Music and other awesomeness

I'm coming home pretty soon. I might be a little bit excited about it. Just a little.

But before that: updates. I haven't been traveling much lately, mostly because I've had so much to do with school- and yes, I do go to class and yes, I do have to study.

I did get to go to Belfort for the weekend, which was fantastic. I have a friend (Sarah Dupee, for those of you who know her) who lives not far from Belfort, which is a city about three hours to the north of me. We both had free time and there was a huge music festival going on there so I headed up on a Saturday morning, thinking that I would hang out with her, listen to some music, and jump back on the train home. When she met me at the station, though, she was like, "you pack really light!" I was a little bit confused- all I had was my purse. It took us about five minutes of exchanging confused "what?"s to figure out that she had assumed I was going to stay the night and I had assumed I wasn't. So we changed my train and I stayed. It was awesome. The 23rd annual Belfort International Music Festival was so much fun. There was every kind of music you could think of- rock bands, choirs, an African drumming group, a classical guitar group, an accordian band, various orchestras, and this really amazing Creole Jazz Band from Germany. Yes, you read that right. They were easily my favorite group. There were 14 venues in different locations all around the city. On Saturday night, there was folk music in the big town square and people were gathered around doing folk dances- it was so much fun! I learned a French square dance!

The second concert I got to go to was last night. There's this unbelievable band called Explosions in the Sky that was playing in Paris, and since they don't go on tour very often and I didn't know if I was ever going to get another chance to see them live, I went to Paris for the night. My host mom thought I was crazy, but it was totally worth it. It was probably the most incredible show ever. They're a rock band, but they have no singer so all they do is play amazing, powerful, mindblowing music. If you've never heard of them or listened to them, look them up on youtube or iTunes. One of my favorite songs is called The Birth and Death of the Day. Go listen to it. I'm not kidding. And then look up First Breath After Coma, one of my other favorites. It might change your life. : )

So now I am nearing my final weekend in Lyon. It's really weird to think that I'll be home in three weeks! I remember that during my first week here, I had a terrible dream where it was already time to go home and all I could think of was "No! I just got here! I haven't done anything or gone anywhere! I can't go home!" I'm very, very happy to be able to say that I don't feel that way now that I'm really leaving. I've had a wonderful, rich semester and I feel like I've been challenged and stretched in a lot of ways.

This will probably be my last post from France. Next week I have five exams, and then I'll be taking a trip to Austria for ten days before I come home on June 11. I'll blog about that trip when I'm back on familiar ground. For now, thanks to everyone who sent me cards or letters or emails- hearing from friends always makes my day! And thanks for reading my blog, even when the entries were ridiculously long (though if you didn't read all of it, you don't have to tell me, haha). I can't wait to get home and see all your faces again!

Love,
Sarah

More people-watching

People-watching is somewhat difficult in France for the simple reason that people look at each other less here- when you're walking down the street you pretty much keep to yourself. That's not to say they're unfriendly and self-centered, though. I still greet my neighbors when I walk down the stairs and people still laugh if you have to awkwardly dodge each other on the sidewalk and you're definitely allowed to laugh at little children playing tag or whatever. But you don't, in general, smile at strangers or greet them as though you knew them.
So, people-watching. A few stories.

I have an American friend who lives in the Croix Rousse, which is a residential area up on the hill above the river. You have to take the metro to get there, and to get home I change lines a few times. Once, I was coming home from her place on a Thursday night, and while I was waiting for the train I glanced back at the long stairway that led down to the platform. Just as I looked back, I saw a couple at the top of the stairs- their arms were linked and they were both holding canes. They were blind. Both of them. The woman stumbled a bit at the top of the stairs, but the man (clearly a boyfriend or husband) kept her from falling. As I watched, they walked down the stairs with no problems and continued over to the platform to wait for the train. Up till that point I had assumed that the man could see a little bit (it had seemed he was leading her), but now I could see that he was, in fact, completely blind. I was trying to decide if I should offer help or not, but a Frenchman beat me to it and helped them onto the metro when it arrived. They got off at the same stop as I did and I watched them head in the other direction. I thought about offering to help them get home, but they seemed to get along just fine. Amazing.
A few weeks later I was at the same metro stop at around the same time of night. I was thinking about that couple and as I looked up at the stairway, there they were again! It was the same routine as the first time- head down the stairs, feel their way to the platform and onto the train, and listen for their stop. They must do that every night. Pretty unbelievable.

Another time, I was sitting on the grass by the river, reading and watching the people go by. There was a class of kindergarden-aged children with their teachers, and after a bit I realized that they were playing duck-duck-goose! I have no idea what the name is in French, though. I doubt they call it canard-canard-oie.

That same afternoon there were some college-age French guys sitting on the grass with their guitars, strumming away. I really enjoyed listening to them- one was singing, and he had a pretty good voice. It made me laugh that they were playing things like Wonderwall, though- you could tell he had no idea what the words meant. It reminded me of Young Life camp. After about 45 minutes of playing, some French girls came over and introduced themselves to the guys and then sat around and hung out with them. I guess some things (like guitars being girl-magnets) are universal.

Anyway, those are just some random observations. Today is free cone day at Ben and Jerry's, and apparently there is a B&J's not very far from my house, so I think we're going to go after class. This week and next week I have only three days of class because we have this Thursday off for Labor Day, then next Thursday is Victory in 1945 day, then the Monday after that is Pentacost. For a secular country, France has quite a few religious holidays. Not that I'm complaining. : ) Nine days of class left, then a week of exams, then some more traveling, then I come home!

French people are ridiculous sometimes

Really sappy romance movies. You know the kind. The girl is leaving on a jet plane (or a train) and she's overcome with emotion at having to leave the love of her life behind. They're clinging to one another, but pretty soon she has to get on the train, and maybe they do the thing where she puts her hand up to the window and he does the same and they stare into each others' eyes as the train pulls away.
I often find myself rolling my eyes when this happens. Nobody in the world is that melodramatic. Seriously.

Except the French. Because (and I'm being completely serious here) I've seen this scenario acted out THREE TIMES since I've been here. Complete with the pressing the hands against the glass thing. And once, the girl jumped off the train for one last hug and kiss right before the doors closed and the train left. Each time, there was much gazing into eyes and lingering embraces and reassurances that she would be home soon. And for some reason it was always the girl who was leaving. Maybe that's just a coincidence.

I felt bad for laughing because it seemed truly traumatic for the couples I saw doing this. But seriously. Who'd have thought this stuff happened in real life?

For this and other reasons, people-watching on public transportation is quickly becoming a favorite hobby of mine. More on this later when it's not three in the morning France time.

SECTION THE THIRDTH: Paris

(Before I start the story about Paris, I wanted to let everyone know that the elevator in my building is now FIXED. It took about twice as long as they'd said it would, but now it works! And there was much rejoicing.)

Paris.

Paris, Paris, Paris. I cannot tell you how excited I was to go to Paris Easter weekend, all by myself, with just my backpack. I was SO EXCITED. We had Easter Monday off from school, so that meant I had four glorious days to spend there. I left Friday morning on the TGV (bullet train), but about an hour into the trip something happened and we were downgraded to a regular-speed train. It was a good thing I had plenty of time to get to my hostel, because I got into Paris about an hour late. The hostel was gorgeous- it actually is one of three owned by the same people, and it used to be a private home. It’s within walking distance of the Ile de la Cité and Notre Dame, which was fantastic.

I saw so much that first day. I had planned out what I was going to do, but I deviated from the plan a bit. I went and saw Notre Dame, which, to be quite honest, was a little underwhelming. It was beautiful from the outside, but there were really far too many people there for me to enjoy being inside.

Something that I really loved was the Panthéon:

Alexandre Dumas and Victor Hugo are buried here, and so are Charlemagne, Joan of Arc, Voltaire, Rousseau, Marie and Pierre Curie and some of the most famous resistance fighters from WWII, among others. I also found this on a wall dedicated to “Martyrs of the Revolution” who died in 1830 and 1843:

If you can’t see it, it says “DAUBERT, Nicholas François, born at Vanvres, died age 33 (Seine).” Clearly a long-lost relative. I love having a French name.

At the Panthéon I ended up buying a 4-day Museum/Monument Pass, which I only mention because it was the best decision ever. Not only does it save you money on museums, it lets you skip the long ticket lines (and they are long) and best of all, if you get to a museum late in the afternoon and only have an hour or so there, you don’t feel like you wasted your money because you can go back again. I did that with the Musée d’Orsay. So if you ever go to Paris, get the museum pass. Here ends the lecture.

It was raining when I went into the Panthéon, but the sun was out when I left, so I decided not to waste the sun and went to the Jardin de Luxembourg, which is pretty much just across the street. It was goooooooorgeous. There were quite a few people there, too- most notably, some crazy woman doing what seemed to be a cross between yoga and interpretive dance in front of the Luxembourg Palace. I tried to get a picture of her, but I couldn't do it without her noticing me. And I didn't really want to make the crazy lady mad at me, so I didn't try. After that I went to the Museum of the Middle Ages- there’s an intact Roman bath there I wanted to see, but it ended up being closed. The rest of the museum was pretty cool, though.

By the time I left that museum it was pretty late in the afternoon, and I wanted to get to the Louvre because it’s open late on Friday nights. So I grabbed the metro to the Place de la Concorde. It was here that I made an incredible discovery: there are a lot- a lot- of tourists in Paris. In fact, I think I read somewhere that at any given moment, approximately 9.5% of the people in Paris are actual Parisians. Another 4% are Frenchmen who commute to Paris to work, and the other 86.5% are tourists. And of those tourists, about 45% are Americans, and most of those are bored-looking high-schoolers.* The end result is that you can’t really take any pictures without other tourists in them, nor can you move without inadvertently getting in someone else’s picture.

*Statistics may or may not have been made up on the spot.

There were little boats you could play with in the fountain. You can't see the kids, but they were having a blast pushing the boats around.

The Louvre!



I spent about three and a half hours in the Louvre, and it was fantastic. I saw so many amazing works of art I thought my head was going to explode. At the end, though, my feet were hurting and I’d been carrying around my huge backpack all day, so I decided to head out. Unfortunately, it took me about a half an hour to find the way out. My map told me where to find the Greek and Roman Sculptures and the Egyptian Exhibit and that was all well and good, but I could not find the bloody exit. I kept following these little green signs that had a running man on them (which are usually the exit signs) but they ended up being the emergency exits. So basically, not only did I get lost in the Alps, I got lost in the Louvre. I have a great track record going here. Now all I need to do is get lost in Lyon and I’m set- except, wait, I already did that.

It had already been dark for some time when I left the Louvre, and there was a gorgeous full moon. I tried to take a picture of the Louvre with the moon over it, but every attempt came out blurry. And just as I was about to try one more time, my camera shut down and a little message appeared on the screen: Change your batteries. Argh.

After the Louvre and my desperate search for the way out, I was pretty tired, so I went back to the hostel. My roommate ended up being a girl from Thailand who spoke decent enough English. The thing about some Asian languages, though, is that they don’t make a distinction between l and r. So this girl asked me how long ago I’d alived in Paris, and I thought she was asking me how long I’d lived there, so I said, “Oh, no, I don’t live here, I live in Lyon.” She shook her head and said, “No, no, when did you alive? Alive? Aaaalllivvvve.” And that’s when I realized that she was asking me when I’d arrived. I had to work really hard not to laugh, because, really, she had no idea that she was doing that. She also called me Sala all weekend. On of our other roommates, a girl from Puerto Rico (or it might have been Costa Rica) who now lives in London, had a really hard time understanding her.

The next day was Saturday, and it was another full day. I went to the Hôtel des Invalides, which is a huge, gorgeous building that has a big green boulevard in front of it that stretches all the way to the river and the equally gorgeous Pont des Invalides.

The Museum of the Army is found here, and Napoleon is buried there (and in case you’re wondering, yeah, pretty much everyone and their mom is buried in Paris- that’s why they have the Catacombs). Not far from the Hôtel is the Rodin Museum, which was beautiful. I saw the Thinker! It’s huge.

This was one of my favorites:

When I left the Musée de Rodin, it was raining again, so I decided to go to the Orangerie, the museum where Monet’s Water Lilies are on display. It didn’t open till 12:30, though, so I had to wait in the rain for about a half an hour (but I was the first one inside because of my museum pass- hooray!). While I was in line I met a really nice Australian couple who had just arrived in Paris that morning- talk about jet lag, their flight was 20 hours or something insane like that. I love meeting random people in random places. The sun, of course, came out right after we went into the museum.

I made good use of the setting on my camera that lets you take long pictures.

They also have other works in the rooms below the Water Lilies.


I love this one.

After that I went to the Musée d'Orsay. Here's one of my favorites from there:

Ok, so that was Saturday. Sunday was Easter, so I had decided to go to Versailles. Good idea, but apparently every other tourist in Paris had the same idea. It was fun, but way too crowded. The place itself is so utterly overwhelming that I got tired just looking at it. It was a fun way to spend Easter, though.

On my way back into Paris I got off at the Notre Dame metro stop and decided to walk around for a while because it was still light out. As I was walking I stumbled across this:



Shakespeare and Co! For those of you who don't know (I didn't- I just thought it was a cool bookstore...), this bookstore is pretty awesome and famous. The original was located somewhere else and authors like Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald visited it (Hemingway mentions it in A Moveable Feast, too). That bookstore was shut down during WWII, and this one was opened in 1951, and now the daughter of the original owner (of the new store, not the old one) runs it. It's kind of the focal point of the literary community in that part of Paris. It's an amazing place. I went back Monday night for a book reading, which made me feel very hip and cultured. haha.

Speaking of Monday, my last day in Paris was pretty low-key. I was tired of rushing around trying to see everything (though that was fun while it lasted), so I pretty much just wandered. I went to the Sacre Coeur but didn't go in because of the massive crowds. I went and found Victor Hugo's house, but it was closed so I couldn't go in. I was pretty disappointed about that. I also visited the Picasso Museum, but I don't like Picasso- I just needed a bathroom (and I had my handy museum pass, remember?). So I went to the bathroom and wandered around pretending to look at the art until I thought a sufficient amount of time had passed for me to leave. The lady at the coat check still gave me a dirty look, though- I guess I didn't stay long enough to convince her.

It was raining on Monday, though, so there was only so much wandering I could do. So I went into one of the churches near the Place St. Michel and sat for a while. It was wonderful, because someone was playing organ music. Organ music on a real organ in a church with amazing acoustics- I was so glad I had gone into that church.

I left Paris at about nine in the evening and got back into Lyon close to midnight, exhausted and content. I had an exam the next day, though, so I couldn't relax for very long. I won't tell you the results of that exam, but you can probably guess. : )

PART THE SECOND: Normandy

This part is also known as: The World is a Really, Really Small Place.

A few weeks ago I took a long weekend (not too hard to do, since I don’t have Friday classes) and went to northern France with two friends, Anne and Benjamin. We left Lyon late Thursday morning and went to Rouen, which is a nice city I wish I’d seen more of. When we got there we went and saw the Cathedral (which, for you art buffs, is in fact the cathedral Van Gogh painted so many times. Or maybe it was Monet. I don’t remember. But my art-history-major friend was really excited that we saw it), and then went to a little café that served the most incredible hot chocolate I’ve ever had. Mine had coconut in it and it was delicious, but Anne got caramel, and it was the consistency of pudding. I felt like I was getting diabetes just looking at it.

All we had time to do that night was find our hotel. We successfully spoke French to the person at the desk, but as soon as she heard us speaking English to each other she switched to English. Honestly, the sheer number of people who speak perfect English in France never fails to make me feel like my French is terrible. Then again, some of them go out of their way to make you feel like you speak terrible French, so there you go.

Friday morning we got up really, really early to get the train to Caen. Caen, just to be clear, is a city in northern France and is not to be confused with Cannes, which is where the film festival takes place. William the Conqueror used to live in Caen, and part of his château is still there, but alas, we only saw the outside of it. There is also the Memorial Museum, which is really what we went for. It’s pretty extensive and covers World War I through the Cold War, with an emphasis on WWII and D-Day, of course. While we were there we watched a movie about D-Day that had some pretty unbelievable footage from the landing itself- we could not figure out how someone had taken a video of the battle from the air while in a plane flying parallel to the beach, but someone did. It was good to see that right before we left, because our next stop was Bayeux, our jumping-off point for the D-Day beaches. When we got to Bayeux the sun was shining and it was a gorgeous day, which I was glad of. Benjamin pointed out, though, that maybe it would have been more appropriate for it to be a really grim, dark, cloudy day. He was right, but I was still glad it was sunny for going to the beaches.

We ended up having to take a taxi to Omaha Beach because the one and only bus there had left at noon that day. When we got there we headed down to where you could look out at the beach, and then we walked down onto the beach itself. Benjamin and I took off our shoes and walked around barefoot, and it was glorious.

Our first look at the ocean as we were getting there:

The beach itself:

After that we walked back up the hill to the American Cemetery. The slope is surprisingly steep, and we were kind of amazed (or at least I was) that anyone managed to fight up it. You really get a new respect for the soldiers who fought there when you see the place and realize just how insanely hard it must have been.

The cemetery itself is beautiful and heart wrenching. There’s a memorial at one end of it, and then just rows and rows of white crosses, each with a name, a company, and a date inscribed on it. We saw what seemed to be a large family gathered at one of the plots, and later we saw the flag being lowered and folded up, probably to be given to that family. One of the other students in Lyon went on behalf of a family friend whose uncle is buried there, and they gave her a flag to take home to his family, so that’s why we figured that’s what was happening.

The memorial:

Crosses:

After getting back to Bayeux, we caught the train to Pontorson, which is the closest town to Mont St. Michel, our next destination. While we were waiting for the train we met a group of American students who, like us, are in France for the semester. We started asking the requisite questions about what school they were from and what they were studying, and come to find out, they go to school with one of my best friends and one of them had been my friend’s little sister’s camp counselor. Who would have possibly thought that people from my friend’s little college in Arkansas would be on the same train as me in a little town in northern France? Not only that, but they were staying in the exact same hostel that we were. It’s a small, small world.

When we got to Pontorson, our ride to the hostel was waiting for us. His name was Steve and he was British, and he and his wife run the hostel. He picked us up in a Land Rover, and it was hilarious trying to fit eight people and their stuff in that thing. When we got there, the three of us were so exhausted that we went right to sleep.

Here’s a picture of our adorable hostel:

And the Land Rover:

Steve also gave us a ride to the Mont St. Michel the next morning. We stopped at a grocery store on the way and bought bread and cheese and other foodstuffs, because we didn’t want to have to buy the ridiculously expensive food inside the Mont.

To get to Mont St. Michel you have to cross a causeway that separates it from the mainland. Before they built it up and made it an actual road, pilgrims crossed the causeway to get to the Mont, and there was always the danger of being swept away by the tide or getting caught in quicksand. Now, though, the causeway is never covered, even at high tide, and the only quicksand is around the Mont itself.

As we were coming up to the city there were sheep in the road:

Look how gorgeous this place is:

We had a great time at Mont St. Michel. Somewhere in the course of the day we discovered that we all loved the Princess Bride and Narnia, so there were C.S. Lewis and Princess Bride references being thrown around left and right. I had also realized (and so had John, one of the other students) that in the Lord of the Rings movies, they modeled Minas Tirith after Mont St. Michel. So as I told my brother John, I basically went to Middle Earth that weekend. Amazing.

The lower parts of the city are full of shops and tourist traps, so we didn’t stay there long. The city itself is beautiful, and we ate our lunch outside in one of the gardens. Then we headed up to the chapel for the noon Mass, which was wonderful. I was surprised at how much I recognized, but maybe I shouldn’t have been, because I knew that Catholics and Anglicans use much of the same liturgy. We sang the psalms, which was a new experience for everyone, especially since they were in French.

After Mass, we split up- a few of the girls wanted to go to the museums, and Anne and Benjamin just wanted to explore, and I wanted to see the rest of the Abbey and the Chapel. So I did that, and it was gorgeous. There were a lot of people there, but they were mostly with tour groups so I was able to avoid them for the most part. There are some beautiful gardens in the Abbey and the view was amazing.

Alas, we had to leave eventually, but we were actually glad that we left when we did because it had started raining pretty hard. The Harding students were headed back to Reims that night, and Anne and Benjamin were going to Paris, but I was taking the night train back to Lyon. We parted with hugs and promised to friend each other on Facebook (oh, Facebook) and headed our separate ways.

The night train was… an experience. It left from Rennes (not Reims, which is the other direction), so I had to take one train to Rennes and then get on the night train. While I was waiting at the station, there was a huge group of seven- or eight-year-olds on the platform, and their parents were up above us waving goodbye. Some of them (the kids, not the parents) were crying, and they were clearly going on their first big trip without their parents. I found out later that they were going on a ski trip. They were pretty adorable.

So. The night train. Twelve hours to get from Rennes to Lyon. For comparison, it takes two hours to take the bullet train from Lyon to Paris, so I knew that this train must go really slow and/or make a lot of stops. It ended up being both.

Anyway. When I’d bought my tickets there had been two options for seating, and I hadn’t really been able to figure out the difference, so I had picked the one that was 20 euros cheaper. When I got on the train I discovered the difference: the more expensive ticket was in the sleeping cars and you had a bed. I was in the cars where you get a reclining seat. It wasn’t too horrible- I sleep in cars all the time when I travel. But usually in cars you can curl up or stretch out or do any number of things to find a comfortable position that you just can’t do on a train with other people. So I didn’t really sleep very well.

There was a girls’ soccer team on the same train as me, and when they got on you could tell they were on their way home from a tournament or something, because they had trophies and were wearing warm-ups. It didn’t take long to realize that they weren’t just a girls’ soccer team, though, they were a girls’ deaf soccer team. They talked almost the whole night, but it didn’t matter because nobody could hear them. Haha. No, seriously, I thought it was pretty cool.

After a long night in the train I finally got back into Lyon early Sunday morning. Usually I walk home from the train station but I was so incredibly tired that I took the metro. When I came up from the metro I found myself in the middle of what would be the market later that morning. It was cool to see it in the process of setting up, and to see the city so sleepy and quiet. I got home and slept until one-thirty, when my host mom knocked on my door and woke me up, because she hadn’t heard me come in and thought maybe I had missed my train and hadn’t come home. And there end my adventures in Normandy.

SECTION THE FIRST: Strasbourg

Well. Strasbourg. That was a really long time ago. I’m really sorry for the fakeout on this one. I know some of you were probably checking the blog obsessively for days because I promised to put up a new entry within the week. Sorry to crush your dreams, guys. I hope this makes up for it.

To get from Brussels to Strasbourg I had to take a train, and it was a five-hour trip. In fact, most of the blog about Belgium was written on that train ride. When I got into Strasbourg it was rainy and dark and I was tired, and I wanted nothing better than to find my hostel and crawl into my warm bed. I knew the address and phone number of the hostel and knew which bus to take to get there, but I didn’t really have any idea of where it was other than that. So I asked at the information desk at the train station and this very helpful woman gave me a little map of the town and proceeded to draw an X where my hostel was- wayyyyyyyyy on the left side of the map, almost on the edge. I guess I should have figured that if I was taking a bus line to its last stop, then that meant my hostel was pretty far out of town. Anyway. I got on the right bus and rode it for about fifteen minutes, but then I ended up getting off at the wrong bus stop (I got off at Port des Deux Rives, and I was supposed to get off at Pont des Deux Rives), so I had to wait at that bus stop for the next bus, which took about 15 more minutes. Word to the wise- if you’re ever in Strasbourg, don’t get off the bus at Port des Deux Rives. It’s a little on the sketchy side.

I finally reached my destination at about eight in the evening, though, but I could not for the life of me figure out where the hostel was. There was a big park (also called Deux Rives, of course), which my directions assured me was where the hostel was, but there were no signs that said HOSTEL THIS WAY or the equivalent in French. I ended up wandering around the park in the rain until I found a road that had a sign that said AUBERGE (hostel). At this point I was soaking wet and pretty frustrated that I hadn’t been able to get anyone to answer the phone at the hostel. So I finally got to the hostel, and there was nobody at the front desk. In fact, there seemed to be no staff anywhere. There was a high school group from the Netherlands there, though, so I asked some of their chaperones where the staff was, and they told me they were eating dinner. You may be surprised to hear (though not if you’ve been to France) that it was actually pretty close to nine-thirty in the evening. But that’s pretty typically French, to have a two-and-a-half-hour dinner break. So I had to wait another half an hour for the staff to stop eating dinner, and then I finally got my room. In the meantime I had met one of the Dutch kids- she actually ended up being originally from Ohio, so she served as a translator of sorts because her teachers had only limited English and no French. When I got to my room I discovered that I was with another American named Katie who is in France for the year teaching English. We were both exhausted, so we talked a bit and decided to go around the city together the next day and promptly went to bed.

The next day (Thursday), we got up pretty early, had breakfast at the hostel, and headed into the city. It was cloudy and rainy, but we didn’t really mind. The first thing we knew we wanted to see was the Cathedral, so we headed that way.
Let me tell you. This cathedral is awesome. We didn’t really know where it was, so we were pretty much just trying to go towards its spire, which we could see from where we were. At some point I was looking at the map as we went around a corner, and I ran into Katie, who had stopped for some reason, and I was just saying “I think it’s somewhere around here” when I looked up, and whoa. There it was. It’s huge. It’s beautiful. Here’s a picture. It doesn’t nearly do it justice.

It was really hard to get a good picture of it because the thing’s massive. Looking at my pictures of it, it does kind of look like a gingerbread house, but it’s a beautiful gingerbread house. The inside is gorgeous- there are beautiful sculptures and a really huge, beautiful organ, and an astronomical clock. We decided we wanted to come back and see the astronomical clock do its thing at noon, but in the meantime we wanted to see the museums that were right next to the Cathedral.

Here’s a picture of the Palais Rohan (yes, Rohan, but there were no blond people on horses there), which is right next to the Cathedral and houses the museums:

There are three museums in the Palais: the museum of archeology (interesting, but not as cool as it sounds), fine arts (cool), and arts decoratifs (awesome). We went to all three, but my favorite was arts decoratifs, which has re-creations of the Palais from when royalty actually lived there (I’ve forgotten which king it was- maybe the Bourbons?). So there are all these gorgeous rooms full of tables and chairs and wall hangings you can’t touch because they’re so old they’d crumble to dust in your hand, but there are also displays of beautiful china sets, silver, jewelry, and things like that.

After that we went back to the Cathedrale for the astronomical clock display. The clock itself is huge and really, really intricate. It took about ten minutes for all the parts to do their thing. After that, we walked around the city some more. I really, really liked Strasbourg as a city. There are canals everywhere, which I love, and I just liked the feel of it. It reminded me a little of Lyon.

Here’s another picture. This is a high school, if you can believe it:

The next day was Friday, and my train was leaving that evening. So we headed back into the city, and this time I had my little suitcase in tow. Dragging that thing around all day got kind of obnoxious, as you can imagine.

Things we did that day:

-walked to Germany. No, I’m not kidding. The coolest thing about our hostel is that it’s on the Rhine River, which marks the border between Germany and France. So we walked across the bridge into Germany and looked around, took pictures, and walked back to France.

-outdoor market- they were selling fish, pastries, clothes, bread, anything you can think of, you could get it at this place. Unfortunately, the bathrooms that were supposed to be there were getting repaired, so we spent about a half an hour trying to find a bathroom. There are never any public toilets anywhere in France.

-the main square, which is this beautiful green space with the Palais de Justice, the Prefecture, the Strasbourg Theatre, and the Municipal Library.

The Library. Seriously.

-Petite France, a beautiful little old part of Strasbourg. You can go up on the dam and see all of it. At this point it was sunny and beautiful out, so we had a great view.

One of my favorite pictures ever. It’s a red light in Petite France.

-Strasbourg University and the Botanical Gardens. The gardens were a little less cool than they probably are in the spring, but there were a few things blooming. The university grounds are really pretty, though.

My train from Strasbourg left at about six in the evening, so when I got back to Lyon it was almost midnight. I was exhausted, but excited because it was my birthday. And that’s the end of winter break- finally!

To get more pictures of Strasbourg, follow the links to my Facebook from the end of my last post. And yes, you can see them even if you don’t have Facebook- these are the public links.

The Alps, Belgium, Strasbourg

I can't believe it's been over a month since my last post. I guess the time just got away from me. But rest assured, I'll try not to leave such a huge gap between this post and the next. This is likely to be a pretty long entry, though, so it'll be subdivided for your convenience. Feel free to take breaks or whatever if your eyes get tired. : )

To start off: skiing.

About two weekends ago (maybe three) some friends and I went skiing on a Sunday. Benjamin and Sarah R. are two students from Brown, and Aliya is another UVA student. We caught a bus at 4:30 AM for a three-hour ride (or a three-hour tour, if you wish) to some ski place in the Alps whose name I've forgotten. It's not important. What's important is this:

1) Benjamin and Sarah are ridiculously good skiers.
2) Aliya had never skied before.
3) I have, but only once or twice.
4) The Alps are gorgeous. This isn't really critical to the story, but they are breathtaking and I thought you should know that.

When we got there, we rented skis and Benjamin and Sarah set about teaching Aliya the basics- how to start and stop without falling, how to turn without falling, and how to fall without killing yourself. Because anyone who's just starting out skiing is probably going to fall. A lot.
So we were on a small hill at the bottom of the mountain, not far from where all the skiers coming off the mountain end up, and right next to the bottom of the lift. There were a lot of little kids on sleds and families where we were. Fortunately, Aliya figured out pretty quickly how to start without falling. Unfortunately, turning and stopping took a while longer, and she ended up crashing into a small family and completely taking out the mom. Nobody was hurt, though, and the family was really nice about it. The dad even tried to help out a little by showing her how to brake. So we moved to a different part of the hill and kept practicing, and she started doing a little better with not falling or hitting people. But about 15 minutes later (and remember, this is a completely different part of the hill), she lost control and crashed into another family- except when the dust settled and everyone was back on their feet, we realized that it was the same family as before. They had moved after the first time she'd crashed into them, and so had we, but she still ended up hitting them again. (In the draft of this story that I wrote on the train, I have some sentence here about Aliya being a heat-seeking missile and the poor French family being a submarine. I have no idea where that idea came from, but I think I'll leave it out.).
Needless to say, this whole episode was pretty hilarious to everyone except Aliya.

Before you start wondering why I'm making fun of my poor friend who's never skied before, let me tell you- what I did that day is not quite as funny, but far more embarrassing. It's the story of how I got lost in the Alps and had to be rescued.
So like I said, I've only been skiing once or twice before, but I wasn't too worried because I'm pretty coordinated in general. I was doing fine on the little bunny slope at the bottom (as long as I didn't go too fast, that is), so when Benjamin and Sarah said they were going to go up to the actual trails, I decided I'd go tackle the green/easy trail. The beginning was pretty far up the mountain, so I had to take two lifts to get to the top. I was doing fine for most of the way down, though I did fall more than a few times. It wasn't that cold, though, so I didn't mind.
Eventually I came to a place where the easy trail crossed the red/difficult trail and I took what I thought was the right direction- a trail that sloped gently and was quite wide. I was pretty sure that if the trail was like that all the way down I'd be fine.

Then I came to The Hill.
The Hill was steep.
The Hill was high.
The Hill was steep and high and I could not see the end of it. There was actually no real end- just a place where it became slightly less terrifyingly steep.

This was obviously not the easy trail.

After my legs stopped shaking (I am mildly afraid of heights, for all that I worked on the high ropes course at camp. I'm fine when I'm strapped to something, but teetering at the edge of The Hill is different), I went over to the side of the trail, pulled out my map and tried to figure out where I was. I knew I'd taken the wrong turn at the crossroads, but there were about four places on the map where the easy and difficult trails crossed, and I had no idea which one I'd passed. While I was trying to figure that out, I decided to take off my skis because my shins were hurting. I took my right boot out of the ski, stepped onto the ground- and promptly sank nearly thigh-deep into the snow.

What followed, of course, what about 20 minutes of struggling to get my stupid foot back into the stupid ski. There was nothing to grab onto with my hands, and every time I tried to push myself up on my left leg the ski would start sliding out from under me. I'm still not entirely sure how I finally managed it, but when I had both my skis under me I went over to the other side of the trail, farther away from The Hill and the certain death that awaited there. Being the logical person I am, I immediately came to some conclusions:

1) 10-15 minutes of downhill skiing means that walking up will take much, much longer.
2) I cannot ski down The Hill without dying.
3) Apparently I have perfect cellphone reception in the Alps.

So I called Aliya, who was down at the bottom of the mountain, told her I was a) lost and b) stuck, and she somehow communicated this to the people in charge and then told me that they were coming to find me. So I waited there. And waited. And waited.
Every 5 minutes or so someone would go by and stop to say "whoa" before going down. That did not make me feel better about my chances of surviving the trip down.
About 20 minutes went by and I had still seen nobody in yellow ski patrol clothes, so I called Aliya again. She was a bit worried that nobody had found me yet (and so was I), but about 10 minutes later Benjamin and Sarah got back, and they knew exactly where I was. So they said they'd come get me themselves. By the time they got there (two lift rides, remember), I'd been standing on that spot for a good hour and 20 minutes, maybe more. And being the good friends they are, they announced that they would definitely help me off the mountain.

They made me go down The Hill.

I wish I had a picture of it- it was probably steeper than 45 degrees, maybe 30. It took us an age to get down because a) I am a wimp and b) I was scared. On the steepest part of the trail I just turned to one side and slid down, instead of skiing across, turning, and skiing across the other way, like you're supposed to. There was a very kind French man who tried to help us- he told me to stop leaning towards the mountain and shift my weight forward, at which point I laughed, because leaning forward would lead to death, obviously. But eventually (finally) the hill flattened out a bit and I was able to actually ski instead of sliding.

So now that I've told you the epic tale of Sarah Getting Lost in the Alps and Being Rescued, you're caught up to about last Saturday, the beginning of Winter Break. At this point there will be a brief intermission, because this next part will be long. Loooooong. Looooooooooong. So go ahead- get a snack, stretch your legs, whatever.

Ready? Here we go.

Day 1, Feb. 16
I took a train to Brussels early Saturday morning- my former Young Life leader and good friend of my family Jessica Pereira lives in Wavre, just outside Brussels. She's doing YL there now and I was pretty excited to see what it's like in Belgium. She and two of her friends met me at the train station- Noora, who's from Finland, and Joanna, who's American. YL Belgium was having "interclub" (all-area club, essentially) that night, so all we had time for was a quick lunch and then a stop at the grocery store (nothing's open on Sundays in France or Belgium).

Side note for those who are unfamiliar with YL (if you know about it already, feel free to skip this paragraph): Young Life is a ministry targeted at high-schoolers. The basic idea is that the leaders (volunteers, often college students but not always) go into the school and spend a lot of time with the students there, sort of as mentors. Club is the organized weekly event, and it involves lots of games, singing, skits, and general hilarity. Usually each HS has its own club, but once or twice a year the schools have a combined all-area club, and that's what interclub was, but Belgium style.

Interclub was pretty awesome- it lasted four hours! We met up at the rec center and played games for two hours, then had dinner and songs and a short talk at the church. Not that different from club in the States, except of course it was in French.

Day 2, Sunday, Feb. 17
Church in the morning with Jessica. We met a Ukranian woman and Joanna and I spoke to her in Russian (though I mostly listened, since my Russian is woefully out of practice). Then Jessica took us to a beautiful chateau outside of the city. It was sunny- rare for a Belgium winter, everyone said- and gorgeous out. Then we drove around the city and saw a lot of of the sites- I don't even remember everything we saw. At first Jessica was just driving us around, since we couldn't find parking- she'd pull over somewhere and wait for us to take quick pictures, then we'd jump back in the car and keep going. But we finally found a parking spot and walked around a bit and saw the beautiful Palais de Justice. Then we met up with some friends and had dinner at a pizzeria .

Day 3, Monday, Feb. 18
Joanna left that morning, since she works and was only there for the weekend. Jessica and Noora and Jessica's roommate Claudia all go to an intermediate French class in Wavre three times a week, so while they were in class I explored Wavre. It's a really cute town, and it was sunny again so I enjoyed myself in spite of the cold. Did I mention that it was cold? Because it was cold. I wore several layers under my coat and was still a little chilly. But the sun helps. After walking around a bit, I bought some kind of pastry from a little shop and ate in in the town square in front of the Hotel de Ville (mayor's office). I was sitting on a bench and my feet didn't touch the ground, so I'm sure I looked slightly hilarious sitting there munching on my pastry with my feet swinging like a little kid.
After class we went home for lunch, and some of the people from the class came over. Claudia is Romanian and her mom was visiting, so she'd made us Romanian food for lunch. But her mom speaks only Hungarian and Romanian, so the only people she could talk directly to were Claudia, the Hungarian woman from class, and Claudia's daughter. With anyone else, we had to use gestures. It was a fun time.
After lunch Jessica and I went to Leuven, a town near Brussels but on the Flemish side of the country, so nobody speaks French there. It's a college town, so we didn't look too weird carrying around our backpacks. The architecture is beautiful, and one church in particular was just gorgeous. We stopped at a little shop and bought Pashmina scarves, and Jessica convinced me to buy a dark purple one that looks good with my black coat. Then we found a little Moroccan shop that Jessica likes that sells all kinds of good food and bought baklava and some coconut pastry thing and shared them. After that we went home and made baked brie for dinner (so healthy) and called it my birthday cake ("cake" is probably closer to the actual nutritional value of it).

Day 4, Tuesday, Feb. 19
This was my day on my own, since Jessica actually has a job and responsibilities. I took a train early in the morning to Bruges, a medieval town about an hour from Wavre. It was cold and damp that day- not quite raining but definitely trying to. Unfortunately, I forgot that I had to change trains at Leuven since it was the end of the line for the Wavre-Leuven train. So at one point I looked out the window and thought, "Why are we going backwards?" I ended up having to wait at the next train station for the next Leuven train. It was only a half an hour, but it was freezing. I'm sure the people in that town thought I was crazy, pacing back and forth in front of the station and muttering to myself.
Bruges was nice, but a little touristy- there are parts where you can tell it's been made to look old and authentic, but there are also parts that are old and authentic. My favorite part by far was this little cloister in the middle of town that dates from the 12th century and is still in use. It was really beautiful and peaceful. I also went to the Stadhuis (which is the town hall), which is now a museum. The "Gothic Room" in the Stadhuis is this gorgeous room covered in murals depicting various scenes from Bruge's past. There was also a really cool museum there.
After Bruges I went to Gent, which is, like Leuven, a college town, but bigger. It was already mid-afternoon when I got there, so I didn't have much time before things started closing. But by that time it wasn't damp and cloudy anymore and the sun was out, so I was able to walk around a bit. In the middle of Gent there is an actual medieval castle, so I went to that and spent probably two hours climbing around in it (there was a guided tour that you followed) and loved it. Then I went and saw the Cathedrale in Gent, which is absolutely stunning on the inside. Jessica's going to get married there, she says. : )
On the train ride home I noticed that my fingers looked dirty but I couldn't figure out why... until I remembered that I was wearing my new purple scarf. Apparently I should have washed it before wearing it, because the dye was staining my fingers. I decided not to take it off until I got home because it had probably done the same thing to my neck- and sure enough, when I walked in the door and pulled off my coat and scarf, Jessica took one look at me and burst out laughing. My entire neck, from my chin down, was slightly purple. It came off with water, but it was still pretty hilarious.

Day 5, Wednesday Feb. 20
I got up early (again) to explore the Grande Place in Brussels before my 1:00 train. Grand Place is probably one of the most amazing places I've ever seen. The Hotel de Ville is gorgeous- tall and white and completely covered in sculptures. (If you're wondering if every town in France/Belgium has a Hotel de Ville, the answer is yes. It's the Town Hall. Usually they're old and beautiful, so if you're in a French town, definitely see the Hotel de Ville.). Right across from it is the Museum of Fine Arts, and next to it are buildings that used to be guildhalls. It was sunny and warm that day and I was so glad of it. I also got to see the Galeries, which are some really beautiful half-enclosed pedestrian shopping areas, and the Mannekin Pis, which is a very famous statue of a little boy peeing. After wandering around that part of Brussels for a few hours, I was pretty ready to get on the train and be on my way to Strasbourg.

So now we're going to have another break- one for you and one for me. I'll talk about Strasbourg in another post, maybe tomorrow. But for now it's my birthday and I'm going to get off the computer. : )

I'm not posting pictures with this post because I took WAY too many to choose which ones to put here. If you want to go look at them, those of you who have Facebook can just go find them on my profile, but those of you who don't can still see them by clicking on these links. Be warned- there are approximately 400 pictures. And that is in no way an exaggeration. : )

Album One
Album Two
Album Three
Album Four
Album Five
Album Six