Life in Luxembourg

Life in Luxembourg...there is also so much more to my experience here in Luxembourg besides just my weekend travels. A host family, classes, and public transportation take up my days during the week.

In my host family I have a host mom, Claudine, a host sister, Mandy, a host brother, Yannis, and 3 dogs, Serko, Ricca and Saphira and a cat, Dutchess. They all are very welcoming. They have been hosting students for the last 13 years. They take two students every semester and over the summer as well. Claudine and Mandy speak English pretty well and Yannis and Kursh, Claudine's boyfriend, do not speak English as well so we use Mandy mostly to translate for us. Mandy is 19 so it is nice to have someone our age who we can hang out with and she is very helpful in letting us know where to go and what to do. She has taken us to Trier and shown us around the city a few times already. We try to spend as much time with our family as possible to get to know them. When we get back from school at night if they are around the kitchen or family room we try and stop by and say hi. This past week they have had guests over 3 nights so we were invited to join them and that has given us time to meet their friends and spend time with them. (Not to mention we have gotten dinner out of those dinner parties too!) Emily and I have our own floor to ourselves. We are on the top floor so after 4 flights of stairs some days we have to have a breather! But, it is very nice because we each have our own desk and bed and then we have a futon and table to use as well. The only downside is we don't have a door to our room, so when the family smokes in the house the smoke comes straight up to the top of our stairs. We also hear everything going on. We know when they are watching what TV shows at 11 at night. I guess if that is the worst that there is, we are making out pretty well. Claudine is very laid-back and easy-going. She does not mind what we do; she has no curfews or anything that hinders us from doing anything. We are allowed to use the kitchen to cook our dinners which is nice; because there are people here I know that can't. I really can't imagine what we would do if we couldn't. We would be eating more peanut butter & jelly sandwiches than we do!

The food here is different, but I am getting used to it and enjoying it a lot more. For breakfast we eat either cereal or bread with Nutella on it. If we have enough time we might try and have a cup of coffee too. Everyone leaves around the same time so we see each other in the morning as well. For lunches at school we get a decent size of food. Sometimes the meal is very good. Some days you pick around but eat it. So far there has not been anything that I wouldn't eat. I just might not take whatever I don't finish for leftovers. What many students over here do is bring Tupperware to lunch and fill it with what they don't finish for lunch and warm it up for dinner. At lunch they have a huge basket of fresh bread, so every day I take a Tupperware container of that so we can make sandwiches or have a piece of bread with our pasta. The bread is so fresh and tastes so good! For dinners most nights Emily and I will make something. We have had grilled cheese and tomato soup, crepes and eggs, pasta and bread, and pizzas. We have been doing pretty well so far. We found a chicken breast to cook at the market the other day so tonight we are going to make pasta with a chicken sauce! Our favorites so far are the waffle cookies. They are so so good. We could eat those all the time, but try to ration them!

Every morning we catch the 7:24 bus from the bus stop around the corner from our house. We leave our house at 7:20 AM. That will get us to the Gare (train station) just in time to catch our 7:50 AM train from Luxembourg City to Differdange. The train ride is around 40 minutes so we normally arrive at the Differdange stop around 7:30ish. After we get off the train we have around a 5 minute walk to the Chateau. Overall it takes us about an hour and 20 minutes to get to school. I think I have finally gotten adjusted and used to the hike to and from school; it has just become part of my daily life. The major downside is when we go home from school our bus times to not match up with the train times very well so it takes us some days up to 2 hours to get home. Our bus arrives normally two minutes before we get in to the train station so we just miss it. We have to wait an additional 30 minutes for the next bus to come. I think when it starts warming up a little it will make the waiting much easier.

The weather so far has varied slightly. Upon arriving in Luxembourg we had snow and it was below freezing for 2 weeks. We got a slight heat wave when we reached around 4 degrees Celsius for a week. Everyone loved it. Then this past weekend another cold spell came through. We woke up Monday morning with 3 inches of snow. This whole week we have had snow showers every day. Needless to say I have been bundling up and wearing multiple layers. I asked Mandy when it would start warming up and she laughed at me...so I don't have much hope of it getting warm anytime soon. I'm looking forward to my trips south to Spain, Portugal, Greece and Italy in hopes we might have some warmer weather.

Classes are classes. I am really enjoying my international studies class. We are reading a book called American Ways. It is a book written for foreign students coming to study in America. It gives a whole new perspective on some of the customs and values we hold. It presents ideas that we never think about or analyze that are important for foreigners to know. Such as how far we stand from each other or things we do when passing people on the streets. We are only 3 chapters in, but we have interesting discussions in class already. My French class is very intense. For being a beginning level French class we are learning quite a bit. Yesterday I learned 100 new vocabulary words for foods. It keeps me busy with homework, quizzes and studying. Though I guess it is worth it because when I am traveling I have been able to ask questions and order in French (or at least my version of it!) The train rides have given me quite a bit of time to practice speaking. I feel like I'm accomplishing something, but those around me I'm sure don't appreciate it as much as I do. Business is interesting. It's a discussion based class, so we don't always stick to the material we seem to be more off topic than on, but at least it is interesting. Today we had a speaker come in from Bofferding. He was a Miami graduate as well, he is native Luxembourger but came over to Oxford for school. Sociology is very boring. Our teacher is part of the Human Rights society and we never even talk about sociology, he rambles on about one thing to another and it is just so hard to follow along. Music is interesting. I'm not the biggest music fan and would have a hard time telling you what notes are playing, but the class is not so bad. I think our class trip to Vienna will be so much fun.

These past four weeks have been such a whirlwind of great adventures. I have had so many adventures and experiences that will last me a lifetime so far. I can't wait to see what is to come...

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