So I asked for an adventure...Spring Break Pt. 1

Bonjour tout le monde!

Seeing as I have a little bit of time after my quick visit to Musée Rodin, I thought it would be a great opportunity to let you all know what I have been up to for the past couple of weeks.

Before I start recounting stories from my whirlwind of a spring break, it is important to state that prior to leaving for my 12-day-4-country extravaganza, I decided, along with my friend Sara, that I wanted an adventure. So with an adventure in mind, we had planned a train to Amsterdam from Paris, an overnight train from Amsterdam to Prague, (I parted ways with Sara and friends from Paris at this leg of the trip.) Flight from Prague to Rome, 14-hour bus ride from Rome to Croatia, 9 hour ferry from Croatia to Italy, 4 hour busride back to Rome from the Italian coast and finally, a plane from Rome to Paris.

The first leg of the trip started on a sunny Thursday in Paris. Sara and I left the IES center in Paris and headed to Gare du Nord. With my overly stuffed carry-on slung on my side and sunglasses on, we were headed to Amsterdam. It was at Gare du Nord where Sara and I experienced our first bout of miscommunication and first set of obstacles. Upon showing the confirmation email that contained both of our ticket information to the ticket booth, the attendant was quick to tell us that the payment for our tickets had not gone through, womp. So, we re-bought our tickets and finally got on the train.

The train began experiencing some mechanical issues, which resulted in a two-hour delay. At the beginning of the delay, trying to kill some time, I asked Sara what the address was for our apartment that we rented so we could make a game-plan for getting there from the train station. She then looked at me with a puzzled look on our face and said, “ummm, I’m not too sure what you mean? Don’t you have the address?” In that moment we quickly realized that neither of us had booked any lodging for that night, womp. After some taking some deep breaths, we were able to make some phonecalls and arrange a reservation at a hotel in the city—looks like we were going to be diva-ing it up in Amsterdam.

After all of the bumps, we were finally roaming the canal-ridden streets of Amsterdam. We stumbled upon a fast food restaurant that was basically a giant coin-operated vending machine. We both went for the lighter fare of deep-fried cheese—and yes, deep-fried-vending-machine cheese is as magnificent as it sounds.

The next day we rolled our butts out of bed and were off to see the city. As corny and cliché as it sounds (is using the word cliché a cliché?), the canals lined with bikes and quaint pastel-colored houses were spectacular. It was a wee bit overwhelming crossing any streets because not only were there many pedestrians to navigate around but you also always had to be on the lookout for bikes, cars, trams, motorcycles and buses…but mostly bikes, and even though they are eco-friendly, man can bikers be nasty!

Being the doofuses we were, we didn’t reserve our ‘Anne Frank House’ tickets online beforehand which meant about a 6 hour wait for the museum. So, we scrapped that idea and opted for just taking the city in by walking. During the day we saw the Iamsterdam sign, the tulip market, the main town square, the tulip gardens, Vondelpark, and many many cheese shops because, well, cheese is never a bad idea.

After a jam-packed day in the Netherlands, we boarded our fourteen-hour-overnight train and got ready for the next adventure. The train wasn’t half as bad as we had expected there were no delays, no weirdos and no problems—it was actually the longest sleep I have gotten while abroad so, self-five to me!

            We got to Prague relatively early Saturday morning and after using the visitors washroom as a make-shift change room/shower (we weren’t able to check in till 4pm) we were off to explore the capital of the Czech Republic. We met up with our friend from Paris, Elle, in Olde Towne square where the famous Prague Observation Tower resides. It was actually great timing for us to be there because there was a huge Easter fair happening in Olde Towne square so we were able to taste samples of many local favorites such as bratwurst, potato chips on a stick, craft beer, some sort of cinnamon dough bread that was made on a fiery-stick and of course, fried cheese. With the currency rates between euros and Czech crowns we were able to indulge more than our wallets could even imagine feasible in Paris. Long story short, crowns rule, euros drool.

            We then headed across the scenic Charles Bridge to see all of the historic sites including the Lennon Wall, the love Locks, Prague Castle, Prague Gardens, Petrin Hill and finally Strahov Monastery.

         After leaving the picturesque fairytale scene that was Prague’s historic Old Towne,  (*reference picture for reinforcement of this term), we finally scrubbed up and headed out to a hoity toity restaurant called Café Savoy. I got the pea soup (highly recommended from a Ms. Lauren Goewey) and it was absolutely delicious

Unfortunately, the evening took a rather sour turn when I left a bar only to realize that within my purse was well, nothing. No crowns, no Iphone…womp. However, due to my sobbing near a local Doner Kebab, some kind British man bought me a falafel in an attempt to alleviate the situation. The deep-fried chickpea sandwich helped a little bit, (I mean falafels=life), but it was still quite the bummer especially after having such a wonderful day.

The following day we had a late brunch and next thing I know, I’m at the Prague airport getting ready for the next installment of my spring break, Rome!

Stay tuned for stories from the rest of the week!

                                                             Amsterdam!

                                 
                                                          Boootiful canals!

       
                                                 Iamsterdam sign, Amsterdam

                                                            Charles Bridge, Prague

John Lennon Wall, Prague

Le début de la fin

Bonjour tout le monde!

This past week marked another week with no plans other than soaking up all that Paris has to offer—oh and completing some final term papers. This past week was particularly exciting as the temperatures have been very agreeable with an average temperature of low-to-mid-60s. As I am typing this now, it is currently 70 degrees—sorry east coasters, I’m sure spring will come soon?

            With my semester coming to and end (only four weeks left!!!) I have created a bucket list for everything I would like to have completed before I pack up my bags and head back to Toronto.  Somethings on my list include, but are not limited to, a sunrise run at Jardin de Tulleries, finding a speculose éclair, picnic on the Eiffel Tower lawn, trying escargot, marché aux puces…just to name a few. I was actually pretty pleased with myself because after googling many ‘must-do while abroad’ lists, I realized that I had completed quite a bit on each list, woot woot.

            Anyways, last Wednesday, Madame said she wanted to change things up a little bit and offered to take my roommate and I to the cinema. She had one of her coworkers meet us at the cinema and all four of us were off to see ‘Gazettes’ which is essentially the francophone version of ‘Bridesmaids’.

            When the movie was over, I was a little nervous because it was very much a movie for a younger generation filled with youths getting up to all sorts of tomfoolery! After the movie Madame looked at my roommate and I and said wow, your generation is all about their vodka shots—shots shots shots. I gulped thinking that we had collectively selected the wrong movie. But then she smiled and said to us, ‘when I was your age we were all about the gin, I remember staying up till 5 in the morning and then trying to sneak back before my parents woke up oh là là…you girls are much better behaved than I was.

            Fast forward to the weekend, overall, it was a very low-key weekend. On Saturday, myself and two friends from Lehigh who are also studying in Paris took a ‘promenade’ around the St. Michel area where we stumbled upon île-de-la-Cité which is a little island situated between the 5^th and 3^rd arrondissments. We sat down and grabbed a cappicuno in the main square where four cafés met around one cobble stone street and street performers continued to serenade the diners throughout the afternoon.

            Sunday was a particularly exciting day for me as it was the day I was going to get my “Paris thing.” I didn’t want to drop a lot of money on a lavish Parisian designer nor did I want to get some small kitchy souvenir that would end up in a shoebox somewhere. For a brief moment I considered bringing home macaroons as a souvenir for myself of my wondrous semester in Paris…as if I could make it back to Canada without eating them first. So, I settled on an idea that I borrowed from my friend Marni.. Instead of collecting shot glasses or tshirts from every city she visits, Marni has been collecting street art. With this in mind, I knew that a painting from Painter’s Square in Montmarte would be the perfect, timeless and most fitting souvenir from my adventures abroad. So on Sunday I took my friend Maddi to Montmarte with the painting I wanted already in mind.

Because it is a real open-air market market, this means that bargaining is a must to get a more reasonable price. So, if you know me, you can already guess that I was absolutely fantastic at being a assertive, cunning and argumentative with the painter. I approached the artist who was the creator of my designated painting and then began to tell him my fabricated story of how I was a lowly student with no income and my mother wanted only this one thing from Paris and how it would mean so much to her but I barely had any money blah blah blah. He looked at me smiled and asked me how many euros I had with me; I said 40 (which was a total lie). He wrinkled his forehead and then told me that the painting was already marked down from 150 euros to 85 euros (he was also lying as this is a well-known painter’s tactic) So I batted my eyelashes and then let out a very big sigh to which he replied (in English) that I was an awful bargainer and that he would give me the painting for 60 euros because I was Canadian and had a beautiful smile. So, in conclusion, thank you (once again) to Dr. Fasken and my immigrant parents for getting me a discount on my beautiful impressionist painting of Montmarte at dawn.

That night, as my roommate was still in Barcelona, Madame and I sat down to a traditional French meal of curry, naan and couscous. Even though I have yet to try much authentic French cuisine such as escargot, it’s a naan-issue for me (see what I did there?)

Middle-eastern food jokes aside, it was a great week in Paris and I am looking forward to spending some more time in Paris before my twelve-day spring break extravaganza

À bientôt!

Mussels in Brussels

Because I am currently sitting at an Illy Café with about two hours to kill before my train leaves for Paris, I thought it would be the opportune moment to write a blog post about my trip to Belgium!

            Before I recount all of the fabulous sheninigans I got up to over the weekend, I think it is important to preface this post with the fact that I really had no expectations for this weekend. Due to Casey’s visit last week, I hadn’t really researched any activities nor did I really know what Belgium was all about. I think my shallow knowledge of Belgium in addition to the group of girls I was travelling with made the trip one of the best ones I have had yet!

            Early Friday afternoon, I took a train from Gare du Nord to Bruxelles Midi-Zuid Station. The hostel was about a twelve-minute metro from the Brussels train station so round trip to and from my homestay was just about two hours—have I mentioned that I love travelling by train yet? Unfortunately, my friends who were meeting me from Seville, Spain were running a little late as their second flight was delayed. Fourteen hours after leaving Seville, Marni and Holly finally arrived in Brussels

            After settling in, we headed to the Grand Place to begin our culinary adventure. First, we fulfilled Marni’s request by heading to a frites (Belgium fries) stand. Now no one can say they don’t like fries, but I have always found them meh. They aren’t exactly a food to die for and you can really find ‘em anywhere. However, I must attest that Belgium frites are uhhh-mazing. I don’t know if it’s the fact that double fry them, I don’t know if it was the andalouse sauce that was slathered all over marnis battered potatoes or if it was just the fact that they came in a big paper cone that made the experience completely different than any other guilt-ridden fry-eating session.

When there were no more fries that were easily accessible to me within Marni’s cone, we began our quest for the main course, waffles. I mean we were in Belgium, it would’ve been blasphemous if we didn’t get any waffles as soon as possible! As we traversed through the city center we stumbled upon the Hôtel de Ville, Maison du Roi, Les Ducs de Brabant, Le Roi de l'Espagne, Le Cornet, Le Cygne, the Maison des Brasseurs, Le Cerf and La Maison des Tailleurs. Finally, we found our waffles—and man they were good.

After our ‘dinner’ we headed back to the hostel to decompress a little bit before indulging in another one of Belgium’s delicacies, de la bière. Due to a recommendation given to my friend Holly, we went to a bar called Delirium, which ended up having the Guinness world record for the greatest variety of beer available. With over 2,100 varieties of beer, I chose cookie beer, which was Speculoos cookie flavored (my absolute fav) and the others chose the more lady-like option of Strawberry beer.  With Marni’s goal of getting frites at least twice a day, we grabbed our cone of fries. In the cab back to the hostel I practiced my French with the taxi driver as the two Spaniards snoozed in the back seat—looks like their 14 hours travelling time had taken its toll.

The next day we got our frite-ridden bodies out of bed bright and early to get ready for our guided tour of Bruges, Belgium. After eating our complimentary breakfast (woot woot) we headed to la Grande Place to meet with our tourguide P.J. We learned that P.J. is a native to Brussels, he studied in Ghent and his first language is Flemish. Now that I think of it, P.J. kind of resembled an enlarged leprechaun. With his red hair and beard and rugby player-like body—he definetly seemed to be at ease while we traversed the fairytale-like town that was Bruges.

The duration of the tour was about five hours long. With P.J. leading the way, we walked throughout the city discussing the baroque and gothic architecture, the Flemish revolution, and the French oppression of the Flemish…oh and uh, chocolate and beer. Apparently it’s even better in Bruges than in Brussels, who knew?

Pictures hardly do Bruges justice, but with the canals, boat tours, horse buggies and cobblestone streets, it was absolutely breathtaking. So, if you ever find yourself in the Flanders region of Belgium, I recommend you taking a quick pit stop in what P.J. dubbed as ‘the Venice of the North.’

We headed back to Brussels, quickly freshened up and then headed out to cross off the last thing on our culinary checklist: Mussels. Yep, mussels in Brussels—it’s a thing!

The following morning we did a little more wafflin’, got our last look at Belgian chocolate and then headed back to our designated destinations.

Although was a really fun, relaxing and chocolate-filled weekend, I am very much looking forward to being in Paris for the next three(ish) weeks before I head off to my spring break extravaganza. Stay tuned for details from my movie and Macdonalds date tonight with Chantal!

                                                 Panorama of La Grande Place

     
                                                           Bruges, Belgium

 
                                                     Famous canals of Brugge

                                                                Belgian Waffle!

Boy, Cats, Normandy and Cheese

So this post I am a little more excited to write because it will be detailing my adventure of a week with some guy I picked up on the street. Just kidding—I’m taking about Casey, however his frequent falling asleep on the metro did make him seem a little bit like a homeless dude, but that’s a story for later.

Anyways, Casey and I had been planning his visit to Paris for quite some time. So when only a week remained before he was to land at CDG—you could say that the anticipation for his visit was at an all-time high. After what seemed like ions…eons?...March 15^th finally came and I was off bright and early to go pick up the Ohioan from the airport.

The commute was especially easy because all public transportation within Paris was free for a couple of days in an attempt to reduce the city’s pollution—which was also at an all-time high. Smog aside, I am never going to complain about a free RER B train ticket, so smog away!

As I paced in the arrivals section of the airport, I looked up to see a guy in a bright purple windbreaker equipped with two camping backpacks—Casey had made it to Paris.

Because we were unable to check into our apartment until 4 that afternoon, we headed back to my homestay apartment to drop off his bags. As we entered my homestay, we were greeted by Chantal in a nightie. The situation became even funnier for me as Casey can’t speak French…and Chantal can’t speak English. So I introduce them to one another to which Chantal asks me if he speaks French (in French) to which I say nope and then she continued talking about him while he stood there nodding his head and smiling. “It is a shame that you will not be practicing your French with your friend, it is also funny because I can say whatever I want and he doesn’t know what I am saying. Your friend seems very pretty, don’t let him walk the streets alone.” *cue Casey head-nod and smile* 

After I translated (most of it) when Madame left the room, we were off for our first Parisian adventure, woot woot. The first day we walked from Saint Sulpice to Luxembourg Gardens and then St. Michel area. After deciding that the line was too long to head into Notre Dame (the fourth time I have done this) we headed over to the **~lock bridge~**. After writing our initials with my very poor penmanship, we locked the hunk of metal on the bridge et voilà—it will now rest there for eternity. Juuust kidding, the locks get cut off once a year to make room for more locks (something that the Parisians have been trying to keep from tourists this whole time, the nerve!)

Later that evening we grabbed a bottle of 2 euro vino and headed towards the Seine to participate in the world famous ‘bateaux mouche’ tours which shows you all of the top sites of Paris from a big ol’ boat in the river.

The next day we were up an early because my itinerary said we had to (sorry Casey). With the smog subsiding, (a little bit, but not enough to pay for metro), we decided it would be the perfect day to climb to the top of the Eiffel Tower. With our croissants and espressos in hand, we were off.

This was my first time going up the tower so I was very excited, but also really confused on where on earth the line started and ended in the mass swarm of tourists. After getting elbowed in the stomach by a Korean lady who thought I was trying to butt her in line, we reassessed our game-plan and decided we should get a little cardio and hike up the tower instead of taking the elevator. After a brief seven minute wait, (take that Korean lady!!), we had our tickets and begun our trek up the tower. Sidenote: Casey is extremely afraid of heights, which made the slow tedious trek up the tower pretty amusing for me. About a half hour or so later, we were at the second floor where we then purchased tickets for the very top of the tower. The top had the most fantastic view but it also became very apparent how bad the smog was.

After our steady descent down the tower we were headed to Champs Elysées to see the Arche de Triomphe and to re-fuel. I then took Casey to sample only the finest of Parisian macaroons that can be found at my mecca, the one, the only, Ladurée Salon du Thé. After gobbling down my vanilla bean macaroon faster than you could say “wow these are overpriced” we were off to our next destination on the list—le Marais to get some falafel. Because really, you can never have too much falafel!

After lugging our massive sandwiches throughout the Marais, we then took a little breather at Place de Vosges, a local park within the area. After catching some z’s in the sun, we grabbed a quick pint of cider, and then headed to Montmartre.

Now I have tried to time visiting Sacre Coeur church at sunset several times before while visiting Montmartre, but have never been successful. But lo and behold, we managed to time it perfectly.

The following day had a much slower pace as I had to attend all of my classes, (bummer, right?).  During a break in between my classes, we went to a Cat Café, which is exactly what it sounds like, a café with a bunch of cats throughout the restaurant. I don’t know if having a cat sitting next to my cappuccino made it taste any better, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience!

During my classes, Casey did a little bit of self-exploring and came back with a ginormous coffee table book from whatever he did….so I guess he was successfully navigating around the city. Before heading to St. Michel to meet some friends for St. Patty’s day festivities, we indulged in a traditional café dinner of a charcuterie plate and a croque madame. We then celebrated St. Patty’s with green beer and free Guinness hats at no other establishment, but the Great Canadian Bar.

For a little bit of adventure outside of Pareee, I took Tuesday off and we hopped on a train to Caen, Normandy to explore the beaches and sites of D-Day. Although it was a wee bit brisk, the visit was absolutely extraordinary. We signed up for a 5-hour-guided tour, which was led by our good friend Raphael, who happened to have the strangest accent I’ve heard yet. He was native to the area but I’m assuming he learned English from a Brit because his English came out a weird mixture of the two AND he said washroom instead of bathroom, who does that? Anyways, during our tour of Normandy we saw Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, the American Memorial Cemetery of Normandy, German Bunkers sites at Longues-sur-Mer and finally the artificial harbor the British constructed at Arromandes, Colleville-sur-Mer.  I was a little disappointed that we were unable to go to Juno Beach on our guided tour but other than that, the tour and the tourguide were fantastic. As much as I was reluctant to have a tour guide for the experience, I am very pleased with our decision to go on a guided tour because there is really so much I had never even known regarding the Normandy landings of June 6^th, 1944.

So Wednesday marked the final day of the Kelasey (Caselly?) adventure. After going to my first class, I told Casey I would meet up with him in front of the pyramids at the Louvre—which happened to be a lot more difficult than I had thought. Luckily he had about a foot on 90% of the other tourists in the plaza, so I was finally able to spot him. We then traversed through the Tullerie gardens to end up at Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum. The one thing about the metro no longer being free on Wednesday was that Casey really just wanted to walk everywhere instead, which turned out being really nice because it forced me into walking through certain areas an neighborhoods that I had yet to visit.

We ended our trip in the cheesiest way possible—literally. After some museum visits we regrouped and then headed out to a quaint little café in a pedestrian side street in the Marais called ‘Les Philosophes.’ We ordered a cheese plate and then we were off to our final destination for the night, a fondue place in Montmarte called ‘Refuge de Fondue.’

This fondue place is a teeny tiny whole-in-the-wall joint that serves its wine in baby bottles. I introduced myself to the couple beside us to which the girl replied, “oh my goodness I thought you and your boyfriend were locals and we felt so bad you would have to be beside us Canadians.” So we then played the whole, “do you know person x and person y game’ while Mr. Ohio just nodded and smiled across the table (seems to be the recurring theme of the trip, eh?) It actually turned out that the majority of people around us were from throughout Canada and all of them had been recommended the restaurant. The food and company was excellent but man oh man I did not want to see cheese for a while after that night.

Casey left the next morning bright and early to head back to Cincinnati. It was a great trip and I couldn’t have imagined a better week.

I am now headed off to Brussels, Belgium for a quick 48-hr visit so looks like I’ll have some more stories to share!

À Bientôt!

 

                                                View from the Top of the Tower

                                             Catching some Z's at Place de Vosges
                                           

                                                        Visiting Sacre Coeur
                                 

                                                      Montmarte at Sunset

                                                                Cat café!

                                                   Omaha Beach, Normandy

               

                                   Casey in his element at Arromandes, Colleville-sur-Mer