Paris

You would not think keeping up with one blog post a week would be as difficult as it's proving to be. By the time I get around to writing about my weekend, I'm almost ready to leave for my next one. So, I apologize as my posts deteriorate in creativity, I'm in a permanent sleep deprived state.

This week is a tired one. I'm concerned my travels are catching up with me a little bit. Thankfully, the universe sensed this and cancelled my early Thursday class, so I'll have some time to recoup before my next adventure.

Friday afternoon I left on a school trip to go to Amneville, France. We were supposed to be attending a "Hot Spring", which is significantly more glamorous than it turned out to be. More accurately, it was a heated public pool with access outdoors and a few steam rooms. But we didn't let the let down about the fact that it was not in fact a "spring" of any sort ruin the experience. After years of lifeguarding, nannying, and competitive swimming, I hadn't gotten to swim just for fun in years. Afterwards we were dropped at the Thionville train station where we killed time until taking off for Paris.

We arrived in Paris late Friday night and after a terrifying mix up where we forgot to tell our Airbnb host we were bringing an additional boy, we decided we couldn't wait until Saturday to see the Eiffel tower. We took the train and arrived at the lonely tower around 1am. It was nice to have the entire thing to ourselves, but it wasn't lit up. We promised to come back two more times, at least.

Saturday morning we took to the Louvre, spending at least 3 hours there, and seeing approximately 30% of it. It was an experience just to be there and we got through the Egyptian art, the Greek statues, and the French paintings. We saw the Mona Lisa, of course and personal opinion, it was just alright. Obviously it was a great painting, but it wasn't my favorite thing I saw while I was there.

After that we grabbed a quick lunch and went to see the Arc de Triomphe. Then we wandered around all the tourist shops and headed back to the Airbnb to rest for an hour or so before returning to the Eiffel tower. This time it was lit up and we got to see it sparkle. We also met some fellow travelers from Canada. They were on a battlefield tour of Europe and we all went out to a Canadian themed bar (that seemed like a regular bar) and after that an Irish bar next door.

It was really nice to meet new people and hear their thoughts on American culture. We didn't get home until almost 5am and immediately crashed. We were a little too tired to hit the Catacombs that morning and instead just wandered around the city and got lunch and coffee until it was time to catch our train home.

I think Paris was my favorite weekend so far. It was only me and three other people traveling, which was an easy number to make sure everyone was getting to do what they wanted to do. We also balanced sight seeing and activities with relaxing and actually getting to just sit and enjoy our time there. It can be hard to do that when you're trying to see an entire city in less than 48 hours.

Although the locals were a bit more rude than we've experienced in other countries, it was really emotional to experience Paris after all the awful events that have occurred there lately. We saw the memorial people had set up in the center of town and it was an intense feeling; even though I knew no one involved and had never even been to this city it was incredibly emotional to look at how desperate people were for peace, and how little they understood why such violence had been inflicted on their city.

48 hours was not nearly enough with the beautiful city, and I am sure to return someday. Until then, I have to buckle down in school for a little while (yeah, I'm actually in school here).

Friday I leave for hiking and playing in the snow in Interlaken, Switzerland. Can't wait for more adventures!!

Casual Dating

I'm casually dating the world. While it doesn't provide the same daydreams of a future and can often be troublesome to communicate with, my relationship with the world is one of the best I've ever had.

In the past week and change, I have been to four countries. Total, I have been to six. I have officially been to more countries than I have full days of class.

On Friday I left for Utrecht, Netherlands. It's the most ancient city in Holland and captured my heart right away. While I can't say I loved it for it's gloomy gray skies and unforgivable wind, the culture, the people, and the sparkling canals were enough for me. Utrecht was a class trip and I spent time at the local university learning about how women in Utrecht are handling sanitation issues globally. We also toured the streets, climbed Dom Tower, went to a nightclub and had high tea on the canal. I took some time to walk by myself (in the daylight, mom) and wove through the street markets, watched an old man play his accordion on the street corner, and pretended the persistent mist and frozen wind wasn't bothering me. I was sad to say goodbye to Utrecht, but I knew it wouldn't be the last time we saw each other.

Tuesday morning the class let out for Carnival break and myself and a friend took a train to Amsterdam. There we braved the rain and walked miles through endless souvenir shops and "coffeeshops". We saw the red light district, which broke my heart but is as much a part of their culture as the stones that made up the street. After that...we went back to our room, didn't do anything else. Real boring place. Moving on...

Wednesday morning we caught our flight to Venice. Venice was everything I hoped it would be and so much more. We met up for three other friends, making our group an even six, and wandered the streets looking for cheap pizza. We saw San Marco square and the Ducal Palace and bought the freshest strawberries I've ever eaten at a little farmer's market by the sea. On our last day in Venice we wandered down by the water and decided to throw plans to the wind and just sit for awhile, dangling our feet over the sea. We sat there for hours and watched the sun go down over the water, talking and drinking juice out of plastic cups. When the sun slipped below the horizon, we got up and went to find pasta for our last Venetian meal. The next morning we awoke before the sun and lugged our bags through abandoned streets. We said a painful goodbye to Italy and boarded a plane for France.

Nice, France was our last official destination. Most of what I experienced from Nice was from the sun-soaked terrace that came with the apartment we stayed in. We spent two days watching the streets below, eating homemade pasta, drinking more cheap wine (that's a theme of this adventure) and soaking up as much vitamin D as we could to get us through a week back home in rainy Luxembourg. By that point in the trip we were sick of museums and walking and just wanted to take advantage of the vacation portion of the trip. We peeled ourselves away from the balcony to dip our feet in the ice cold sea and to participate in a wild Carnival celebration. Essentially it was a large parade featuring obscure, intricate and unexplainable paper machete floats, featuring confetti, silly string and loud American music that the French knew each word to, despite not speaking English.

We went through Brussels to get home, and saw only what could be seen from the window of a train. The train ride home featured lots of headphones time, a bit of homework, and lots of laughing as we played our favorite game, "Drink and tell". We rarely participate in the drink portion and the game morphs into someone asking a question followed by passionate discussion until someone says something funny and we all forget what we were talking about to start with.

I got home and collapsed in my bed, only 9 hours to sleep before school.

I only spend a few days with these cities. I don't have time to see their flaws and dirty underbellies. I am permanently in the honeymoon stage with each place I go. By the time I fall into an almost boring comfort, I uproot myself and move on to something else. I couldn't ask for better friends to travel with and although I'm happy to be home for a short 5 days to reflect on the craziness that was this past week, I'm already growing itchy to see more things.

Off to Paris on Friday, Au Revoir.