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Published: March 26th 2009
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Freddie and I
...the day he arrived The weekend that Freddie came I stayed in Differdange. On that Saturday morning I made brunch for my family. I made pancakes and egg cassarole. They seemed to like it, but of course they put Nutella on the pancakes...something I'll probably adopt when I return to the U.S. On Sunday morning I got up and went to the airport to pick Freddie up. We took at bus to the city center and walked around the shopping area, even though everything was closed. It was a beautiful day out, luckily, so we wandered around for a while. Eventually we found something to eat and Freddie discovered just how much they love French Fries here (they served them along side meat fondu...not quite typical in the U.S.). Afterwards we went to Differdange and he met my host parents at my house. I showed him a little bit of Differdange and we got a nice Italian dinner at a place in town.
On Monday we took a day trip to Trier, Germany. We walked around there for a while in the shopping streets. We tried to find Karl Marx birth house and ended up in some business building that had nothing to do with
Karl Marx except the name of the street it was on. We wandered around in there for a while and no one seemed to notice that we were out of place. After realizing we weren't in the right place we stopped at a cafe and enjoyed some type of cake. THen we finally found his birth house, but decided that everything would be written in German anyway so we didn't go in. We later enjoyed sausage and fries from a street vendor.
The next few days we spent in Differdange. We actually had more free time that I expected, but it was relaxing. On Thursday We went to Paris. We had a stop in Metz, France and got to see the French Train strike that was going on that day. It looked like a parade with different groups wearing different colors all walking down the street with people watching from the side. I dared to take a picture, and luckily I wasn't arrested or something crazy like that. Luckily the train strike didn't effect any of our trains to France or the metro once we got there. We made it easily to our hotel, and ventured to the Eiffel Tower,
which was about 10 minutes away. We were really lucky because we saw the tower in the day light when we walked up to it, and by the time we left it was night. We went up to the second floor (the thrid was closed) and as we were waiting in line the lights on the tower turned on and it was beautiful. We saw the view of the city at night, and it wasn't a pretty clear night so we could see far. After the tower we enjoyed a nice dinner at some French restaurant near our hotel. The hotel we stayed in was so cute...a nice bed and breakfast. For breakfast the next morning we got homemade jam that the old man who works their makes.
The next day we saw all the famous sites: the Arch de Triomphe, Notre Dame, and the Louvre (although we didn't go in). We spent the rest of the day walking the streets (we later realized that we could have gone into the Louvre but we didn't know that we'd have time). We discovered that the shops in Paris are in clumps. For about 20 minutes all we saw were men's suit
shops, and then shoe shops, then women's dress shops. Not much diversity in some parts. Other parts were smaller and cuter, like by Notre Dame. We enjoyed crepes, both ham and cheese and chocolate, from street vendors. We were pretty tired from walking all day, so we went to the train station early. That night we trained back to Lux city and stayed near the airport. In the morning I took Freddie to the airport, and waited until he walked throught the gate. It was a great visit and we saw and did everything we'd hoped. We even went into a soccer store in Paris and we got him a European football souvenir.
I returned home for about two hours and then left for Brussles. I made my way to my mom and aunts hotel depite having some trouble with my home made directions. I ended up taking a metro and stumbling upon the hotel. After I found the hotel I went to grab a bite to eat, and then waited around for my mom and aunt to return from London. We they got back they told me all about their trip and then we went out into the city
to an area called the Grand Place. There is a great old Medieval looking building there in the square that was lit up and beautifully decorated and detailed.
The next morning we all slept in and then enjoyed a breakfast at a small restaurant that wasn't touristy. It had a ton of kinds of bread and pastries so we tried a raspberry tart (your mom tried it for you, Megan) and walnut bread. We also all got yogurt and fruit because we all had been eating too much bread. We returned to the Grand Place walked around the smaller streets. There were tons of Belgium chocolate stores and waffles vendors, but we held off until later. A groupf of Belgium boy scouts excitedly ran up to us wanting to sell us chocolate eggs. We bought some and it made their day. They were so cute and puchy about it. They wore their little green outfits, and we saw many mroe groups of them that day. We walked to Manneken Pis, the famous statue of a little boy peeing. He was covered by a flag because a new outfit was being revealing on him (they change his outfit 2-3 times per
month for promotional or historical events). UNICEF was doing this one, so we waited around to see the ceremony. A band marched in playing music, and they drew the event on way longer than necessay. They finally unvealed the statue and it was just wearing a UNIFEC t-shirt. He was peeing (its a fountain) to the beat of the music..so when the music would get loud his pee squirted the crowd. After seeing this ceremony that apparrently is a huge deal we walked around some more trying to find a good quality chocolate store. We went into one that was like a diamond store here because the chocolates were behind glass cases built into the wall. We finally did find a good one, and we also got out Belgium waffles. We then took a train back to Luxembourg and I helped them find their hotel in the city.
The next day I showed them around Differdange and they met my host family. We had coffee with my host mom, and it wasn't nearly as awkward as I'd expected. My host mom did a really nice job of communicating, and we used our usual hand gestures to help. I also showed
them the chateau, where I have classes, and then we enjoyed a nice Italian dinner in town. They also came back the following night to take me to dinner, which was nice. They left yesterday morning for Paris, and I leave tonight at 6:30 to go to Spain. Sorry to leave out details near the end, but my class starts in like one minute!
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