Fall Break = A Full Week Off in Europe

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November 9th 2007

Published: November 15th 2007

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RaeinBrussels

Notre Dame

Notre Dame was only 4 blocks from our hostel!

Whew! So I am finally back from my amazing fall break trip, which was just that - amazing. Unlike SLU, which considers a fall break to be a 4-day weekend, all of Europe does fall break justice by giving a whole week off for "rest and recuperation". So, I was able to really see and experience a lot in my 9 day trip without any stress of homework of upcoming tests, which was pretty nice. And 9 days was about perfect for me, as I tend to go stircrazy from any hint of nonproductivity after about a week...

I went to Paris with my friend Dan's art class, so Saturday through Wednesday was extremely structured and packed with stuff to do and see. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and went immediately to see le Palais de la Cite (the town hall/courtroom/jail) and Sainte-Chapelle, the gorgeous church designed by Louis IX (who SLU is named after!) to house the two relics he bought: the crown of thorns and a piece of the cross. This is nuts - the relics themselves cost almost four times the church itself, and were only displayed to "the faithful" on Good Friday. But, I am pretty

la Sainte-Chapelle

See the beautiful interior? And all of the salespeople? Kind of reminded me of the money changers in the temple, when Jesus got really mad and overturned the tables...

sure this move among others by King Louis contributed greatly to his aquired status of a saint. We then went to les Jardins du Luxembourg (the Luxembourg Gardens) where we saw a lot of linearly planted trees and fountains, just like all European parks. It was gorgeous, but so predictable, as it seems that all European "parks" refer to plots of land that are perfectly decorated with rows of trees and sand foot paths, while European "forests" refer to the natural parks that we usually think of. Saturday night we ate delicious Moroccan food and I met up with some other friends in Paris to go see la Tour Eiffel. It really is humongous and beautiful at night - it is completely lit up and every hour, it is decorated with a ten-minute light show. On Saturday I also was able to go to mass at Notre Dame, which was sweet. It was in French, and I did understand most of the Bible readings (minus the reading that I did not recognize from the apocrypha), though the homily was a little difficult. It was a different experience, as most of the church goers were tourists, and other tourists just walked

la Sainte-Chapelle upper room

The "upper room" of Sainte-Chapelle, which represents a huge chunk of the Bible in hundreds of stained-glass windows

around the outside of the church to see parts of it during the service.

On Sunday, we went to the Carnavalet Museum, which was a large musueum dedicated to the history of France, specifically the Revolution and the past 4 centuries. It was cool, but as I found out throughout the trip, going with a class prevents any free time to wander and look at the stuff that seemed interesting to me. We did see a real guillotine blade, though, which was exactly how I would have envisioned it. For lunch, we stopped in the Jewish Quarter and tried falafels for the first time. I must admit that mine was not that good, but that could have been because it was extremely cheap and from a street vendor. I may have to give them another chance some time. Sunday afternoon we wandered through the streets of Paris looking at random buildings, finally ending up at le Sacre Coeur - the humongous and gorgeous church on the top of one of the highest hills in Paris. We obviously went to a lot of churches, but as all of you probably know, I loved seeing all of the different aspects of

the Guillotine blade

I just kept waiting for it to fall down... scary!

each one - each has a different place in history and a different reason for being created, so it was a history lesson as well.

Monday we spent the first half of the day at the Louvre, which was not enough time to even come close to doing it justice. Le Louvre is the largest museum in the world (it is almost a third-mile in length!), and our teacher told us that if you spend 20 seconds at each piece of art, you will need multiple lifetimes to see it all! It was really interesting, especially when we ended at the Mona Lisa, where a crowd over 100 people big constantly surrounds the painting. It was really difficult to see it up close (and the closest you can get to it is 15 feet), as people shove you from every angle. At one point, the guard even shoved some lady back and told her that she had already been there for an hour, which was WAY too long I guess. It was kind of funny... We went to another garden, les Jardins des Tuileries, that afternoon and then saw la Place de la Concorde, where most of the beheadings

Our Class

Here we are in les Jardins du Luxembourg

took place during the French Revolution. It was just a big open space (perfect for mobs of people watching executions two hundred years ago) with a memorial in place for the many deaths of the Revolution, but still pretty interesting to see. Sadly, it rained ALL day Monday, which crushed all of our desire to go out and do the Frenchy things. So, we went and saw Michael Clayton in the movie theatre, as it was the only movie in English.

On Tuesday we spent an entire, incredible day at le chateau de Versailles - the castle of Louis XIV. Louis XIV had the castle built over 400 years ago for a couple of reasons, most notably the fact that he was kicked out of Paris and therefore needed a new castle, and the fact that he had a MAJOR desire to "impress the world". The Sun King spent TONS of money to build this humongous castle, and it is completley evident by the multiple original paintings, abundant mirrors, and expensive gold decorations that exist in every room. Versailles is south of France, so we had to take a train to get there. It was so funny - I

The Moroccan Restaurant

Cheers with Sabine, the sweet study-abroad coordinator, as we drank mint tea for dessert

got off the train, and I immediately felt like I was in Disney World - the streets and McDonalds are similar to the entrances of the themeparks, and I experienced some major deja vu (to be extra French in this blog). Then we show up to the LONG line in front of the castle, and by the time we get to the front of the line, our teacher is cracking jokes about how she needs leashes for us (which I had to wear on the Blood family trip to Disney World, if anyone has forgotten....) Then we enter the castle and the entire thing just seems too humongous and extravagant to be real. But it is, and it is amazing. On top of the castle, Versailles has humongous gardens that were built to appear as if they extend past the horizon, and I think they honestly do extend pass the horizon. It was really cool! Tuesday night, one of my friends and I ran around Notre Dame and le Louvre. The entire time I just kept thinking, "here I am, just running along the Seine and around Notre Dame as if it is completely normal...". Pretty cool! After cleaning up

la Tour Eiffel

So pretty when it's all lit up at night! See the spotlight on top?

a bit, three friends and me went to eat dinner along the Champs-Elysees, near the Arc de Triomphe. We were able to get a table outside on the terrace, and enjoyed a feast of mussels, frites, hot chocolate, and wine. It was easily one of my favorite parts of the trip.

Wednesday was the last day we spent with the class, and it was pretty much dedicated to le Musee D'Orsay, an old train station that was turned into an art museum to house the more modern stuff that the Louvre does not hold. To be honest, I was a little tired of art by this point (I just don't think I will ever be able to appreciate art in the way that it should be appreciated), but the building itself was pretty cool. We ate crepes for lunch (and by that I mean I ate bunches of crepes for my meal AND my dessert!), and then went to our last stop - Napolean's tomb. It was really neat too, but I think the size of the tomb was more impressive to me than anything else, as it turns out that Napolean is actually held within 7 different "casket"

la Tour Eiffel et moi

And me with the Eiffel Tower

type things that fit into one another. So the outermost covering looks as if it holds a giant, even though we all know that Napolean was a bit height-deficient 😉 The class left, and Dan and I spent Wednesday night running around Paris, as we ran from our hostel to the Eiffel Tower and back. It was a pretty long, but beautiful run, so after getting some food and wine in us, we pretty much just went to sleep at like 10. Then Thursday we spent our last morning in Paris shopping, eating, and enjoying some actual free time with no class structure.

Later on Thursday, I made the transition from Paris to Barcelona on a 10-hour train ride. It passed pretty quickly as I sat next to some very interesting (more like entertaining) people, ranging from a 15 year-old French boy who was doing French calculus (which I am pretty sure is the same as the calculus I learned, but with a much cooler look due to the French) to a Spanish couple who spent some time telling me how much they hate Americans. Border control came to check our passports, and after they saw mine, with the

A Holocaust Reminder

This is a pretty sad sign on the school in the Jewish quartier in Paris. It says "165 Jewish children of this school were deported to Germany during WWII and were exterminated in Nazi camps".

big USA stamped across the front, they started telling me how much they love Americans.... a bit fishy, huh? I met another friend in Barcelona, and we headed to a bar to watch a soccer game in true European style. Sadly, the bar closed 12 minutes after we arrived, so we gave up and went to bed.

Friday, our other friends arrived (totalling 6 in all), and we spent the day exploring Gaudi stuff - his famous church, his famous park, and his famous museum. If his name does not ring a bell, he is the Spanish guy who is famous for his mosaics, especially the mosaic lizard/salamander statue that rests in the entrance to his park. Everything was really cool - he is MY kind of artist, and I had more fun in the tourist shops surrounding his park than anywhere else. So much stuff made out of mosaics of glass + me = a little risky, but I saw some SWEET things. I didn't buy any though, as everything was pretty expensive and I didn't know how to get the fragile stuff back without breaking it... too bad. Friday night we took advantage of the smart Spanish

le Centre Pompidou

Even though I didn't get to see the inside of this modern art museum, the outside is still pretty cool!

tradition of the siesta, and then headed out to get paella for dinner, which was amazing!!! Then Saturday we spent all day at the beach, in shorts and tee-shirts, which was amazing considering that I have grown used to winter coats and rain here. And Saturday night Tony and I left by train to get back to Brussels, which was a whole different story in itself. Basically, we spent 15 hours on trains - 3 hours on a local, PACKED, local Spanish train, 10 hours on a night train on which we got no sleep due to various reasons....., and 2 hours on a train back to Brussels from Paris. We were pooped by the time we got home, so I just collapsed when I got back to my house and slept a good part of the day.

In all, fall break was an excellent time. I am sorry that it has taken me two weeks to write this, but as you can tell, it was A LOT of writing and picture uploading. Tomorrow I am supposed to leave for Berlin for the weekend tomorrow morning at 6:00, but German trains went on strike today - how convenient... We

The Tombstone of Oscar Wilde

HaHa! See all of the lipstick and messages to Oscar Wilde?

may not be able to go, but we can't really know for sure until we get to the train station tomorrow. So, though we may lose some money on our German hostel if it doesn't work, we're going to fight the strike and try to get there somehow - wish us luck. If Berlin is impossible, maybe we will just take a random train somewhere else. I guess I'll just have to let you all know in the next blog.

Well, I hope you are all still doing well and are excited for Thanksgiving. They do not celebrate it here, which bums me out a little, but I think a bunch of my friends and I are going to have a make-shift Thanksgiving on Tuesday with chicken (turkeys are not popular here either). I will miss you all especially much over this break/week-end, but I hope that you all enjoy your time off from life, and please eat a little extra for me. I will be home in a little over a month (which I am getting more and more ready for every day), but as I do still have a month left, please keep updating me on your