos though, and they were delicious, despite being a bit stale.

Today I slept in and hung around the apartment for a bit. Then I headed out and walked around for a few hours. I hung around the Trocadéro and the Eiffel Tower for a few minutes, but they were really busy so I just set off aimlessly.

I walked for quite a while in a fairly empty part of the 7e arrondissement which was filled with a bunch of foreign embassies. After a while it started getting a bit boring because there wasn't much of interest to see so I wandered my way to a metro and went back to the apartment to make dinner.

I just had a bowl of pasta with some fairly terrible Monoprix (a french supermarché) tomato sauce. Then I immediately ran back out to see a movie in the 10e. I saw In the Valley of Elah, which I had been wanting to see for a while. Tommy Lee Jones was good, but with a few exceptions the rest of the acting was abysmal. Plus it kept coming back to some unbelievably trite 'footage from Iraq.' I guess it wasn't a complete waste because it was only 4€.

I have some videos and stuff from the day to show but I need to edit them so I'll post them at a later date. Also check out some panoramas from today! Also, I'm at my second McDonalds of the night posting this haha.

le Trocadéro

le Tour Eiffel

Montmarte & le Sacré-Coeur

2008-02-01T14:03:00.000+01:00

The past few days have been fairly interesting. Unfortunately, the cold has been making me not want to do much, but that hasn't really stopped me I suppose. Yesterday we got our test results and chose classes. I'm in the intermediate level and I'm taking 3 seminars as of now, although I may drop one because I'll only get real credit for 2 of them. I'm taking Architecture of Paris in French, which should be interesting. We won't always be meeting in a classroom. Instead, part of the time will be spent on field trips to various buildings and monuments around the city.

Last night I used my first meal voucher. We were stupid and let ourselves get suckered into a restaurant where an entrée, plât and dessert were only €10 on top of that to entice us they offered us each a free glass of wine. You could probably guess that none of it was very good. I'm sure it was on par with the terrible places EFF Tours took us. My onion soup smelled bad and had hunks of burnt bread in it. The steak (yeah steak as part of a 10€ meal) was edible but not good. It was pretty rubbery and crappy. Finally, I had ice cream for dessert. It was a like single serving slice of neapolitan, but it was freezer burned and dried out. Now we know.

Also last night, we went for a beer close to that restaurant, in the Latin Quarter. The place was called Shywawa and was pretty cool. Also, I tried a beer called Delirium Tremens (pictured below), which will amuse at least Amanda. It was pretty good.

Today the four of us went to Montmarte for the day. We visited the Sacré-Coeur and walked around a bunch. We saw basically the same things I saw two years ago but it was still fun. These things include, the Sacré-Coeur, le Chat Noir, le Moulin Rouge, and all the other million sex shops in the area. Easily the largest of them is the Sexodrom. It sticks out like a sore thumb on the street. It's this huge black and red neon building amongst normal stone Parisian buildings. We also discovered Tati a department store kind of place that has everything from clothes, housewares, shoes, bridal stuff, and jewelry at pitifully low prices.

For dinner we used another meal voucher but this time the place was a lot nicer. Le Petit Poucet I believe it was called. I got another steak, but this time with shallots and it was way better. It was a bit more than the other place, but it was easily worth the extra 3€.

I think I'm spending the weekend in the city might check out a museum or see a movie or something. However, next week Tuesday through Thursday I'm heading the Belgium for a few days to see Brussels and Chimay.

Grandeur and Hilarity

2008-01-29T16:12:00.000+01:00

I think I'm going to go a bit light on the site seeing today since it's pretty cold out today, about 4°C in comparison to the 16°+ we were getting in Cannes. However, today I had my placement test at the Sorbonne and I got placed in Intermediate, which is what I was going for, although I could have dealt with whatever situation.

Also today, our baggage arrived from Cannes. I forget if I mentioned it but we could only bring a carry-on on the TGV when we came to Paris. So no more mixing and matching two shirts and one pair of jeans for me haha. Also my mail cames, so I got the cable for my camera, so there'll be a few pictures to follow.

I only have a picture of my room at the moment, but I'll try to take a few of the apartment building and stuff so you can get a better idea of my living situation. I like my room a lot, although I could deal with a little bit more closet space. I can only really use one of the doors in the closet, so 4 shelves.

That picture doesn't really do it justice, but I like it, and the bed is comfortable.

I think I mentioned that right as you step out of my apartment you're greeted with an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower, so here's a quick look at that.

Sunday I went to see where the AIFS office was but on my way I checked out the Panthéon. It's gigantic as you can see below. I didn't go inside due to the entrance fee, but just seeing it from the outside is impressive

After a bit more meandering I took the metro all the way out to La Grande Arche de la Défense. It was one of the first monuments we visited last time I was here, but it too is amazing just because of its scale.

l'Arche from the escalator from the metro.

l'Arche

Underneath the Arche.

One of my personal favorites from that area, the gigantic thumb.

One last tidbit, this group of tweens-through-teens spent the entire time I was there (and probably a bunch of time before and after) raving to some house music...youth, haha.

When I got back to my neighborhood the sun was just setting, so here's one last view of the Eiffel Tower.

And to top it all off I have a video for you from my wanderings in the area near le Centre Pompidou. While its sad to see homeless people, the SDFs as they're called here (Sans Domicile Fixe), street performers are a much different breed. There isn't necessarily a way to tell if they really need the money or they do it purely for the fun and some extra cash, but you find plenty here. Plus, I don't know many homeless people with guitar amplifiers. So anyways here's a look at a disco-ing man I found Sunday. Hopefully, I'll have more eventually.

Paris!

2008-01-28T18:07:00.000+01:00

So, I'm finally in Paris. It's pretty awesome, I must say. I've been here since Saturday and I've seen a bunch of the monuments, but I haven't really been actively touring. Also, unfortunately I don't have a way to get photos off of my camera, until I get the cable in the mail. Hopefully, that'll be soon, I have a decent amount to get off, but also I haven't been taking too many just because I have nothing to do with them, plus I'll be here for so long I'll have plenty of time to take photos.

We transfered by train Saturday. It was a pretty long ride, but I slept for part of it, watched The Office on my laptop for a while, ate, and played games, so it wasn't that bad. Papuna (my housemate) and I checked out l'Arc de Triumph that night then we had dinner with our host mother, lady. Later I went out with Cao and Adam for a beer.

The house I'm staying at is pretty nice. There's a lot of space and I got the bigger of the two rooms, with a double bed. There's a ton of closet space, but I don't really get to use any of it, just 4 small shelves.. with no way to hang anything. Also, unfortunately I don't have Internet here, so when I get done typing this, I'll probably go use the Wi-Fi at McDonalds... McDonalds.

The house is in the 16e Arrondissement and is right by the Trocadéro, within walking distance of l'Arc de Triumph, and has a perfect view of la Tour Eiffel. There's also a grocery store (actually like 3) nearby, which is good so I can do some food shopping so I don't have to spend a million dollars eating out every night, although it'd be nice.

As it turns out, I don't have anything to do starting like Friday (or Thursday?) through the following Friday or maybe even Monday. I think I'm going to try to get to Germany, or maybe elsewhere. When I get on the Internet, I'll look up tickets and see what's viable.

Hopefully I get the camera cable soon so I can update with some photos.

Saint-Paul de Vence & le Fondation Maeght

2008-01-25T15:41:00.000+01:00

Wednesday we had our second, and final, planned/included excursion for Cannes. I was really looking forward to it, but as it turned out it wasn't my favorite at all. The saving grace was le Fondation Maeght, a museum featuring Modern and Contemporary art.

The bus ride was kinda long feeling, and fairly boring but was made hilarious when Cao found two opened, potentially (although probably not) used, condoms when she folded down her tray table. Nonetheless, we arrived after our journey. The major draw of Saint-Paul is the old medieval city on a hill. Unfortunately, we've already been to Eze and then we checked out the Roman fortress at Ile Sainte Marguerite, so this was pretty boring.

Don't get my wrong, the place was awesome and picturesque, but you can only walk through so many, near identical, cobblestone streets before it gets old, and apparently that number isn't very many. One thing I really enjoyed there was an olive oil store. The little shop had an awesome array of olive oils, vinaigrettes, and tapenades. I got one garlic and basil tapenade to eat while I'm here, plus I got my parents a tomato vinaigrette and an olive spread. I hope they enjoy it.

Luckily, the Fondation Maeght made the trip worth while. There was a decent amount of art, scultures and paintings, by modern and contemporary artists like Marc Chagall, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, and Valerio Adami who I really enjoyed. There was only one of his paintings on display "The Bedroom Scene" I believe it was called, but it was awesome I thought. He uses really thick deliberate lines and solid bold colors which really caught me. I also really liked Giacometti's sculptures. The Miró Labyrinth was kinda cool but very very weird.

Unfortunately I don't have any pictures from the musée because they charged you to take them. Papuna took probably 100+ so maybe I'll bum a few good ones from him soon and post them.

Also: I'd appreciate any comments from anyone who happens to read my stuff. It'd just nice to hear from everyone. I thought it was automatic that anyone could comment, but I just realized it wasn't the other day and changed that. You don't need a Blogger account or anything just put your name in if you would so I know who it is. Thanks!

Panoramas

2008-01-23T20:55:00.000+01:00

I have three panoramas to show you. Two from Monaco and one from Nice. Hope you like them.

Ile Sainte Marguerite

2008-01-23T20:41:00.000+01:00

Tuesday we headed to Ile Sainte Marguerite, which you may know of because of "The Man in the Iron Mask," it's the island where the prison was. We took a ferry to the island which is just off the coast of Cannes in the Mediterranean. The boat ride was a lot of fun and fairly short.

We only had about three hours on the island, so we basically headed directly to the fortress to check it out. It was definitely one of my favorite things I've done so far. Seeing the other old cities (Eze and Saint Paul de Vence, which you'll see soon) was fun, but fairly repetitive. The fortress was so much more fun because it was basically just us in the whole area and we were able to get on some of the walls of the fortress and climb around. That kind of hands-on physical exploring is by far my favorite.

I thought originally that the fortress was from the dark ages, but it turns out that it was actually from about the 4th century B.C. which is way cool to see, and climb all over. We went into the actual museum, which is of the prison and you also get to walk around part of a Roman cistern.

We spent the rest of our time hanging out by the dock. There was something relaxing about sitting watching the flow of the sea and seeing a seagull (or maybe an albatross) fight to fly into the headwind. The ride back on the ferry was just as fun. I haven't been on a boat for a long time and besides the fortress, I really liked being out on the water.

Nice

2008-01-23T12:49:00.000+01:00

Monday I escaped to Nice with Cao, Alix, and Adam by train. It's awesome how cheap traveling within France seems to be. It was less than 10€ round trip. At first I didn't like it so much. We were basically wandering around aimlessly without finding much of interest. It mainly just seemed like a city, kinda dirty, with dog poop all over the place haha.

The first cool thing we found was an antique book shop. There were tons of awesome old books. They had tons of stuff, literature, dictionaries, philosophy, maps etc. I found one little treasure though. Plus I know Kaley actually asked a question about this, so I hope she enjoys the photo below.

Finally we found some interesting stuff. We found le Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain, the Acropolis and a really cool statue. We didn't go in anything because of the assumed cost and time restrictions but it was good to finally start find some stuff to see.

Then we finished up the trip with a walk up a huge hill to an old château. There wasn't much of it left, but the view was awesome. There were the ruins of an old church and part of the château. The main attraction for us was a huge rope jungle gym and the view. Check out the pictures below.

Monaco & Eze

2008-01-20T17:35:00.000+01:00

Saturday we had a planned excursion to Monaco and Eze. I was partially bummed at first because Alix, Adam, and Cao were going to Italy instead and that would have been a ton of fun. However, as it turns out Monaco is fking awesome. To start the place had absolutely beautiful scenery. Beyond that, its clear that it is mostly for 'the other half.' Driving around the streets the majority of the cars were Mercedes', Porsche's, Maserati's, etc. Plus I saw a few Ferrari's parked plus two Bently's and an Aston Martin. Defintely the kind of place I wouldn't mind living once I make several million. I've heard that there's an income minimum to live there.

We started out our day near the palace and walked down into the city. Down in the city we sat and had coffee. The weather was perfect and it was just calm and relaxing. Then we headed back up another hill to the Monte-Carlo casino. The place opulent and had awesome architecture. We went in but didn't gamble. I thought about playing a slot machine, but you had to put in 5€ to play, so I didn't bother wasting it. Around the casino was were the majority of the nice cars were parked. I definitely wouldn't mind owning a Ferrari.

After we walked back up the huge hill to the palace we had a scheduled trip into la Musée océanographique de Monaco. The museum part was okay had some interesting stuff to look at, mostly whale skeletons and other old whaling and boating memorabilia. The real treat of the place was the aquarium. It was really sweet and a lot of fun to check out all the fish. I haven't been to an aquarium since the days of cub scouts when we stayed over at the Camden Aquarium.

Yellow Submarine!

On the way back to Cannes, we briefly stopped in an old village called Eze. We went to a perfume factory tour. That wasn't exactly the highlight of the trip haha. While people were still milling around the store, I went with a few people to check out the old medival village up the hill. It was this awesome old castle-like village built on a hill. At the top there were some awesome views. It made the stop off at Eze well worth it.

One Week in Cannes

2008-01-18T18:16:00.001+01:00

So I've been in Cannes one week now. I'm looking forward to Paris, but I could easily stay here for the semester, especially when Spring comes around. It's been at least 50° almost everyday. Today it was about 60° and the sun is amazing. The area is beautiful.

I'm studying at Le Collège International de Cannes, and its right on the water. Just just have to walk down the alley that the school is on and cross under train tracks and we're at the Mediterranean, so nice. The city is also awesome. A few minutes walk to this alley way in the older part of the city which is filled with shops and cafés. We ate at one the other night for dinner and yesterday Adam, Alix, Cao and I had a nice picnic by le mer. We had cheese, bread, wine and fruit, pretty sweet I thought. The wine was 8€ and was really good. Also, I finally attempted to like mustard, and I liked it. We got this pack of 5 different flavors, so good.

Today right after lunch we went down to the water and took a quick dip. I definitely could have stayed in a bit more than we did. I went in twice for a few seconds, but it really wasn't that cold. It was fun, my first time in the Mediterranean and my first time in the water in January. Tomorrow we have an excursion to Monaco, which should be pretty fun. It's nice that it's free.

I have some stuff for you to check out below. A decent amount of pictures and some videos to spy. Also, I took a ton of pictures of the sea and made them into a panorma. It's supposed to be 360° but you just have to scroll across it. There are some obvious seams and different colors (especially photos with a lot of sun) but it's still really cool. Click to make it bigger.

This is my room

This is the view out our balcony

This is more out the balcony. The buildings on the left are our classrooms.

Even more. Thats 'Le Bar' we can drink and play pool or ping pong there.

This is Cao

We cut her hair.

Video below if you're interested

Here is the Mediterranean

We swam in it

La côte

Rocks

Sunset

Panorama

2 Days in London

2008-01-12T23:15:00.000+01:00

Update: I'm in Cannes now, I didn't get to post this because my internet time ran out. So this is from my last night in London. I'll update in a few days about Cannes.

So, I've had two days in London, tomorrow we're leaving. They've been pretty good.

Yesterday we arrived in London around 10am local time and got to the hotel around 12pm. We couldn't check in so we had to walk around for a bit first. The day wasn't too busy we hung out at the hotel for a while, then I tried to nap for a while, you'll see more about that below. I walked around by the hotel for a little bit, then we had a program meeting with drinks which was fun. I got to know some people and then ended going out with a group of people, including my roommate Joe.

We went to dinner at a Indian place. I had Chicken Jalfrezi. It was good. I haven't had Indian food in a long time actually. So here's some stuff from day one in London. I hope you like my video, it's retarded haha.

The view out my hotel room

The London Tower

Tower Bridge

More Tower Bridge

Across the Thames

Even more Tower Bridge

So day two we went on a tour in the morning. It was pretty nice, informative, interesting, and fun. The guide was pretty cool and I took a decent amount of pictures. After the tour we went to the British Museum which was awesome. There was lots of history, Roman, Greek, Egyptian, etc. We ate some fish & chips which were better than the bs ones I had yesterday. We also went to the National History Museum, which was also awesome. For dinner we went to Hung, Drawn, and Quartered, a sweet pub. The food was really good, but they put mayo on everything in England so that sucked, but it was nice and the beer was very good.

There are some pictures and a video of the changing of the guard to follow. Enjoy.

Parliment

Big Ben

Monument at Buckingham Palace

The Rosetta Stone

An Egyptian Mummy

...

Megatherium Amcericanum, an extinct giant sloth from South America

Tomorrow we leave for Nice then Cannes, it should be awesome. Hopefully the internet will be more regular, I hope to update regularly and take a bunch of pictures.