Blogs from Europe - page 13868

Tuesday we were “stuck” in their house because the train and busses were on strike so we took the day to catch up on reading and went for a walk down to the beach and wandered about the area. Actually it was really nice to just take a forced breather. The transportation issue was counterbalanced on Wednesday when we were really spoiled rotten because Cindy said she was willing to drive us some place we couldn’t get by train so we went to St. Paul de Vence to see the Foundation Maeght which is a museum that has a very small permanent collection of works but when we were there the focus was on prints, it was really interesting and some of the works were fantastic. We then walked around the perched city, which is really ... read more

sorry this is so poorly written. I'm too lazy to write well. Soo I went to Stratford-Upon-Avon with the lovely Janet this weekend. As much as I love Shakespeare, I think alot of the things there were stupid. The plays we saw were awesome....veryyy much worth the money we payed. However, things like Shakespeare's uncle's brother's house or Shakespeare's wife's family's house were just not cool. I enjoyed historicla and factual information, but most of it was not factual. I suspect that the town passes off alot of info concerning Shakespeare that is just myth or just "possible" not even probable. Soooo that kind of felt like getting sucked into a tourist trap. shaekespeare would think all that mess is idiotic anyway. Warwick is a castle right next to Stratford. That was really neat. There was ... read more

Also gut, kurzer Ueberblick ueber das Wochenende. Samstag hatte ich ein kurzes Treffen mit dem Direktor von dem Sprachzentrum in Tscheljabinsk. Da diese Stadt so lange verschlossen war, auch fuer Russen, sind die Leute hier nicht unbedingt daran gewoehnt Kontakt zu Auslaendern zu haben. Somit kam es auch schon zu verschiedenen Vorfaellen (postitiv und negative) im Bezug auf meine Herkunft. Sobald jemand bemerkt das man fremd ist, fangen sie an zu fragen (auch auf Russisch) und versuchen mit dem Fremden zu kommunizieren. Also, sobald ich mich mit jemand auf Englisch unterhalte, bildet sich in nullkommanichts eine Traube um mich wie wenn ich irgendein Heilsverkuender bin. Das passiert meist an Bushaltestellen bis dann irgendwann mein Bus kommt bin ich dann in ein Gespraech verwickelt, welches bilingual gefuehrt wird. Sie reden alle durcheinander auf russisch und ich rede ... read more

So this Friday I had my first class at the Prado museum. The Prado is the most famous museum in Madrid with paintings by El Greco, Goya, Velazques, etc. We have class in there every Friday for the next 6 weeks. The museum is pretty cool, but I honestly like the Reina Sofia museum better because the artwork is more modern. The paintings in El Prado are from the 19th century or earlier while the Reina Sofia has work by Picasso and Salvador Dali, 20th century artists. Still, I think it´s pretty neat to be able to say that I am taking classes in such a famous museum! After the Prado class, we took a tour of the Spanish Senate. We got to sit in the seats where they vote, so that was fun too. It ... read more

Geo: 52.3738, 4.89095Hi all,Well we arrived in record time.. 6.5 hours in the air! The only bad thing about arriving so early was sitting on the jet way for 20 minutes. Still better than being in the air. Oh how we have missed this city. And in true form we made a couple circles before actually finding the hotel. We enjoyed every step. The Crowne here has treated us well. After ditching the luggage we set out for our favorite places. First stop de Dampkring. In a word... fabulous! From there we headed for the one and only Gollem. Westveletern 12, need I say more? Yes, ok, St. Bernardus 12, Rochefort 10, all the Leffes, etc. For those that don't know, there are the best beers in the world. While there we met a couple of ... read more