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

Pardon à l'interruption

After a wee bit of a lull—I am back with lots of stories to share! I apologize for the two-week hiatus from the blog, but in between visitors to Paris and midterms, it has been a little crazy across the pond!

Let’s see, where do I even begin? The weekend prior to my week of midterms was relatively low key and I was happy to have some down time in Paris. That weekend was particularly neat because a) my homegurl Marni was visiting Paris from Seville, Spain with her Dad and b) Paris saw record-breaking temperatures—the warmest apparently since some year in the 1800s.

So, if you’re doing the math from your end, you can imagine that warm weather + a visit with Marni + the need to study = a really really difficult time hitting the books. However, with all of that said—and also quickly learning that the midterms would prove to be a lot more ‘midtermy’ than initially expected, I made it through a rather strenuous week of tests.

Feeling a little antsy on Saturday, I took advantage of the 73 degree Fahrenheit weather and mapped out a run Jardin de Luxembourg, one of Paris’s most frequented gardens. After a couple of wrong turns and four kilometers later, I made it. As soon as I stepped inside the perimeter of the gardens it became very apparent that gardens are THE place to be in warm weather. There wasn’t one bench, patch of grass or railing that wasn’t being used for sitting, reading, chatting or boozing. I had to wedge myself in between a large group of effortlessly chic Parisiennes just to be able to snap a picture of the pond.  Needless to say, I was quite happy that I was able to navigate my out-of-shape butt to the gardens as it might’ve been the most beautiful afternoon I had spent in Paris yet.

The following day I met up with Marni and her dad who were both ready to see a whole lot of stuff in a little bit of time. So, I put on my tourguiding pants (not really…but I should definitely look into purchasing some) and planned a route that would hit Église St. Sulpice, Jardin de Luxembourg, le Panthéon, St. Germain-dès-Près, Café de Flore, St. Michel, Shakespeare & Co bookstore, Notre Dame, Lock Bridge and finally end up in the Jewish District (Le Marais) with time to spare.

Marni and her dad met me in the plaza in front. Their taxi happened to pull up to the plaza just as some homeless man (un clochard) was telling me how he liked my teeth—thank you Dr. Fasken!

We successfully hit all of the designated sites for the day and even had some time to spare. I only got a little disoriented once or twice and had to pull out my map. However, Marni’s dad said it was better when I was a little unsure of my destination because I would walk much slower. It was also really neat to talk about the history and the origin of certain buildings with Marni because as a global studies and history double major—she is genuinely interested in my fun facts that I have about each building. Arts & crafts majors, amirite amirite?

We ended our visit with a stop to the world famous falafel stand in Le Marais called L’As du Falafel and the sandwich definitely earned its international reputation.

            Welp, that’s all for now—stay tuned for the post about Casey’s visit (I am doing a double header to make up for my slack)

À Bientôt!

                                                             Jardin de Luxembourg
                                                       

                 
                                                          Marni visits Luxembourg

                                                              Her first macaroon! 

Sprechen Sie Berlin?

Allo!

I am currently writing this blog post from inside a McDonalds, (ou ‘Macdo’ si vous voulez sembler comme un vrai Parisien), close to my school as it is the only location nearby with free Wi-Fi. It is actually quite a lovely workspace I have created here and I think that (unfortunately) with a view of Rue Daguerre, outstanding internet connection and tables with large surface areas, I now proclaim my nook in this local Macdo my workspace of choice. 

I apologize for that tangent—I’ll blame it on the fact that it is Monday. Dreary Monday’s aside, I am particularly excited to share some stories, thoughts, perceptions and gastronomic adventures regarding my latest European trip to Berlin, Germany. I cannot exactly pinpoint why, but prior to leaving for this trip I just had a sense that I was going to absolutely love Berlin.

After a bright and early wake up this past Friday morning, we arrived in Berlin at around 9 in the morning, leaving us with a full day to explore everything that the city had to offer. From the moment we stepped foot onto the U-Bahn (metro of Berlin) I was surprised how drastically different the city seemed from Paris. Metro riders were smiling, loud and gregarious—a site unseen within the Parisian public transportation system. As I happily flashed my pearly whites at passerbys without apprehension, I also quickly noticed the size of the Berliners. I felt as if I was back at Coon’s Franklin Lodge in Arbor Vitae, Wisconsin with the entirety of the Mueller clan.  Every local seemed at least a head taller than me and I didn’t mind it one bit!

We quickly checked into our hostel and hopped back onto the U-Bahn towards Potsdamer Platz, which has been dubbed the ‘Times Square of Berlin’. Another thing I found fascinating was the language. Since English is a Germanic language, it was interesting to see how the German language consisted of words that resembled its English counterparts almost exactly and then there were words that had so many consonants—they seemed like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. 

Because we weren’t exactly navigation whizzes, we decided to go on a free three-hour walking tour of the city. The tour met in front of a Starbucks located within the Parisian Platz, which is home to the iconic Brandenburg Gate. Our Australian tour guide Stephen did an excellent job of showing us the city and giving an abbreviated yet detailed synopsis of Berlin’s rich history. On the tour we saw the Brandenburg Gate, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, the site of Hitler’s Former Bunker, Lutwaffe HQ, the Berlin Wall, the Former SS Headquarter, Checkpoint Charlie, the 1920s Cabaret Mile, Gendarmenmarkt, the old Royal Boulevard and the TV tower. After the tour we then walked throughout Museum Island—a section of the city surrounded by water that houses five internationally renowned museums.

We finished off the day with a trip to Dunkin Donuts, which was everything I could have ever wanted. Although I quite enjoy my café allongé  (espresso with an added cup of water) paired with a pain au chocolat—a big ol’ caramel coffee with one munchkin could not have come at a better time. I was particularly happy after this pitstop as I am rarely ever allowed to purchase one sole munchkin at the Bethelehm Dunkin Donuts. Therefore, as the gangly German man passed me my one allotted munchkin, I knew that the rest of the weekend was going to prove to be just as successful as the first day.

That evening we took advantage of the Berlin nightlife and signed up for a pub-crawl that ended at one of Europe’s most famous streets for nightclubs. The pub-crawl was an absolute riot as we ended up meeting an entourage of 25 guys from Manchester, England who were in Berlin for the weekend for a bachelor party, or as they called it, a ‘stag party for their best mate.’ Each one had a little green army man figurine, and since they had a few extra, we all received our own army man figurine. When I asked why they were carrying around these toys for the evening—one of the guys looked at me—looked to the entourage of 25 and then yelled something absolutely indecipherable. The entourage all quickly assumed the position that resembled their individual army man. Immediately realizing what was going on, I looked at my army man and hastily assumed my position, which was a lunge while pretending to fire a missile. It was a great night and after the entourage of 25 had indulged considerably, it was becoming increasingly difficult to understand them. By the last pub I knew that they were trying to speak English to me—they were speaking English to me—but through their thick Manchester accents they might as well have been speaking German.

The next day was a sharp contrast to the prior evening as we had signed up for a guided tour of the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was an absolutely unforgettable experience and I am glad that we mustered up the courage to sign up for the visit. It was particularly meaningful for one of the girls I was travelling with as her great-grandparents were both holocaust survivors. It was a very moving experience and it was fascinating to see how Germany collectively dealt with their dark history. As a whole, German residents acknowledge their past, they do not hide it, they do not justify it nor do they exploit it. For example, many of the bunkers within the concentration camp had been destroyed after the camp was liberated in 1945. Although Germany sought to preserve the camp and its historical relevance several years after its Soviet occupation, they refused to rebuild the decaying and/or destroyed buildings within the camps. They refuse to reconstruct what once served such a dark purpose.

After a quiet train ride back to Berlin, we then lifted our sprits with a trip to the East Side Gallery at dusk. The gallery is simply the Berlin Wall redefined. For about a kilometer the wall is painted, graffitied and made into a medium for artistic expression. Again, this is an instance for maintaining Berlin’s history without glorifying the past. Quickly realizing that none of us had really eaten that day, we headed to what seemed like heaven-on-earth: Burgermesiter. Burgermeister was a teeny tiny hole-in-the-wall joint that was under a U-Bahn terminal. With no seating area and a 40+ person line coming out of the rugged building—we knew it was going to be a good meal. After our big gooey messy burgers, we rolled over to a local pub, enjoyed a pint and then headed back to our hostel to get a good night sleep.

The following morning we were headed to the famous Mauerpark outdoor market. With thousands of vendors selling unique jewelry, waffles-on-sticks, fur coats, currywurst and everything in between, it was easy to see why Berliners love their open-air markets.

All in all it was a fantastic trip, but I am definitely happy to have some days by myself here in Paris to decompress. Whenever I leave Paris, I can’t help but feel some sort of nostalgia for the city. As I sit here in my bed trying to digest Chantal’s ‘healthy’ dessert of chocolate covered everything (bananas, strawberries, oranges etc.), I realize that yes, Paris has its flaws—but there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

Auf Wiedersehen!

                                          Entrance to Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp

                                                                 East Side Gallery

                                                        Burgermeister